At one time or another I’m sure we have all had an occasion when what we wanted and what we got in terms of food did not exactly align! Sometimes this can be the result of misreading a menu in a restaurant, or actually being served something you didn’t order. Sometimes a dish can be described one way and actually appear on the plate completely different. Sometimes, it can be an entirely self-inflicted error on your own part. As a traveller ‘mystery meals’ can occasionally become a fairly common feature of my weekly diet. Whether this is due to not speaking enough of a language to understand a menu or because we have chosen to eat somewhere where there is in fact no choice at all, they serve...lunch! Most of the time I find this game a lot of fun, if not always satisfying or tasty.
Over the last 7 years I have been to a lot of countries and tried a lot of weird and wonderful (and sometimes not so wonderful) foods...puffin in Iceland and pacay in South America were two brilliant discoveries, while pickled whale blubber, also from Iceland and bull’s penis in Malaysia were two things I would certainly not go back for a second time! The mystery meals phenomenon can also extend to food purchased from a supermarket. As a long term traveller you learn that you cannot nor do you really want to eat out for every single meal. And every so often it’s nice to buy produce from a supermarket and have a better idea of exactly what is going into your meal...or so you would think! At this stage you are not doubt expecting some humorous anecdote about a time I was in some South East Asian country and bought a kilo of snake when I meant to buy chicken...or something along those lines. Alas that is not going to be the case. To date, after nearly 8 years of living away from my country of origin and spending a reasonable proportion of that in non-English speaking countries, my most notable and embarrassing supermarket based food mishap occurred in Australia! Let me paint a picture for you. It was 2010, I had been in Sydney for 3 days, I was on my own and I was due to be studying for the following six weeks while living in a self catering unit in a city suburb. For the three days prior to this I had been eating out and living on take-aways, but my bank balance and my waistline both knew this was not sustainable. On that basis I took myself off to the supermarket to acquire some household basics...bread, milk, cheese, veg etc etc. Arriving at the supermarket, acquiring all this seemed pretty simple, although I was slightly overwhelmed by the variety of milks on offer when I had come from a world of blue, green or red...suddenly I was faced with calcium enriched, A2, soy, rice, almond...it was all a bit much, but I did managed to find something that advertised itself as simply...milk! This plethora of option had exhausted me a little by the time I reached the canned food aisle where I intended to buy some tuna to go in sandwiches for school. Again, in the UK at the time they choices were pretty basic, tuna in sunflower oil, brine or spring water...that was pretty much it! Here, I was totally thrown...sweet chilli tuna, lemon and herb, Mediterranean style, Mexican style, Indian style...I just wanted tuna. I spent about 15mins wandering wearily up and down the canned food aisle trying to find just TUNA. I had almost given up and resigned myself to tuna sandwiches complete with a sombrero or with a side of onion bahjis when at the very end of the aisle I spotted a very plain looking can with a fish emblazoned on it that simply read ‘tuna’. “Finally!!” I thought, and quickly grabbed six cans, threw them into my trolley and almost hurtled myself to the check out to pay so I could finally end this unnecessarily stressful and complicated shopping experience. After arriving home feeling slightly exhausted but also reasonably satisfied with myself I unpacked and then decided to make myself a cup of tea (with MILK) and a well earned tuna sandwich (with TUNA). Kettle was boiling, tea bag was in mug, bread was out, cucumber was sliced, opened tuna to reveal...CAT FOOD! “What?! Huh?! How had this happened?!!!!” I checked the cab again and it did indeed have a fish on it and I confirmed it read in rather large letters ‘TUNA’. What had missed my attention in my over excitement at finding just tuna was the slightly smaller letter underneath it that read ‘Cat Food’. Since when does cat food not have a picture of some dopey and over excited looking cat on the side of it...or a very least a cat’s head?! Felix, Whiskers, Friskies...all cat foods...all with CATS on the tin! It’s the same with dog food, Pedigree Chum, Chow...all proudly sport pictures of happy and healthy looking DOGS! Now take yourself on a mental journey down a canned food aisle at think about what you see on the side of canned fish...yes, yes, you can see it can’t you, it’s a fish! Now I know that dog food doesn’t contain dog meat and cat food doesn’t contain cat meat, but this is a norm we have all become accustomed to in supermarkets. Why did the Aussies have to go ahead and flip that upside down?! And also, what was cat food doing in the canned food aisle...what happened to a pet food section?! At this stage I was faced with a bit of a dilemma, I had no tuna, 6 cans of cat food and no cat!! Did I simply leave the cat food at home and return to the supermarket and buy tuna, or did I take it back and explain that I was clearly painfully under-prepared for this ‘adulting’ madness and had accidentally purchased half a dozen cans of cat food when I didn’t in fact have a cat and wanted to exchange it for the more human friendly ACTUAL tuna alternative. (I just want to clarify for those of you who may be wondering, at no point did I consider consuming the cat food, I wasn’t that desperate!) After reasonably extensive consideration I chose to just take the five remaining cans back, explain my idiocy and see if they took pity on the clearly completely stupid little British newbie. Suffice it to say my return and explanation induced nearly paralytic levels of hilarity in the supermarket employee to whom I spoke but did eventually result in her happily arranging an exchange of goods. So there you have it 8 years away from my native land, 50 countries visited, multiple social, cultural and linguistic barriers and hurdles to negotiate and I made my greatest error at a supermarket about 20minutes outside of Sydney city centre in Australia! Well done Dani! Please tell me I’m not the only one out there who has made a stupid and embarrassing supermarket shopping error along the journey of life?! I can’t be the only one...can I?! Feel free to share with the world your tales of miscommuncatory error...sharing is caring people, sharing is caring!
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As a Brit I have grown up with a less than inspired relationship with sandwiches. Whilst these are fairly common place as parts of our diets, especially as a quick and easy lunch option, they aren’t really something we take particular pride or distinct interest. We’ve got a few staple fillings that we know and love...cheese and pickle, BLT, tuna mayo...but none of these really set the world alight! They are more tried and tested favourites rather than anything that would really get us salavating.
This is not a trend that I can say I have experienced to be true around the world. In fact, certain countries and cultures take such pride in their varieties of the humble sandwich they have almost been elevated to national dish status! Take the bánh mì in Vietnam for example. Whilst there are an extraordinary variety of alternatives, the traditional sandwich starts with a freshly cooked crusty baguette spread with pork liver pate and generously filled with sliced pork, grated carrot and sliced cucumber and topped with pork floss. Bánh mì vendors are found on every street corner in every city throughout the country and they take this sandwich seriously! A carelessly prepared, under filled or poor quality version of this sandwich would not be accepted! Any talk of culinary institution status sandwiches would be absolutely incomplete without the inclusion of the world famous Reuben sandwich! Personally I believe this to be a sandwich like no other!! Practically perfect in every way! The exact origin of this dreamy creation is contested but all agree it comes from some form of American Jewish background. Essentially very basic in terms of it’s content, five ingredients are impeccably combined in a precise flavour balance to create the classic Reuben! Warm corned beef, sauerkraut, melted Swiss cheese and Russian dressing are enclosed between two slices of rye bread...done. Surprisingly simple and unbelievably good! Accept no substitutes...the original is the best! One final sandwich that I believe deserves a mention is the Philly Cheesesteak. This sandwich actually started it’s life as a temporary alternative to a hotdog but was met with such a positive reception that it stuck! Again, it’s fairly simple to create...an amoroso roll is stuffed with thinly sliced rib eye steak and topped with melted provolone cheese. Simple it may be, but Philadelphians are very serious about it! When acquiring a cheesesteak from one of the many vendors located around the city you must have you ordering lingo prepared...”prov” will get you the traditional steak and cheese combo, while “Swiss with” will get you steak, Swiss cheese and onions on your roll. Brave (or stupid) is the man who enters a vendor and advances to the counter before knowing exactly what they want and how to ask for it. It will probably come as no surprise for you to learn that I have tried all of these sandwiches and I have loved them all! They are not sandwiches I could eat everyday...not least because I probably wouldn’t live very long if I did...but they are certainly sandwiches with a significant level of culinary clout. And one thing they all have in common...they have definitely made me look at the old BLT with less of an admiring eye! There are few British cultural traditions from which I gain any pleasure or in which I have any interest at all, however, one that I am more than happy to indulge in is possibly one of the most traditional and truly British of them all…cream tea!
The fundamental content of a British tea couldn’t be simpler. A cup of tea, a scone, clotted cream and strawberry jam! Obviously there are variations on this classic combination including using whipped cream as a simple and cheap substitute to the far superior clotted version, or mixing it up with a different type of jam. Personally, being a creature with a small aversion to change in the things I know to be good a certain way, I find it difficult to sway from convention…but on the right day and under the right circumstances I can be convinced to go with a good quality homemade raspberry jam instead. That is absolutely as far from the norm as I am comfortable to push myself. One aspect of this age-old British classic that does divide those that choose to partake pertains to perhaps the most banal feature of the construction…which goes on the scone first…the cream or the jam?! This may seem like an insignificant and potentially even irrelevant question but it is one that divides a nation. For a Devonian cream tea, tradition states that one must begin with the cream and crown this with a dollop of jam. The Cornish alternative prefers jam topped with a generous spoon cream. Interesting…or perhaps not so much! To add more controversy to this incredibly important (irrelevant) debate the earliest documented references to cream tea are sited from Devon, thus suggesting that the more traditional preparation of this painfully traditional British classic would be the Devonian cream and then jam method! HOWEVER, since this tradition has become a bit of a phenomenon and one which tourists delight in in tearooms the world over it is actually the Cornish method of jam and then cream that has reigned supreme! Should a visitor to London choose to go for afternoon tea at any of the cities wonderfully old school English establishments and ask what the best way to serve their cream tea would be the answer will almost unquestionably be…the jam and then the cream. So there you have it, the pointless question that divides a nation. Whilst sipping your cup of English breakfast tea, served in a pot and consumed out of a bone china cup complete with saucer, should you delicately place a hearty serving of clotted cream on your lovely warm fresh baked scone and then apply the sweet and delightful strawberry jam or should you start with the jam and the complete the masterful creation with a spoon of cream?! The decision is yours and yours alone! Personally, I’m not really fussed! As long as all of the elements are there and they taste good my affiliation to either Devon or Cornwall is of little importance, just give me the scone, cream and jam and I am a happy camper! Previous image was deleted as it was not my own - Credit to https://www.ketogenicsupplementreviews.com/ (this company is not related to our blog)I was asked today what my favourite cuisine was and funnily enough this is not a question I get asked all that regularly, nor is it a question for which I had an instant answer. I like a lot of foods and more generally, I like lots of food! I thought about it for a while and decided that the best way to come to a conclusion would be to think about what my favourite dishes are…okay…Spaghetti Bolognese (Italian), Dim Sum (Chinese), Pad Thai (Thai), Sashimi (Japanese), BBQ Ribs (American), Sunday Roast (English), Goan Fish Curry (Indian)…this is by no means a list that contains all of my favourite dishes, but they are a selection of the first few that came to my mind and made my little theory of using my favourite dishes to answer the question suddenly seem pretty useless! Like I said, I like food!
Clearly I had to approach this little conundrum from another angle…so I posed myself another question, if I had to eat one thing for every meal for the rest of my life what would it be?! The answer to this question came almost instantly…salmon! Okay, second part of the question…how would I prepare the salmon?! Sashimi (Japanese)…no wait en croûte (French)…oh but I love blackened (Cajun)…but I couldn’t live without smoked (Norwegian/Scottish/Canadian)! This was clearly another completely futile line of thinking. So I concluded, maybe I don’t have a favourite cuisine overall! I have favourite dishes from different cuisines and I have a favourite food that I like cooked a range of ways from a lot of different culture’s cuisines but I don’t think I can categorically say that I have a favourite cuisine exclusively! Is that weird? Maybe I am just too indecisive or too flaky to make such and rash commitment. Maybe I have tried so many things in so many places that the choice is just too hard to limit so severely. Or maybe, just maybe, I like food just a little bit too much and I am a dedicated glutton who couldn’t possibly restrict myself to just one option when it comes to the culinary smörgåsbord (see…there’s another one, Swedish) that is the world’s offering of stomach filling delights! But I’m still willing to pose the question to you…what’ Most of the Foodie Friday posts thus far have been descriptions of local dishes that I have tried along my travels or something related to my experiences of eating a range of foods in a range of different countries. At the moment we are actually having a small rest bite from constantly being on the move and are settled in England. One thing that we miss greatly when being on the road is actually being able to cook for ourselves as this forms such an important part of our daily lives when we are living ‘normal’ lives. Since we have been back in England and had access to a real kitchen we have taken full advantage, cooking up some of our favourite treats as well as experimenting with a couple of new things. One of the banes and the beauties of trying to cook new dishes is the unknown element of preparing something new and just how far you can go with adapting a recipe in order to fit your personal preferences. Fortunately, more often than not both Riv and I get away with the minor alterations as we have a fairly decent idea of what ingredients are in dishes as a necessity and what can be substituted or omitted. This is a result of the fact that both of us would consider ourselves to be fairly decent and knowledgeable cooks. However, that being said, there are certain things that in spite of our knowledge and experience of food and cooking we find almost impossible to master. What I find most amusing about this is that in our case, and those of others I have spoken to about this, these are often shockingly easy culinary tasks! Ask my wife to prepare some kind of massively complicated multiple layer cake with a variety of fillings, frostings and decorations and she will get it on point nearly every time. Alternatively, she is also incredibly adept at lovingly and intricately slicing, dicing and chopping a range of Asian ingredients in order to prepare the most beautifully balanced homemade dim sum steamed dumpling filling. However, ask my darling spouse to prepare popcorn, in any form (microwave, stove heated, air-popped) and she is almost guaranteed to serve you up a bowl of black popcorn shaped charcoal bits! Personally my kitchen roadblock comes in the form of eggs. Not all eggs might I add, but probably the easiest of all the cooking methods. I can fry eggs, I can poach them, I make a pretty good omelette and courtesy of a Heston Blumenthal trick I make what have been described by more than one person as the best scrambled eggs in the world! But can I soft boil an egg? Never! However hard I try, whatever methods I follow, one of two things always happens, it is either hard boiled or I crack the top to reveal a gooey opaque and lukewarm raw egg! I have actually reached the stage now where I am starting to believe I will never be able to master this unfeasibly easy skill and might just as well give up and stick to what I know! Maybe that sounds defeatist but after as many soft boiled eggy fails as I have had I’m just not sure I’m willing to waste any more time or any more eggs! As I’ve said, I’m not the only person I know who has this one simple method or dish that they just cant master, it seems to be a trend amongst many a cooking enthusiast but that doesn’t really solve to ease my frustration around soft boiled eggs or Riv’s repeated stress when faced with a popcorn preparation situation! What’s your cooking black hole? Where do you face the challenge of whipping up something ridiculously simple and feeling like it is comparable to teaching yourself Japanese using a German dictionary?! Share your tales of trouble and strife in the safety of the ‘Foodie Friday’ family!!
I am very much a believer as a traveller in the idea of ‘when in Rome do as the Romans do’, and more to the point, as a foodie, eat as the Romans eat! As I’m sure you have all become aware by now when we are on the road I try all of the local dishes that I can get my hands on.
Recently we went to Holland and while we were there one thing we knew we wanted to try was the famous Dutch treat, stroopwafel. This delightfully and deceptively simple snack is a bit of a Dutch institution and literally translates as syrup waffle. Some (or indeed many) of you may be familiar with these courtesy of Starbucks who sell their own caramel version. I have had these on a number of occasions and while they are nice enough, they are not a touch on their traditional Dutch counterpart! The origin of the stroopwafel came from a baker who simply tried to find a use for his daily leftover biscuit wastage. In order to make them sellable he added syrup and sold them as a cheap sweet treat…from this moment of economical and characteristically Dutch waste averse ingenuity the stroopwafel was born! To create the slightly more refined version of a modern stroopwafel, flour, cinnamon, sugar, eggs and butter are combined to make a dough, which is then quickly cooked up in a flat iron waffle press (or similar contraption). As soon as it is cooked through it then has to be sliced in half (this is the tricky bit if being done by hand rather than some kind of industrial machine) and a hearty filling of thick syrup is placed in the middle before being pressed down to fill all the space between the two halves. Job done!! These can obviously just be eaten as they come and are absolutely delicious. However, having tried a fair few of these while in Holland and actually tried my hand at making some myself when we went to a stroopwafel making class in their birthplace of Gouda, I believe there is only one way that these syrupy delight should be consumed! Obviously if you get one that has just been made then the waffle will still be hot and the syrup inside soft and gooey and they are perfect! If they are bought from a bakery or a supermarket they will no longer be in their optimum state…but all is not lost. The Dutch are a smart lot and they have made their standard stroopwafels very slightly larger than the diameter of the average mug, this is no accident! Taking a stroopwafel and leaving it resting over a piping hot mug of your chosen beverage brings all the joy of a warm waffle and melty syrup back to glorious life!! It will not come as any surprise to any of you that my beverage of choice is always a cup of tea, but coffee, hot chocolate and any other number of steaming hot drinks would work just as well! A lot of yummy things come out of Holland, not least their pretty extensive selection of regionally produced cheeses like Gouda and Edam but I think these biscuity wonders might just be my favourite! Go on, try them, you will not regret it! I can promise you with this one So for the last week we have been travelling with a friend of ours from Ireland who just so happens to be a meat eater. I make this rather odd reference to her eating habits as it opened up a world of culinary joy to me that I have yet to have indulged in on our trip around Europe so far...the wonderful world of the meat platter in Germany! Over the course of our week together so far my new partner in meaty crime and myself have indulged in 3 different (4 in total but one was repeated) meat feasts and they have all been fabulous in their own wonderful way! Our first such carnivorous delight presented itself to us in Munich and was called the Everest Platter. While this was not exactly a platter of variety it certainly earned it's 'Everest' title. It consisted of a mountain of chips, beautifully crowned with not one, not two, but eight large and perfectly golden pork schnitzels. This platter was advertised on the menu as being suitable for 4, so we ordered it with the genuine intention of consuming the leftovers (in theory two schnitzels each) for lunch the next day. Upon the arrival of the platter I was simultaneous delighted and terrified by the sheer size of each of these incredible looking schnitzels. Under such circumstances I often choose to avoid wasting valuable stomach space with carby boringness and focus solely on the star of the show. This was no exception! We quickly tucked in and served ourselves with a schnitzel each. 2 minutes later and my first one was gone, it was time for number two! A further 5 minutes later and the second one had been swiftly demolished and at this stage nothing had really touched the sides of my stomach. I served and consumed number three, this time at a slightly more socially acceptable pace. By this time I was starting to get pretty full, but it almost felt unfair to just leave one lonely schnitzel sitting all on it's own...so that went down the hatch two. My meat consuming buddy made a valiant attempt with 2 1/2 schnitzels before finally throwing in the towel, but in her defence she did also have a fairly decent go at the chip mountain below the schnitzel goodness. This was a good, if not entirely nutritious start to the enormous plates of meat that were to pave our culinary way around Germany.
Our final and probably most epic tray of animal, landed on our table in Alpirsbach. This particular epicurean treat came with the title of the Balkan Platter and I feel it was named such on account of the fact that it could have very easily fed most of the region! Literally piled high on the plate was sausage, kofta, burgers, schnitzel, steak, bacon and skewered pork medallions, with two hefty heaps of rice and an overly generous portion chips thrown in for good measure (oh and a side salad to make it look like this was not entirely unhealthy)! I'm not going to go into too much detail regarding the almost embarrassing levels of excessive meat consumption that followed, but suffice it to say that neither my right hand man nor I failed to do some serious damage to the baked, fried and breaded farmyard that had befallen us!
So one thing I learned from travelling around Germany with a valiant and gutsy fellow meat eater is that the Germans really know how to do meat, and that doesn't just extend to their almost endless regional varieties of sausage. If meat is wanted in Germany then meat can be got and they don't do it lightly. I can highly recommend one of these meaty madnesses, but I'm not sure any cardiologist would, so consult your GP prior to consumption if you are concerned! 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! 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! 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
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