My experience in Europe was if you went to a random restaurants it was better than the US (3-4.3 stars on yelp). But the good restaurants (4.5+) weren't any better. And there's a ton of great food in the south. New Orleans, Atlanta, Houston all have great food scenes.

The American south is known for gardens. They have pretty good food quality if they want it. Many of them do not cook very good food, but they have plenty of ability to get it if they want. Which is to say for some reason more in the South do not value food quality, but for those who do they get it.

I suspect that’s true. My point is that Americans are pretty transparent about what they value and are successful at achieving their own metrics.