The Biggest Sports Rivalries This Year Are Between National Foods

It all started on June 15, 2024, when an Albanian soccer fan at the UEFA European Championship tournament in Germany mocked a rival Italian fan by committing an unspeakable cultural crime: breaking spaghetti in half. In a video that went viral, the Italian fan falls to his knees in mock despair as shards of dried noodles rain from the heavens. Then on June 17, Austrian fans prepared for their match against France by ceremonially smashing baguettes.

It was far from the only instance of food-related roasting throughout the tournament. On June 23, a curly-mopped soccer fan at Frankfurt Arena in Germany held up a hand-lettered sign declaring “Raclette better than currywurst.” Throughout the games, signs declared “Stoofvlees better than coq au vin” in a Belgian–French match; “Ösi Bergkas better than Goudakas” in an Austrian–Dutch match; and “Svickova is better than kebab” in a Czechia–Turkey bout. Ruder still was a sign during the July 1 Portugal–Slovenia game saying, “Pastel De Nata > Is There Any Good Slovenian Food at All?” (The makers of potica might object.)

Then came the Olympics, where in appropriately Parisian fashion, food has been sharing the spotlight with the star athletes. When Hong Kong’s Cheung Ka Long won the gold medal against Italy’s Filippo Macchi in men’s foil fencing, Pizza Hut offered free pineapple on pizza—considered an affront to Italian pizza purists—at its Hong Kong and Macau branches.

Dunking on national foods as a shorthand for national rivalries is nothing new. There’s a whole corner of TikTok where creators gleefully dump ketchup on spaghetti, sizzle nigiri, and commit other crimes against cuisines. It’s all done with tongues firmly planted in cheeks, of course, although it ties into a much older tradition of gastronationalism as political soft power.

Throughout history, plenty of nations have taken pot-shots at foods or drinks associated with their rivals—particularly during times of war. Americans are especially guilty, from dumping British tea into Boston Harbor at the start of the Revolutionary War to renaming sauerkraut “liberty cabbage” and hamburgers “Salisbury steaks” while fighting Germany during World War I.

IN 2003, after President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, Republican lawmakers demanded some changes—to the menu. In three of the House of Representatives’ building cafeterias, “Freedom fries” and“Freedom toast” famously began showing up, as a deliberate snub to the French for their lack of military support.

But it’s hardly an exclusively American phenomenon. Around 1914, Parisian cafés rechristened Viennese coffee (topped with whipped cream) as café Liégeois, for the city Liège in Belgium, after it had endured a brutal bombardment from German and Austrian forces.

Francisco Franco Bahamonde, Spain’s hyper-nationalist dictator, banished ensalada rusa (Russian salad) in favor of “national salad” after the Soviet Union tried to influence the Spanish Civil War. And in the unending turmoil between Turkey and Greece, Turkish delight has been rebranded as Cyprus delight and Turkish coffee has become Greek coffee.

Food fights are inevitable, particularly at any sort of nationalist tiff. Much like the Olympic Games, which were rebooted in 1896 to bolster cooperation between nations during a period of intense international strife, these beefs are all in good fun. After all, no one is going to cry over broken spaghetti—they’re just going to get even.

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