I'm aware that sushi ran into difficulties in the US due to attitudes towards the Japanese. Were there negative or hostile reactions to Mexican or Italian cuisine? What about the spread of curry in Britain?
There was a period of time during WWI where people did not want to eat sauerkraut, to the point that sauerkraut dealers were shocked to suddenly find themselves sitting on nearly 400 tons of the stuff. The dealers even asked the federal food board to consider rebranding it as "liberty cabbage" to make it sell better.