I'm currently re-reading Harry Turtledove's (and Richard Dreyfuss, but I
suspect that RD gave HT a three-sentence plot idea and told HT to run with
it) _The Two Georges_, and I've reached the scene where the protagonists
are in a restaurant, and the "sidekick" expresses dismay at finding "hominy
cakes" (essentially, cornmeal pancakes) on the menu. When the main
character inquires further, the sidekick - who is Black - explains that as
a child, his father had compelled him to eat an entire bowl of hominy
porridge (essentially, the southern US dish called 'grits', very similar to
the Italian 'polenta'), to give the sidekick a lesson in 'what we got away
from'. Hominy, in that story, is food for poor Blacks, and self-respecting
Blacks that have attained a certain socioeconomic position in that story
consider it insulting to be served - or even offered - hominy in any form.
Thus, since in that setting, Blacks have generally become mid-level civil
servants, a restaurant that caters to them won't even have hominy on the
menu.

A later scene in the same story has a character of Irish extraction but
mid-to-high socioeconomic class take offense when the protagonist orders
corned beef and cabbage at a restaurant, because of the stereotype and the
fact that in the story world, it's difficult for Irish to make
socioeconomic progress due to discrimination - more difficult for them than
for Blacks. It so happens that they're in a coal town in Pennsylvania where
most of the workers _are_ (poor) Irish, and the protagonist apologises and
explains that he ordered it because he figured 'in a town full of Irish,
he'd figured it _better_ be good'.

This got me thinking: A lot of what is considered 'special' in food is
regional or ethnic (i.e., not from your personal cultural background), and
as often as not, has a mostly-hidden/forgotten origin as 'poor people food'
where it originated. Some people, however, might be closer to that hidden
history than others, and will refuse to eat some things because of it.

This is definitely an IYTU question: What sort of things might a traveller
encounter that is considered "interesting" or "special" when you're _Here_,
but you'd better not order it even if it appears on the menu when you're
_There_? Why? What's the 'hidden history'? (It'd be really cool if you
could include recipes, both original-translated-to-English, and 'redacted'
so that someone on pre-stellar Earth could find appropriate ingredients and
make it.)

Side note: Turtledove made a mistake in the Irish scene; in the story,
North America is still under the British crown, and Ireland is not
independent. It thus would have been unlikely for North America to be a
target for Jewish emigration from Europe, especially as the Ottoman Empire
(which includes the Middle-East) was a British protectorate. Thus, it's
more likely that the British and Irish notion of 'bacon' - not the modern
US version - would be common, and the dish would have been 'Irish bacon and
cabbage', or possibly 'Irish bacon and bubble-and-squeak'; the adoption of
corned beef came from not being able to get Irish bacon in a New York that
had a high Jewish population, and kosher corned beef from the Jewish
butchers was the closest thing available. The modern US idea of 'bacon'
would be 'streaky bacon' or 'rashers'; just 'bacon' would probably be
closer to what is generally called 'Canadian bacon' in the US, or 'bacon'
or 'back bacon' in Canada.

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