London
I was dismayed to see American fast food in London. Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonalds… (Starbucks isn’t really surprising). That’s the LAST place I’d eat while visiting London… or anywhere else in Europe. I don’t eat fast food muchly… and would rather find some local digs to try.
Funny, I wonder if Londoners who are (now) used to eating Pizza Hut, KFC and Mickie D’s, washed down with Starbucks at home, might likewise tend to reject it when traveling in the U.S.?
Still, it’s like a little bit of home, everywhere. Right? Like that “It’s a Small World” ride sings about in the likewise ubiquitous Disney empire. Global Village, eh, mate? Mini’s, Fords, Toyotas, Vee Dubs, Sony’s, Apples, Cokes, Budweisers, London Fog’s, Nike’s, Adidas’, Exxons, BP’s, Shell’s, Cadbury’s, Hershey’s, even Vespas, everywhere.
Well, it’s inevitable that American brands would appear in England. On the other hand, there are still plenty of places within the UK that survive rather well without being part of a national or multi-national chain.
Thankfully, the USA has those sorts of places, too. You may just have to look harder.
Oh, and it’s not just Europe, either. I’m just back from Okinawa, and you can find them all there, too. Anywhere Americans go, American businesses will find a way to worm their way in, too.
I have yet to get to Europe, though I very much want to go. More than thirty years ago I decided how I would eat there: I’d eat the local food. EXCEPT…. I would eat at a McDonald’s once in each country I visited, just to experience the difference. When we lived in Hawaii, there WERE distinct differences. (Rice with breakfast, and spicy sausage, for example.) And I simply couldn’t pass up the chance to order a beer with my quarter-pounder in Germany.
Actually, McDonald’s is pretty invasive. I’ve heard they’ve practically forced their way into almost every country.
Go to Singapore. On Orchard Rd, the tourist street, each block has a McD, Burger King and KFC. The real kicker is that there are at least two Starbucks on each block. They also have local favorites like the mall known as “Four Floors of Whores”
-Rob
In a way, I was fortunate to visit a great many Far Eastern cities in the 60’s, before the world expansion of American franchises. On the other hand, I was a little nervous about eating the local cuisine available on a serviceman’s budget without a guide. Even in Hong Kong, where I was a guest of a Chinese family, I didn’t ask what they were serving me. In most places I could get chicken “flied lice” and feel pretty confiident I would survive. I wouldn’t have minded an occasional 39 cent burger, good old bullion-soaked fries and those great vanilla shakes Mickey D’s USED to have.
Food is a major component of a culture. If you visit somewheres and don’t eat the local cuisine, you are missing a huge part of your visitation. I like to shop in the grocery stores in the country I visit… as well as take in their colorful local food places.
In France, the bread actually tastes different… in Amsterdam, the ginger crepes were amazing… (that’s not what they called them… but it is a dish they serve)… In England… Lemon Shandy anyone? And they do Indian food very well there (you know the history, yeah?).
“A little bit of home,” Stick, actually makes me a bit sad. Homogenized world… blah!
Pete: you’re right- they do make some cultural changes in McD’s around the world (so I’ve heard)… but the fast food thing still makes me cringe.
Welcome home, DCS!
I spent my junior year in Europe, using a WELL-thumbed copy of “Let’s Go!” (They still around?) Great way of finding the little out-of-the-way places. But I remember once, sitting next to a German woman who was surprised an American student would be eating lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall. She was only there herself, she said, because “McDonald’s was too crowded.”
…and here I thought the British just ate tea bags three meals a day.
Brad: what foods did you enjoy there in Germany?
Dada: That’s just icky. I hate it when your tea bag “leaks” into your tea… and you have polluted tea water. Then you have chewy tea.
Brig,
One of the foods I enjoyed while I was in Germany, was called “Schwenkbraten”
http://www.kitchenproject.com/kpboard/recipes/SpiessbratenSchwenkbraten.htm
Instead of steak, we had pork chops.
Astra… Out brig’s way is a town called, Carmel, that bans fast food as well as all chain stores (except for very high-end boutiques as Tiffany’s and the like). They’re lucky (?) to have a single Safeway supermarket on the outskirts of town so they can have a decent food selection. And, no, unlike the famous movie’s title, they do not serve breakfast at Tiffany’s. Funny, they do, however, have a water dish outside, and doggy snacks inside for pooches visiting town.
Pete… I, like you, have yet to get to Europe. Hey! What? Your German Mickey D’s is in Europe!
redtail… Four Floors of Whores, as a mall name… chuckle. If only fast food places could be as honest about how the burgers you order will actually look when you open their wrappers.
Kona… Chicken “flied lice”? Ouch. The Shamrock Shakes around St. Pat’s were goooood.
brig… So, “buttermilk;” homogenized yet with chunks of rich chewiness floating about? Or, perhaps, “raw milk;” unpasturized, unhomogenized, real, soulful, and yet potentially harmful?
I do agree that cultural heritage should be preserved, protected and enjoyed, but commercial encroachments do also unite the world.
Don’t they call polluted tea water, “soup,” in Britland? Don’t forget your spoon.
Mmmm… pork…. that’s hard to spell. In Belgium, they make a kind of stew made with pork shoulder, potatoes, pickles (yeah huh), onions… and Belgian wheat beer. Mmmm… x2.
brig, you mention that the Englanders do up Indian fare well. Any monkey brains? I loved that scene in Indiana Jones. We also had a luau here a few years back, complete with one of those in-the-ground-whole-pig roasts, and some took stabs at the brains. One guy really went to town with a straw. Yeah, some beverages had been served. Not Belgian, however.
My brother went to Guangzhou, China a few years ago. (He and his wife adopted a kid from there.) He says he ate mainly at American franchise eateries while there.
I’m with you Pete
I didn’t see monkey brains on any menus in London… thank goodness.
UWG… they missed an opportunity to expand their foodie horizons.
Prof…. You can be with Pete.
Stick-figurer: I was using future tense. I have not been to Germany – indeed nowhere off the North American continent, save for Hawaii – but should I travel to Germany, I would most certainly go to McD’s to to order “eine Viertel-Pfünder mit Käse und ein Bier, bitte.” (Forgive my very, very rusty German.) It’s something I’ve been planning for oh, so long, and was the impetus (along with my Hawaiian experience) for the whole “one McD’s per country” idea.
Actually my school was based in Salzburg, Austria. I remember enjoying the fried cheese with green sauce.
There was a little place in – Vienna? – I found through Let’s Go, that served all sorts of open-faced sandwiches, including lobster.
And of course Toblerone and Ritter Sport! (Too sweet for me now. Same with Zagnut, alackaday.)
Speaking of monkey brains, wasn’t the point (unlike in Temple of Doom) to eat them live?