How many of the 177 top foods have you tried? Photo / Victoria Shes, Marjan Blan; Unsplash
How many of the 177 top foods have you tried? Photo / Victoria Shes, Marjan Blan; Unsplash
Do you know your fufu from your kimchi?
A list of the world’s 177 must-try dishes by country has been revealed by an online survey, helping travellers identify the key ingredients for their next trip.
The search for must-try local delicacies was all about finding ‘food experiences’ and dishes that serve up lashings of drama.
To do this researchers sampled 2600 dishes on social media, tagged with the #TikTokFood, to find the most ‘attention-grabbing’ dish in each country and sort each into categories - main, side, sweet, soup... et cetera.
The resulting 177 dishes published by InsureAndGo aim to push travellers out of the comfort food zone and encourage them to sample more memorable morsels. Like the steamy Vietnamese noodle soup that puts ‘Pho’ in FOMO.
In New Zealand, the top treat was Whitebait Fritters. The battered patties of tiny kōkopu fish, served on buttered white bread with a squeeze of lemon, was identified as a uniquely Kiwi dish.
Using research compiled by the insurance provider, the data was further portioned up by type and region to highlight the food cultures from every corner of the planet.
Similarly, there were a couple of dishes that popped up as top specialties in two or more countries, such as variations of fish oka in Tonga and Samoa. Similarly, Saudi Arabia is tied with Qatar as the place to go for authentic kabsa - a baked rice dish. Kuwait and Bahrain are locked in a battle for whose machboos to choose.
To cut through the machboos confusion, InsureAndGo said that “delicacies that are known to have originated in, or are popular in, multiple countries were included,” but generic foodstuffs that popped up too often were excluded.
The hashtag #TikTokFood has attracted over 16 billion views from hungry travellers, worldwide. Photo / Screenshot; TikTok
Comparing food preference to average income GDP was a good indicator as to whether a country had a sweet tooth. High-income countries were five times as likely to have a sweet delicacy than low or middle-income countries. However, the biggest indicator of whether a country preferred a sweet, meaty main or a soup was their region.
South America’s food culture prefers to graze on sides like Arepas breads and Anticuchos. Meanwhile, south east Asia is the land of noodles and broths, from Filipino Sinigang soup to Cambodian Kuy Teav. There is also a heavy meat and rice focus across North Africa through the Near East and throughout the Islamic world, from Jollof rice in West Africa through to Biryani in northern India.
Then there are dishes that transcend boundaries, especially via the food-travel trends of #TikTokFood.
Taiwan’s Bubble Tea has 8.1 billion video views online and there is something about a Hot Dog video that amuses the bouches of TikTok - with 10.2 billion views online.
However Japanese Ramen noodles were dubbed the most photogenic of foods. The moreish delicacy was named as the top TikTok food, inspiring 16.5 billion playbacks.
Here are the top 15 most viewed delicacies of TikTok.
