The Internet is always hungry. And lately it's been feasting on the viral news of a cheeseburger-stuffed pizza served by United Arab Emirate branches of Pizza Hut. Delicious? Of course. Healthy? Who cares!? First described by the food blog Serious Eats, the pizza features nubs on the edge of the crust stuffed with mini-cheeseburgers and a topping of cheeseburgers, Thousand Island dressing, cheese, lettuce, and tomato. The almost ludicrously Simpsons-esque (lobsters stuffed with tacos?) aspects of the pizza are muted by the fact that the United States has done similar things to Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican cuisine just to name a few. When American corporations and American brands travel overseas, they need to cater to local tastes and prejudices in order to remain profitable. For fast food brands, this means creating foods that would seem outlandish to American customers--or even, in McDonald's case, opening cafes serving extensive menus of espresso-based drinks. This is not unlike firms in other industries adapting to the local environment; how else do you explain software companies creating an entirely new corporate culture when offshoring work to Eastern Europe or India? Fast Company, in fact, recently examined the change in corporate culture that happened when Toll House Cookies entered the Middle Eastern market. However, looking at corporate strategy flowcharts isn't as fun as looking at sexed-up shots of melted cheese. Or what happens when Taco Bell goes to India. Here is a menu's worth of the most ambitious foreign fast food creations out there.

Pizza Hut restaurants in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere in the Middle East are currently serving a special "Cheese Burger Crown Crust Pizza" with sliders embedded in a crust surrounding a ground beef, cheese, Thousand Island, tomato, and lettuce pizza. Serious Eats' Arva Ahmed called the mini-burgers on the pizza " grayish-brown patties with a translucent veneer of cheesy grease." Other versions offer a cream cheese-stuffed crust.

In India, Taco Bell sells American-style Mexican food tweaked for subcontinental taste buds. One of their menu's trademark items is the Potato & Paneer Burrito: A Taco Bell burrito with fried potato chunks, paneer (fresh Indian cheese), nacho cheese sauce, rice, and salsa. Due to the subcontinent's religious restrictions, the only fillings are paneer, potato, beans, and chicken.

As any stunned American backpacker will tell you, French McDonald's restaurants serve McBeer. They also recently introduced McBaguettes: Oblong hamburger patties topped with Emmental cheese, arugula, and mustard sauce on a convection oven'd baguette. McDonald's France VP Nawfal Trabelsi told France 24 that the Gallicized burger was an attempt at local "integration" for the chain.

For foreign markets with a more highly developed cafe culture than the United States, McDonald's deploys their McCafe brand--which often offers local foods intended to go well with espresso-based drinks. In Brazil, this means a fast food rendition of pão de queijo, the country's beloved cheesy bread.

Montreal's fast food gift to the world is poutine: French fries drenched in gravy and cheese curds. (A dish so wonderful that Calvin Trillin once wrote a whole story about it.) These genetically superior relatives of cheese fries have become popular throughout Canada and can be found on the menus of Burger King, McDonald's, and Wendy's.

[Image: Flickr user Colros]

Pizza--which originally gained popularity as an American adaptation of an Italian food--has become even stranger as it's migrated to far-flung corners of the world. Domino's Pizza locations in Malaysia offer a pizza topped with sambal (spicy chili sauce), shredded chicken, anchovies, chili peppers, onions, and cheese. Owing to the country's Muslim sensibilities, pizzas use beef pepperoni instead.

When Denny's opened branches in New Zealand, they had to adapt to the lamb-heavy New Zealand diet. This meant offering roast lamb as an all-you-can-eat special at most branches; the menu also offers nasi goreng (Indonesian fried rice) and meat pies.

Pakistani KFC locations offer the usual chicken-based meals that can be found in the States, along with an assortment of deep-fried sandwiches. However, their crowning glory is the Rice n' Spice: A biryani dish of rice cooked with spicy chili chicken.

As any New Yorker who has ordered a pizza burger deluxe at their local diner knows, mozzarella cheese tastes delicious on a burger. McDonald's Italy took this a step forward with their Mozzarillo: A hamburger topped with mozzarella cheese, lettuce and basil-tomato mayonnaise on a focaccia bun.