A Foodie’s Guide to Traveling in Europe

Eating is one of the greatest joys of humankind, and traveling abroad in Europe will give you the opportunity to enjoy local dishes and new schools of cooking.  Cuisine will always be rooted in the location and culture that developed it, and not surprisingly, the area that produced a particular approach to cooking usually hosts the best practitioners of it today.  Ask anyone from France, Italy, Germany, or Texas where to find the best cheese, pasta, beer, or barbeque, and they will answer you with conviction and pride, even if they are mistaken (South Carolina has the best barbeque).  Food is an essential part of traveling, there are many ways to find and enjoy the local flavors of any destination.

The European Approach to Food

Europeans regard food differently than Americans.  Due to the behemoth food industry in the States, every type of produce, cereal, and meat is mass-produced and available year-round despite the seasons when they are grown and harvested.  As result the quality of the food suffers.  Whether it’s July and December, your local grocery store will stock pale, watery tomatoes that more akin to water chestnuts than the red, summer globes that grow fat and juicy on June vines.  An American who wants food that is fresh and flavorful will need to grow their own garden, be lucky enough to live near a farmer’s market, or pay $5 for a bell pepper at an organic grocery store.

In most parts of Europe, the story is different.  European cuisine changes from country to country, region to region, and city to city, and many European consumers prefer food produced locally or at least in their own country.  Much of European cuisine also follows the seasons, and the availability and quality of locally produced meat, fruit, and vegetables peak during certain months while simultaneously their prices drop.  Local chefs use these fresh, abundant ingredients to prepare typical dishes from their region, and this tradition of localized cuisine it is one of the continents greatest assets.

Although Europe’s smaller supply chains means that food often is of higher quality, more local, and cheaper, expect foreign foods and ingredients to cost more and are less available.  Making tacos in Europe may involve stopping into four or five grocers and markets and doing without a few ingredients.

To travel like an inveterate foodie through Europe, here are a few suggestions:

                                                      

Treat Guidebooks with Skepticism

A popular guidebook’s recommendation for a restaurant has the potential to be worse for it than a kitchen fire.  It will draw in droves of tourists, who may in turn drive out the locals, completely changing the restaurant’s ambience.  Since a recommendation guarantees a larger stream of business for as long as it is in print, it creates a major temptation for restaurant owners to turn a higher profit by raising prices and sacrificing the quality of their ingredients or cooking.  A highly recommended restaurant can devolve into just another tourist trap in a matter of months.

A tourist’s guidebook will overlook excellent new or undiscovered spots.  If you are serious about food, look for restaurant guidebooks published in the country where you are staying (In the United States Zagats and TimeOut are two good examples of this genre).  There are guidebooks for every type of palette, whether you are looking for vegetarian options, slow food, or haute cuisine.  Visit a bookstore in your host city and take a look.

Ask the Locals

Instead of following the advice of a guidebook written by a visiting foreigner, ask locals for their recommendations.  Speak with your landlord, neighbors, friends, and professors about some of their favorite places, and ask them where to go for different types of cuisine: local, seafood, cheap, pizza, etc.  You will find that a few restaurants will repeatedly make the list, so don’t pass these ones up!

Selecting a Restaurant

Another way to query the locals is to observe them.  When you pass a restaurant and wonder whether it would be a good place to eat, check out whose eating their already.  If you see a hoard of tourists in neon baseball caps, service will most likely be slow and the food generic.  On the other hand, if you cannot pick up one word of English bubbling up from a crowd of diners, the restaurant might be worth checking out.  Check out menu and prices listed just outside a restaurant’s entrance, and see if there any accolades posted on the front door, such as Michelin ratings, Let’s Go recommendations, and reviews from local papers.  These are excellent indicators of the quality of the restaurant.  While fancy restaurants may or may not display their laurels, almost all restaurants that suit a student or traveler’s budget will.

                          

A restaurant that maintains an open, visible kitchen is purposefully making the statement that their facilities, ingredients, and techniques are of such high quality that they are confident displaying them to diners.

Hit the markets

Markets are cheaper than grocery stores and offer food that is fresher, cheaper, and of higher quality.  A week’s worth a fresh fruit and vegetables typically costs less than $10, and the meat tastes like what God intended flesh to taste like.  In many large European cities, there are permanent structures that house daily farmers markets; otherwise, check to see if there are weekly markets held on Saturday and Sunday mornings.  Often these markets also feature food stands or even very informal restaurants where the food is incredibly cheap and tasty.

If you cannot find a farmer’s market, seek out local butchers, green grocers, and bakeries.  While you will have to walk more between shops, compared to shopping at supermarket, you will eat better and make contacts in your community.

Become a Local

Besides getting to know the local butchers, bakers, and grocers, pick a coffee shop, a restaurant, or a bar and frequent them often.  Introduce yourself to the owners and the workers, and within a week or two, they will begin treating you like a local.  The benefits of this status can be great: new friends, language practice, free drinks, deeply discounted meals, and maybe even a little romance.  A quiet, friendly coffee shop where you can work in peace is a godsend when studying for an exam or writing term papers.  Moreover, if you feel totally isolated or homesick, you can enjoy the comfort of a familiar place.

Learn to Cook

Every asked the cash register attendant at the supermarket how to cook a cassoulet?  Try it.  However, if you purchase your duck breasts and sausages from a serious butcher, he will certainly recommend how to cook them and maybe even share one of his family’s receipts.  Local vendors know how to cook what they offer, and they often make it a point of pride to tell you how do it right.  They might even make you repeat their instructions back to them so that you do not miss a step.  If you have native flatmates, cook and share cuisine from your respective countries with each other, and ask them to teach you some receipts.

Try using cook books that contain receipts for your region and published in the language of your country.  Not only will it sharpen your skills in the kitchen, it will teach you valuable vocabulary.  After a few weeks, while may not be able to woo a date with a love poem written in your host country’s language, you can at least tell the waiter to hold the anchovies and onions.

The best way to learn to cook is the same as learning a new language: between the sheets.  Please note that this is a metaphor, not a directive to cook in bed.  Invite a friend for dinner, offering to buy the ingredients if he or she can show you how to make one of their favorite dishes.  Cooking together can quickly lead to romance, unless you are both such foodies that any intrigue would be a side dish to your entrée, and not the other way around.

Try the Wine

True haute cuisine is never complete without a double-deuce of ice-cold Busch Light.  In Europe, alcohol is commonly regarded as part of a meal.  In Munich, beer is considered as much of a food as bread, and what is French or Italian cuisine without wine?  Make sure to explore – responsibly, of course – the varieties or alcohols that your host country crafts.  It will be the start of a sophisticated and pleasurable education that will bear fruit throughout your life.  The beauty of sampling Italian wines in Italy and French wines in France is the cost.  Whereas a decent table Chianti costs €4 for a bottle in Florence, it cost $15 in the States.  Higher end wines are marked up even more, and many excellent wines, beers, and liquors that you will find in Europe are simply not available in America.

Conversely, you may not find many American brands of beer, wine, or liquor in Europe.  European wine and beer will not disappoint you, but if you have a favorite liquor that you cannot live without, whether it’s Malibu or Maker’s Mark, purchase it before departing.  Besides not charging taxes, duty-free stores in international airports often offer great deals on alcohol and tobacco, so leave a little room in your carry-on (Kudos to the bottle designers for Woodford Reserve and Knob Creek).  A bottle of good American liquor that is hard to find in Europe is an excellent gift for a host family.

                                       

Splurge on One Meal

Before you leave, treat yourself to a meal at a top-notch restaurant.  This is a mandatory part of your experience abroad, so go all out!  The best way to finagle this is through visiting parents, whether yours or those of your friends.  If there is no one rolling out the red carpet for you, one of the secrets to eating in Europe is finding the best restaurants' sister restaurants, which share the same attention to quality and sometimes the same kitchen.  These sister restaurants are usually more crowded and vibrant, and less stuffy and expensive, than the respective flagships.

Check to see if a restaurant that you’ve wanted to try offers a less expensive lunch.  Though the lunch menu will likely be more limited the dinner menu, the food will be the same.  A long lunch with friends is a great way to spend a Saturday, and it is also one of the secrets to entertaining visiting parents.  After sitting down to a two-hour lunch with multiple courses and bottles of wine, they will likely need a nap.  That gives you the remainder of the afternoon to yourself before your parents wake up refreshed and chipper and ask you to cocktails and dinner.

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If you are fortunate, you will eat a few meals every day. How you approach this daily activity has the potential to improve the quality of your life significantly.  Identifying the quality and freshness of ingredients and understanding the preparation, presentation, and taste of cuisine will refine your palette, help you to make better nutritional choices, and provide comfort and enjoyment consistently throughout your life.  Your time in Europe will expose you to unique and excellent cuisine and an approach to food that is different from the States.  Educate yourself about it and enjoy!

Tessera

It's too hot to work in the apartment today.  It's on the top floor, and the terracotta tiles that serve as the ceiling to the living room are the same that serve as the building's roof.  A few hours in the sun, and those puppies are baking.  I'm working in a cafe trying to ignore the experimental, jam music that sounds like Robert Plant's little brother sodomizing a chicken.  Two construction workers walked in.  One ordered an espresso, the other a caffè corretto, which is a shot of espresso with a shot of liquor (I prefer grappa).  It's the Italian version of the Bloody Mary and equally effective.  While the barista was firing up the espresso machine, the worker changed his mind. He ordered a shot of pure, grain alcohol that he intended to chase with espresso.  It's noon, ninety degrees, and the rest of the work-day outside in sun awaits you.  Nothing I would want more than a shot of Everclear.

London in May

I visited London in mid May, but never got around to publishing this post until now.  The purpose of the trip was to visit Chris, an old friend from Sewanee who works in finance there.

The flight into England was one of the most beautiful that I have taken yet.  The plane coasted over the French countryside, the English Channel, and then the island of England.  Though the day was bright and clear, low woolly clouds hung over the farmland, an irregular patchwork of green and yellow fields knitted through with lines of trees.  When I landed, my time in London began with a few pints.

I spent the following day in the London History Museum, which exhibits artifacts from the city from when it was a bunch of stinking cavemen squatting in a marsh to its place as a modern international capital.  The exhibits on the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries were the most interesting, especially in terms of city planning and growth.  London's government and engineers had to support a city of millions without modern medicine, transportation, plumbing, electricity, and trash services.  How they somehow made it work was fascinating, and after many hours, I wandered over to St. Paul's.

That night, I met Chris, his girlfriend, and one of her friends at a restaurant that serves large platters of sliced steak, fries, and a green salsa made of garlic, parsley, and butter that would make an torn old shirt taste great.  After ordering and enjoying a few bottles of wine, we made friends with the neighboring tables.  Next to us, a girl was introducing her boyfriend to her parents for the first time.  The conversation was painfully awkward -- they had obviously not drunk enough for the occasion -- so we stepped in the discussion, offering observations about England, American coffee, history, and so forth.  It broke the ice, and even the father was laughing by the end.  I hope that they will look back on the dinner not as that awkward first engagement, but as that time some nutty American drunk crashed dinner.

The evening reinforced my theory that everyone should learn a new language.  Not only for reasons of understanding different people and cultures, but because speaking another language will inevitably score the occasional free beer and allow you to flirt with waitresses -- women who are paid to talk to you -- around the world.  Our waitress was from Rome, beautiful and warm as most Romans are, and I only regretted I didn't have more time in London for a little romance and a side of steak.

Over the following days, I made brief visits to the Globe and the Renaissance galleries at the V&A with various friends.  We walked through a photography exhibit at the Tate that displayed photographs of the nineteenth century British campaign in Afghanistan alongside photographs of the recent years of conflict there.  While the photographs were fantastic and the exhibit enlightening, at in the final room a video was playing that showed the modern photographer at work while he discussed the causes, effects, and state of the war in Afghanistan.  Like many modern artists, the message at the core of his work was a misconstrued derivative of politics.  Throughout the video he complained about and denounced political situations that he presented in purely in black and white terms, as if the global stage could be reduced to a system of morality as clear as Star Wars.  Moreover, when the artist produces no evidence to support such conclusions -- that is besides the photographs of an ugly country that he personally took and selected -- the argument suffers further.  Photographs can be used as evidence to support a case, but they rarely form a case alone, especially in international politics.  Policy dictates action and is one of many causal course for the physical appearance of a country.  I doubt the Afghanistan was rife with rainbows, waterfalls, and butterflies before 2003.  It was probably as brutal a place as when the photographer found it in 2010.

On Saturday, we drank cider and ate ostrich burgers in the markets, and the saw wedding led out of Southwark Cathedral with bells and bagpipes.  After wandering through the city on a cloudy, blustering day, we went to Brick Street that evening for a curry.  Lining the sides of street are curry houses, each one displaying signs and reviews touting their authenticity and superiority to their neighbors.  As you walk down Brick Lane, young men run out of each restaurant and try to convince you to eat there.  This is when you negotiate your dinner, often with four or five representatives trying to outdo each other.  We arranged for two rounds of beer, rice, gnan bread, and a curry for £10 before even walking into the restaurant.  After a vindaloo that would make your eyeballs sweat, we had a big night on the town.

On Sunday afternoon, we went to Evensong at Westminster Abbey.  Father Lawrence's son, Ben, is one of the Queen's singers, so as friends and family, we were allowed to sit in the choir directly across from the performers.  Unlike many old churches, especially those in Florence, Westminster has kept its ornate, enclosed choir that a rood screen separates from the western nave.  The rood screen separates the massive vault within the nave into semi-discrete spaces, which render the whole more beautiful and rational.  At the beginning of Evensong, the singers approached the choir from the nave hidden and singing plainsong.  It was the most beautiful part of the service.

Monday was my last day in London, and I spent it at the Imperial War Museum meditating on the horror and the glory of war.  War demands the best of individuals and countries; they must survive through ingenuity, strength, and perseverance.  In the twentieth-century, technology developed alongside ideologies of nationalism, militarism, and imperialism, leading to the will and power to kill human beings on a massive scale. Such technology reached its zenith with atomic weapons, which have rendered the amassing of troops and by implication warfare on a large industrial scale obsolete.

Since war can no longer be waged on a large, industrial scale, it has been regulated to other sectors besides the military, most notably the economies of countries.  Aggressive conflict is more rare and fought with scalpels rather than broadswords, and terrorism and genocide have become the unfortunate recourse.  During WWI, 90% causalities were soldiers, now 90% of war casualties are civilians.  There will never be a world without war; aggression and fear are too deeply rooted in humankind.  Rules of engagement will last only until someone learns how to use them to their advantage against an enemy.  The solution?

Very Dangerous

Yesterday was very dangerous.  The night before, I had just moved into a new apartment and unpacked.  I stayed up until 4:00 AM reading a Grisham novel, and the next day, just before noon, someone was at the door repeatedly hitting the buzzer.  I threw on my clothes from the day before, and left my room to find that Charlie had just let the landlady, Luciana, into the apartment.  Luciana is an elderly Italian woman who is fighting the effects of aging and losing sorely.  While her makeup is not egregious, the vaseline that she daily rubs into her skin makes her shine as if she's James Brown swearing at a Sunday picnic.  She dies her hair constantly without removing its former colors; her current color is Thundercat.  Whenever something needs to be checked or fixed, which is usually three or four times a week, she enters the apartment without warning wearing short skirts and tank tops without a bra.  She enjoys parading her body in front of Charlie, Peter, and me, and it seems that she doesn't have much else to do.  She tells the Katie and Jen that they are lucky girls to live with such men, how are they able to resist?  While she does have a point, Luciana believes that everyday is a Golf Pros and Tennis Hoes party and acts the according role well.

Fortune would have it that when I moved in, there was construction going on on the exterior of the building.  The workers were contracted to paint the building and replace a few terra-cotta roof tiles, a job that shouldn't last more than two weeks.  It's been over two months.  This both excites and irritates Luciana, and she had shifted her life's focus from seducing her young American tenants to harassing the workmen.  Morning coffee is attended by men walking up and down the scaffolding just outside the kitchen window, close enough that you could shake hands, and Lucia screaming and croaking at them from the apartment above.  The workman answer her salvos with a barrage of insults and laughter, and if Italy did not have the siesta, there would not be peace in the apartment until nightfall.

Yesterday, however, Luciana needed a change of pace and decided that she needed to check the pipes in the apartment, that is those in the wall.  As Charlie let her in the apartment, she told us what a disaster the construction is, how it is very dangerous -- her favorite phrase -- and what a pack of lying, disrespectful, slimy, subhuman thieves the workmen are.  She then asked me to crawl out onto their scaffolding, borrow their latter, and bring it to her so that she could access the crawl space door placed two thirds the way up the living room wall beyond arm's reach.  I did so, receiving many lauds my masterful athleticism.  Lovely flattery, isn't it?

She asked me to extend the ladder and hold it for her.  I did so again, quickly realizing that I had made a bad call.  She was dressed normally -- braless tank top and short shirt -- and I would be right under her with a view that only doctors should be subjected to.  I was new in the apartment, and she had planned this.  Charlie watched on laughing.  When he went to get his camera to document this particularly ridiculous encounter, she screamed at him, yelling that he shall never to produce a camera in her presence.

When she climbed the latter and reached the crawl space, she asked me to hand her a lamp.  I climbed the latter to bring it to her, but she instead squatted on her haunches, knees wide, revealing a large pair of white, lacy panties.  I turned my face to the side repulsed and simultaneously trying not to laugh.  I held the lamp up to her.  She took it, and began rooting around in the crawl space, dog cussing the workmen the whole time.  Like someone who knows nothing about cars analyzing their engine after it seizes up, she measured pipes, banged on various surfaces, and asked us to turn on water throughout the apartment so that she could check if there were any leaks.  Content, Luciana asked for us to hold the latter once more so that she could descend.  I held it, making damn sure not to look up.  Charlie was laughing again, and she realized that her intentions were exposed like so much else.

"Maybe I am indecent!  Yes, I am indecent, but I do not care!" She yelled at us triumphantly, descending.  "I am not decent, and I do not care!"

She reached the floor and glared at us.  There is not much to say in response to such an affirmation, so Charlie and I were both silent, trying not to grin or laugh like conspiring fools.

While she Charlie swept up, and I replaced the latter among the workmen's materials.  As she was walking out of the apartment and speaking with Charlie about utilities, I went to my computer and played a song loudly in her honor.  She kept walking.

Critical Mass

Gentlemen, whenever there are three times as many women as men, you will not have fun.  You may expect this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_fCqg92qks.  You will never find this.  You will find discussions on past boyfriends, health issues, career issues, and women out of favor with the women with whom you have unfortunately found yourself stuck.

On another note, la festa di San Giovanni was not nearly as satisfying as it was last year, primarily due to the fact that the organizers launched fireworks horizontally from Piazzale Michelangelo versus vertically from the Ponte Vecchio.  Italian logic failed once again.  While everyone could see the fireworks, no one except the fit few who climbed la monte della croce to the piazzale were able to feel the boom and shock thump their chest and organs.  When God created the world, his voice came first.  Light came later.

An Evening in Florence

My negligent self has not posted a few nearly finished articles for lack of time and focus.  Work has picked up its pace, and I have thoroughly enjoyed scratching deeply my entrepreneurial itch.  It's like poison ivy under a hot shower, every hour well spent.

I am sitting on my balcony overlooking the cupola and piazza of Santo Spirito -- a lone cricket is chirping from the church's terracotta roof.  Below the crowd is boiling with laughter and voices rising in English and Italian.  I am waiting for someone, who will soon rap on my door, and while my apartment lacks gas, water, electricity, it is washed in candlelight and night breezes, as warm and darkly luminous as wine.

Digital Photography

Access the link below to see why digital photography cannot accurately reproduce a work of art:

http://www.google.it/search?q=sargent+gassed&hl=it&client=firefox-a&hs=V7B&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=4v7XTeKHJM-RswbF7vj3Ag&ved=0CCcQsAQ&biw=1427&bih=640