Trying traditional/local foods on our travels is a bit of a consistent pass time of mine when we are on the road. Sometimes this involves going to a local restaurant and ordering some kind of pre researched (often indecipherable) local concoction off the menu. On occasion it is a simple a picking up a local ingredient like a fruit or vegetable in a market. And sometimes this just involves going to a supermarket or convenience store and grabbing a chocolate bar or an usual flavour of crisps (I can tell you from experience salmon is not a flavour that should ever have been developed)!
Anyway, I digress, on a recent trip to Germany I was informed by a local who we met at a campground that a speciality of the region that we simply must try before leaving was 'leberkäse'. Now I'm not going to claim that my German is by any means fluent but I was fairly certain that this directly translated as liver cheese. Not one to be put off by something that seemed a rather odd combination I enquired about the exact contents and was proudly informed by aforementioned local that this particular creation contained neither liver nor cheese. In fact it is something of a meatloaf and pate hybrid consisting of ground corned beef, pork and bacon, no liver or cheese in site! There are variants of this dish that do contain either one or both of the entitled elements but in order to be classified as traditional leberkäse, this is by no means a stipulation! How odd! Having sampled this rather etymologically confused food I can report back and say that it is by no means unpleasant, but not something I will be rushing to sample again or indeed to recreate in my own kitchen at any future date. It did however set me to thinking about the amount of things that we eat under the guise of one name that are, in fact, not culinarily connected to their signifier at all... Brazil nuts are not nuts, hamburgers contain no ham and one would hope that the hot dogs we know and love are not excessively warm breeds of our favourite canine buddies cruelly shoved into a long bun and served with mustard and ketchup! I am aware that in all of these cases there is a historical and or geographical connection to the name, and none are quite as obscure as leberkäse, but to quote a rather famous Manolo Blahnik fan, "later that day I got to thinking..." how many foods do we consume that are sneakily hiding under the assumed name of something else all but entirely unrelated...?!
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Follow us on Instagram or send us a messageAbout Foodie FridaysWe love food, as most people do! And when we are on the road this doesn't change. We, like many people, believe that food is one of the best ways to really get to know a culture and it's people, as so much about the way people live their lives around the world is centred around food. This means that when we travel we actively seek out the local foods and delicacies. Sometimes that comes in the form of unusual and exotic produce from markets and sometimes from street food vendors serving an array of barbecued, fried, steamed or entirely indistinguishable goodies. Having tried and tested these goodies for some time now, on our adventures around Asia, Europe, North and South America we have discovered some pretty wonderful treats that we have decided should earn a bit of publicity. So, as the working week drifts away and the weekend winks at you like a naughty temptress we will share with you one of the delights that we have encountered from around the world! We hope you enjoy reading about these as much as we enjoyed eating them! Archives
October 2017
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