From Canada I've never met anybody who hated poutine, although it's almost impossible to find vegetarian unless you make it yourself. Maple syrup is also much beloved although whether that's a food or an ingredient might be open to interpretation

For something more divisive I look at the lobster roll, or probably just lobster in particular. The traditional recipe comes from a time when lobsters were still poverty food, and it's literally just lobster, mayo, and lettuce served on a hotdog bun. It became popular in fancy-ish restaurants and tourist traps and costs far more than it should. The simplicity of the recipe does little to hide that a lobster is a sea bug, although the flip side is that simple food is often really quite good and homey.

Honorary mention goes to dulse, a type of seaweed. This one's a fairly popular tourist export along the coast, and while I do like a nori or roasted seaweed, I think this shit is nasty. Although I suppose the tradition is to eat it raw so I've never tried cooking with it, it certainly left an impression that scared me off of it

In New York, pizza is both the most beloved and the most divisive.

We'll argue for hours about who makes the best. The oregano question alone has taken dozens of lives over the decades.

Stroopwafels are the generally accepted goat Dutch foodstuff.

Divisive would be either raw brined herring eaten like this:

Or the myriad of licorice types in our candy stores:

Swedish meatballs and surströmming (fermented herring).

Southeast Pennsylvania has a number of unique foods.

For the wider population, our most famous food that people enjoy is the Philly cheesesteak, thinly shaved ribeye steak, grilled on a flat top, with American (or preferably sharp provolone) melted either on top or mixed in, on a long Italian roll. Sounds pretty basic, but the ribeye keeps the meat tender and juicy with its fat content, and the proper roll balances the taste and texture correctly, and I think that local roll is the key, and what makes a tasty cheesesteak hard to find once you get too far from the area.

Most divisive is scrapple, which was traditionally a mix of leftover cuts of meat and organs ("everything but the squeal") of the pig, thickened with cornmeal, and formed into a loaf that looks like a meaty slab of uncured cement. Grilled up proper, it looks somewhat like a square hand formed sausage, but it's the grey mystery meat story that keeps people away. I was tortured too much by the story by taunting relatives as a kid, so I still don't eat this, but my wife and brother love it.

For local foods from my culture, the Pennsylvania Dutch have given us way more odd foods than just scrapple!

My favorite is shoo fly pie. This reminds me of my grammom every time I think of it! 🥰 It is a molasses pie (though our family uses table syrup for a more delicate flavor) that has a bottom treacle type layer and a cakey top layer, topped with crumbs like on a struesel/coffee cake. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else, but for Funny Cake, another PA Dutch pie, which is essentially a chocolate syrup/vanilla cake version of shoo fly. Both good, and local markets will sell a half/half version where you get half a shoo fly and half a funny cake together (cut and repackaged, not baked together).

The divisive food that is still pretty common is Lebanon bologna. It is a cured, smoked, and fermented beef bologna. Very smokey and a bit sour, it can be a strange combo to the uninitiated, and is also available in a sweet version, and even that sweet vs regular can be a matter of contention among fans.

There are a lot more odd PA Dutch foods like stuffed pig stomach, souse, our pot pie that is actually a soup, ham balls, but that stuff you generally have to seek out anymore.

divisive in korea: Cheonggukjang. made with fermented soybeans, kinda smells bad.. but it tastes pretty good once you try.

Divisive in HK: Durian or fermented tofu.

Battered mars bar

Well we have a whole festival for šaltibarščiai, so that is probably the most beloved...

And most divisive.. maybe šaltiena, or kruvainė. I mean šaltiena feels more common out of the 2, especially for this kind of divisive food debate, but kruvainė is one I know many people refuse to even entertain the idea of trying

Beloved: Pizza

Divisive: Pizza with pineapple on it

BBQ

Japan, there is this trope of the perfect home cooked meal being curry, that katsu type stuff and how it's a lucky husband that has a wife ready with it when he gets home. Its just fucking stock cubes? I don't get it.

For divisive its either natto, yet another variation on fermented soy beans, or umeboshi, a pickled plum sort of thing.