These are America’s favorite foods from around the world
On average, American food only received an average popularity score of 68% across the globe
America loves Italian and Mexican cuisine, but its hotdogs and hamburgers aren’t exceptionally popular worldwide.
An international YouGov study of more than 25,000 people in 24 markets finds that American food ranks 7th out of the 34 cuisines. YouGov asked people which 34 national cuisines they had tried and whether they liked or disliked them. Italian cuisine beats all other fares, with pizza and pasta standing among the most popular foods in the world. The cuisine received an average popularity score of 84% across the 24 nations we studied.
For US residents, Italy (88%) was beaten out only by their devotion to American cuisine, which earned 91% popularity domestically. Italian food was closely followed by Mexican dishes (86%), which America ranked the highest among all surveyed markets. Respectively, Chinese cuisine (84%), Spanish meals (79%), and Japanese cooking (74%) followed most US natives. Americans were least likely to enjoy Emirati (23%), Saudi Arabian (24%), and Finnish (27%) cuisines, which are less prevalent in the country.
American food ranks seventh globally and is favored by 68% of the people surveyed—with only people in the Philippines (93%) ranking the cuisine higher than most Americans. Residents of Singapore (83%), Taiwan (76%), and the UAE (75%) also rated American food very favorably. On the opposite end of the spectrum, American food is the least popular in Spain (49%), China (51%), and Germany (53%).
Patriotically, the biggest fans of Italian food are Italians themselves, with 99% enjoying their national cuisine. Other big fans include Spaniards (94% of those who have tried it say they like it) and the French (92%), while the least impressed by Italian food are the Chinese (59%). The second place behind Italian food is Chinese cuisine, which scored 78% across the markets surveyed. It’s liked by 95% of Chinese people, with Singaporeans (94% of those who have tried it say they like it) and Hongkongers (91%) also particular fans. On the other hand, the cuisine is least popular in Saudi Arabia (54%) and Indonesia (57%).
The world’s third most popular cuisine is Japanese, scoring an average of 71% across the 24 nations. In addition to the 94% of Japanese people who like it, 94% of Singaporeans who have tried it also do, as do 93% of Hongkongers. However, the Saudi Arabians are least enamored, with only 43% enjoying it.
At the bottom of the table is Peruvian cuisine, which received an average score of only 32%. Finnish cuisine scored only fractionally higher (and rounding to the same percentage score).
However, it should be pointed out that Finland was one of the markets surveyed, but Peru was not. This means that the loyal 94% of Finns who like their own market’s cuisine was enough to give them the edge. Finnish cuisine would likely have declined if the study had included Peruvian opinions.
The lowest opinion any nation had for another nation’s cuisine was Japan towards Saudi Arabian cuisine, with just 11% of Japanese people who have tried it saying that they liked it.
The survey finds that Japanese people are the harshest food critics of any nation surveyed. Of the 34 cuisines we asked about, 23 scored less than 50% among Japanese respondents. Moreover, on average, only 39% of Japanese people liked any ethnic cuisine. By contrast, Filipinos are the most likely to appreciate international cuisine. An average of 67% of Filipinos who had tried any given cuisine said they liked it, with only five types of food being enjoyed by fewer than half.
