All you need is tea...
Ok, so this may not be considered a traditionally 'foodie' thing to post about, but one thing I have learned from spending extended periods of time on the road and having travelled via number of different methods (planes, trains and automobiles all included), through a number of different countries/continents, is that something that can never be over estimated in it's unfailing simple provision of pleasure is a good cup of tea! On our first trip around South East Asia in 2013, this little cup of happiness proved itself to be harder to come by than I had expected and at times than I was willing to accept!! Over the course of the 9 months that we ventured around I was served a concerningly broad plethora of hot beverages that were classified as 'tea'. Now yes, it is true, under the right conditions I am the epitome of an English tea snob...100 degree boiling water, a PG tips pyramid tea bag, fresh milk and one sugar (and the perfect shaped mug if I'm allowed to be really fussy)! However, on the road I am more than willing to be flexible...Lipton tea is fine, hot milk, powdered milk...heck, coffee whitener would even do. If not whitening agent is available I will put up with black tea and if I have to forgo the sugar I can deal with that too. But even with my liberal attitude to what can consist as tea, I do have my limits!! One such limit reaching occasion occurred when we were visiting Angkor Watt in Cambodia on aforementioned SE Asia trip. We had got up before the crack of dawn in order to go and watch the sunrise over the temple plain (which by the way was incredible) and by about 10am my then girlfriend (now wife) and I were desperate for a morning caffeine fix. Our tuk tuk driver happily informed us that there was a cafe in the centre of the complex that was targeted at tourists and served both tea and coffee. While we usually ignore these sorts of places we jumped at the chance to have a quick hot caffeinated beverage before continuing on our day. We went, and Riv was served a perfectly acceptable instant black coffee. I on the other hand was served an abomination so abhorrent that even recounting this story via keyboard causes my inner tea loving Brit to cringe a little. What I had requested, off the menu might I add, was a hot Lipton tea with milk. What I was served was... Are you ready for this?! A glass beer mug, the bottom third of which was full of a thick layer of condescend milk (with a couple of token dead flies scattered throughout), atop this puddle of condescend joy was what can only be described as warm tap temperature water and to complete this creation a sad little Lipton tea bag, floating on the surface, trying it's very best to do something relating to brewing in this tepid clear liquid! I wanted to cry. I didn't even know what I could do to try and make this 'beverage' acceptable, but this was not the cup of tea I had imagined when the possibility was planted in my head. It was at this point that we made an executive couples decision. As soon as we got back to England (which was only a couple of months later) we were going to buy a travel kettle, and arm ourselves with a supply of teabags. If we could get sugar/milk in any form along the way then that would be a bonus, but the key elements for something that truly resembled tea (hot water and a teabag) would always be there. From the moment we acquired our travel kettle we have never looked back and would never again travel without it, to any county or via any method. It comes with us in our backpacks, it came on the cruise, it is currently with us in our camping car. We now also travel with a packet of sweeteners (as sugar proved to cause some messy problems) and often some powdered milk. Like I said, it's not the tea snobs ideal cuppa, but it feels almost as satisfying at those moments of stress, tiredness or total unreasonable meltdown! The simple pleasure of a cup of hot tea can solve almost any problem...at least for me and it has regularly proved to be the perfect remedy for range of traveller's woes! Morning, noon or night there is nothing quite like a good cup of Rosie Lee (by the way, that tea for you non-Brits out there) to brighten up my day!
0 Comments
Increasingly in the culinary culture around the world there has been a move towards a more all inclusive attitude towards consuming animals. In saying this, I don't mean that more people are doing it, quite the contrary...sometimes it feels like vegetarians are starting to take over (Riv I’m looking at you)!! No, no, in this case I mean using more and more of the animal as a means to create a dish. Historically all parts of the animal were used to make meals, flesh, organs, feet, the lot, but over time we became a world that championed the pure meat and began to marginalise or even completely ignore the less attractive and appealing parts of the animal. This is a trend that, while still present all over the world does not seem to have taken over in quite the same way in parts of Asia, South America and even Europe as I have recently learned. The 'nose-to-tail' craze is not simply a hipster fad in these places but simply the way they have made and continue to make delicious and nutritious traditional food.
On our recent trip to South America I learned that offal and tripe are central parts of most people's meat based diets. Particularly in countries like Perú and Colombia. This is for a number of reasons. Primarily it is just a question of logic, it is there, it is edible, so why wouldn't you eat it?! The second reason is a financial one, with the aforementioned increasing trend towards a desire for only the prime cuts of meat, the price of those has increased massively and accordingly the price of the leftovers has plummeted. Finally, it is fundamentally about the taste and the parts of the animals that have been used in traditional recipes for decades and even centuries. Take Sopa de Mondongo (stomach soup) from Colombia as an example. This is a very traditional Colombian dish and is created simply using tripe from a pig or a cow, dicing it up, mixing it with some vegetables and water and boiling it up. It sounds simple, and that's kind of the point. It easy, it's cheap and it's delicious! In Eastern Europe in countries like Bulgaria and Romania they have a fairly similar tripe soup made using the stomach, off-cuts of the meats and a delicious combination of herbs and spices. However, in this part of the world, offal and tripe are also used as the exclusive meat component of many dishes and could not be substituted for the fancier and more glamorous alternatives as they would just not be the same dish. While in Bulgaria I ate the most wonderful chicken offal stew which contained heart, liver, kidneys, intestines...the lot, and it was absolutely sensational. It's not just in poorer cultures that you can find offal and tripe being thrust into the limelight of widely eaten dishes. It would be no surprise to see a dish containing heart or liver on most of the tapas menus in Spain, or coming off a giant skewer at a Brazilian BBQ restaurant. I even tried the most incredible tripe sausage on a recent trip to Torremaggiore in southern Italy and one of my favourite sandwiches ever was the lampredotto (tripe and gravy) sandwich I had in Florence. Yes, it's true, most of the dishes that contain tripe and offal were traditionally primary features of peasant diets but just because they were peasants did not mean they didn't know flavour!! I know tripe and offal isn't for everyone, sometimes it's a taste thing, sometimes a texture thing and sometimes it's purely and simply psychological. As I am sure you know well, I will try anything once and I have yet to regret an occasion when I took a punt on a local tripe or offal dish anywhere in the world...but that's not to say that it won't happen, I'm realistic about these things. Having said that, here's to many more innard-based delights in the future! It is said, by those wise people that say things, that home is where the heart is and after extensive travelling around a number of countries and continents we have learnt that one circumstance in which this is undoubtedly true is with food. We have all visited those wonderful 'authentic' Thai, Indonesian or French restaurants in our home cities of London, New York, Sydney...wherever really, and marvelled at the plethora of exotic ingredients used to create dishes we can't even pronounce let alone have ever heard of and as a foodie I have always loved doing this myself. As I've said before in this blog, food is a wonderful way to get to know more about a culture and what better way to decide if you think you might like it, than to start with an introduction in a restaurant on the safety of home turf?! Up until a few years ago I had never visited Indonesia before but had sampled some Indonesian fare at a couple of restaurants and honestly I thought it was pretty foul. As far as I was concerned chicken satay was certainly the work of the devil! Why take a perfectly tasty stick of nicely barbecued chicken and then schemer it with spicy peanut butter?!! Or take some beautifully steamed fish and add so much chilli that you are fairly sure the roof of your mouth has been entirely stripped bare and you can actually now feel your skull with your tongue on the inside of your mouth! I ask you, honestly!! Then in 2015, my lovely wife took me to Bali for my birthday and obviously being us, we sampled a lot of Indonesian food while we were there. It turns out that satay sauce is actually delicious and doesn't taste like spicy peanut butter at all! Equally the cramp inducing chilli heat of many other Indonesian sauces I had sampled in the past turned out to be a terrible bastardisation of what were actually beautifully well balanced tangy, sweet and spiced condiments. This phenomenon works equally as notably when considering foods we do like. To put a case in point, on our recent trip to Greece, Riv and I bought some taramasalata and tzatziki from a supermarket. Not a fancy expensive brand or something from a traditional food market, just your bog standard supermarket quality tubs of dips to go with some breadsticks! Both of these dips turned out to be the best examples either of us had ever eaten before, from supermarkets, delis, restaurants...anywhere! The absolute perfect forms of two such simple culinary creations. It was at this point that we discovered after some discussion that this wasn't the first time we had had an experience like this on the road. There were endless times we could recall having 'food epiphanies' why sampling local fare around the world. Pad Thai in Thailand, sausages in Germany, poutine in Canada...(I didn't say it always had to be nutritious food!) Obviously with some dishes in some places it is about having access to the exact right ingredients, rather than a like-minded substitute or one that has travelled thousands of miles to appear in the show. Sometimes it is about having it prepared following the right methods, or with the right equipment or even made by the right person. But fundamentally, I have come to the belief that a dish or a condiment or indeed even an ingredient in it's natural home, where it's heart is really can make all the difference to the taste! Call me corny if you like, but for me, there's nothing quite like having authentic regional food in it's home rather than yours! Here's a small selection of our favouritesJust before we arrived in Barcelona I sent out a message to all my fellow travellers asking for recommendations of things to do in this fine city. I was quickly provided with a plethora of great suggestions ranging from explorations of the stunning Gothic quarter, to seeking out any number of Gaudi's architectural creations or leisurely walks down the famous ramblas! Everyone had something different to add to contribute to our time in Barcelona but one particular thing featured in almost every reply...you have to eat tapas and drink Sangria. So, unsurprisingly, being us, that was almost the first thing we did. Upon strong recommendation from a friend, our chosen spot for this Spanish gastronomic delight was a little traditional place in the city called La Bombeta. It was a choice well made. Obviously there are an abundance of similar locations throughout the city (in certain places you literally find nothing else but tapas restaurants!), but this one was a little bit special. Very traditional, very authentic, packed full of locals and a team of slightly disinterested staff who always seemed busier doing...not a whole lot...rather than actually serving customers.
Once we had actually been seated and given menus the fun was ready to begin. Quite honestly, there was almost nothing on the menu that didn't sound delicious and there was certainly nothing coming out of the kitchen and being served to other tables that didn't require a huge amount of self control not to lean over and delve into myself! Having studied the menu in great detail we set about ordering our feast, much to the shock of the waiter who couldn't believe how much was being requested for two people. In fact, after getting only two thirds of the way through our chosen dishes he actually stopped me...a decision he later regretted when he was simply required to return to our table to take additional orders on a further two occasions! After the arrival of a sizeable jug of Sangria, complete with delicious slices of alcohol soaked fruit, the tapas onslaught ensued. Plate after plate of glorious fresh, baked and fried delights arrived at our table each accompanied by or smothered in some form of dreamy sauce, seasoned to perfection or simply drizzled in the tastiest olive oil either of us had tasted in a long time! Escalivada, patatas bravas, pimentos de padron, alcachofas a la plancha, champinones al la plancha, nuestras tomate, pescadito frito, mejoillones a la marinara, albondigas con sepia...there was a lot of food! Meat, fish, vegetables, we sampled the lot and none of it disappointed and neither did the perfect accompaniment of the Sangria. For us this was the absolute epitome of Spanish gastronomy at it's best. Wonderful fresh ingredients, prepared simply and traditionally with that special little something that only comes from having national dishes created on their home soil! There is so much to do and see in Barcelona you could easily spend two weeks or more just wandering around and exploring. Regardless of what your interests are you will undoubtedly be able to find something that leaves you in awe of this wonderful city. And one thing I can almost guarantee will blow your mind is the tapas and the Sangria! I now completely understand these two featuring on every recommendation list I received. You cannot leave Spain without sampling some tapas and washing it down with at least one (jug of) sangria. Raclette - The only answer to all the cheesy dreams you haveFrance…land of all things delightfully indulgent about food; rich sauces, decadent deserts, hearty regional delights guaranteed to make your tastebuds sing and your heart stop! This great country presents a unique culinary hurdle for my wife being a vegetarian. Throughout our time on the road, she has become accustomed to the universal misconception that certain meats ‘don’t count’ and is often required to remove unwanted animal additions from meals. However, in France it appears that the idea of being a vegetarian is about as comprehensible as complex astrophysics or the offside rule! How and indeed why would you opt to eat a meal without meat…?! This attitude on the surface would appear to be almost prohibitively problematic for a vegetarian visiting France were it not for one very significant saving grace…cheese! This countrywide obsession continually provides my darling wife with ample sustenance and very little chance of monotonous repetition as this country boasts over 1000 varieties of the stuff!
One of her favourite types of cheese actually originated in Switzerland but is widely enjoyed by the French and is called raclette. Raclette refers to both the variety of the cheese and the dish in which it is used as a whole. Since discovering this dish some three years ago on her first visit to France it has been right up there on the top of her list of favourites. Unfortunately our ability to recreate it outside of France is distinctly hindered by the limited accessibility of both the right equipment for preparation and the right cheese! As a result of this notably sporadic enjoyment of one of her favourites it became of primary importance to acquire as soon as possible after arriving in France. And so it was done… In and of itself raclette is a fairly uninspiring and plain cheese compared to some of the weird and wonderful varieties available in France, however, it’s not so much about the cheese on it’s own but the method of preparation and consumption. Traditionally the cheese would be hung in front of an open fire to slowly soften, and as it did so, strips would be cut off and then eaten with potatoes, cured meats, breads and pickles. The accompaniments to the melted cheese have remained the same, however modern culture has developed the rather more practical cheese melting method in the form of an electric hotplate. Nowadays you can simply slice small squares of raclette and then place them on a small tray under the heating elements to slowly and dreamily liquefy. Once it is sufficiently melted the cheese is then added to your side dish of choice and voila! It may sound uninspiringly simply but the result is something pretty special. I’m not sure it would have exactly the same appeal with a slice of melted cheddar on a piece of supermarket sliced white bread and a piece of luncheon meat, but with a nice fresh crusty baguette and some delicately cured ham or locally grown heirloom French tomatoes it definitely takes on a more delectable form! I don’t think this can be described as being an example of one of France’s top dishes, nor would it make the list of most nutritionally valuable, however, it is certainly delicious and something which should definitely be tried on a visit to France. Bon appetit! |
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
Categories
All
|