MediumNo, Seriously, Why Is European Food So Bland? | by Greyson Ferguson | Medium
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No, Seriously, Why Is European Food So Bland?

It’s because of 600-year-old class warfare that locals have been gaslit into believing.

7 min readAug 6, 2026

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Photo by Marcin Sajur on Unsplash

We’ve been gaslit our entire lives.

Gaslit by all of those cooking programs and international travel personalities visiting Paris and Rome, sipping wine and raving about the food. They’d slurp spaghetti, likely imagining us peasants at home with our boxed noodles and jarred pasta.

Growing up on PBS Saturday television with Rick Steves running the European gambit, I was made to believe European cuisine was on such a different level that it would be a wasted life to never try it. I could feel the superiority complex of those gushing over Parisian delicacies or Swiss chocolates. They were obviously better than me because they were eating better than me.

I imagined the food had to be like heaven on earth. At least until I experienced it for myself.

That’s when I discovered that, like teachers telling students the United States had never done wrong, food personalities had been lying about European cuisines. Because, frankly, outside of pockets here and there, it was all so incredibly bland.

And while Europeans will spout off a litany of reasons why you’re wrong, ranging from the 2791 restaurants you…

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Greyson Ferguson
Greyson Ferguson

Written by Greyson Ferguson⁠

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