I mean, nobody says “Let’s go out for Austrian” or “Let’s pick up some Botswanan on the way home”
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Has to do with independence. The idea of the state of Austria by itself is new. What would be “Austrian food” would really just be identical to German food, because they are in the German sphere
Many countries share common styles of food. In Central and Eastern Europe, it’s much more likely to be regional in a way that covers many countries, or, one country’s cuisine is famous, but in the name of a neighboring country (for example according to Wikipedia Austrian styles vary based on region, but are connected to Italian, Hungarian, etc which are famous in their own rights)
They didn’t have a revolution like France where a lot of the aristocracy were executed. The French revolution not only wiped out the aristocracy, it also made all the staff in the great country houses unemployed, this included all the chefs and cooks who then need to find work so set up restaurants using the skills they had built up over the years.
> nobody says “Let’s go out for Austrian”
Austrian here. Our cuisine is very similar to German cuisine, plus Bohemian deserts. Nobody talks about Austrian cuisine because aside from local delicacies, Austrian cuisine is not different enough from German cuisine to really seem distinct for an international audience who won’t notice some of the subtle differences.
>nobody says “Let’s go out for Austrian”
Ever heard of Wiener schnitzel?
A handful of countries had global colonial empires, and/or enjoyed enough wealth to treat food as art, had a wide variety of local ingredients to diversify their food, enjoy global popularity as destinations for tourists, had waves of emigrants that took their food culture with them.
For a cuisine to be famous, the country has to have a large diaspora. Small countries that don’t have economic instability or war generally don’t create a diaspora large enough for their food to be recognized in other countries.
Branding. Kinda.
Not all of it is deliberate. But when food is “nearly mexican/italian/thai…” you are hard pressed to emphasize the differences to someone who insists on saying it is just that thing.
Depends what you have around you. I’m in Houston and we have great Ethiopian, German, Persian, and [insert about half a dozen south or east Asian countries] restaurants. They are quite popular.
>! RIP our main Polish restaurant !<
Two things that aren’t the whole answer, but might help:
1. Famous *high-end* cuisine kind of requires a big wealthy ruling class, and a lot of time, to develop. French cuisine is famous because France was the biggest power in Europe for many centuries, and had centuries of employing the best chefs in Europe to develop great food. I once read about the “3 great cuisines” of the world being French, Turkish (Ottoman) and Chinese, because they were big, rich, stable kingdoms that dominated their regions.
2. Fame =/= quality, and changes depending on when and where you are. Korean food is becoming rapidly more well-known in the US, in no small part because of the global appeal of K-pop and other Korean exports. Lots of German foods are “famous” in the US simply because they’ve been integrated into standard American cuisine. Like the hamburg steak or the sausages that became hot dogs.
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