Europeans in any given area do their local food - whatever it is - very, very, very well. They've been making it for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, and enjoying whatever the local specialties happen to be is a huge part of getting to know the local culture. However, outside of the bigger cities there is typically very little diversity in what you can find outside of the local fare. If you spend any time at all in a place you'll eventually want something else, and most of us live in places here in the US where we enjoy many different types of food so we miss it at times. I can't get Vietnamese or Mexican for love or money in southern Portugal and was very pleased to find a Thai restaurant in Tavira that was at least a vague shadow of what I can eat in Seattle (for some reason Tavira has several good Indian restaurants and a new Indian grocery). Amazing as they are, you can't just live on sardinhas, bacalhau, or lulas for every meal.