Spiders, cemeteries, costumes, and ghost stories sound like a part of Halloween, not Christmas, but think again. The following Christmas traditions and beliefs sound like they got their holidays mixed up.

10Carved Vegetables
Mexico

For all of us who hated vegetables growing up, the Night of the Radishes may sound like the title of a horror movie. Nevertheless, it’s a longstanding traditional celebration in Mexico, going back to the main plaza of Oaxaca City in 1897. It’s been going strong ever since.

There are parades, feasts, and dances. But the main event, as the name suggests, are the radishes. The radishes are carved into amazing characters, scenes, and displays. They’re grown specifically for this occasion. Instead of being picked at their usual harvest time, they’re left in the ground to balloon to huge sizes. They have been known to grow as long as 50 centimeters (20 in) and weigh as much as 3 kilograms (6.5 lb).

December 23 is the official day on which the Night of the Radishes takes place. However, as with any good party, the celebration has often been known to last a couple days, up to and past December 25.

9Goblins
Greece

According to Greek folklore, underground goblins known as Kallikantzaroi make their way to the surface world to do mischief during the 12 days of Christmas. Most legends agree that they are hairy black creatures that look mostly human but with horns and tails.

To keep Kallikantzaroi away, some Greeks would burn incense or even burn stinky shoes in the fireplace. Others would mark their door with a black cross on Christmas Eve.

The worst part of the legend is that all babies born on one of the 12 days of Christmas are at risk of turning into Kallikantzaroi at a later Christmas when they become adults. Someone could be a Kallikantzaros and wouldn’t even know it until their 18th or 21st birthday. The only way to prevent it from happening is to singe the baby’s toenails or wrap them in garlic and straw.

8Spiders
Poland

If you never seem to get around to taking down your spiderweb Halloween decorations before Christmas, Poland may just be the country for you. In Polish culture, spiders symbolize prosperity and goodness in general. In one Polish legend, when baby Jesus was born, He was cold, and a spider wove a blanket for Him out of webs. As a result, Christmas trees are often decorated with fake spiderwebs and spider ornaments in Poland.

This tradition is also found in Germany and Ukraine, where it is inspired by a different legend. In a Ukrainian legend, a poor mother couldn’t afford Christmas tree decorations. However, her children woke up the next morning to find their tree covered in spiderwebs. That may not have been the most festive sight, but when the first rays of sunlight hit the tree, the webs turned into silver and gold. The family never found themselves in need again.

7Eating Bugs
South Africa

Speaking of creepy-crawlies, gummy worms and bug-shaped candy may be all the rage during Halloween, but at Christmastime, only the real thing will do. In certain regions of South Africa, no traditional Christmas feast would be complete without a nice big helping of deep-fried emperor moth caterpillars. Most caterpillars are seen as a delicacy, so it makes sense that families would consider them a treat at Christmas.

Caterpillars are actually quite nutritious. The proportion of protein is higher than found in fish and beef. A little more than half of every 100 grams of caterpillars is protein, and 17 percent is carbohydrates, with an energy value of 430 kilocalories. The exact amount varies by species, but caterpillars have been known to be good sources of iron, calcium, potassium, and several different vitamins.

6Witches
Bavaria

According to Austrian and Bavarian lore, a witch named Berchta knows which children have been lazy or hardworking throughout the year. She roams through the land and secretly enters homes during the 12 days of Christmas and the Epiphany to punish or reward the children. For those who have done all of their work, she leaves a silver coin in their shoe. For those who have been lazy, she cuts their stomachs open. And, as if that wasn’t enough, she removes their guts and replaces them with straw, stones, and any garbage lying around.

Berchta’s name is derived from the feast of the Epiphany, known as Berchtentag. In Slovenia, she is also known as Frau Faste, which translates to “the lady of the Ember Days.” Berchta’s traditional Feast Day is called Berchtaslaaf in Urglawee, the culture of Germans and Dutch in Pennsylvania. It takes place on December 31, which is Elfder Dagg and Zwelfdi Nacht (“The Eleventh Day” and “The Twelfth Night”).

5Monster Cannibals
Iceland

The folklore of Iceland includes an ogress named Gryla. Like Santa Claus and the aforementioned Berchta, Gryla had the supernatural power to know whether children have been naughty or nice throughout the year. Unlike Santa Claus and even Berchta, however, she does not bother with rewarding children who have been good. Her only concern is punishing the naughty.

Around Christmastime, she makes her way from her mountain lair and hunts through nearby villages for a good meal. Her favorite food is a stew of naughty boys and girls who disobey their parents. It’s said that she has a tremendous appetite and sadly never goes hungry.

Gryla wasn’t always a Christmas figure, but in the 17th century she was linked to the Yule Cat and the Yule Lads, being declared as their mother.

4Ghost Stories
England

Not too long ago, creepy ghost stories were a major part of Christmas Eve festivities. Even Andy Williams’s classic yuletide tune “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” promises “There’ll be scary ghost stories / And tales of the glories / Of Christmases long, long ago.”

In Victorian England, Christmas and ghosts were as much a package deal as tea and crumpets. Perhaps the greatest example of this is Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. It’s no coincidence that the plot of Dickens’s tale of the true spirit of Christmas is driven by four otherworldly spirits. In centuries past, Christmas had always had a strong connection to the supernatural. It was believed that the barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead was at its thinnest on Christmas Eve. This allowed ghosts to sneak back over to the living world for at least one night.

3Costumes
Newfoundland

Newfoundland has a tradition that’s an interesting blend of trick or treating and Christmas caroling.

People known as mummers or janneys disguise themselves in homemade costumes and make their way through the neighborhood, going from house to house. They knock on doors, play music, and dance on the front steps of homes, while the owners try to guess who the mummers are under their costumes. To do this, homeowners are allowed to ask the visitors questions.

To disguise themselves even more, however, mummers alter their voices. The most common technique is ingestive speaking, in which they talk while taking a deep breath. The janneys must take off their masks once their identity is guessed, and the homeowners tend to invite them in for food and drinks.

In the old days, mummering was much more sociable since nearly everyone knew one another in small towns. In the modern day, the practice is more reserved, as people are less comfortable with opening their doors or homes to masked strangers. Mummers sometimes call ahead to tell their friends that they are coming to their house so as not to be turned away.

2Cemeteries
Finland

In Finland, people visit the graves of their loved ones on Christmas Eve and leave lit candles in their honor. Those whose relatives are not buried nearby still visit the nearest cemetery and light a candle to acknowledge their memory. As a result, all of the cemeteries in Finland are alight with dozens upon dozens of candles on Christmas Eve.

Even people who haven’t lost any loved ones often stroll through the graveyards just to enjoy the festive scenery. So many people come out to visit the cemeteries that the government has to put special traffic procedures in action to deal with all of the cars on the roads.

Other countries remember the dead at Christmas as well. Portugal has a traditional feast on Christmas morning called Consoda. It is both a morning feast and a mourning feast. Those who have died are honored, and the families put out settings at the table for the family members they’ve lost.

1The Devil
Guatemala

We’d think that any mention of the devil would have no place during the holiday season. Guatemala, however, has a celebration on December 7 called La Quema del Diablo, or The Burning of the Devil.

Citizens clean their homes and pile up all of their trash, old clothes, and broken furniture in front of their houses. Next, they each make an effigy of the devil and put it on top of the pile. Then they do what the name of the celebration suggests and burn the entire pile. This symbolically chases away the devil and prepares for baby Jesus. It is also thought to purify the home and give people a release from year-long problems.

In recent years, many people now burn small pinatas and old bills instead of garbage inside their homes. Also, many companies have capitalized on the celebration by selling devil effigies. No matter what, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without commercialization.

An idiom is an expression that has the curious affectation of not making sense, strictly speaking. The meaning of an idiom can’t be derived from what the words in it say. In other words, the literal meaning is different from how it’s commonly used. For instance, if computer coding is easy for you, you might say it’s a piece of cake. To someone who had never heard that idiom they’d have no idea what coding has to do with baked goods. The literal meaning is nonsense but those of us aware of the idiom understand its idiomatic meaning.

English has thousands of idioms that range from cliches like “you can’t judge a book by its cover” to turns of phrase like “hit the sack.” But there are just as many idioms from other lands and languages that are delightful enough you might want to find a way to fit them into your everyday vernacular.

10. Nearly Every Language Has its Own Version of “It’s All Greek to Me” 

If you don’t understand something you might use the idiom “it’s all Greek to me” to drive that point home. The meaning derived from this is that, whatever you’re referencing, may as well be written in another language because you just don’t get it. This makes sense for English-speaking people because many of them don’t actually speak Greek.

So what happens if you are Greek? The idiom certainly loses something in translation. Or how about if you speak a language known to be more difficult to master, something like Mandarin? You could argue Greek is easier to understand and therefore the idiom would have the opposite meaning.

Turns out nearly every language has its own version of this idiom and while some stick with Greek, many do not. If you speak Cantonese you’d say “it’s all chicken intestines” or ghost script while in Mandarin you’d bring up alien or heavenly languages.One Dutch version swaps Greek to Chinese. Finnish might use Hebrew. Someone speaking Korean might say “they’re speaking like dogs.”

9. “Wei Jie Died of Stares” is a Chinese Idiom About Celebrities and Fans

China has all manner of fun and unusual idioms that lose a bit of meaning when translated to English, but that’s to be expected sometimes. One of their most unusual yet oddly appropriate for the modern world is the saying “Wei Jie died of stares.”

Wei Jie was said to be a historical figure from China who worked as a court official in the 3rd or 4th century.He was also supposed to be stunningly good looking. So good looking, in fact, that everyone stared at him all the time and even when he arrived in a new city, the people couldn’t take their eyes off of him. According to the legend, he was in ill health and the people blocked the street to stare until finally he simply died under their watchful gazes. Thus, Wei Jie died of stares.

Today, the saying is something like “death by staring” and the meaning relates to something who is greatly admired or has a lot of adoring fans, something arguably appropriate for the social media age. 

8. In China You Can Expel Smoke From Seven Orifices

We have a handful of popular idioms that can indicate or describe anger in English from “seeing red” to “biting someone’s head off.” Chinese offers up the remarkably unique idiom “qi qiao sheng yan” which has a literal translation of “spouting smoke through the seven orifices.”

You can see where the saying comes from to some degree, at least insofar as the imagery goes. Cartoons had a long tradition of showing a character getting angry by depicting them getting steamy around the collar or even having steam come out of their ears. So someone blowing smoke seems to be in the ballpark.

In English, the literal language sounds a little risque as well, but the seven orifices in question can all be found on the head – two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and one mouth. 

7. “Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys” Comes from Poland 

This unique phrase has actually crossed the cultural divide and has made its way to English, including in variant forms. The saying “not my circus, not my monkeys” is a colorful way to say something isn’t your problem. The Canadian show Letterkenny has used the variant “not my pig, not my farm” in an episode or two as well.

The original version seems to come from Poland, not traditionally known for their monkeys. The original wording is “Nie moj cyrk, nie moje malpy.” Pop that into Google translate and there’s no discrepancy at all, it literally means “not my circus, not my monkeys.

6. In Iceland, “I Took Him To The Bakery” Means to Dominate

There are a number of fun ways to express your power and dominance in word form. One popular and brief way that’s enjoyed in the modern world is to simply say you owned something. In fact, you can break that down to the single word “owned” and still convey the idiomatic meaning in context. 

If you were in Iceland, you might say “Ég tók hann í bakaríið.” That translates to “I took him to the bakery.” In Icelandic the idiom is used often in a sporting context. So if you square off against an opponent in a game and win, you didn’t just defeat them, you took them to the bakery. 

Someone attempted to discern the origin of the phrase online back in 2010 and was able to trace the origins to a 1982 slang dictionary in Iceland. The speculation was that the word bake was related to making or causing, as in causing trouble or causing damage but that’s just a guess. 

5. In Sweden, “Pooping The Blue Cupboard” Means Doing Something Wrong

We said at the beginning that an idiom’s literal meaning is not the same as that idiomatic meaning and you probably can’t guess what the meaning of the term is based on the literal meanings. Sweden took this to heart with the idiom “to poop in the blue cupboard.”

On its own the phrase literally means, well… you can see what it means. But the figurative meaning is that you messed up. You took things too far, you made a fool of yourself, you got in trouble; something like that. The point is, you did something wrong. And, in that context, sure, pooping in the blue cupboard does seem like you messed up. 

4. “The Last Coca-Cola in the Desert” Comes From Spanish Speaking Countries

If someone ever calls you the last Coca-Cola in the desert, they’re not paying you a compliment. The saying seems to be common in many Spanish speaking nations and you can find reference to it in Cuba and Venezuela and Mexico.

The saying means you’re a bit full of yourself or conceited, which you could arguably imagine might be the attitude of the last Coke in the desert since everyone would probably want it. Your best bet for using it in casual conversation is to shoot a dig at someone being arrogant by saying “you really think you’re the last Coke in the desert, don’t you?” or something along those lines. 

3. “Horse Horse Tiger Tiger” Has a Curious History

Most idioms may not make sense in context but they tend to have some discernible meaning. Not so for the Chinese idiom “horse horse tiger tiger.” You can’t really clean much from two repeated words.

The saying actually means something akin to “it is what it is” or “so so” and it stands as a warning against carelessness as it refers to someone who’s been foolish. That’s definitely not a meaning you’d get from the words as presented. 

There’s a story behind the idiom and it’s that, once upon a time an artist was drawing a tiger when someone requested he do a horse instead. So he put a horse’s body on the tiger’s head. Later, one of his sons saw it and asked what it was and the artist said it was a tiger. But when his younger son asked he said it was a horse. 

One day, the eldest son was out and ran across a horse but, thinking it was a tiger, he killed it and thus the artist had to pay the horse’s owner for the loss. Meanwhile, the younger son ran across a tiger and thought it was a horse so he tried to ride it and died. That’s a whoops.

From then on, horse horse tiger tiger referred to someone being careless or something that was so so or, you know, not really good.

2. “May the Cat Eat You and May the Devil Eat The Cat” is an Irish Gaelic Curse

“Cat got your tongue” and “look what the cat dragged in” are some popular feline related idioms that you might run across in English but all the world loves a cat so it’s no surprise there are some other kitty quips out there. One of the oldest and most colorful comes to us from Irish Gaelic and it’s a full on curse. 

If you have it in for someone and want to insult them, you could say “Go n-ithe an cat thu is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat” which translates to “may the cat eat you and may the devil eat the cat.”

The gist of the saying is that you should get screwed and then screwed again, but it’s a little more colorful than all that

1. Jack’s Infamous Typed Pages in “The Shining” Were Swapped with Other Translations Internationally

Stephen King’s “The Shining” is one of his most popular works thanks in no small part to Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation. And one of the most memorable scenes in that movie was when Shelley Duvall’s Wendy checks on the work that her husband Jack, played by Jack Nicholson, has been doing while the family has been isolated in the Overlook Hotel. Jack, a writer, has been typing up a novel only every typed page features the phrase “all work, and no play makes Jack a dull boy” over and over again. It’s when she fully realizes Jack has basically gone off the deep end. 

Kubrick was known as an extremely meticulous filmmaker. He made actors do takes dozens upon dozens of times to get them right. He made Nicholson chop through a bathroom door with an ax at least 60 times. When it came to that typed page, he knew that the fil;m would be shown to non-English audiences and that meant people wouldn’t understand what was written on the page. To save audiences all over the world from having to read subtitles, Kubrick had the scene filmed several times with different papers typed in different languages. 

The Italian version read “Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca” which means “the morning has gold in its mouth.” Germans got “was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen” meaning “never put off until tomorrow what can be done today.” 

The reference to Jack is lost but each phrase, and others in French and Spanish, were all quirky enough that knowing Jack Nicholson was maniacally typing them out over and over would have likely been off-putting to audiences in other countries.

Every month of every year, all across the globe, cities and towns and even tiny villages are celebrating one festival or another for countless reasons. Some are religious, some are to celebrate the harvest, the passing of seasons, local heroes, historic events, you name it. You can’t keep a good festival down. But for all the easy to understand festivals that offer up good times and good food for those in attendance, there are a handful of festivals that seem to exist mostly to sow discord, havoc and danger for anyone who gets too close.

10. Epiphany in Vale de Salgueiro 

Christians celebrate a feast day called the Epiphany. In the US, this is what kicks off Carnival in New Orleans, and elsewhere things like King Cakes and fruit cakes are commonplace. In the UK, Twelfth Night is the night before and there is traditionally a yule log, wassailing and, once again, fruit cake. In the town of Vale de Salgueiro in Portugal, the celebration includes a weird twist.

If you head to this very small village, with its population of about 200, you’ll discover locals encouraging their children to smoke cigarettes on this day. And by children we mean as young as five years old. Why would people celebrate the Epiphany by making kids smoke? The locals say it’s a centuries old tradition but they also have no further explanation. It’s entirely unclear what it’s supposed to represent or symbolize, especially since traditionally the Epiphany celebrates the Magi visiting Christ as a baby and the revelation that he was God incarnate. Not much of that deals with Marlboros. 

Kids in the village smoke for two days and parents defend the practice since it’s just two days and the kids are exhaling quickly. At least one resident, who is 101, claimed they were doing it when she was a kid, so they’re really committed to it, even if no one knows why. 

9. Mexico’s Festival of Exploding Hammers

You can’t argue that people don’t like explosions, it’s what drives Fourth of July celebrations as well as a large portion of Hollywood action movies. The Mexican town of San Juan de la Vega takes the love of an exploding festival to new heights with sledgehammers laced with explosives that are busted out around Fat Tuesday every year.

As the story goes, the founder of the town was a sort of Robin Hood figure. He got into a skirmish with some local landowners that resulted in him stealing gold back from them. Or maybe they were bandits. Whatever the case, locals celebrated his victory over whoever the thieves were by making exploding hammers, because why not?

In the past, the hammers were strapped with homemade explosives, like fireworks, and then the hammers and slammed against I-beams or sheet metal. Past hammers, unable to handle the force, would commonly explode as well and send metal flying. Modern hammers are reinforced with rebar to handle the explosions but that doesn’t stop chunks of metal from flying free and embedding into spectators and hammer wielders. In 2008, 50 bystanders were injured by shrapnel but the celebrations have been going on for about 400 years so it’s unlikely a few explosion scars are going to stop anyone. 

8. Spain’s Las Luminarias 

The Spanish festival called Las Luminarias is meant to be in honor of St. Anthony the Abbot, patron saint of domestic animals. And what better way to honor a domestic animal lover than by making horses run through fire? According to tradition, which dates back centuries, by running horses through raging bonfires the animals are being purified by the fire. 

Riders are said to take precautions such as cutting the horses’ hair so they can’t get burned, but animal rights groups are still not big fans of the tradition. All told, around 100 horses will undergo the ritual over the course of the festival, which is later followed by drinking and dancing as befits any good, fire-filled festival. 

Despite assurances that the horses don’t get burned, others have pointed out that, because they are animals, they’re not likely to understand what’s going on and forcing animals that traditionally run to escape danger to leap through fire is pretty stressful for them. 

7. The Turkey Trot Festival in Arkansas 

The Turkey Trot Festival sounds about as innocent as a festival can get, doesn’t it? Trotting turkeys makes you think of chubby birds strutting down a street without a care in the world. That’s not technically the case with this real life Arkansas festival, or at least it wasn’t until a few years back when they decided to make it less terrifying. 

For 70 years, the small town of Yellville, Arkansas had been having this festival around Thanksgiving that celebrates all things turkey. They even have a Miss Drumsticks to help celebrate. But for most of those 70 years, literally up to 2017, part of the tradition also included loading airplanes with live turkeys and then throwing the birds, which you’ll remember can’t fly, out of the moving planes. Many died on impact while others survived for a short time with broken bones.

There was no gimmick or trick involved in what was happening, they were just hurling birds to their death. It was animal cruelty despite not tecnically being a violation of FAA regulations. It wasn’t until the media broke the story open after that 2017 year that it finally came to an end as a result of the bad press and not any particular compassion for turkey mayhem.

6. Japanese Wasp Festival

Amidst the chaotic news of the early 2020s was the tale of giant Asian hornets making their way to North America. The internet has always enjoyed these creatures as a giant, stinging insect is a nice sort of sci fi monster come to life, plus videos of them raiding bee’s nests are pretty interesting. 

In Japan, where the hornets come from, there are also wasps that gain some attention around Nagano and Gifu in a festival called Hebo Matsuri. In the village of Kushihara, people come to eat wasp-based snacks made from wasp larvae and compete in wasp nest contests to see whose is the heaviest. If you have the money, you can even eat the larvae alive right from the nest. 

Attendees can expect to get stung a couple of times while they’re there because, unsurprisingly, wasps don’t want you raiding their nests. You can eat the giant hornets there as well, though live ones are not the sort of things you want to see since their sting is very painful and, in some cases, even deadly. 

5. The Naked Man Festival

Not every festival involves 9,000 nearly naked men, but Konomiya Hadaka Matsuri does. The 1,250-year-old tradition requires men in loin-cloths to pray for luck. So far so slightly odd, but not dangerous. Things get more violent later when they men compete to gain good luck talismans, of which there are two, through pretty much any means necessary. The scene is described as a “mosh pit” and involves jumping, tripping, climbing and so on to try to reach them as they dangle from above.

One man at the festival will be deemed the Lucky Man or Man of God. Touching him is meant to protect you from disease and bad luck. But when 9,000 men, being sprayed with cold water, all scramble to do it at the same time the scene can get chaotic. The man is completely shaven beforehand and then chased totally naked, as people pass their bad luck to him. Then he’s run out of town. Tourists are allowed to come and participate and you can neither have tattoos nor be drunk, though some locations seem to encourage drinking sake so you may want to check local rules if you want to join in. 

4. Switzerland’s Spring Festival

Festivals that predict the weather are not necessarily a unique idea, in the US and Canada a groundhog is used to determine when winter will end every year. In Switzerland they have a similar tradition at a festival called Sechseläuten. The festival announces the beginning of Spring and translates to “the six-o’clock ringing of the bells” to commemorate the extra hour of daylight that comes as winter gives way to spring. 

At some point, the festival came to include something called Böögg, which is a giant 11-foot tall snowman that the locals light on fire. The snowman is atop a bonfire and his head is jammed full of 140 sticks of dynamite, because how else do you celebrate the passing of winter into spring? 

Once the bonfire is lit, people place bets on how long until the fire gets high enough to make Böögg’s head explode. The sooner it happens, the sooner it will become Spring, is the thinking. If it takes a long time, then summer may be cold and beset with snowfall.

3. Takanakuy

There’s an episode of Seinfeld in which we learn George’s father invented his own Christmas-adjacent holiday called Festivus that involves feats of strengths and the airing of grievances. The people of the Peruvian Andes did Mr. Costanza one better with a Christmas day festival called Takanakuy.

Men and women participate in the festival, some wear costumes and masks but some don’t, and the gist of it is all pretty simple – if someone wronged you during the year you can settle the score here by beating the crap out of each other.

The goal of the battle is to start the new year fresh and put old grievances to rest. You start the fight with a hug and you end it with one. But in the middle you genuinely pound your opponent into the dirt. Thousands of people attend, cheering the combatants who can be children all they way through grandparents on as they punch their way to a happy new year. 

2. Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival

Despite its name, the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival in Taiwan has nothing to do with bees. The name is a metaphor for the chaos and, arguably, the intense and painful danger you’re flirting with by being here.  

A religious festival, its main claim to fame is the fact that millions of fireworks are set off, like a swarm of bees, over the course of the events. But they aren’t shot at the sky, they’re shot at you and everyone else in attendance.

Experiencing the chaos is supposed to bring good fortune for the new year and cleans any bad influences away. All you need to do is wear a helmet and some protective clothing to try to avoid the inevitable burns as millions of little firecrackers explode around you and rain sparks everywhere. Bruises from spent cardboard tubes are not unheard of along with the threat of igniting or going deaf and/or blind from explosions near your ears and eyes. 

1. Onbashira

Back to Japan once more for a log riding festival that has claimed more than one life in the past. Known as Onbashira, the concept is simple if baffling and terrifying. Participants have to ride a giant 10-ton log, essentially a felled tree, down the side of a mountain. 

The festival is actually a religious one and the massive logs are destined to be pillars outside of a Shinto shrine. People have been crushed under the logs, they have drowned under them as they were transported through water, and when they are erected, some people have fallen from the tops. The most recent death was in 2016. The deaths don’t put a damper on the festival however, as dying this way is considered to be honorable.

The world is more at our fingertips today than ever before. You can head out in any big city and enjoy the cuisine from dozens of countries or, if you’re more adventurous, head to the internet and track down recipes and videos showing you how to make food from literally every corner of the globe. And while that’s great for expanding culinary horizons it also brings with it the curious revelation that not every food we know and love is truly from where we always thought it was. Some of your international favorites may not be international at all. 

10. Spaghetti and Meatballs is Not Technically Italian

Is any dish more Italian than spaghetti and meatballs? Yes, actually, many of them are since it’s not technically an Italian dish at all. That isn’t to say that spaghetti isn’t Italian and, of course, meatballs can be Italian too but most countries also have meatballs. But the dish we all currently understand as spaghetti and meatballs is 100% American, by way of Italy. 

Traditional Italian meatballs could be made from any kind of meat from fish to turkey and though beef was an option, it was not as plentiful in Italy as it is in America so it was a less likely choice. Also, Italian meatballs were more often served as their own entrée or in soups rather than on top of pasta. In fact, in Italy it’s very unlikely you’ll find spaghetti and meatballs on a menu unless it’s a tourist trap catering to international patrons.

When Italians began immigrating to America, they of course brought their cuisine with them and that included meatball recipes. Meat was more plentiful and cheaper in America than they were used to so the new meatball recipes adapted to be made from ground beef and they grew bigger. 

The fact that dried pasta and canned tomato was also available and also cheap meant that a dish, in the ballpark of what they may have had back home, could be put together cheaply and effectively and so spaghetti and meatballs were born. The dish dates back to sometime between 1880 and 1920.

9. Chicken Parmesan is Italian-Inspired American Cuisine

Sticking with non-Italian Italian, another extremely tasty and popular dish, chicken parmesan, is just as Italian as spaghetti and meatballs. That means it was inspired by Italy but made in the USA.

If you’re not familiar, the dish typically consists of chicken breasts, usually pounded flat, breaded and fried crispy, served on top of a tomato sauce and covered in melted cheese. 

In Italy you wouldn’t find this dish but you would find eggplant parmesan which is almost the same thing but made with eggplant instead of chicken. The dish hails from Sicily and the evolution of eggplant to chicken is very similar to the evolution of the meatball. Italian immigrants in the USA found themselves presented with different ingredients and cheaper meats. Tweaks to the recipe allowed for chicken to swap in as the meat in America was proving to be a very popular option and thus the chicken version was born.  

A chicken parm recipe was published in the New York Times in 1962 and the dish has been a staple in Italian American restaurants ever since.  

8. Italian Dressing Hails from America

One last look at Italy and this time in the world of the salad. While ranch takes the top spot for favorite salad dressing in America, Italian ranks in at number two, at least according to one survey. Surprisingly enough, that’s a very exclusively American result since Italian dressing is not really even an option in Italy.

Ask someone who has lived in both Italy and America and they’ll point out that the Italian dressing you can buy in grocery stores in no way resembles anything they serve on salad in Italy, which is typically just olive oil and vinegar.

American Italian dressing seems to have been invented, or at least popularized, by Florence Hanna whose parents were Italian immigrants. She made the dressing for the salads in the Massachusetts restaurant she ran with her husband Ken, which gave rise to Ken’s Foods which still bottles the stuff today. 

7. German Chocolate Cake is Not German

Humans go through about 7.5 million tons of chocolate per year, or about two pounds for every living human in the world. Safe to say, people really like it. And German chocolate cake has long been a favorite way to enjoy it if you also like your chocolate in cake form. 

The cake dates back to 1957 and features chocolate alongside coconut and pecan. If you like nuts and chocolate, it really is delicious. But it’s also not even a little bit German. And, technically, it never pretended to be.

German chocolate cake fell victim to the curse of brevity and convenience. The original recipe was created by a woman in Texas who submitted it to the Dallas Morning News for publication. The recipe called for the use of a sweet baking chocolate and the brand that Mrs. George Clay enjoyed was German’s chocolate, created by Sam German in 1852. 

Her cake was technically a German’s Brand Chocolate Cake, but it’s just easier to call it German chocolate cake and, without context, it’s easy to lose the fact she was referring to a specific brand. Baker German’s Sweet Chocolate still exists today if you want to make an authentic German chocolate cake, but if you follow the recipe exactly and use a different brand, you’re just making a chocolate coconut pecan cake, probably. 

6. Sauerkraut Isn’t Actually German

One of the most quintessential German foods you’ll ever find is sauerkraut, that fermented cabbage condiment that lends itself so well to sausages and other food that it seems inextricably linked to the country’s cuisine. Even the name is German, meaning “sour cabbage,”  so it’s somewhat surprising to learn that the food is not originally German at all.

Sauerkraut’s origins go back thousands of years and much further east than Germany. It’s believed it started in China when laborers building the Great Wall would ferment cabbage in rice wine to ensure they’d have food available all year round. During the winter, when food was scarce, they needed something that could last the season and the fermented cabbage fit the bill.

Later, travelers brought the concept to Europe and new recipes were devised that didn’t include rice wine but instead used salt to pickle the cabbage. 

5. Corned Beef and Cabbage Isn’t an Irish Staple

Ireland’s cuisine isn’t quite as famous as something like Mexican or Italian, but there are a few dishes very much associated with the country. Obviously they are strongly associated with potatoes, but head to any bar on St. Patrick’s Day that’s doing an Irish dinner special and you’ll probably find corned beef and cabbage. This is ironic, of course, since it’s not an Irish dish at all. 

Ireland is not a land of great beef farms. Cattle there were mostly used for dairy. Cows were even sacred in Gaelic tradition, so killing them was not standard practice. 

It was England, in forcing its will upon Ireland, that introduced the concept of corned beef and, owing to various laws around importing and exporting salt, took advantage of Ireland and essentially forced corned beef production to take place there. Ireland supplied most of the corned beef eating world with corned beef and almost none of it stayed in the country. 

By the end of the 18th century as America and other countries began to make their own corned beef the famine broke out in Ireland and people either starved or left.Those who settled in America ironically found themselves finally able to eat corned beef which they never actually had in Ireland only this time it was kosher corned beef made by Jewish immigrants and didn’t really resemble the stuff Ireland had been known for at all.

4. Burritos as We Understand Them are Not From Mexico 

Mexican cuisine is hugely popular these days and with good reason as much of it is very delicious and filling. But the Americanization of Mexican cuisine has caused some confusion of how some dishes are meant to be made and whether some dishes are even Mexican at all. One such dish is the burrito, which isn’t really from Mexico, at least the way most people understand it. 

Some people will suggest that the burrito, while almost totally unheard of in Southern Mexico, can at least call Northern Mexico home. But the burrito that you might think of if you like in the United States. Head to Chipotle or any other restaurant known for Mexican cuisine and a burrito is typically a thick, flour tortilla wrapped dish filled with rice, beans, meats, sauce and vegetables. They’re big and heavy and filling and date back to the 1960s or so. 

A traditional Mexican burrito consists of a toasted flour tortilla topped with a small amount of beans, some braised meat and a dash of sauce rolled up tight almost like a tamale. That’s all. They’re small and relatively light and do not involve a ton of rice and veggies by any means. That’s a product of the Mission Burrito, born in San Francisco. 

3. Biryani Came to India from Persia

Biryani rice is definitely one of the most popular dishes you’ll find on any Indian menu and typically many versions are available that are made with different meats and veggies. It’s a staple of Indian cuisine but its origins stray a bit from the country that made it famous. India adapted the dish from a Persian recipe. The word itself comes from a Persian name “birinj biriyan” which means “fried rice.”

Travelers would have brought the dish to different regions of India over the years and the recipes adapted to local tastes and ingredients which gave rise to literally dozens of different flavors and combinations.

2 Chicken Tikka Masala Was Made in the 70s in Europe

India is home to some of the most popular cuisine in the world and, according to some surveys, ranks as the fourth most popular after Italian, Japanese and Chinese around the world. Dishes like butter chicken are standout favorites around the world but chicken tikka masala is another huge favorite which can’t even lay claim to India as its country of origin. 

Chicken tikka masala is a relatively new dish which only dates back to the 1970s.The origin has actually been debated, but Scotland has laid claim to being the dish’ birthplace thanks to a chef from Bangladesh working in Glasgow. Ironically, the big debate over where the dish comes from doesn’t necessarily center on a dispute between India and Scotland but Scotland and England, which is also considered the dish’s home and it’s even been referred to as England’s national dish.

There are chefs from India who claim the dish has been made there for generations but most accounts seem to acknowledge the European chefs of Indian origin as the creators.

1. Apple Pie Predates America 

When it comes to linking certain foods with certain places, nothing seems more American than apple pie. Why? Because that’s literally a saying – American as apple pie. And that saying is loaded with more irony than your average pie is loaded with apples thanks to the fact apple pie isn’t American. It’s actually older than America by quite a long time. Heck, apple pie predates Columbus.

The first recorded recipe for apple pie dates back to England in 1381.This recipe wasn’t the apple pie you’d think of and included a number of other ingredients and also an inedible coffin crust meant to hold it together and not to be eaten. But even if you wanted to discount that, you can still find Dutch apple pie recipes as far back as 1514.

European settlers brought apple pie recipes with them to America. America didn’t have apples before they arrived, the fruit isn’t native to the continent. Of course it quickly became a popular dessert staple that remains to this day and, while it may be iconic, it’s not strictly speaking an American dish at all.