Top 10 influences
on world cuisines
page 2
Top 6 to 10
world cuisine
influences
Fuel availability
This affects cooking styles. Take wood. It is ideal for slow, brick-oven cooking. It is plentiful in forested lands like Eastern Europe but is scarce in countries like India and China.
Spread of
New World foods
The European discovery of the New World had an explosive impact on the European diet. New foods were introduced in Europe including these now staples: potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, corn, chilies, allspice, chocolate, turkey and vanilla.
To illustrate, imagine:
Southern Italian cooking
without tomatoes
Chinese Sichuan seasoning
without hot chilies
Irish and German diets
without potatoes
Hungarian cuisine
without paprika
Introductions
to the New World
The migration of foods did not move in only one direction. Chicken, beef, lamb, pork, wheat, and many fruits and vegetables (apples and oranges, for example) were brought to the Western hemisphere. The importation of the Old World horse also revolutionized New World agriculture.
Homogenization
The world cuisine exchange was beneficial. But today, national cuisines are being homogenized. This amalgamation is good if cooks can add the best dishes of other cultures to their repertoire. A Japanese adage says that tasting a new food adds 75 days to one's life. The trouble starts when new dishes displace the old, disrupting rather than enriching a traditional pattern of cooking and eating - and when the foods adopted represent the lowest common denominator rather than the best in the borrowed cuisine.
Endangered cuisines
Some national and many regional ethnic cuisines are endangered culinary species. I believe those treasures are worth saving.
Learn More
for influences #1 to #5
for Top 10 world cuisine rankings
Photo by NHoulihan - CC BY 2.0
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