Alternate cusines

It might be intresting if Christianity would ban pork.

Or then pig never become dirty animal in Middle Eastern cultures.
 
Pasta never gets popular in Italy (or, even if it does gets there, it remains a fairly niche regionalist delicacy). This by itself changes a lot. I shiver just to imagine this dystopian hellscape without pizza or lasagna.

Alternate beverage preferences can be conceived too perhaps. Beer or wine being more popular in Russia or (vice-versa) vodka effectively penetrating into Germanic Scandinavia are interesting possibilities. Or Asiatic rice-based beverages gain traction in the Americas (in Brazil this could work perhaps. Nowadays we have a large consumption of sake).
 
Pasta never gets popular in Italy (or, even if it does gets there, it remains a fairly niche regionalist delicacy). This by itself changes a lot. I shiver just to imagine this dystopian hellscape without pizza or lasagna.

Alternate beverage preferences can be conceived too perhaps. Beer or wine being more popular in Russia or (vice-versa) vodka effectively penetrating into Germanic Scandinavia are interesting possibilities. Or Asiatic rice-based beverages gain traction in the Americas (in Brazil this could work perhaps. Nowadays we have a large consumption of sake).

It is thought that the rising popularity of pasta in Italy was responsible for the widespread adoption of the fork, a previously known but little used tool in Europe. So no pasta might mean European cuisine is vastly different as the food culture is developed for the utensil.

Similarly people say Indians don’t use utensils. But actually the naan bread is the utensil for eating stews. That meant the bread had to be a certain shape. If the Indians had adopted fork or chopsticks, the bread would be allowed to take on more varied forms.
 
It is thought that the rising popularity of pasta in Italy was responsible for the widespread adoption of the fork, a previously known but little used tool in Europe. So no pasta might mean European cuisine is vastly different as the food culture is developed for the utensil.

Similarly people say Indians don’t use utensils. But actually the naan bread is the utensil for eating stews. That meant the bread had to be a certain shape. If the Indians had adopted fork or chopsticks, the bread would be allowed to take on more varied forms.

That's similar to how in Ethiopia the injera is used as a utensil for the wat.
 
Not quite cuisine, but I can imagine yaupon (Ilex vomitoria) taking off as the patriotic drink of choice in the young United States. While it is initially slow to catch on in the rest of the world, it becomes popular during the alt-world wars, when it is drunk by American servicemen in Europe and becomes popular since it isn't rationed like tea or coffee.
 
Furthermore: let's consider the potato dumpling, America's snack of choice. While it will always be a point of contention whether they should be called pyzy, cepelinai, kroppkakor or Kartoffelklöße, there's no denying that you can find them anywhere -- from global chain restaurants like Kowalski's, to the street corner carts with their big vats of meat-filled potato dumplings and various condiments.
 
Abrahamic cultures see cattle solely as draft and transportation animals too valuable to kill and eat a la vedic cultures, and mutton and poultry would have even bigger influences. This could have tremendous butterflies, as with less cattle being bred for food, this would mean pastoralism is reduced, and the general trend of anthropogenic climate change over history is slower.

A US president adopts a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, and the rest of the US decides to follow suit.

To help with labour, Canada never passes the Chinese Immigration Acts, leading to more Chinese immigrants in the country who pass their recipes on.
 
Turks never rise, keeping their cuisine in central asia. This also keeps Byzantium potent enough to maintain eastern trade, so greek and west indian foods are more connected
 
Chinese colonization of Mexico in the 1400s yields avocado, chili and tomatillo congee, a frothy chocolate-matcha drink, and char siu on tortillas de masa.
 
Abbasid invasion popularize couscous in Central Asia, it then spreads to East Asia where it becomes an alternative to rice.

The tagine is adopted by the people of Al-Andalus. This method of cooking is spread the world over by both the Spanish and Portuguese Empires.

The Soviets decide to take the Cold War up a notch and takes on Coco-Cola with bottled kvass. They invent a Communist cooking recipe book promoting the use of kvass in everything, including sauteing sausages, glazing ham, marinade for meats, roasting potatoes, ingredient in soups and pasta sauce. Yuri Gagarin is famously photographed drinking kvass in space. All Combloc countries are required to import an annual quota of Soviet kvass.
 
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