Eating My Way Across Three Continents (Mutton, Glorious Mutton)

More Mileage, More Wisdom (?)

Three Hams and a Burger in Prague

Ah, the end of an old year and the beginning of a new (yes, I know its March, but I’m lazy and am just getting around to writing this). A time to take stock of the previous 12 months’ activities; a time to thoughtfully consider lessons learned (what a hackneyed phrase). 2012 saw me put more than a few miles on the old travel-o-meter. For Spring Break the family and I took a great American road trip from Wisconsin to Idaho and Utah via North Dakota (first time we’d ever been there) and Theodore Roosevelt National Park (http://www.nps.gov/thro/index.htm). In the summer we visited all the Lincoln-related sights in Springfield, Illinois (http://www.nps.gov/liho/index.htm), and traipsed the length and breadth of Door County Wisconsin, that picturesque, lighthouse-studded peninsula that juts out into Lake Michigan (http://www.doorcounty.com/). While driving a ridiculously oversized U-Haul of our accumulated junk back to Maryland, we managed to see the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio (arriving quite unintentionally on the summer solstice…along with a multitude of hippies, New Agers, users of hemp for multiple purposes, faux American Indians, unremarkable looking middle age folks who suddenly produced dowsing rods…) and admire a statue of Wm. Henry Harrison in the humid dusk at the Tippecanoe Battlefield Park near Prophetstown, Indiana (http://www.greatserpentmound.com/, http://www.tcha.mus.in.us/battlefield.htm).

In August, the old lady and I made our first trip to Canada, and were pleasantly surprised to find such a cosmopolitan, fascinating county just north of our own. Who knew? (I’m kidding Canucks, we always knew you were there, but we just figured you had sent all your funny people down to live with us). In September I spent two weeks tramping ‘round central and western Mongolia (with a short lay-over in South Korea), and in November the family and I burnt a fortnight familiarizing ourselves with the old Hapsburg lands in Central Europe.

Having written this all down, I am led to marvel at the fairly preposterous amount of time and treasure I spent traveling last year. But, mainly, it makes me ponder what I can distill, or SHOULD be able to distill, from using strange bathrooms across three continents. The first thing that comes to mind is the importance of food in the travel experience (don’t ask why bathroom=food in my stream of consciousness if you don’t really want to know).

Foodies Need Not Apply

I am not a foodie. Foodies are, often, pretentious people who describe the stuff they eat with adjectives like “decadent” and “esoteric” (if you’re not describing a mystery cult in the last days of the Roman Empire, please don’t use those words). Foodies will also travel to the ends of the earth solely to eat something there—oh yeah, and they like to brag about having eaten it there as well. Don’t get me wrong, I think eating with locals will do more to broaden a traveler’s perspective than most any other activity. In fact, “food ways”—which is fancy anthropologist-talk for what and how different people eat—is an actual field of study, as food reveals so many vital clues about a given culture. That said, you will never catch me adding a detour to my itinerary just so I can sample a rarely-served piece of an animal’s anatomy. Well, maybe not “never.” At any rate, you’ll never hear of me trying to track down ‘authentic’ food.

The Fallacy of ‘Authentic’ Cuisine

Just like Börte Used to Make it?

Trying to find authentic food is like trying to put a phantom in a half-nelson. We live in a globalized, cosmopolitan world, which makes it darn near impossible to get pure Chinese, Mexican (…fill in the blank) cuisine that has not been influenced by outside food (by the way China and Mexico are just two countries whose food has many, many regional variations, so what in the world would ‘authentic’ Chinese/Mexican look like in the first place?). Some of the best stuff actually comes out of this cultural cross-pollination, like chicken tikka masala, which was invented by Indians living in London. And, don’t forget, before Columbus “sailed the ocean blue” there were no tomatoes in Italian cooking and the Irish had never eaten a potato!!! Does that mean that you can’t find a place serving a more traditional variant of the local cuisine, i.e. one that doesn’t use McDonald’s ketchup packets as a primary ingredient? Heck no, and you should make such establishments part of your itinerary. But, at the same time, you shouldn’t turn up your nose at global trends that have broken into the local market. In Ulaanbaatar (UB) I saw more than a few ‘Mongolian BBQs.’ Mongolian BBQ was invented in Taiwan and doesn’t have a whole lot to do with traditional Mongolian food, but that doesn’t stop Mongolians from eating in these joints. I could learn just as much about contemporary Mongolian culture by stopping into one of these goofy places, as by eating horse out on the steppe.

When in Prague or UB...

The Mongolian Burger that Conquered the Known World

When you’re on the road the best food-related question you can ask is, “what do people eat around here?” The answer might be surprising. For example, in Prague’s Old Town Square (Staroměstské náměstí) there was a whole mess of people eating at stalls near the Old Town Hall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Town_Square_(Prague)). Being naturally curious folk, the family and I moseyed over and saw that smoked ham, spiral cut potatoes and hamburgers were on offer. I opted for the ham, though my son wanted a hamburger. However, I didn’t argue and say, “Hey! We’re in Prague, Czechs don’t eat hamburgers!” After all, it was a Czech hamburger, cooked with oil and garnished with cabbage and other unusual, for an American, condiments (my son still demolished his hamburger and then proceeded to fight me for the ham). One of the best things I ate in Mongolia was an enormous cheeseburger. True, I had just spent two weeks subsisting on a diet of fried, stewed, minced, etc., mutton, cow tongue and horse dumplings, but this was a genuinely good “‘burg.” But, it didn’t taste like an American burger; it was fit for Chinggis Khan! UB has Mexican, Chinese (as you might well imagine), Indian, even an Irish pub! I had plenty of traditional Mongolian dishes, but I would have missed out had I not tried the international scene as well. Don’t be afraid/embarrassed to eat a foreign burger!

The Cheapskate Gourmet

I would have to say that my favorite places to eat while traveling are grocery stores. Yep, you heard me right. I think it’s a blast to wander the aisles and try to figure out what stuff is from the packaging. Not only are grocery stores the best places to get cheap eats, they also allow you to rub shoulders with the locals and buy the kind of stuff they buy (presumably it wouldn’t be in stock if nobody ever bought it). In Slovakia I went to a supermarket and bought rolls with cheese and thick-cut chunks of bacon baked onto them. How could you go wrong with that? I tried several brands of paprika flavored potato chips in Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary (some, much better than others) and ketchup chips in Toronto (I suppose I could buy these in the U.S. as well). I got hooked on spreadable cheese outside Vienna (the kind that comes in paprika and ham flavors) and bags of chocolate milk in Budapest (I don’t understand the receptacle, but oh man, that chocolaty goodness!). I realize this is all junk food, but that is not a concept that Americans have a monopoly on. I’d like to think I understand the average Central European better, having eaten his/her high-calorie, non-nutritious but delicious goodies. But, before you lose faith in me, I will turn toward more traditional patterns of travel eating.

What’s the Special Tonight?

The Kid Just doesn't Understand How Good Polish Food is!

While I’m not a foodie, I do prepare information on eating options before I head out the door. It certainly doesn’t hurt to know what the good local places are near the sights on your itinerary. For example, my wife planned our meals around two great, local dishes in Springfield, Illinois—the “loose-meat sandwich” and the “horseshoe sandwich”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_sandwich, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maid-Rite_Sandwich_Shop_(Springfield,_Illinois)). If you’ve never had either, then get in the car and go! In Budapest, we ate homestyle Magyar cuisine at the Vásárcsarnok, a market full of sausage, spices and pickled vegetables (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g274887-d276128-Reviews-Central_Market_Hall_Nagy_Vasarcsarnok-Budapest_Central_Hungary.html). In Krakow, we had dinner in Kazimierz (traditional home of the city’s Jews) where I ate a mound of caramelized onions and a massive pork neck while the accordion, guitar and violin of a klezmer band swirled through its set (I’m a gentile, so the pork thing is OK…why it was being served in this place on the other hand…) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz). All these were great meals, but I don’t know that they were any more important in informing my understanding of these area’s cultures, than the stuff I bought at corner shops. For me, it’s all one big, tasty experience!  

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