Last month the folks at Buzzfeed put together a video of Americans tasting Irish food. Their reactions were mixed…at best. In response to their video the Irish folks at College Times decided to run their own experiment.

The Irish taste-tested mac and cheese in a box, peanut butter and grape jelly, twinkies, tootsie rolls and fluff.

Here’s the video:

As an Irish person who has lived in the US I thought I’d thrown in my two cents on their reactions.

Macaroni and cheese

When told that it’s powdered cheese one responds “That’s disgusting.”

With the beloved American comfort food in front of them one lady says it looks like “radioactive pasta”. It also gets called “vomit” and an other remarks that it tastes “like plastic.” One even goes so far as to say “that first moment you put it in your mouth it’s disgusting.”

Then again some respond with “I like that” and “that’s lovely.”

Now I’m going to defend mac and cheese. I’ve had real mac and cheese and it’s good. It’s creamy, cheesy, pasta wholesome goodness. Yes. It tends not to be super flavorful but a lot of American comfort foods come down on the bland side of things (see meat loaf and pound cake as examples).

Smucker’s Goober peanut butter and grape jelly

After they sniffed and stared at it for a while some of the responses included “Nope, not into that,” “it just takes like pure sugar,” and “Americans like weird things,” and “oh, good God. Did I just eat that?”

Some of their more derogatory comments will be ignored but I must say I’m with them on the grape jelly. That’s certainly something that isn’t popular in Europe. Strawberry and raspberry we can get behind but the sweetness of grape jelly isn’t something I could get used to.

Twinkie

This one they seemed excited about presumable recognizing the sweet treat from movies and TV over the years.

One participant was visibly excited saying “it’s been a long time coming.”

But then after the initial tasting the reactions aren’t so great they included “nice and processed”, “that’s the biggest disappointment.”

The positives were “not bad,” “unbelievable” and “well what do you expect.”

It has to be said that this is an iconic American treat. You only have to look at the national outcry that saw them restored to shop shelves recently. At the same time I’m with them. They’re process and flavorless.

Tootsie roll

This one caused some confusion…well they couldn’t quite figure out what they were eating!

They said “it kind of tastes like nothing,” “it’s like coffee flavored chewing gum”, “I’m kind of a little bit worried it doesn’t tell you if it’s chocolate or gum.”

Again I’m going to side with the Irish tasters. I’ve tasted these a couple of times and I’m still not sure what they are.

Marshmallow fluff

Now I think I’m with them on this one!

To begin with “what the hell is this!” And then “it’s like a sticky mousse” and “why would you put it on sandwiches?”

And to end “you shouldn’t eat that kids.”

And, sorry, but again. The Irish tasters are probably right.

Obviously there are some really great American foods that the Irish should try. What would you put first on the list?