Cultural appropriation foods around the world 

Welp, now I’m hungry

Indian Curry: *who tf are you?* Japanese Curry: *i don't even know*

I’m losing my mind over the fact that Pho is appropriated french soup

This is why people going “That’s not really food from x country” is really annoying because things adapt and develop mixing different ingredients and flavors.

Hey JJ just thought you’d be interested to know - I’m from Goa (India) where Vindaloo is from, because Goa was under Portuguese (and not British) rule for the longest time; in fact a lot of Goan architecture is Baroque-styled, and the locals speak a dialect of Konkani that is heavily borrowed from Portuguese! Goa is considered the party capital of India, and has beautiful beaches and churches but hot, humid weather!

He microwaves water to brew his tea I...I can't.....

It's honestly nice to see how cultures borrow from each other

As a Brazilian, I've heard that our sushi is highly modified from the traditional Japanese one, probably because this dish was introduced by Americans. There may be a theme for a future video.

It pleases me so much to know that Brits like to show their patriotism by loudly singing "Vindaloo, vindaloo, vindaloo, na na."

"A britishified version of an indianified version of a dish from Portugal" That's what I call culinary Chinese whisper

People of the world: *exist* The Portugese: Here, try our food :)

I am a chef working in Japan, raised in Korea but born in Australia to immigrants. Its honestly hilarious how much food I've seen which people consider authentically Korean/Japanese which is in fact the product of trade, colonialism or whatnot. An example for Japan is as JJ said, pan and kare, but another favourite of mine is yakiniku, a style of barbecue which as you can assume came from Korean immigrants, as well as ramen which came from Chinese ones. As for my homeland Korea's famous love of chilli and heat is not native, and we actually first began adding chilli to our foods after trading with Portuguese merchants through China and Japan, before that we did not eat chilli and even during traditional ceremonies we do not serve red kimchi but a type known as "baek kimchi", or white kimchi which omits the peppers.

The two "most American" foods are both modified versions of German dishes: The hot dog is a bastardized version of the German Frankfurter Würstchen and/or Austrian Wiener Würstchen (both countries disown their American offspring, with the German's calling the Americanized version a Weiner and the Austrians calling it a Frankfurter), and the cheeseburger is German Hamburg Steak that's been put on a roll for easy handling and America'd up with a slice of cheese.

Japan: "We call bread 'pan'." Portugal: "Am I a joke to you?" Spain: "I see this as an absolute win!"

I've done a fair bit of traveling in my life and it's always so interesting seeing how some countries interpret food from other places. Like Japan's take on Italian food, Korean's take on Chinese food, Germany's Turkish food remix, and American sushi. It's all so different to what you get from the homelands of these places but still good in its own way.

The sentence " *microwave* myself a cup of tea " should never come out of anyone's mouth

When I stayed in a hotel in Hong Kong in 2006 I went to the hotel restaurant, which was a Taiwanese-themed restaurant, and had what they called "Japanese curry". So I was eating a Hong Kong version of a Taiwanese version of a Japanese version of an Indian dish.

Filipino adobo is an interesting story that actually is and isn't a mixing of cultural cuisines. The term comes from the Spanish explorers who came to the islands and saw a meat dish that used a large amount of vinegar, which was similar to the Spanish process of using vinegar to preserve meat called adobo. But the Filipino dish and Spanish dish don't have anything in common as far as origin or influence-they just share a name. However, the Filipino dish is heavily influenced by Chinese and south east Asian cooking that would have came by way of trading.

This is genuinely one of the most educational food videos I've watched in ages! As a casual food scholar I thought I'd know everything here but learning that Pho is an adaptation of Pot-au-feu blew my little mind 😂

For anyone who is curious, Melonpan and Conchas are very similar in concept but generally not execution. I grew up near the US / Mexico border and was stationed in Japan during my time in the Marine Corps. I became obsessed with melonpan as a snack and still try to make it at home every so often (since it's very difficult to find in many U.S. cities). P.S. I know this video is old, but I've just discovered JJ and I'm making it a point to watch every video. JJ, you rock.

Another fun example of Portuguese influence on Japanese cuisine: tempura! They were originally batter-fried treats that Portuguese Catholics could eat during Lent. The name even came from the Latin "ad tempora cuaresme," meaning "at the time of Lent" That happened to be Japan's introduction to batter-frying, so they named the technique after what they thought the Portuguese called it.

Not to mention that Filipino cuisine is also heavily influenced by Spanish cuisine, owing to the country being a colony of Spain for over 300 years.

"I think I will microwave myself a cup right now" I might just be Australian but I had a visceral reaction to that. Right in the Commonwealth!

As an American, the “American kebab” was shock to me, never heard of it lmaooooo No wonder we have such a bad rep overseas tho that doesn’t sound like good combo 🤢

5:56 "Ao" in Portuguese is pronounced "Ahn", so "Pan" is not a corruption, it's the correct transliteration of the Pao. "Pau" is Portuguese for "cock" (as in penis).

When I lived in Japan, I was struck by their utter fascination with the Kit Kat bar. This isn't quite what this video is about, but...

My parents are from Iraq and I grew up having dolma every so often and recently I was watching a Boris cooking vid (he's a Russian RU-vidr) and he mentioned it, I heard of people in the Mediterranean knowing it but someone as far as Russia knowing it was a surprise

When I was living in South Korea, one of my favorite things to eat was Donkkaseu. It's a breaded and fried pork cutlet with a signature sauce, often served with rice, kimchi, and occasionally some kind of slaw. It is a Korean version of the Japanese dish Tonkatsu back from when Korea was under Japanese control. Tonkatsu itself is, in turn, a Japanese version of European style fried cutlets like Schnitzel, back from the 18th century when Japan was rapidly modernizing and imitating everything Western they could get their hands on.

In the Philippines they eat something called “lechón” which in Spanish simply means piglet, and what they actually do is take a whole pork, impale it and cooker to fire. Very interesting stuff.

US: Pizza is American ! Italy: You litteraly just stole our idea Greece: Uhm excuse me ? You took my plakous and added tomato sauce instead of oil, you stole it from me Turkey: Hey hold up, i made my the lahmacun first so please have some respect and stop taking my culture Lebanon-Syria: EXCUSE ME ??!? YOUR "LAHMACUN"?? First it should sound more like "Lahme ajoun" and it's not even a Turkish word but an Arabic accronym for "meat in dough" it was made on our soil... poser Armenia: *cough

I never knew the Philippines was an American colony in the past. I dropped out of high school and used the time to learn a whole lot more than what I was learning there, but every once in a while when I find myself to be ignorant on something big like this, I wonder how much basic history I missed. I think I might independently learn more about some of these basic topics that I skipped over.

The authentic Swedish kebabpizza. Basically in the 60s and 70s we had italian immigrants who came and started pizzerias, Swedes like novelty in food so the pizzerias started making more kinds of pizza. Like steak and bearnaise, shrimp, banana and curry powder and so on. Later on another wave of Balkan and Turkish immigrants came and took over many of the pizzerias and also started selling Doner Kebabs. The combination was inevitable and is now one of if not THE most eaten fast food variant in Sweden. It is by far the most popular kind of pizza. A proper kebabpizza consists of a pizza base with tomato sause and cheese on it, onto which you add sliced Doner Kebab, kebab sauce (a citrusy, garlicy, mayo based concoction) and possibly a chili sauce. It can also have things like: Pickled peperoncini, lettuce, tomato, french fries (although that's not common) and cucumber on it. The official Swedish meal on New years day that we consume while watching Ivanhoe, the 1983 version.

It bothers me to no end that he said "Margherita pizza" and showed a picture of a clearly NY-style slice.

The title makes me think you broke into someone’s house and ate there food.

5:52 Being brazilian is a curse. I can't stop laughing at him pronouncing Pão as Pau

I think a lot of cultures have similar dishes, even more when they are geographically and/or socially and economicly close. Adding to this, most of the countries these days have a multitude of communities and etchnic group and I just love to see food originating from all over the world. We shouldn't gatekeep people experimenting with food with foreign origins. One of the thing I like to do the most is to see how much similarities and differences countries have with one another. . With that said I feel like it should be done by acknowledging where these foods and recipies come from. I'm an asian adopted by an italian family and have libanese cousins so that might explain my stance on "appropriating culture" . Yet my mom made a "peanut butter dumpling chicken lasagna" and I died inside. The price of my stance lmao . I love your vid man, new sub ❤

Anyone else lived in the US for their entire life and literally never heard of "birthday dogs". Those look like something some high person would think of.

Fun fact, 'pan' is also bread in Bisaya in the Philippines.

One of my favorite cultural appropriation foods is Hawaian pizza. It’s a pseudo Italian food replicating a tropical taste that was invented in Canada and is widely consumed in America. But it’s a love it or hate it type food. I love it.

You were doing so well with the Vietnamese pronunciation and then butchered it at pho xD love to see it! Been binge watching your channel it's great! earned a new sub for sure

I AM DYING. You mispronounced “pão” and said “Pau” which means “dick” in Portuguese. I’ve done that before! Welcome to the club!

"In-doNASIA" I know you're a Canadian but come on now

That one black sauce thing in bami goreng is ketjap manis, a type of sweet soy sauce unique to Indonesia, and we used it a lot.

My family has a heavy Irish ancestry especially my mum's side. My grandmother always stuff potatoes with ham and sour cream, sprinkled with chives and then bake them wrapped in alfoil. Growing up, I called them stuffed potatos and thought they were traditional Irish cuisine. I studied and discovered not quite.

Food colonialism is the real reason the British started their Empire. Imagine having to live off jellied eels & bland tasteless mash for your entire life. It'd drive anyone nuts.

Alright imma head out to the Philippines to get some Buko Pie and Banana Ketchup

To my knowledge, bami goreng (or bakmi) in Indonesia has it’s influence from Chinese merchants and settlers to the Dutch East Indies, I don’t know why the Dutch then didn’t associate it with China anyway.

Portuguese tarts/ pasteis de nata there amazing my avo use to make them all the time b4 she passed.. if you havent tried one look for your closest portuguese pastrie shop

Honestly I really like this whole food series you‘re doing. Also I think another good example of all this would be the prevalence of döner kebabs in Germany. They were of course invented in the Ottoman Empire, but now one can find a kebab shop on basically every corner in Berlin. (Also I can confirm that tarts are quite popular in HK and Macau, I even tried a durian tart there)

Arab countries in the gulf region have vastly adopted Indian food as their own. Here, biryani, chai tea, and samosa and et cetera have been a staple of the Emirati diet, and we can’t tell apart our traditional food and Indian food. :)

I am from France and have Portuguese family and it was so weird when you called the pastel de nata (the little cream pie) Chinese, they have always been Portuguese for me and I never seen them in any Chinese restaurant/store. Same for Nando's that you said is from South Africa, but their logo is a traditional Portuguese symbol that always were somewhere in the house growing up (we don't have Nando's in France). The chicken is the piri-piri chicken that we would have as a family Portuguese meal. Both are super good btw

my eyes went wide when you mentioned "Birthday Kebab". I was so blown away by the weirdness at that point, lmao.

Fun fact: the word for bread in Spanish is the same that in Japanese "Pan".

Actually, ‘Curry’ is almost a staple food here in Japan. Served regularly at grade school for students lunch. More like the British style though.

In Mexico we have "tacos al pastor" which translates to 'shepherd style tacos'. I'm no expert but I've heard its vertical rotisserie setup actually comes from the Middle East or something like that. I was shocked because it just feels so Mexican to me, but it was cool to learn!

I love curry pan. I don’t stumble upon them too often, but a few local Japanese bakeries carry them. Definitely a favorite!

You are the most Canadian sounding person I've ever heard and I am Canadian too haha.

The sad little rolling pea at 2:40 is one of the funniest things ever.

People have a very hard time saying cultural appropriation is a bad thing when you taste how good of a thing it is.

Apart from Indian cuisine in the U.K., one stunning fact is the number of words that the British have taken into their dictionary during those 300 years.... From the word such as Cash, Jungle, Bangle to avatar.... I just realized these many words were from Indian languages just because I had to do school reports on particular topics 😅 Many stuff and ideas were exchanged extensively from Architecture, cuisine and language...

Nigerians have a thing called “Spaghetti Jollof” in which Italian spaghetti is made with a tomato sauce blended with spices traditionally used in Nigerian jollof rice. It’s fantastic.

People in Hawaii eating spam because of the military presence during the second world war

it's always interesting to see where the different dishes come from and how they change in different countries over the time.

Anyone who thinks that Japanese cuisine is without foreign influence has no idea. Japan has a long history of taking foreign influences and foods and adapting them to suit their tastes. Heck, one of their writing systems (kanji) was adapted from Chinese and made their own.

The California roll was invented in Canada because the idea of eating seaweed turned us off from the original sushi rolls.

JJ: Even the most iconic Vietnamese dish of all... Every Vietnamese ever: Oh god please don’t JJ: *FOE*

I'm so fascinated by his knowledge about food and history combined. What resources are there to learn more about this?

These are some of my personal favorite types of videos JJ makes.

Lowkey everything he says sounds like hes being sarcastic

As a Thai person living in Thailand, many people think our food is "autenthic" but it is quite far form truth. Like Japanese people, Thai people always adapt the foreign ingrident and way of cooking into our cusine. Many of our stir fried dish was heavily influenced by Southern Chinese cusine , espicially Cantonese food. Thailand was quite a popular destination of Chinese immigration during late qing dynasty untill 1950s, so that's why we have a lot of chinese influnced food. Noodle dish with fishball called "Keuw Theuw" can be found in every street conner here. With alot of Chill paste, of course. "Pad Thai" is also use noodle as well.

I could watch you talk about anything for hours, your voice is soothing. Like drinking chai tea while watching satisfying simulations made in 3D modeling software.

ramune... Japan's version of lemonade; they were introduced to it by Admiral Perry; the way the bottles are traditionally sealed shut with marbles is how they would have been done back then

I’ve lived in America my whole life and I’ve never once seen the atrocious human rights violation known as the birthday kebab.

"I will microwave myself a cup right now." You have chosen... DEATH

4:45 It's funny that you said this about japanese curry. I actually tried using japanese curry the way I normally prepare indian curry. I was trying to figure out for some time what the hell I've put in my mouth. I would explain it as a sort of weird gravy thing that is sometimes spicy. It tastes like "Hachée" due to the rice.

Wow!!...the farther a recipe travels the more the recipe is changed to fit into that new culinary surrounding???!!..Thanks J.J. McCullough!!!..wouldnkno whatodo witchou ya

Pizza as it is known today wasn't a "peasant" dish, it was actually invented by the court baker of the kingdom of two Sicilies and named after the queen. It had cheap ingredients so it spread to all classes of citizens, but it was actually invented for royalties. Pizza however was a common term that referred to all kinds of flat bread long before the invention of the Margherita pizza.

I'm Italian and I just want to say that we PRETEND to be mad at how you treat our creations. I mean, it makes us famous! I actually want that!

Great video! Tempura is another example of a Japanese dish which has its origins from Portugese settlers.

Ramen wasn't originally a Japanese dish, it came from China where it was known as lao mian (of course, the Japanese pronounce L's as R's so lao mian became ramen)

Yeah, Japanese curry is just spicy gravy for rice

Yeah, I'm going to say the Netherlands came out ahead on that food trade.

What about hamburgers? It's basically a meat patty in a bun, something still eaten in Germany. And sausages in a bun as well, so hot dogs... And obviously we got Döner, which is originally a turkish dish, but adopted to local customs of eating on-the-go. And then there is pizza. Both of which came with guest workers and have become pretty much common delivery and street food by now.

I like how you used the map of the Portuguese Empire, whoch does show the Treaty of Tordesillas line, but not the one at its peak, which of course includes enlarged Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique

It's Bakmi Goreng, an "Indonesian" food that actually came from Chinese immigrants. Fried Rice, Lumpia, Kwetiaw and even the infamous Mi Goreng are all came from Chinese immigrants. Another Dutch foods we eat are Kastengel (Kaasstengels), Perkedel (Frikadeller), Kue Lapis (Spekkoek), Semur (Smoor), Kroket (Croquettes), etc.

*The Portuguese introduced British people to tea.

schnitzels are served in a lot of european countries but the condiments vary a lot, what the type of potatoes to go with it, what sauce to serve if any, if its supposed to have capers and anchovies or even cranberries/lingonberry jam. i would also recommend anyone interrested in food history to check out the channel "Tasting History with Max Miller", he puts in a lot of effort researching old recipies from around the world and tries to cook them in the original manner.

So much useful information! This is great!

I know in the US a southern food called "Chicken Fried Steak" was created by German migrants who missed Schnitzel

omg your dutch pronunciation. it's so bad i love it

One of the Meals of my country: Schnitzel. I don't really know if you americans know it but it's extremly easy to make a lot of them and there are Schnitzelsemmeln at almost every event here. A Semmel is like a small white bread that's kinda shaped like a burger bread but it's really different in taste and texture.

I feel like one food that's like this is samosa ( An Indian snack that was by traders from central Asia ) which is similar sambusa and that's a deep fried tortilla with filling such as meat that had came into Isreal from Jewish migrants and from other countries in the Middle East and Africa ( From Wikipedia)

What "really boring pizza" is he talking about, Margherita is the greatest type of pizza

Balkans, Magreb and Middle Eastern cuisines all come together at Turkey due to Ottomans.

Idk how I haven’t seen your videos before today...but now I’ll have to binge watch them all. 🥰 Can you cover Egg Rolls in one of your videos...? Unless you already have, if so...my bad. ✌🏻

I live this topic you could make a series about this

11:27 Boring Margherita Pizza Me an Italian: visible suffering

5:55 Japan is in love with French Architecture and food. Japanese bread is really soft and sweet compared to how the french like their bread. Many Japanese don't like crust on their bread unlike the French, The French love their bread crust. If you go to Japan, all of their sandwiches are sold without the crust. Japanese Tempura came from the Portuguese. The original is called Peixinhos da horta it was introduce in the 16th century by the Portuguese trading in Nagasaki. Both dish can use seafood and vegetable but for the Japanese they have a unique sauce for it called tentsuyu sauce. It is made from dashi soup, mirin, and soy sauce. It's a sweet sauce that improves Tempura's flavor. Tempura can also be partnered with Udon, Japanese thick noodles, which can be serve cold or hot. Pan is actually Spanish for bread... Pão when pronounce in Portuguese sounds like Paum... so I kinda get why the Japanese would call it Pan. ã is pronounce like “AN” but finished with closed lips “M” sound. The Filipino Pan de Sal which literally means Salt bread in English is a popular breakfast bread today. The early version during the Spanish colonial era was called pan de suelo (Floor bread). it is cooked in a wood-fired oven which made a crusty and sturdy bread. It Resemble that of a french bread rolls but was really an attempt to make a Spanish version of the French baguette in the Philippines. Then came the American colonial era. which lead to the Industrialization of the Philippines, its "Americanization" and influx of cheap american products and produce lead to many changes including to food. The traditional way of making Pan de suelo was lost and they favored for a much faster way of making the bread as a result Pan de suelo became less crusty and became as soft like a Spanish bread roll but still retained that french bread roll look thus the Pan de sal was born. Leche Flan is a dyslexic version of Flan de Leche. Leche Flan usually eaten alone as a dessert or could be added to Halo-halo which is a Filipino version of the Japanese kakigori better known as shaved Iced. The basic ingredient uses Milk, Eggs and whole lot of sugar.

Oh, the Chinese custards... The first time I had it was at a Portuguese coffee shop in my hometown. I forget exactly what they're called on the menu, but I have a Goan friend who refers to the custards as "pasteis" or "pasteis de nata." It also didn't surprise me that these are common in Hong Kong since Macau is pretty close. Also, vindaloo is specifically Goan. At Trader Joe's, the same Goan friend told me that it's usually chicken and not lamb, unlike the ones you'd find in the frozen section at that store.

Just noticed you have an E Tank coffee mug in the background. Yeah!! 👍