Food Globalization Puts the World on Your Plate

You might think you’re having a good ol’ American cheeseburger, but you really have the whole world on your plate.

Food globalization isn’t new—as long as chefs have been cooking, they’ve been looking abroad for ideas and ingredients—but it’s surely accelerated in recent decades as global trade, migration, and wealth have increased. In just the authors’ lifetimes, the variety of flavors and availability of ingredients have exploded. This essay will explain how globalization has revolutionized our palates, our groceries, and the people connected to it all.

Imagining a supermarket without ready‐​made sushi seems almost impossible, especially for younger generations who have never known a world without it. Much of the American population had never tried (or even heard of) sushi two generations ago. Although the first sushi restaurant opened in the United States in the 1960s, sushi wasn’t popular in big cities until the 1980s and became ubiquitous a decade after that. Today it’s found in children’s lunchboxes. In just the past year, Americans purchased 43.7 million servings of sushi at grocery stores—an increase of more than 50 percent in volume and 72 percent in value since 2019—and another 238.6 million sushi servings from US restaurants. Kroger alone sells more than 40 million pieces of sushi a year, generating between $400 million and $600 million in sales and boosting sales of related items like poke bowls (2.5 million servings) and dumplings (1.4 million).

Over those same decades, the American restaurant scene has gone from hosting only a handful of foreign cuisines (mainly Italian, French, and Chinese) to one with almost every food from every major country on the planet—and plenty of smaller countries and “fusion” styles to boot. This variety is evident on the popular restaurant review app Yelp, which today boasts about 311 cuisine categories for US restaurants—almost double the number of categories that were listed five years ago (157), as Figures 1 and 2 show. From Eritrea to Peru, Andalusia to Mongolia, the ever‐​expanding list shows the evolving influence of global flavors on our local dining scenes.

Unsurprisingly, this diversity is widest in America’s largest cities, but smaller places also have plenty to choose from. A Yelp search in Cleveland, Ohio, for example, shows around 200 local restaurants serving more than 50 different cuisines (Figure 3):

At the same time, American restaurants are common sights abroad. Fast-food staples like McDonald’s, Hardees, Five Guys, and KFC dot streets in Riyadh. Outback Steakhouse, a US-based chain serving “Australian” food, just opened its 150th location in Brazil and has been voted Rio de Janeiro’s most popular restaurant for five years running. And Chili’s—which serves burgers, ribs, and Tex-Mex—has 364 international locations spread across 28 countries and four continents. If you don’t like those choices, don’t worry: thousands of other American restaurants are available abroad too.

Globalization has similarly affected what many consider to be comfort foods. Instant ramen, takeout Chinese, burritos, and pizza are staples for American college students. Halfway around the world, those same college students can follow up a late night in Thailand at any number of places serving “American breakfast” or brunch. Back in the United States (and in Canada), many Asians grew up with a steady supply of Sara Lee frozen pound cake—an “Asian culinary icon” that was so ubiquitous in their households that it appeared on the Netflix comedy Beef, which tracks the lives of several Asian Americans living in Los Angeles. At one time, Sara Lee operated in 40-plus countries and sold ready-made baked goods in more than 180.

Consumers’ takeout preferences—both here and abroad—are further testament to the globalization of our palates, as Figure 4 shows: Chinese food remains a popular option for Americans (though delivery apps have put almost any type of food on our doorsteps), while countries such as South Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and India all prefer pizza. Thailand—for some reason—reaches for burritos, and Indonesia (Bali) wants fried chicken.

Indians’ pizza cravings also show how globalized cuisine encompasses not only the transfer of dishes across continents but also the regional availability of ingredients, cultural norms, and consumer preferences. When India opened its economy to the world in the 1990s, Domino’s was one of the first players to enter the market and has dominated ever since. Because of religious food restrictions and local tastes, however, you won’t find a pepperoni pie on the menu. Instead, pizzas there are topped with chicken tikka or tandoori paneer. And, as India’s economy and people have become more globalized, pizzas topped with Indian ingredients have become relatively common in the West (including Domino’s original home in Michigan).

A similar phenomenon has occurred in Pakistan, where one of the most popular cuisines in the city of Lahore is the Philly cheesesteak. In fact, multiple Pakistani restaurants have featured the classic American sandwich on their menus since 1995, coinciding with a surge in Pakistani emigration to the United States. Post‑9/​11, stronger Pakistan‐​US ties and the spread of American pop culture further familiarized Pakistanis with the cheesesteak, leading many to learn how to make it themselves. Meanwhile, the general manager of the Philly’s Steak Sandwich restaurant in Lahore, which opened after a Philadelphia traveler showed a video of a cheesesteak to a local chef, draws inspiration from Charleys Philly Steaks, a renowned US chain that has become popular in Dubai, a favorite tourist destination for Pakistanis. And once again, the trend has come full circle: cheesesteaks with ingredients and flavors from Pakistani cuisine have started popping up in the United States.

This culinary cross‐​pollination not only makes life tastier but also can create new foods that introduce eaters to very old ones. Traditional Japanese nigiri, for example, didn’t originally captivate American sushi consumers, who were skeptical of raw fish and seaweed. Presented with this challenge in 1971, Vancouver‐​based sushi chef Hidekazu Tojo filled sushi rolls with cooked crab and concealed the seaweed by putting the rice on the outside, thus creating the iconic California roll. Although highly unorthodox in Japanese cuisine, Tojo’s creation helped spur the proliferation of sushi in the West and earned him the title of “goodwill ambassador for Japanese cuisine” from the Japanese government in 2016.

Often, chefs and restauranteurs go one step further and produce not only fusion dishes but entire fusion cuisines. This trend has roots dating back to the Silk Road when pasta likely made its way from China to Italy, but modern‐​day globalization—trade, travel, information, etc.—has surely accelerated the proliferation of fusion cuisines in recent years. Today’s fusion trends are believed to have originated in the 1980s, with chefs like Wolfgang Puck combining his European heritage and enjoyment of Asian flavors on the menu at his now‐​world‐​famous Spago restaurant in Los Angeles. Since then, fusion cuisines have popped up all over the world, and chefs continue to blend traditional cuisines in new and exciting ways.

National culture and history—not always good—can often do the same. Vietnam blends indigenous and regional influences with those from France because of the latter’s colonization. Next door Thailand, however, was never colonized by a European power, yet its cuisine blends local flavors with numerous foreign influences, thanks to the expansion of global commerce starting in the 1500s. An essential ingredient in Thai cuisine—the chili pepper—comes from the Americas via Portuguese and Spanish traders. Further south, Australia has gone from a meat‐​and‐​potatoes country to one with a local cuisine that harnesses the culinary talents of Italian and Greek migrants, as well as closer neighbors from China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia. And halfway around the world, Guyanese cuisine includes African, Amerindian, Chinese, Creole, East Indian, European, and Portuguese influences. Many other Caribbean cuisines have similar fusions.

The globalization of food has even affected our languages. Numerous English cooking terms—“à la carte,” “sauté,” “sommelier,” and even “cuisine”—are originally French, and English is littered with loanwords like “deli” (from the German “Delikatessen”) and “ketchup” (from the Cantonese 茄汁 (qié zhī), which means “tomato sauce”). But the linguistic links extend well beyond those common terms and to other countries. The word “Kentucky,” for example, has developed into a Farsi verb meaning “to bread and fry a chicken,” while KFC is called “肯德基 (kěn dé jī)” in China, even though the characters individually translate to “to consent,” “virtue,” and “foundation,” respectively. And how could we forget the iconic scene in Pulp Fiction about the metric system pushing the French to call the Quarter Pounder a “Royale with Cheese”?

The globalization of our palates has undoubtedly been influenced by our grocery stores, which have expanded dramatically in recent years—thanks in no small part to that same globalization. Indeed, the number of products in an average US supermarket increased between 1975 and 2022 more than threefold, from 8,948 products to 31,530.

Much of this growth is owed to the continuous expansion of the “ethnic” or “international” food aisle, which originated after World War II when US soldiers returned home with palates accustomed to foods from places like Germany, Japan, and Italy. Back then, imported items satisfying these new cravings were all placed in one aisle for easy access. Today, however, putting all such items in one aisle is not nearly so simple: according to the New York Times, cramming countless cultures into a single small enclave is both difficult and nonsensical, especially in a country with large and growing foreign‐​born and nonwhite populations. Thus, major grocery chains have increased efforts to move products from the “ethnic” or “international” aisle into other parts of the store (though many consumers and producers still prefer them all in one place). At the same time, local grocers like Food Bazaar in New York have innovated and dedicated sections to specific countries rather than a single aisle, and Asian supermarkets, such as H Mart and Patel Brothers, have exploded in popularity. All of this is a testament to how globalization has vastly transformed our eating patterns in the decades since the ethnic aisle first appeared.

Today’s produce section has undergone a similar transformation. According to The Packer, supermarkets in 1980 carried an average of 100 different produce items, and by 1993, the number approached 250. Even then, however, certain fruits and vegetables were limited to North American growing seasons, and no one had ever even heard of products like rambutans, lychee, or jackfruit. A casual stroll through the same aisles today, by contrast, contains an incredible variety—thanks in large part to global trade. As shown in Figures 6 and 7, for example, imports of essentially every type of food have increased since the 1990s, often substantially:

Agricultural imports are particularly noteworthy. According to the US Food and Drug Administration, for example, 55 percent of fresh fruits and 32 percent of fresh vegetables today are sourced from abroad. The US Department of Agriculture adds that the combination of imported produce and domestic production ensures a year‐​round supply of fresh, healthy foods for consumers. Fresh fruit has emerged as a significant driver of agricultural imports, growing faster than any other horticultural import in the last decade.

Much of the expansion in international trade in food is owed to trade agreements completed in the 1990s. In the United States, the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement improved Americans’ access to warm‐​weather produce grown in Mexico and foods in which Canada specialized (and not just maple syrup). As a result, the volume of fresh vegetables imported into the United States, primarily from Mexico and Canada, has almost doubled since the late 1990s. Perhaps the best example is the avocado, about 90 percent of which ($3.1 billion annually) is imported—almost all from Mexico. Our southern neighbor also supplied more than half of all US berry imports (excluding strawberries) in 2022.

Globally, the 1995 World Trade Organization agreements, especially the Agreement on Agriculture, dramatically reduced global food and related trade barriers. Since then, agricultural trade has more than doubled in volume and calories. By 2019, countries were 50 percent more likely to form a direct global food trade link with another country than in 1995.

Over the same period, global agricultural trade flows between countries have increased from around 11,000 to more than 17,000. And, contrary to the conventional wisdom that trade openness increases a nation’s economic fragility, it was these very trade connections that, as the Financial Times reported in mid‐​2023, helped prevent the global food crises that many warned would occur during the pandemic and ongoing Russia‐​Ukraine conflict.

Even these data, however, understate the remarkable effects of globalization on our daily diets (and grocery expectations) over the long term. Consider, for example, the pineapple: native to South and Central America, the fruit first made its way to Europe around the time of the 15th‐​century Columbian exchange, when many crops and cuisines began to be traded globally. Due to their demanding growing conditions and inability to ripen once picked, however, pineapples for centuries remained a rare status symbol in Europe. Often, the fruit was not even eaten but instead rented by the hour—at rates hitting $8,000 in today’s dollars—for those seeking to flaunt their wealth. Today, by contrast, trade expansion and technological improvements allow for the easy consumption of fresh, dried, and canned pineapples virtually anywhere in the world—and for cheap!

Globalization has even improved our domestic food supply. For example, more than 40 percent of the tinplate steel used for canning goods is sourced globally, meaning that many canned foods, although grown domestically, would be more expensive if US producers lacked access to imported materials. American farmers, meanwhile, often rely on imported fertilizer or use export revenues to fund expansions or crop experimentation. Total US food and agriculture exports hit $196 billion in 2022, almost half of which ($88 billion) went to Asia.

Food has also been a critical part of the American immigrant experience. As immigrants settle in unfamiliar places, their cuisines become conduits for cultural exchange—something most people born in the United States have experienced firsthand via, for example, a friendly chat with a new restaurant’s immigrant owner or employee. In 2014, the AS/COA reported that immigrants accounted for 37 percent of small restaurant owners. Moreover, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, immigrants comprised 30 percent of food service workers in 2022, despite making up only 13.8 percent of the US population. Including undocumented individuals would likely push these numbers even higher.

Immigrants flock to restaurants for many reasons. Ones that specialize in their home country’s cuisines, for example, can be comforting and feel like home. After arriving in a new country, being able to work and socialize with people who share your culture—and perhaps your language—is invaluable. Restaurants can also help immigrants become accustomed to the cultural norms of their new country of residence—often with the help of other immigrants who also work there. Immigrants also gravitate toward living in urban areas, which happen to be where most eateries are concentrated.

Restaurants also provide jobs and economic mobility for people with little formal education. According to the Brookings Institution, for example, the US food service industry has long been both a major entry point for noncollege workers and among the industries in which “people gain the skills that enable them to climb the ladder in those sectors.” Food service is also commonly cited as among the handful of industries with “great potential” for upward mobility, and the National Restaurant Association estimates that about 90 percent of restaurant managers and 80 percent of owners started out in entry‐​level positions. Not all of these people are immigrants, of course, but many of them are.

Indeed, stories abound of immigrants making a life in the restaurant business and greatly improving their communities in the process. Many people know Los Angeles as the “donut capital” of America, but what they may not know is that Cambodian immigrants, fleeing the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s and 1980s, are largely responsible for the pastry’s regional success. One such immigrant, Ted Ngoy, arrived in California with his family in 1975 facing financial struggles and working multiple service jobs. A coworker introduced Ngoy to donuts, and the taste flooded him with memories of the Cambodian round cakes he had as a boy. Intrigued, Ngoy dove into the donut industry, honed his management skills, and within a year owned his own donut shop and gained fame for using fresh ingredients and a made‐​to‐​order approach. As his success grew, he sponsored hundreds of visas for fellow Cambodians fleeing the Communist regime back home, playing a major role in establishing LA’s donut empire and improving the lives of both his employees and his many customers.

Around the same time, Argentinian immigrant Lorena Cantarovici moved to Denver and, even though she had a background in finance, pursued a job in the food service industry because she couldn’t speak English. She went from dishwasher to busser to server to the owner of several empanada restaurants that won the US Small Business Administration’s 2017 Business Person of the Year for Colorado. Miles away in Texas, Atour Eyvazian went from being smuggled out of Iran in the 1980s to working as a Jack in the Box janitor and today co‐​owning 106 Jack in the Boxes and eight El Pollo Locos. He considers restaurants to be the “only industry that opens the doors and opens the arms and accepts people like me when we come to this country.”

Ngoy, Cantarovici, and Eyvazian are living the American Dream, and they certainly aren’t alone.

Food also provides ample opportunities for outbound cultural exchange, giving people in “hostile” nations a taste of the West without all the tense and often messy geopolitics. As noted, KFC dominates the fast‐​food market in China and today boasts more than 9,000 restaurants there. The establishment opened in 1987 and was the first American fast‐​food chain to operate in China, rendering it a long‐​standing symbol of the country’s newfound openness and partial embrace of Western capitalism (even as KFC workers near Tiananmen Square served chicken in traditional “Mao” suits). In Iran, meanwhile, McDonald’s has been banned since the 1979 revolution, yet the Golden Arches, Ronald McDonald, and Big Macs remain in the country via the knockoff Mash Donald’s in multiple Iranian cities. The chain’s owner Hassan explained in 2015 that government officials and hard‐​liners have threatened the restaurant because they see it as still “too Western,” yet Mash Donald’s remains open and popular because Iranians equate Western chains with cleanliness and profitability. “McDonald’s means quality,” Hassan said, adding that “people in Iran know this too.”

The proliferation of American restaurant chains in these and other authoritarian nations (see, for example, the 602 Starbucks in Turkey) won’t solve all their internal and geopolitical problems. Yet, like film and music, American restaurant chains can nevertheless introduce capitalism and Western values to millions of people taught or told to be skeptical (at best) of the United States and its people. When managers first attempted to train KFC employees in China, for example, they quickly realized that Western perceptions of customer service were unfamiliar to Chinese citizens due to decades of communism. Managers also found that one‐​child families and the proliferation of home computers were cloistering Chinese children, making them more difficult to train. So to account for these differing norms, they curated training programs that were wildly successful and “difficult for any competitor to emulate.”

Like KFC in China, McDonald’s was the first American fast‐​food restaurant to enter the Soviet Union. Russians waited in an hours‐​long line not only for a meal but also for the opportunity to experience a sliver of the utopia they imagined the West to be after enduring tyranny and food insecurity for decades. Years later, one exchange student recalls how puzzling it was that while Russia was enduring widespread food shortages, McDonald’s “never ran out of anything.” The chain’s Soviet debut was so revolutionary that it gave rise to the “Golden Arches Theory,” which posited that nations hosting McDonald’s would never engage in war due to their interdependence.

Add to these types of interactions the simple pleasures of the food itself, and it’s easy to see why KFC, McDonald’s, and other restaurant chains have long been considered a pillar of American “soft power” abroad.

Food can also teach the benefits of free market abundance to people from countries that lack such privileges. Before the Berlin Wall fell, East Germans revered bananas as a luxury good and would wait in winding lines for a chance to purchase the fruit, often to no avail. West Germans, by contrast, had easy access to bundles of the cheap fruit and took such abundance for granted. After German reunification, bananas became a symbol of socialist economic failure: when Germans in the east today see a long line, they jokingly ask whether the store is selling bananas.

Western grocery abundance may have even contributed to the fall of Soviet Communism. Boris Yeltsin, the first freely elected leader of Russia, admitted that an impromptu visit to a grocery store in Houston two years before his election had catalyzed his exit from the Communist Party. As those close to him reported, Yeltsin was astonished with the variety and affordability of products and thus concluded that Russia had “committed a crime against our people by making their standard of living so incomparably lower than that of the Americans.” It was after this visit that the “last vestige of Bolshevism collapsed” inside of Yeltsin, who then spearheaded Russia’s attempt at a democratic, capitalist society.

Given the hope that Western enterprises evoked in Russia, the 2022 suspension of McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and other firms because of the Russia‐​Ukraine war evokes a melancholy sentiment. The closures signify more than just business shutdowns; they portend a potential era of isolationism and abuses of power—a stark contrast to the peace, hope, and happiness these establishments once embodied.

Globalization expands our palates, fosters the sharing of diverse culinary traditions, and enables year‐​round access to fresh and healthy foods—championing free markets and transcending countries’ often‐​stark geopolitical, cultural, and ideological divides. Yet, while these results are to be cheered, perhaps the greatest benefit of all is simply the joy that this variety and abundance brings to each of us—alone, at home, or out with family and friends. That globalization is a lot more fun than a container ship.