I’ve been almost all over the world and will literally eat anything. In my humble experience the countries with the worst cuisines are:
1- Cuba: beautiful country, great people, I had one decent meal the rest is meh… for obvious reasons though (limited choices, state managed economy)
2- Nepal: lentilles and noodles, that’s it. It’s pretty, but it’s not a rich country and is mountainous so limited arable land, but really you will get bored of lentilles very soon.
3- Brazil: again great, fun country and there are some good things churrasco etc.. (hard to go wrong with grilled meat), but for a huge and relatively wealthy country with an immigration background the food is disappointingly bland (beans and rice) and somehow lacks finesse (hence the popularity of restaurants where you weigh food by the kg).
4- The Netherlands: (disclaimer, I love the country) the fish is good I like herring and kibbeling (it’s hard to mess up good fresh fish), but the meat quality is horrific (what do they do with all the cows?), vegetables are tasteless, most ‘Dutch food’ is designed to fill you up without having any identifiable taste e.g. mystery mush croquettes on toast, the crime against humanity that is FEBO.
5- Finland: I only spent a few hours there so it might be premature to judge but that visit included a couple of meals and an agonizing visit to a corner shop to try to find decent ice cream and from that you can just tell that this is not a country with good food on its mind (although it definitely seemed like a country with getting completely trashed drunk as quick as possible on its mind).
6- Egypt: aka how to do middle eastern food all wrong. The raw ingredients are great but once cooked it just becomes bland and often drenched in grayish brown sauce (also rampant abuse of béchamel sauce). Sorry, I love the people great sense of humor but the food is just no good.
Honorable mention to the USA. I can’t say the food is bad because it’s great and deeply satisfying in many ways. But it’s just too much, the sizes are unfeasible, too much artificial everything going on (is this orange juice from actual oranges or is it just orange colored sugar water?), too much sugar, too much sauce, after a while you start to crave something simple and unrefined.
To end on a positive note, here are countries with the best cuisines:
1- Thailand: hands down the best, the variety, the spiciness, the clashing yet harmonious flavors, even when Thais do foreign food they improve it, it’s incredible how an old lady in a crappy looking street stall can somehow knock up a full meal you will remember and want to repeat every day (on the other hand, apart from the coffee, most Vietnamese food felt disappointingly bland by comparison).
2- HK/China: it can sometimes be challenging and just odd (to a non-Chinese), but it’s literally a whole planet of incredible food to discover and the more you indulge the more things you start to appreciate.
3- Pakistan: the richer more gluttonous yet more delicate version of Indian food (although to be fair there are overlaps for obvious reasons so I include Indian here as well). It’s not vegan, vegetarian, keto, gluten free and will give you blocked arteries within a few years but it’s worth it.
4- The Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine) and Turkey: it’s fresh, vivid tasting and satisfying all at the same time, garlic, lemon, tahini, pine nuts, olive oil, fresh vegetables, grilled lamb etc… i put both the levant and turkey together because there is enough overlap (with regional variations) for them to be in the same category.
Honourable mention to Spain and Japan, both have amazing food but they lack the thrill factor of the four above so are rated slightly below.
France and Italy undoubtedly also have great food and great ingredients, but frankly are sometimes overrated and a bit self-congratulatory.
If I had to choose a ‘pleasantly surprised’ country it would probably be Austria, the rich meatiness of German food but with more finesse and with influences from Eastern Europe and Italy, also great cakes!
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