Now that we are living and house sitting in France… food has become a big focus in our lives again! I long each week for the day we go to the local market or even the supermarche where the standard and quality of food is better than anything experienced for a long time (at a price of course)!
But wherever we’ve house sat around the world, part of the experience for us is discovering local foods, different cuisines, and enjoying cooking at home and experimenting with recipes and ingredients.
We love markets and the local “tianguis” in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico became our favorite hang-out for weekly tacos, as both a social experience and for inexpensive local produce.
How much does food focus in your travels?
What’s been your biggest foodie surprise?
Do you eat out more than at home?
Do you have a not to be missed restaurant?
Where have you found the best world markets?
What are your mouth-watering recommendations from around the world?
That’s one of the great things about travelling, the different food. My best experience was seafood in Spain. They were almost giving away the mussels, the oysters were huge and cheap and prawns were eaten almost everyday. Lovely.
Worst disappointment, cheese in the US. To get decent cheese you had to find a deli.
Best foodie experience was buying tuna in Guadeloupe in a street market. The vendor asked how big a steak then hacked off a piece from a huge tuna and wrapped it in brown paper. Best ever.
Oh I have to agree about cheese in the US … Mostly processed slices . But… of late I’ve seen a turnaround and more high quality cheeses available from small dairies and delis like you say… Especially last time in New England. I’m a total cheese snob so hope I haven’t offended any of our US members
Loved and lived off the fish in the Caribbean… heaven! That I could give up France for! Thanks for sharing!
Your mention of the different menus at McDonalds in different countries reminded me of when I was a student in Lyon, France in 1993/4. The McBeaujolais Nouveau meal was available during the Beaujolais season, with a small bottle of Beaujolais instead of the usual soft drink! They also had nice salads.
You sound a bit like Ian who despairs of coffee shops, because he just likes a long black coffee and always thinks it’s overpriced compared to everything else. We were surprised that China (Shenzhen) was also very big on coffee shops. There was a Starbucks on every corner, but also some lovely boutique style places with all types of coffee brewing apparatus. Quite a surprise.
When I was teaching in Kuwait, and subsequently in Abu Dhabi, we as teachers used to sit on the dock of the bay at weekends waiting for the fishing boats to come back in with their catch of fresh fish. We would then buy prawns, shell and devein them and enjoy the freshest seafood in town … all for a few dirhams.
Having been born and raised on gourmet French food in Cannes, France, I am somewhat of a foodie, so we always try the local specialties, wherever we travel and house sit. My biggest foodie surprise were the green mussels In New Zealand, but I did not like the way they cooked them in restaurants, so I cooked them using my mother’s recipe for “moules marinières”. France has amazing open air markets with delicious fresh food offerings. We prefer cooking at home, so pet and housesitting perfectly fits our travel style. I have lived most of my adult life in Southern California and have acquired a taste for Mexican food. Jeff and I both love to experiment and cook international foods. Whenever I go back to France, I can’t wait to have a “petit pain au chocolat”! Now I am hungry and salivating, just thinking about it!
Like others have said, I do like to try local specialities wherever I travel, and I am willing to try most types of food. I’ve had snails on pizza, bat curry, frogs legs and so on.
Years ago I travelled to Iceland with 2 friends. We did a trip where we got to try a plate of several different Icelandic delicacies. We were advised what order to eat them in.
The final delicacy was a small cube of putrefied shark meat, set on ice. Apparently this type of shark has a high ammonia content, so when it has been killed, it is buried until the ammonia breaks down. It sounds horrible, but I figured that it must taste OK, or they wouldn’t eat it, would they?
I was the first of our trio to try the shark. I don’t think they had buried it for nearly long enough, it was awful, still tasted of ammonia and was extremely chewy. However, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t put my friends off from trying this unique experience, so I chewed it dutifully with as straight a face as I could manage, until they had also both popped a piece in their mouths!
love love love fresh seafood. On the coast of Ecuador we would go to the fishing villages, wait for the boats to come in and point at what we wanted. They cooked it right there and then. YUM! BTW, Vanessa, are you and Ian still following Keto?
@Vanessa_A and @ElsieDownie having been a cheesemonger here in Northern California, all I can say is “you were on the wrong coast!” The west coast is producing some of the world’s best farmstead cheeses. Within 25 miles of my home are over a dozen incredible cow, sheep, goat and even water Buffalo cheese makers and from California to Washington many are winning prestigious prizes (like Rogue Creamery winning the top prize at the World Cheese Awards!). Don’t count us out yet
@debbie you are not alone, even Anthony Bourdain could barely get that fermented shark down
Food, food, I love it! My favorite experience was my 40th birthday when my husband and I took a 5 day cooking and wine tasting class in a tiny town outside Barcelona. I would love to do that everywhere I go but usually settle for tasting as many local specialties as possible then trying to recreate some at home. The first thing we do before booking a place is look to see what’s to eat nearby!
Those mussels look divine Maryse, I might have to message you for your mother’s recipe! I’ve had to limit my purchases of French bread and pastries as they are SO lovely, if I carry on as I have been my exercise regime will have to double Thanks for sharing!
You are a brave woman Debbie!! I’m quite adventurous with things I will try, but not sure I could do this one without gagging. Trying not to think of it as I approach my breakfast
I did wonder… we were in Texas and the southern states for 6 months and it was very different to a later experience in both New England and San Diego/Los Angeles where the delis had a much better selection. I think it’s maybe about where to look! Next time we’ll do more research!! Thanks for that
Oh, all of you are describing such amazing food and travel adventures! This working Mom of 2 aspires to all of this. Right now I am enjoying house and pet sitting through this site, staying in my region so I can drive there, get a nice break for a little while, and then drive home to my kiddos. So, someday a lot of these adventures will be ticked off my bucket list!
However, we were just in Nashville for a house sit through this site and we did taste “Nashville Hot Chicken.” I am semi-vegan, so I really don’t eat much meat but like all of you – love to try local cuisine. That was definitely a memorable experience.
And, this discussion takes me back to my travels to France as a high school student where we would smoke cigarettes (I would just take in the second hand smoke), pound morning double espresso shots, and watch the people go by while sitting in cafes. I have adored strong coffee ever since.
A LOT! @Vanessa_A I love everything about food!
The smell, the taste, the new experience of trying something new, the process of cooking or going to a new place and sampling. Literally just came back from the local farmers market here in Savannah where locals offer the yields of their farms or their home made products.
Of course dogs love it too!
The produce looks wonderful there! I absolutely love markets too… finding new ingredients, cooking with produce of the moment, being creative. That looks like a fine table of produce and an abundant market!! We’ve being growing our own veggies at the moment, so now I’m looking at ways of preserving! Don’t miss the recent recipe post created by one of our members if you have a great recipe to share with us all!
Food has ‘always’ been a part of my travels, even when I was a kid traveling with my parents. We would explore different kinds of food as we traveled.
Before TH, when I was using airbnb I liked having a kitchen so that I could cook for myself or bring takeout home. One of my best airbnb stays was in Taipei where the apartment was on the Tonghua night market so I could take the elevator down 6 floors and find amazing food.
I also use the eatwith and airbnb apps to seek out home-cooked meals with locals and similar experiences - a Finnish meal of reindeer with some locals in Tallinn, an evening at the Busan fish market and then eating what we bought - mostly raw, but some cooked, a lesson on making sushi with a young sushi chef in Nakano, Tokyo, a 2 day Tokyo food adventure with a local food writer - the first day to Tsukiji fish market and some other markets, the second day Kaiseki lunch at a 2 star Michelin restaurant - me, the chef and his assistant, and the guide. A day spent with Angie who became a Vietnamese ‘refugee’ in Sydney in 1971. She was one of the first to introduce Vietnamese food to Australia and we visited the restaurants of many of her former staff who have now opened restaurants of their own in Cabramatta, a Vietnamese suburb of Sydney. And a day in the suburbs of Hanoi - take an uber to the market and are met by Mandy who knows everyone, shop, explore the fields where the veg are grown then cook and eat what you bought. When its done, Uber back to Hanoi.
And on a day-trip from Kiev with a local guide to a decommissioned Soviet missle base in the Ukraine - stopped a a Georgian restaurant and the 3 Georgian truck drivers who were ‘laying over’ between trips shared the Georgian brandy that they traveled with for us to have with our grilled meat.
With covid, I’m sticking to the US but finding interesting food in groceries and markets and mainly take-out from local restaurants.
Photos in next post
. But… of late I’ve seen a turnaround and more high quality cheeses available from small dairies and delis like you say… Especially last time in New England. I’m a total cheese snob so hope I haven’t offended any of our US members 
Thanks for sharing!
