The U.S. Does Food Better Than Anyone

A platonic dialogue

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen.

A certain alien race, from a planet very far away, loved to cook. Perhaps they evolved from a species which communicated through taste sensors, and their obsession with cooking, and cooking well, is simply an evolutionary byproduct (like our love of music).

Or maybe it’s something else. I’ve always wondered why herbivores didn’t evolve extremely hard to eat meat, like many plant species have. Perhaps in their world, herbivores are laced with poisons or plant-like antifeedants, like tannins and lignin. Only skilled cooks survived and propagated their genes, thus the emphasis on culinary skill.

Or maybe it has nothing to do with evolution. Perhaps it’s just a cultural quirk.

The reason doesn’t really matter. On the morning of January 27th, a race of hyper-obsessed culinary aliens descended upon the Earth, and began the search for someone to talk to.

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A man woke up.

Romantic, dark lighting surrounded him. There was a beautiful silence, and he felt quite calm. A voice from a speaker said, “Good evening. I hope you like your living situations. Your society seems to be quite obsessed with ‘liberal values’ such as freedom of property, speech, and person. We don’t care as much, so we decided to abduct you. However, I think you will find this quite fu-”

“How come I can’t see you?”

“We would prefer not to show ourselves. We fear you might find us too unsettling. Perhaps in a few years, when your race has matured. For now, enjoy this meal we have prepared for you.”

A dish was served.

“The ingredients are from the last planet we visited. They had good dishes, but fought with each other too much, and their plants never evolved fruit as a dispersal agent. Anyway. Could we ask you a few questions about your home planet?”

“Of course.”

“Where can we find the best dishes?”

“Probably the United States of America.”

Furious whispering ensued. I did not know I was talking to a group.

“That doesn’t seem to be likely at all. Our prior probability is 2% that that’s true.”

“You have Bayesianism on your home planet?”

“We find it incredibly unlikely because of migration patterns. The worst of European cuisine is located in the British Isles, where most of America’s immigrants were from by 1850. Therefore, the probability that America has the best food is exceedingly low.”

“Well, my prior is like 90%. Recent migration patterns have high culinary upside. Mexican, Latin American, South and East Asian immigrants have all increased the average dish’s quality.”

“If that’s true, it will increase barely at all. Perhaps 6% now. Because how can, say, America’s food be better than Mexico or China, when you already admit that Mexicans coming into the U.S. is upping the U.S average? Doesn’t that imply that the average Mexican is a better cook?”

“Perhaps the average Mexican or Frenchman is a better cook. That doesn’t mean that Mexican cuisine is the best.

Yes, the U.S. started from a low base, but at this point, due to immigration, it has more culinary variety than any other country. Costa Rican food might be quite good, but would you enjoy a culinary trip to San Jose or New York? Being an alien, I think the first day might be equal. But after a week, the variety of the U.S. is beating 90% of most countries every time. And it’s not just an ‘okay’ variety. You can find amazing Afghani and Mexican and Chinese and so forth all within a 30 minute drive in the Bay Area. The same can be said, swapping some of the cuisines out for others, in dozens of other U.S. cities. Even smaller towns are still going to have much more variety than the average foreign small town. In Ohio, you can dine on Indian, Haitian, Italian, even some Mexican food trucks. Will it be as good as in NYC? No, but it will still amaze the average small-town Frenchman or Mexican, who only usually has one cuisine to choose from.”

“Interesting. You’re correct that I would travel to the Bay Area over San Jose for variety’s sake, but again, we’re talking about the best cuisine here. You make a good point about cities and even smaller towns, so I’ll go up to 12%. But I’m still not convinced. Ask any non-American, and they will not agree with you. Even most Americans will think your claim is preposterous. The probability that this and your claim can be true at the same time is quite low.”

“Social Desirability Bias! Can you look up a recent Bryan Caplan post?”

“Caplan? We prefer reading Cowen’s food blogs.”

“Here, I have it on my phone. Caplan quotes Kristian Niemietz in saying:

But tobacco is a big exception. Less then half of the recorded cigarette purchases shows up in the Living Cost and Food Survey. In the US equivalent, the ratio is not even 40%.

The mismatch between what smokers say in surveys and what they do in practice is a classic example of the difference between “stated preferences” and “revealed preferences“. Social engineers love stated preferences. Opponents of big supermarkets, too, always have a survey at hand, indicating that the vast majority of residents in their areas would never set foot in a discounter. But once it is there, it flourishes.

There is nothing schizophrenic about this behaviour. When asked whether you would shop in a big supermarket in your area, of course you respond something like “No! Small, local shops are much more charming and personal” – because that is the socially acceptable thing to say. When you smoke, saying that you want to quit makes you at least a repentant sinner.

“Caplan then says: “Now ask yourself: Is voting more like a national product account – or a consumer expenditure survey?”

I say: Are opinions on American cuisine more like a national product account, or a consumer expenditure survey?”

“I don’t understand.”

“World population in review says America is the 2nd most hated country in the world. Much of this is because of past and present perceived imperialism, and this unfairly spills over into culinary opinions.

That’s survey, stated preference stuff. Now let’s look at “national product accounts”.

McDonald’s has 28,000 stores abroad. KFC has 29,000. Subway has 37,000. Starbucks has 38,000.

These are in countries with “high-level” cuisine. Japan has 5,000 McDonald’s. Do you know what the leading coffee shop chain is in France? Starbucks! I thought Japanese and French cuisine were miles above American?”

“Yes, but those restaurants have been tweaked to regional taste. It’s an unfair comparison.”

“Sure. I remember when I was in Barcelona, I was able to buy a beer with my Big Mac. That was cool. The beef was maybe of a slightly higher quality. But at bottom, I was still eating fries, a Big Mac, chicken nuggets, and ketchup. You can find burger joints in California which use grass-fed beef and organic avocado on their burgers; you can find burger joints in the east that use beef tallow for their fries now. What I’m trying to say is that American cuisine is not always lower quality, and European versions of American cuisine aren’t always high quality. There is serious heterogeneity inside of America, which means Europeans are just eating a certain style of American cuisine that already exists back home.

And let’s look at China. There are about 4,000 American KFCs, but over 10,000 Chinese ones! Yes, they have a much bigger population. But the market is booming. 40% of all Chinese KFCs have been built in just the last four years. Yes, they serve rice and egg drop soup. I admit that it is rare in “American” style restaurants back home. But their specialty, what makes them enduringly popular in China, is their fried chicken. That sense of Americana is most of the reason why they are so popular.

Just look at this graph. Don’t these results make your prior less likely? If the U.S. truly had much worse food than basically the rest of the entire world, then why is this graph such a blowout? I’d also like to add that the only non-American restaurant on here, the Filipino Jollibee, serves heavily American-influenced food.

Jollibee offers American-influenced fast food items and casual Filipino fare. Among the establishment's best sellers are the Yumburger, the house hamburger first introduced during their early days of operation; the Chickenjoy, a fried chicken meal, introduced in the 1980s, with regular and spicy versions; and Jolly Spaghetti, a sweet Filipino spaghetti that includes a beef sauce with pieces of hot dog and ham. In 1995, Jollibee introduced the Burger Steak to its menu. At its international locations, Jollibee also offers localized products, such as chili chicken in Vietnam and nasi lemak in Brunei. Jollibee serves Coca-Cola products in Luzon and Visayas and Pepsi products in Mindanao and its overseas markets.

The Chickenjoy, served with gravy, mashed potatoes, fries, fried chicken, and a coke.

You could argue that the Philippines was colonized by the U.S. Okay, but they were colonized by Spain, too. How come it was American cuisine that helped to launch their most successful restaurant abroad, and not Spanish? Or why didn’t Vietnam, a former French colony, have a great French restaurant on the list? Considering you think French and Spanish are vastly better than American, these results seem to be quite surprisingly dominant for America.

Here is another, much longer list of the largest resturant chains in the world.

Of the 114 largest, 45 are non-American. That’s 39%. Decent, until you remember that the U.S. only makes up 4.22% of the world’s population, and supposedly has worse food than the rest of the world, and yet has 61% of the top 114 restaurant chains! Even these numbers are still misleading, as most of that 39% are Chinese. But they are only high because they have a 1.4 billion-person internal market. The U.S., while having a large market compared to European countries, is still dwarfed by that, and as such, has had to have much of its success internationally.

Which is much harder than what Chinese companies are doing, because they can just appeal to their native cuisine. The U.S. cuisine, on the other hand, is so damn popular worldwide that they can export it to practically every country (including China). Similarly, number 24 on the list is Tim Hortons, but that has perennially struggled to make it out of Canada and even compete with its incredibly culturally similar next-door neighbour. It’s only on the list because of the weird Canadian quirk of drinking bad coffee for patriotism’s sake, which doesn’t say anything about it’s international culinary quality!

Let’s forget about restaurants for the moment and look at store shelves.

More than 1.9 billion servings of Coke are enjoyed in more than 200 countries each day. Think about that for a second. 1.9 billion divided by 24 is 79,166,667 cokes an hour. Divided by 60 is 1,319,444. Per second it is 21,990. In the time you’ve read this paragraph about 100,000 cokes have been consumed already. Substack says this post will take you 11 minutes and 18 seconds to read. That means 14,909,722 Cokes will have been drunk in the time you took to read this.

If that is not cuisine dominance, I don’t know what is!

Did you know that the best-selling candy bar in the world is Snickers? The best-selling cookie in the world is Oreos, not macarons or British biscuits. Millions of people across the globe happily consume American cereals for breakfast, as well as American condiments and potato/corn chips.

So the average human being is eating American fairly regularly, eating at least one or two American snacks quite often, and buying American ingredients to cook or eat at home with.

This is all quite amazing. Not only can this not be said for any other country on Earth, but it is even more remarkable when you think about the head start countries like India, Japan, and Italy had on the U.S. In 1800, what country would you predict would have the most influential cuisine, as voted by consumer wallets? The U.S. was an economic backwater with cuisine even worse than Britain, which was worse than all its neighbours. I would probably predict China, as would most Europeans at the time, or perhaps Spain or Italy.

“O.K. I accept the earlier claim that American restaurant success is a point for your argument, since much of the food they are selling is available in the U.S. too, and at the bottom, they are tweaking or adding on to classic American flavours. I also agree that there seems to be an allure to “Americana”, especially in East Asia and Europe. The Japanese obsession with KFC at Christmas is quite odd to us.

So fine, my prior goes up to 22%. But not more than 50. The reason we still find it unlikely is because much of America’s international culinary success is not because America “has the best dishes” but because American companies and Americans are, perhaps, the best at optimizing their food for cost and convenience. But that is very different from my initial question about culinary quality. Your argument is conflating preference under constraints with culinary merit.”

“What are your thoughts on regional U.S. cuisines like Tex-Mex, Cajun/Creole, Barbecue, Soul food, and California cuisine? (Yes, California is a real category, and it is quite good.)”

“Those are all tasty, and add to your argument about diversity being America’s greatest strength (probability up to 26% now). But then there are others that bring the average down. I’m talking about mac and cheese, and not the good, quality mac and cheese found in some parts of America, but the bad, never would be eaten in Italy or China type of Mac and Cheese, which is still fairly common, especially in non-coastal areas. The Lunchables snacks, the oversweet overcooked spaghetti, Mini-Wheats, the 64 0z fountain soda, or the average meal at Applebee’s, IHOP, ChuckeCheese, Whitecastle, Little Caesars, and so forth. Highly processed, bland and underseasoned food makes up far too high a proportion of the average American’s caloric intake for them to beat the top countries.

The argument could be made that NYC has the best pizza in the world, but the average American doesn’t consume at that marvellous right tail, they consume in the middle of the distribution, which is Little Caesars or Dominos. Not everyone lives in NYC. And yes, not everyone lives in Rome either, but you aren’t going to catch small-town Italians eating Dominos.

Or look at specific kinds of food. Europe’s got way better cheese, way better bread, and way better butter. Americans eat tremendous amounts of those ingredients. How can they have better sandwiches, for example, when their bread, cheese, and meat are all of worse average quality? Doesn’t this extend to almost all of their meals?”

Tough

“Medians are hard for the U.S. But only if you think about it so narrowly. You already admitted that Americans are best when it comes to cost and convenience. We aren’t pulling punches with flavour either, but I admit it’s not our strong suit. However, once you include these other variables, our dishes become the best. And our international success is clear evidence of that.”

“No, convenience and price should not be included. Flavour and texture are all that affect the enjoyment of the meal.”

“Disagree. American cuisine is the most popular food worldwide because Americans are the best at food. Yes, that’s broad, perhaps you’d call it usefully vague for my argument, but it’s true. Doesn’t the atmosphere of the restaurant, the company you eat with, the price of the meal, and convenience of the location and serving, all affect your experience of the food?

At the extreme, if you had to drive 4 hours to a run-down rat-infested restaurant in a sewer with nightmare blunt rotation dinner guests just to get handed a 4-figure bill at the very end, wouldn’t that worsen the experience of the meal, even if it tasted good?

Think about it. McDonald’s is a perfect example of why America succeeds. People’s stated preferences might lead you to think they would never eat at McDonald’s. And yet it’s incredibly popular. Why? Because McDonald’s, although it still tastes good, is even more popular because it is incredibly convenient. And convenience matters a great deal in all of life, including food. Think of a drive-through, where you never even need to get out of your car to get a meal, or recently, the digital self-order screens where you can look through brightly colored renditions of all of their products, neatly organized into sections with ingredient lists and prices. Even more recently, McDonald’s in Brazil has decided to bring the drive-through to you.

Similar things can be said of California-based companies like Uber Eats and DoorDash, which have extended America’s culinary influence to an entirely new generation of delighted customers. Part of this is a story of culinary innovation, which America should get points for, too. (The ubiquitous food truck is also an American invention)

But anyway, we normally don’t think of convenience as so important because of social desirability bias. Caplan again:

Convenience has a massive effect on your behavior. You rarely shop in your favorite store, eat in your favorite restaurant, or visit your favorite place. Why not? Because doing so is typically inconvenient. They’re too far away, or not open at the right hours, so you settle for second-best or third-best or tenth-best. You usually don’t switch your cell phone company, your streaming service, or your credit card just because a better option comes along. Why not? Because switching is not convenient. Students even pass up financial aid because they don’t feel like filling out the paperwork. Why not? You guessed it: Because paperwork is inconvenient.

In politics, however, almost no one talks about convenience. When governments mandate extra privacy or safety or consumer protection, crowds cheer and pundits sing. From now on, you’ll be clicking a few extra boxes a day. From now on, you’ll have to stand ten feet away from the next person at the pharmacy. From now on, you’ll have to sign your name and initials twenty times on a mortgage contract. Privately, almost everyone thinks each of these is a pain in the neck. Yet almost no one goes on TV and self-righteously objects, “These high-minded ideals are going to be awfully inconvenient.”

The answer is social desirability bias. Convenience often sounds like a shameful or trivial reason to be against something in politics.

McDonald’s sells us the convenience humans want, judgment-free. Customers are judged, the company is judged, but it keeps on going, because in public, we say what sounds good, and in private, we do what works well.

I haven’t even gotten to the price, which is part of the convenience of course.”

“But I only care about the taste, let us just isolate that for a moment.”

“But you literally cannot detangle them. These other variables affect the enjoyment of the dish. Don’t you have the phrase “free food tastes better” on your planet?”

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2 months later.

Wary of their appearance still, the aliens had built a humanoid robot to fetch their meals for them. They had travelled the entirety of the world, sampling different dishes and cultures. They had yet to reveal themselves formally, although various militaries had recently released footage of their spaceship.

So they decided to go underwater and hide in the shadowy depths of the Pacific.

They had hung out around the Japanese coast, but quickly got bored by the cultural homogeneity. And although Japan had reasonably convenient food services, they had to wait long periods of time for David to make enough money in his new part-time janitor job to afford the higher-end cuisine.

They then moved to China, but quickly became bored with their cuisine too, although it held them for longer. David took far too long to get the food. Sometimes, they wanted a different region’s cuisine, but would have to travel a day or two to get an authentic plate.

Taking a trip across the Indian Ocean, they became delighted with the crispy, thin dosas of South India. They ate widely and stayed for a whole month, up and down the Indian coast. But again, sometimes they would travel days to sample other kinds of cuisine, and even then, they rarely found Chinese or Japanese food, which they missed very much.

They often thought about their conversation with the American. Sometimes in China, they had even ordered David to get some Kentucky Fried Chicken on special occasions. “And don’t forget the Coke, David!”

One day, they finally decided it was time.

Floating underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, they nestled their ship at the bottom of the Bay. David found himself a job as a computer programmer, so they could afford more food.

They had missed South Indian food, so they sent David to San Jose. He came back and they were delighted.

The next day, they missed Chinese, so they sent him to SF. He came back with two bags, one from a Sichuan restaurant, one from a Cantonese restaurant. Along the way, he had snacked on some northern Chinese BBQ, though he ate that all himself. Yum.

The next day, they had Afghani in Fremont, then Filipino in Daly City, then Burmese in Oakland, then Chinese again in SF………….

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Conclusion

Cowen’s First Law: There is something wrong with everything.

I mentioned many variables that come together to form the sensation of a “good meal.” I didn’t mention nutrition. Of course, this is hitting American cuisine where it hurts. Not that all American food is bad for you. But on average, it’s hard to say it’s anywhere near the competition. And many would say that nutrition is a vital part of the enjoyment of a meal.

But the argument still stands strong, I think. The U.S. has the most variety (from immigrants past and present), the most international influence, and wins most of the non-flavour components of good food.

Sure, Americans might not eat enough fruits and vegetables. KFC’s in Japan might not be your healthiest option. Starbucks in France might have too much sugar.

But at the end of the day, just look at the foot traffic. If Frenchmen really cared about health as much as they said they did, then Starbucks wouldn’t be the most popular coffee chain in France. The same can be said of other countries and other restaurants or grocery store products. This is because it is socially desirable to say you care so much about healthy food that you would never order a hamburger or a pumpkin spice latte. But of course, the market doesn’t judge. American cuisine wins in the heart of hearts of the world.

And why should it be surprising? There is no country in the world that is better at satisfying the demands of the consumer.

Other countries give you what people say you need. America gives you what you want.