TRAVEL
But, the food.
Guttural Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the Food Truck, Epicurious. It’s mission… to explore strange new food to cram into our greedy pie-holes, to boldly eat what no one has eaten before, regardless of the fattening of our already giggly boom-de-ayes. [Cue flying skillets.]
If there were a television show called Food Trek, I would want to star in. Okay, maybe a food truck race is more my speed, but that is because I really do love food. I love the artistry of flavor and the delight of presentation. I especially love exploring new and exciting foods in other cultures.
We travel for intellectual stimulation and the experience of expanding our horizons. That, of course, is what we say. We disguise the true reason… we want to eat the food. Is it possible to visit New Orleans and not have a Po’Boy or a beignet? Can you go to San Diego and not have tacos? I’ll bet you can tell me what regions serve the best food, times, and locations and still taste that vacation meal you had several years ago. What happens when we tell someone that we are going to visit someplace in the world? People will say, “Oh, you have to go to ‘such-and-such’ and eat. Why? Because we cannot truly experience a culture until we taste it. The late great Anthony Bourdain said,
“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everybody.”
Food is served wrapped in the heartbeat of any nation by the chefs and cooks in local bistros, fire pits, dinners, cafes, village kitchens, and restaurants. The pulse of a culture is found in the stomach.
In the summer of 2009, My wife and I were long overdue for a vacation, so we took a cruise. A cruise ship carries people to destinations rich in local color and flavor. But tasting the food on the Mexican Riviera isn’t the only eating and imbibing that I remember. It is what waited for us back at the ship. It’s a paradise for anyone that who dabbles in the fine art of gluttony. To the practicing glutton, this is the equivalent of climbing the Everest of culinary greatness. This is not for the novices. The proper safety equipment is a must: stretchy waistbands in your comfy eating trousers, a travel-size bottle of your favorite hot sauce, and backup prescription-strength antacid. This is American. This is the way!
Installed on my ship was a self-serve, soft-serve ice-cream machine. Having died and gone to heaven, or maybe the start of a journey to lactose intolerance, I never passed that machine without making a cone. A conservative estimate suggests that I may have ingested seventy ice cream cones in seven days! I may or may not have also consumed my body weight in lobster, and there is also a good chance that the burrito bar saw my chubby face grinning at the chef more than once. I can’t even tell you about “the “adult beverages” I sucked down both on and offshore.
If you have experienced this, you had a conversation that went something like, “Yes, we had a lovely room, and the ports were amazing. But…THE FOOD!” You will spend the rest of the conversation showing pictures of your meals, talking about all delicacies you shamelessly double-fisted into your cakehole. My downfall was a 24-hour pizza bar. Not for the faint of heart, this was how I would make it to food Valhalla. Guess who was sitting at that bar at 2am most nights. If you guess this insomniac gastronome, you are right.
After the cruise, my doctor didn’t prescribe me Lipitor. Eating in other parts of the world became a goal, maybe even a sport. I visited Canada, then Cambodia, and finally France. But…the food!
When Americans visit another land, the people feed us like we are their pet potbellied pig. We think that we are being entertained by the kind and hospitable locals, but we are the main attraction. “The Americans are here; let’s feed them and watch them.” We do not care. We are being fed.
I went to Canada in the fall, and it was freezing. Dining out was the thing to do. I discovered a cheeseburger wrapped in pizza. If you think that I mean a pizza with burger bits, you are sadly mistaken. It was indeed an entire cheeseburger encased in pepperoni pizza. It was hearty, it was beefy, and it was greasy. In the early hours of the morning, I was not dreaming about the Cruise pizza bar; I was barfing in my friend’s sink because I couldn’t make it to the commode. To make up for it, my friends took me to try a dish called Poutine. What is that? It is a meal of the gods! Fries, cheese curd covered in brown gravy. It redeemed the entire nation of Canada and all its people. Canadians may be stereotypically over-polite, but they are mean in the kitchen.
In Cambodia, I was introduced to a dish called Lok Lak. What is that? It’s the holy of holies in peppered beef and vegetables in a sauce that makes you know that there is a god, served with rice and a fried egg on top. Since you could eat there for about two American bucks, I ate it several times. We also tried the street food carts.
Chicken butts. We ate them on a stick. When a taxi driver tells you to try it, we try it. However, he also suggested that we try the tarantula on a stick. We did not! My wife and I unabashedly ate everything that crossed our path. We tasted a banana for the very first time. You may think that you know the flavor of this elongated yellow fruit but what we have here in the U.S. is white fruit matter sprayed with a banana air freshener. A real banana is a delicacy. Watching a local man climb up a tree with what looked like a sword to pick me a coconut was something that I never thought I would live to see. Drinking coconut milk freshly cut from the tree was new, and it did not disappoint.
Then we explored France. Qui, Qui France is the place to eat. From the chocolate to the wine, everything was magnificent. I think the most memorable moments happened around a kitchen table with local French folks, which proved to be the highlight of the trip. However, the Eiffel Tower, the lavender fields of southern France, the nougat, the Louver, Notre-Dame, all were exciting to see — but the food! By the food, I am talking about the national pride of the French people, their cheese.
Oh, blesses mother of goat milk, the cheese was the best thing I have ever consumed. In the States, we eat American cheese… sliced squares that we toss on a bologna sandwich. This is an insult to real cheese. If cheese were a religion, Velveeta is a mortal sin and blasphemy.
There is a ritual of the meal dedicated to cheese which I found to be delightful. Hail, Cheesus son of Gouda! It’s like we stop eating to take a cheese break! I don’t know the name of one cheese that I ate. I just know that I could not get enough. Every morning we had a breakfast of coffee and fresh croissants, which were bought fresh from a bakery a couple of blocks away. I don’t even know how to properly describe the flavor other than I have never tasted anything like it at home.
We went to a Mexican restaurant. It wasn’t what I was used to since I am a native of San Diego. That was quite fun because we got to experience the interpretation of dishes that were not “wrong,” only different. Though we drank cheap wine sold by street vendors underneath the Eiffel Town and ate in some amazing little bistros, it will always be the cheese section in a French grocery that will remain my fondest memories.
We made connections to people who didn’t speak our language, but food broke that barrier. The culture allowed us to talk through food and tasting, sharing a meal, and translating the love language through the food we ate together. Most of us remember going to a grandparent’s home to eat their cooking. We recognize that guy on the corner who made the best Danishes, and the food truck that cooked the best cook lunch, and that little old lady who brought you the only fruitcake that was not only delicious, but you wanted more! Memories are wired together with food and drink. We remember what a region tastes like more than what it looks like. I would wager that if you stop and think about it, you have all kinds of memories created by something you consumed.
I am not saying that the landmarks and vacations destination are not worth seeing. I am just pointing out that if you were in Greece staring at the Acropolis and a Greek local handed you the best Gyro that you have ever tasted, it would heighten the experience to the next level, maybe then you’d say, “Oh, the Acropolis! Wow… I had a gyro there that you’d make you want to fall in love.” Because we love to eat so, we can come home exhausted from our vacation just to tell our friends and family, “Oh, the food!” And you know what, we will listen to that all night, but no one really wants to see the damn pictures. Just talk about the food.
When I first began traveling, I thought I was being fattened up like the kids in Hansel and Gretel. In the end, people wanted to introduce me to the flavor what their countries and regions of said countries. It is a language of love and meaning that we just can’t ignore. Next time you find yourself in the land of “elsewhere.” People love the breaking of bread, the sharing of a meal. Let them feed you. Eat it all and let the wonderful locals love you with their food.
“Oh, but the food!”`
© Rudy Trussler 2021
