it occurs to me that we don't actually know much about european cuisine outside of italian, british, and greek
all we know about german food is bratwurst and sauerkraut, all we know about french food is that it's famous for being really pretentious, and we don't know anything about like, spanish or finnish or dutch or i dunno belarusian food
really it's like there's a few countries that are really famous for their cuisine
italy, mexico, india, china, japan, korea, thailand, greece, turkey, and then if you get a little more niche you might encounter jamaican, cuban, and other caribbean countries' cuisine
but that leaves out a lot of the world. what about brazilian food? or any of the various sub-saharan african countries? or central asia? i want to try food from other cultures and don't know the first thing about it
I don't know what you have near you, but it's definitely worth looking for local restaurants and grocery stores that'd carry stuff from foreign countries. The world of cuisine is *absolutely huge* and it's a great place to explore new flavors. If you can find something in a store that looks unfamiliar, there's always the Internet to look things up in. Cooking is a great way to try new stuff out.
@dodec yeah! we live in a college town so the more popular foreign cuisines (like chinese and mexican and indian and stuff) are pretty easy to get here, plus we just recently discovered there's been a really good greek place here that we didn't know about
but it'd be interesting to look for like. caribbean food or spanish food or something if we can find it. the less popular cuisines, you know?
We don't get thai or indian very much either, perhaps we should more often...
Thai and Indian are both good things to try. If I knew what kind of food you generally liked, I could steer you toward dishes to try in either of those. Do you like more meat or more vegetables? Sweet or spicy? Stuff like that.
@dodec Generally more meat, and I feel like our favorites strike a balance between sweet and spicy--we don't generally like hot sauces because they're so... purely spicy with no actual flavor to them
One problem that we run into a lot though is that we don't like onions or peppers or lettuce/cabbage... which seem to be incredibly common vegetables. don't mind the flavor, it's more a texture thing.
re: long discussion of Thai and Indian food
@dodec yeah! Once this whole lockdown thing is over with i think we ought to try to go to some thai and indian restaurants at the very least. stuff like ethiopian (which was recommended by another friend) is going to be harder to find though
long discussion of Thai and Indian food
@Felthry
The thing about both Thai and Indian food is that their reputation in the US is for being incredibly spicy (they're both places known for curry, though they're pretty different from each other). While you can get it that way, my opinion is that it's best left to the masochists and you don't lose much by asking for things mild.
If your local Thai place has kao man gai, that's one of my favorites - it looks like simple chicken and rice, but there are subtleties in how it's made that take it to a new level. Tom kha soup is good, too (coconut-milk based with lemongrass and various solid ingredients). Panang curry is another favorite of mine; even when it's spicy, there's a lot more going on there. And of course pad thai is something that should be tried at least once (though everywhere makes it slightly differently, so YMMV). Most Thai places I've found make a kind of fried rice that includes pineapple and yellow curry and sometimes shrimp, and that's another favorite of mine.
I know less about Indian food - typically I get plain rice or naan (freshly made naan is amazing), something to put on it, and either pakoras (little fried things) or samosas (larger round fried things full of potato) on the side, with tamarind chutney to dip them in. Favorite dishes there are saag paneer (spinach with cheese cubes, and it's better than it sounds), chana masala (garbanzo beans in sauce), and if I'm in the mood to make a whole meal of it, biryani (which is just an elaborate rice pilaf).
Really, though, you should feel free to explore. Look at the menus to make sure there's no big chunks of onion or anything and you'll be fine. Getting to try new kinds of food is an opportunity to take advantage of.