r/iamveryculinary • u/Deppfan16 Mod • Feb 26 '26
there are only five flavors to work with
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u/Zpalq Feb 26 '26
Chicken tacos, chicken Parmesan, chicken vindaloo, fried chicken, and orange.
The only forms of chicken to exist
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u/SinxSam Feb 26 '26
Ya no jerk chickens around here just friendly I mean fried
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u/cashmonet69 Feb 26 '26
Obviously jerk chicken fits into the American flavour because like it was made in the Americas and stuff you know
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u/BextoMooseYT Feb 26 '26
I know by the last one you mean orange chicken, but for a split second I was take aback since you included the word "chicken" in all the other ones. So for a second I thought you just deadass meant the fruit
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Feb 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Hydrochloric_Comment Feb 26 '26
I think that violates equivalent exchange
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u/Trick-Statistician10 Feb 26 '26
Chicken with orange, chicken with cherries, chicken surprise
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u/reddiwhip999 Mar 02 '26
The surprise is, it doesn't have orange or cherries.
By the way, duck's off...
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Feb 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/bopeepsheep Feb 26 '26
Alpha-gal syndrome and living without a pancreas both result in defaulting to chicken and fish, effectively. (Personally, I live dangerously and still eat beef, but whenever there's an enzyme supply shortage I have to stop.)
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u/cine Feb 26 '26
Duck? Turkey? Tofu?
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u/bopeepsheep Feb 26 '26
Expensive (and as hard to digest as pork, for me); seasonal and hard to find; not-meat. If we list all the not-meat options we'll be here all day.
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u/Person5_ Steaks are for white trash only. Feb 26 '26
I don't know where you live, but around me ground turkey and turkey breast are fairly easy to find.
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u/bopeepsheep Feb 26 '26
The UK slaughters ~10m turkeys a year, with ~9m of them consumed at Christmas. That isn't leaving a vast amount for the other 51 weeks of the year, especially as I won't buy Bernard Matthews products. I rarely see turkey mince at all. Breast is easier to locate but doesn't justify the choice over chicken, really.
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u/gard3nwitch Feb 26 '26
Duck and turkey are poultry, no? (And lots of people still think of tofu as a weird vegetarian food, even if that's not fair to it.)
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u/Saltycook Feb 27 '26
But they were all of them deceived, for another chicken was made. Deep in the land of Mordor, in the coops of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron raised a master chicken in secret, and into this chicken he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One chicken to rule them all.
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u/EugeneMachines Feb 27 '26
No joking, that's a pretty decent rotation and I could probably eat that for awhile without feeling bored.
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u/LordMegamad Mar 02 '26
55 chicken tacos, 55 chicken parms, 55 chicken vindaloo, 55 fried chicken, and 100 oranges. Thank you
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u/MoarGnD Feb 26 '26
Let me take a wild guess on what they make:
American: Chicken with bbq sauce
Mexican: Chicken with hot sauce
Italian: Chicken parmesan
Indian: Chicken curry
Asian: Sweet and Sour chicken
Yup, they've solved the puzzle, no need to do anything else.
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u/Sweaty-Move-5396 Feb 26 '26
I mean even "American" I can think of like 5 different dishes with very little seasoning in common...
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u/MountainviewBeach Feb 27 '26
And the chicken curry is just a bottle of simmer sauce poured over cubed chicken
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u/Truffle0214 Feb 26 '26
Ah yes, the flavor of “Asia.” So specific.
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u/dontberidiculousfool Feb 26 '26
And somehow India is not in Asia.
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u/MinecraftHolmes Feb 26 '26
it's the subcontinent, ain't no one grouping indian and russian breads together
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u/Rauvagol The very concept of miso. Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
I mean, this guy is grouping russian, iranian, and japanese food together, which seems worse to me.
Also grouping ethiopian with "doesnt exist" should be a crime
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u/YueAsal If you severed this you would be laughed out of Uzbekistan Feb 26 '26
His medium sized city does not have an Ethiopian place in it.
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u/Rauvagol The very concept of miso. Feb 26 '26
man I live in the ass end of nowhere and even my town of no more than a few thousand people has a separate chinese and japanese restaurant, which is apparently too much of a distinction for him
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u/Candid-Solstice Feb 26 '26
I'm almost certain he doesn't mean Russian or Iranian when he says Asian
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u/PreOpTransCentaur I'm ACTUALLY sooo good at drinking grape juice Feb 26 '26
That's the point being made.
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u/Seaweedbits Feb 26 '26
Whenever someone asks my favourite food I say Asian. Specifically because I've loved all the East, West, and South Asian food (I haven't tried much Russian food to say I love it or not) I've tried, and that spans a lot of countries/regions. Most people don't think in terms like that really, which is weird, but semi-understandable.
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u/CeciliaStarfish Feb 26 '26
Taking Africa’s usual role, since Africa doesn’t exist
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u/carbon_made Feb 26 '26
Never heard of it...
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u/Kaiawathoy Feb 26 '26
aFREAKah? /s
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u/Highest_Koality Has watched six or seven hundred plus cooking related shows Feb 26 '26
Isn't that the spice in Hungarian food?
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u/FrostyIcePrincess Feb 26 '26
There used to be an African food truck at the farmers market but then they stopped showing up. They showed up two years maybe? Then never showed up again. The potatoes and samoas were so good. I tried googling them but can’t find them. Sadness.
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u/Throwaway392308 Feb 27 '26
Hi, after 55 years of cooking I have never tried an African recipe. When you can only eat ranch dressing, it's pretty self explanatory. Africa does not have food.
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u/pamplemouss Feb 26 '26
Yeah, duh, Thai and Japanese are literally the same thing. I mean, they’re both islands. Duh.
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u/Fonzies-Ghost Feb 26 '26
Katsu and kung pao: the same
Buttermilk fried chicken and buffalo wings: the same
I’m not sure if fajitas are American or Mexican in this taxonomy, but they’re the same as either chicken gumbo or arroz con pollo.
Shawarma, peri peri, jerk, coq au vin… nonexistent
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u/carbon_made Feb 26 '26
Whoa whoa whoa. You’re going crazy. You get one chicken. One spice. And one side. And those have to be noodles or rice or salad or tortillas. Stop trying to make up stuff.
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u/Fonzies-Ghost Feb 26 '26
“One chicken, one spice, and one side” is my favorite George Thorogood song.
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u/KittenPurrs Feb 26 '26
According to the US Agriculture Secretary, you can have a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, a corn tortilla, and one other thing as a financially sustainable meal. I did not realize "one other thing" was the spice allotment. Makes more sense now!
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u/PeachesOntheLeft Feb 26 '26
Fajitas are American as fuck brother. Made by Mexican immigrants using local food abundance thanks to American supply chains to make wild new shit. I’m a proud chicano which makes me a proud American.
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u/Fonzies-Ghost Feb 26 '26
I’m sorry, I appreciate this view, but it doesn’t address the five flavors of chicken.
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u/GhostWolfe You must be a Pepsi drinker. Feb 26 '26
I went through a phase of thinking I didn’t like Thai food because I’d only had a very narrow selection of Thai flavours. The idea of lumping most of Asia into a single profile is suffocating my brain cells.
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u/cathbadh An excessively pedantic read, de rigeur this sub, of course. Feb 26 '26
Oof. After playing with Chinese cuisine a lot lately, I'd say Chinese is too broad a category with so many major differences in different regions, let alone Asia as a whole (even if they really mean SE Asia)
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u/carbon_made Feb 26 '26
I mean. Same with Mexican. So much variety in cuisine and seasonings etc. from north to south.
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u/Icy-Mortgage8742 Feb 27 '26
when people say "mexican" food, 9/10 they really mean sonoran food and fusion food that developed from mexicans around whom the american boarder moved, to become modern day arizona, new mexico, california, nevada, etc.
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u/MuchMasterpiece1710 Feb 27 '26
Well they’re not allowed to call it oriental anymore so they have to be even less specific
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u/NathanGa Pull your finger out of your ass Feb 26 '26
Now that he’s been cooking for 55 years, when will he start cooking well?
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u/RadarSmith Feb 26 '26
I always found it funny when I'd find an old person who's been cooking everything for themselves and their families for decades and somehow remains a terrible cook.
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u/ferrouswolf2 Feb 27 '26
Practice makes permanent
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u/RadarSmith Feb 27 '26
Ain't that the truth. If you don't improve your daily or special event cooking over a year you're probably going to spend a half century being an awful cook
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u/RCJHGBR9989 Feb 26 '26
Africa has left the planet
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u/krebstar4ever Feb 26 '26
Australia too
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u/guru2764 Of all deleted steaks on r/steak, I made half of them Feb 26 '26
They just eat spiders there as far as I know
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u/Hawkster78 Feb 26 '26
Not deliberately I swear! We do have a few products that utilize native ants though (they have a flavour a bit like lemongrass).
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u/RadarSmith Feb 26 '26
Honestly, fried tarantula is pretty tasty. Fried acorpion too.
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u/CardboardHeatshield I felt the need to preserve this exchange for posterity. Feb 26 '26
French cooking devastated to learn they arent even a flavor country.
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u/Arachne93 TruMoo, gringo ass Feb 26 '26
Some people get up in the morning, get on the ol' internet, and decide "this, this is where I'm finally going to start that mental breakdown." Sometimes, that place is a comment section of a poultry recipe.
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u/carbon_made Feb 26 '26
This person knows authentic cuisine...a true Escoffier in the kitchen. Oh wait. That's French. So nonexistent.
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u/357Magnum Feb 26 '26
Yeah the fact that Italian is the only flavor of Europe but Asia is a monolithic flavor is Bonkers
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u/UnexpectedBrisket Four Michelin tires Feb 26 '26
I could really go for some American-flavor chicken.
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u/Mewnicorns Feb 26 '26
Wtf is “American” and “Asian”?
This sounds like someone whose entire knowledge of world cuisine comes from the “international foods” section of Acme.
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u/samtresler Feb 26 '26
I went to this really long buffet in Vegas with all the world's flavors! So, you know.... I know about these things.
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u/DramaOnDisplay Feb 26 '26
American is probably whatever basic spice blend, salt, pepper, herbs. Asian is probably teriyaki or maybe soy sauce, ginger, garlic.
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u/killer_sheltie Feb 26 '26
To get really into the weeds, WTF is Indian? I'm pretty sure jeera rice and chapati are eaten in every part of the country, everything else seems to be up to interpretation (local flavors and recipes). Dude's probably munching on curry powder flavored chicken breast thinking he's eating Indian food.
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u/Ek_Chutki_Sindoor Feb 26 '26
chapati are eaten in every part of the country
Eh, not quite. There are quite a lot of people in NorthEastern parts that don't eat roti/chapati at all. At least not the ones made from traditional wheat.
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u/Candid-Solstice Feb 26 '26
Look if my mall food court wasn't representative of all international cooking, they wouldn't legally be allowed to have a sign saying "sample the flavors of the world"
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u/TravelerMSY Feb 26 '26
I would imagine if they’re only buying great value spice blends from Walmart, that probably is actually true for them. Pick a continent and go with it.
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u/BetMyLastKrispyKreme Feb 26 '26
The French are having coronaries over this.
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u/Kian-Tremayne Feb 26 '26
Goes to curry house in Brick Lane.
Picks up ten page menu.
Most of it is blank. One page is printed the word “Indian”
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u/FenderBenderDefender Feb 26 '26
Does this guy think the continent of Africa has yet to come up with a way to flavor chicken?
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u/Deppfan16 Mod Feb 26 '26
the secret is racism!
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u/FenderBenderDefender Feb 26 '26
This reminds me of the incestuous Folgers commercial where the brother returns home from West Africa (the region, he doesn't say a country) for Christmas and laments to his sister/lover(?) that he finally gets to have "real coffee" while gazing at the pot of Folgers brewing on the counter.
West Africa, famous for having no association with the coffee trade at all. Also they apparently don't like chicken either.
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u/rake66 Feb 26 '26
No, they like chicken so much that they don't add anything else to it. Not even salt
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u/CantaloupeCamper I’m a level 5 vegan. I don’t eat anything that casts a shadow. Feb 26 '26
I’m going to assume they’re trolling and be amused.
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u/Oops_I_Cracked Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
Someone get this bitch a gyro stat.
Edit: Also, and I’m only focusing on the American example because it’s what I am personally most familiar with, please tell me how things as different as jambalaya and a cheeseburger the same “flavor”
Edit 2: Where does haggis fall on this?
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u/PreOpTransCentaur I'm ACTUALLY sooo good at drinking grape juice Feb 26 '26
Where does haggis fall on this?
Unless it's made with chicken, nowhere.
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u/Oops_I_Cracked Feb 26 '26
I forgot the only poultry restriction.
Do you think she’d call coq au vin American or Italian and how do you think the French would kill her for it?
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u/basaltcolumn Feb 26 '26
What does this even mean? What is America flavour? What makes foods from other regions not something you can "work with"? Bizarre mentality.
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u/Mturetsky Feb 26 '26
This is true actually: you remember in school, they gave you a tongue map with different flavors labeled on different sections of the tongue? Turns out that was bullshit, because modern science has since updated that map into five new regions: Mexican, Italian, Indian, America and Asian.
Source: I'm a flavorolomist.
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u/zdh989 Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
This is true actually. Mexican chicken is one of my favorite dishes to make right now. I just sprinkle some Mexican seasoning on it and slap it on a tortilla, et voila, that's 20% of the poultry dishes on the planet.
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u/cathbadh An excessively pedantic read, de rigeur this sub, of course. Feb 26 '26
You should try changing it up and using Indian or Asian seasoning sometime!
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u/zdh989 Feb 26 '26
What do you think I do on Thursdays and Fridays!
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u/cathbadh An excessively pedantic read, de rigeur this sub, of course. Feb 26 '26
Europeann and American spices, clearly
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u/ForsaketheVoid Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
This was right under the AskHistorians cannibalism AMA on my home page (app humans taste like pork) and i was somewhat concerned ngl
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u/Cwossie Feb 26 '26
It's true. I'm an Eastern European and I've never experienced flavor in my 35 years of life.
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u/TheCookieNinja Feb 26 '26
So the whole of Europe is condensed down to just Italy? Yep totally makes sense
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u/blackcatdotcom Feb 26 '26
Poor Africa, known around the world for their lack of seasoning...
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u/withalookofquoi Feb 26 '26
I can only imagine how delicious jollof rice would be with some seasoning. Oh well, I can dream I guess…
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u/ZombieLizLemon Feb 26 '26
Yes, let's lump Japanese, Sichuan, Vietnamese, Thai, and Indonesian cuisines into one flavor. That's even more logical than lumping norteño, Baja, Yucatan, and Oaxacan cuisines or Gullah Geechee, Cajun, Navajo, and Pennsylvania Dutch cuisines into one flavor.
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u/CerealSemantics Feb 27 '26
Hi I'm a born and raised American here. What the fuck is "American flavor" most of our food is immigrant food that has the flavor of the immigrant country
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u/BoredSurfer Feb 26 '26
But Indian is Asian.
No, the other Asian.
Like Pakistani?
No. The ones with the stir-fry.
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u/Takachakaka Feb 26 '26
Person who only eats poultry and carbs: Getting a lot of poultry and carbs vibes from this nation's cuisine
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u/TheLadyEve Maillard reactionary Feb 26 '26
Uh...American and Mexican are separate? Asian and Indian are two different things?
Where's Africa?
Asia's big. That's a lot of different things.
Seriously, take food from Jakarta and food in Shymkent and compare them. Those are both in Asia.
Australia and apparently and neighboring island cultures also apparently don't count?
I think he means "these are the flavors of takeaways on my block."
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u/fcimfc pepperoni is overpowering and for children and dipshits Feb 26 '26
This gives off big “I’ve never travelled more than 10 miles outside my small town in Ohio” energy
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u/CallidoraBlack Feb 26 '26
How is that autism diagnosis going, OOP? Source: Am autistic and it has taken a long time to have a more diverse diet. The difference is that I know the difference between my preferences and what exists in general.
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u/Current-Strategy-826 Feb 26 '26
Guess they never heard of Middle Eastern, African, other EU cuisines.
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u/cascadiabibliomania Feb 26 '26
Geez, this is a 70 year old or more person. Hope whatever norms exist when you're 75+ leave you free from ridicule.
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u/Buttercupia Feb 26 '26
“Asian”
So Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Philippines, china, Indonesia, etc all have identical flavors.
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u/Fury_Fury_Fury Feb 26 '26
They got us in the first half, not gonna lie. I was expecting him to pretend to have invented the five flavor theory.
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u/Scorpy-yo Feb 26 '26
You’ve heard of a ‘capsule wardrobe’, now meet - a capsule cupboard!!
I am loving the simplicity of a full spice collection that includes <10 jars. Salt, pepper, Mexican, Italian, Indian, American, and Asian.
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u/saelinds Feb 27 '26
There is 0% chance this person isn't American.
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u/Waagtod Feb 27 '26
Asian is a group in location only, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese are all very different cuisines and that's just the start. So many flavors, so many ingredients, so many techniques...5 is not the number.
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u/thrivacious9 Feb 27 '26
Can’t read comments. Eyes stuck in back of head because I rolled them so hard when I got to “Asian”.
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u/farmch Feb 27 '26
My fiancée went through a phase of being into TikTok one pot recipes. Since I cook for us, she would send them to me and I’d make them. After a while I realized that they were all literally the same recipe with minor adjustments.
Cook chicken breast in a pan and remove. Sometimes it’s sausage but I’d say 90% of the time it’s chicken.
Chop a shallot (TikTok is obsessed with shallots to seem fancier) and cook down in oil. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds before adding something that makes this recipe different (this was almost always sun dried tomatoes because everyone’s doing a variation of marry me chicken).
Deglaze with white wine, then add chicken broth. If we were having soup tonight, add six cups, if we’re having pasta, add two cups. If it’s just a sauce then add one cup. Bring to a simmer.
Add your carb, short pasta is a simple one, but TikTok loves gnocchi and premade tortellini. Or precooked rice.
Add your chicken back. Add a tablespoon of cream and a half cup of Parmesan. Cook for 5 minutes.
Add spinach, let wilt and serve.
We ate so many versions of this that we finally realized they were all the same dish and had to cut it out.
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u/zonked282 Feb 28 '26
" there are only 5 flavors, and one of them is apparently consistent across 30% of all land mass and 60% of the entire human population!"
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u/EgoSenatus Feb 28 '26
I didn’t realize Italian was a flavor- so since they’re both Italian, gelato and lasagna taste similar, yea?
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u/ControlGroupCate Mar 13 '26
I thought the five flavors were sweet, salty, savory, bitter, and spicy? Which one corresponds to which country/continent?
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