What’s your favorite cuisine? For me, it’s Filipino food and Mexican food, but that likely has something to do with the fact I a) am Filipino and b) grew up in Yuma, Arizona — affectionately called the “armpit of Arizona.” But in that scorcher of an agricultural town, located a smidge north of the Mexico border and a smidge east of the southern California border, it had, hands down, the best Mexican food (found within the states, of course). And according to a recently published international study by YouGov, I’m not alone: Americans love both Mexican food and Italian food — with Italian food ranked at No. 1.
YouGov surveyed more than 25,000 people in 24 markets across the globe. The result of that study showed that American food ranked seventh out of 34 cuisines; American food received an average popularity score of 68 percent worldwide. Italian cuisine, however, beat ‘em all, receiving an average popularity score of 84 percent across 24 nations that were studied.
Here in the U.S. among Americans, Italian food even beat out American cuisine with an 88 percent popularity score. Mexican food was a close second with an 86 percent score.
Coming in third, fourth and fifth were Chinese (84 percent), Spanish (79 percent) and Japanese (74 percent), respectively. At the bottom of the list, however, Emirati received a score of 23 percent, Saudi Arabian 24 percent and Finnish 27 percent.
What’s interesting about the study is that although American food was favored by a little more than half of the people surveyed, people in the Philippines love American food; they gave it a 93 percent score. Same goes for the people of Singapore; 83 percent favor American food. But as for China, Germany and Spain, they apparently aren’t fans of the cuisine, as those are the countries were American food is least popular.
To circle back on the Philippines one more time, another interesting note is the study found that Filipinos are also most likely to appreciate international cuisine. “An average of 67 percent of Filipinos who had tried any given cuisine said they liked it, with only five types of food being liked by fewer than half,” YouGov writes.
All that said, anyone else craving a cannoli right now?
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