Join the Discussion: What Dishes Remind You of Travel?
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Photo: Sylvain Sonnet/Getty Images
When we reminisce about our favorite journeys, we talk about where we’ve been — the landscapes, the vistas, the historic sites, the works of art; who we’ve met; what we’ve learned, and what we ate. Perhaps more than a photo, food, because it engages our senses, most readily transports us back to a magical place or moment: These are the dishes we’re talking about today from 1 to 3 p.m. EDT. Inspired by Mark’s time in Rome, we’ll focus on our favorite travel destinations and the tastes we associate with them. Let’s get started.
Thank you, All. So personal and human. And yummy! I'm going to hop off this thread but feel free to keep the tour bus going.
Also, while you're on the line, let me also mention to the Bittman Bread bakers here that I'm back from vacay and will be checking in on those threads in the next day or two. So if you've got questions, suggestions, or want to share the latest notes from your sourdough journey, let 'er rip.
While in Madrid, try all there amazing restaurants like, Filandon for amazing fish and rice dishes. Another favorite is for Spanish omelette located in a market, Casa Dani, there is always a line. Now for that special night a go to is Paraguas for their morel and foie dish. I miss Madrid, I have recently moved to the Canary Islands and well discovering another type of culture and cuisine!
My first day in Auckland, many years ago. The perfect bowl of fresh summer fruit, full-fat yoghurt and topped with a generous swirl of Manuka honey. Vogel's toast bread with New Zealand butter and my first ever serving of Marmite.
Pupusas stuffed with beans or cheese and the curtido (pickled cabbage slaw) that goes with them makes me envision a couple memorable trips to El Salvador and the hospitality of the people I met and sat with in the rural areas.
My fave destination is Tuscany, or really any place in Italy. And the food that makes me want to go back over and over is the fresh pecorino and yummy bread that every little restaurant puts on the table to nibble onbefore your drinks arrive. Then the waiter takes your order, and as he walks toward the kitchen you can hear him say, 'Mama, un ordine!'
OK I need to put on boxing gloves before making this claim but I think SABICH is the best sandwich in the world. It's a creation of Jews from Iraq and available in different venues in Israel. The sandwich is more than the sum of its parts: fried eggplant, hard boiled sliced egg, Yemenite chile paste, mango amba, mixed with a colourful medley of pickled vegetables and smushed into a fresh warm pita. There may be other secret ingredients I am unaware of, sometimes a touch of lemony hummous along the inside of the pita.. The juices drip down your face and you believe you have tasted heaven. I have tried and failed to make this at home. I am going back to Israel in April and I found out about a place outside of Tel Aviv famous for its sabich. I heard a story that a woman walked into this place and was ordering a ton of sabich sandwiches--she was planning to pack them in her suitcase and take them home brave soul.
Mar 24, 2022·edited Mar 24, 2022Liked by Kerri Conan
The famous chef Joël Robuchon got his third star from Michelin for Jamin restaurant in Paris before I ate there in the late 1980's. My wife and I, along with our 8-year-old son, were going for a holiday and, unbeknownst to us then, to begin his introduction to the world of glorious food. Jamin was one of three Michelin three-star restaurants I made reservations at. Another was Taillevent. The third, who knows. The plan was to decide over the months prior to the dinner, just which reservation to keep. The NYT wrote about Jamin along about then and named it the best restaurant in the world. The choice was easy. We also picked a small hotel on Ile Saint-Louis as our base. Importantly, our stay there would included a long nap the day of the reservation to give our son the energy to endure a long dinner. The first course, frog legs, came. Our son tackled them bravely. And he got some big chocolate dessert to cap the night. My entree was deconstructed pig head. All the meat was picked off and artfully mounded on my plate. It was accompanied by what would become the chef's signature dish, pommes purée, in effect, a magnificent potato flavored butter, a distant cousin of which is sometimes called mashed potatoes in the U.S. I've loved them since and made them in January for my birthday. The wine was a Domaines Leflaive Rully 1er cru. While further details of the dinner are lost to the ages, the experience was nothing less than an epiphany. Shedding a little light on what we might have experienced is included in a 1991 Brad Spurgeon review {bradspurgeon.com/articles-as-opposed-to-posts/a-dinner-at-robuchons-jamin/} of Jamin.
One dish I try to replicate, though the air is different — the smell of the sea is missing — is a Spaghetti al Paradiso from a small cafe/restaurant at the top of the island of Ischia. It was February; we arrived on mopeds rented for the day, and those first rays of late winter sun were warming us as we ate outside. Spaghetti, peppers and onions sliced generously, olive oil, garlic and maybe a dusting of peperoncino, salt and pepper. Squared, and then squared again. That dish was perfection.
My sister lives in Recife Brazil, the northeastern coast and went first in 1978. We ate at a beach hut and the waiter was also the fisherman who caught our lunch. After he filleted it, his wife grilled it over a small grate on a large can full of wood coal embers. Salt and fresh lime, with a small ice cold glass of Brahma Chopp. I can't remember what fish was served but it was the freshest fish I have ever eaten. So delicious. On the drive home we stopped at a restaurant specializing in goat, stewed or roasted with plates of manioc fries. Her apartment was very near a Vietnamese baker we'd walk to for fresh baguettes every morning and have those smeared with a water buffalo cheese she'd pan fry on the stove. And really good, very strong coffee.
The warm ocean air, with all its smells, the birds I'd never heard before, I was totally smitten with my sister's home next to the ocean. None of these places exist today, but every time I go back her beautiful family feeds me well from churrascaria to vatapa. Not to mention the amazing fruit.
It was The Millennium and we'd settled into an apartment in Venice for 2 weeks as a home away from home (Milan, 3 hours away by train) w/o giving into the travel hype that surrounded the year 2000. So of course we did our shopping at the local fish market — both terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure. The only thing we could do was trust — which is how we ended up getting talked into cooking the equivalent of a turducken (Italian-stye) of no fewer than 5 birds and a core of sausage stuffing. It was exquisite, and all the more so because (unlike other dishes I've tasted) I have no hope of ever replicating that dish.
While visiting Clermont Ferrand, my friend made an unlikely but brilliant salad of avocado, corn and grapefruit segments. She also introduced me to apricot clafoutis- a revelation! In Italy, the pesto in Cinque Terre and the Cacio & Pepe in Rome - which I ate every night in the same little family restaurant near the Coliseum. Also, white asparagus and egg in Verona. And chocolate almond croissants and Lakrids in Copenhagen. And and and...!
Hi Everyone! Mouth watering food makes me thirsty for interesting drinks. What about beverages abroad? I'll start with beers:
-Kolsch in Cologne when I was at a trade show for biz years ago. Loved how you signaled how many small glasses you wanted to a server passing through the beer hall and they took one from the pyramid stacked on their tray and marked your coaster with hash marks--all without spilling a drop.
-Cramming lime wedges into the bottlenecks Pacifica on the beach at Isla de Piedras near Mazatlan.
-In Tunisia, where instead of beer we drank six-packs of boukha--a clear distillation of figs akin to grappa.
I love the food of many of the places mentioned but the best thing I have ever tasted was yassa poulet on Gorey Island in Senegal. It was served on a paper plate with plastic silverware. So tender and flavorful.
Local Ocean in Newport, Oregon. Seafood from the local waters. My first experience with truly, truly fresh ocean seafood (I've had freshly caught trout, perch, catfish, etc.). I was there to run a marathon and we ate every meal we could at Local Ocean. I loved it so much, I went back to run a second marathon there.
A funny side note. Newport is on an estuary full of oysters. There was a stand set up in the middle of the race handing out oyster shooters. I passed on that
On our honeymoon this Jersey girl tried for the first time hush puppies & fried orkra at Morrison's Cafeteria. Another is Gorgonzola Pear salad at a local restaurant that was on the buffet at my hubby's class reunion...I made 3 more trips to the buffet after everyone served themselves. My request for Mother's day and my birthday.
Ending a meal with local white pumpkin jam studded with almonds over fresh yogurt while sitting under the trees at night in late September on the island of Milos, Greece.
The smell of roast chestnuts all over Ticino, Switzerland in early November after dining on porcini risotto.
My husband's zia's big plate of la spatola (pesce bandiera/belt fish) alla ghiotta after a long walk up the many steps from La Marina in Scilla, Calabria.
In an Instant, What came to mind from today's Column are my travels over quite a few years to the wonderful culinary Paradise of San Francisco, Calif. to what became my Go-To place for Special Occasions and taking out friends and my wife last time we were there on a Napa Wine tour vacation: The Greek dining palace - Kokkari Estiatorio. If it's new to you, you owe yourself a visit to this exquisite restaurant, stylish interior, great bar area and spacious dining rooms aplenty. The Food is out of this world. I used to go first on business trips when I had a client equally enamored of quality dining as I was from my extensive travel and business life. The entire menu is recommended. ENJOY...!! Wayfarer doug - Now in New Mexico and fan of this project.
Mar 24, 2022·edited Mar 24, 2022Liked by Kerri Conan
It is not so much the food as the potent memory that remains. For me it was molten chocolate cake on the first day of my honeymoon in France. It heralded a journey of bliss where all earthly concerns were temporarily suspended.
Another is the fresh baguette brought back to our RV that we parked hastily in Strasbourg after a harrowing nighttime drive (another trip!). My mother-in-law wandered out at 5:45 AM, discovered the queue to the nearby bakery and returned triumphantly with two warm baguettes. We all woke up at the smell that filled the RV and devoured them in 10 seconds flat (a wee exaggeration), still in our PJs.
On my first trip to Italy, many years ago, realizing that the pesto there is so very different than any pesto I've ever eaten or made here. Also, eating coffee granita in a plaza in Rome. And a greasy sandwich from a bodega in Florence, with a splendid glass of wine from an unlabeled bottle. And the espresso, everywhere.
The shockingly spicy food of Xi'an, including a lunch place where we had noodle soup for about 12 cents each. My husband negotiated in sign language to make one of the bowls not spicy for our 7-year-old, who was in heaven because orange soda was the only drink to be had. That wasn't the only culinary revelation on that trip, but it stuck with me.
The farmer's markets in Montreal and Quebec City at the peak of summer, especially the cheese and pate and sausages. And the farmer's market in Madison, Wisconsin.
Po-boys at the New Orleans jazz fest made with crawfish, and in Ocean City, Maryland made with soft-shell crab.
Lobster on the coast of Maine, which really proves that the only place to eat lobster is on the coast of Maine. Blueberry ice cream on that same trip.
I think I was about 11 when on a family trip to San Francisco, we ate sourdough bread and dungeness crab outdoors on a dock, watching the seagulls. I remember the revelation that shellfish, that bread could taste that way.
Just last summer--an avocado sauce in Carlsbad, New Mexico. And a the surprise of a Belgian cafe in Carlisle, PA where we had beer and french fries--the good kind--and mussels for lunch.
Tor me, these culinary revelations are frequently tied in with memories of the people who cooked it or served it or ate with me. And the light and the feel of the place. Thanks--great way to think about travel.
Mar 24, 2022·edited Mar 24, 2022Liked by Kerri Conan
Sunset on the beach, a plate of roasted, salted padrone peppers and teeny weeny limpets steamed in an herb broth, at Perla del Mar, in Tenerife, a seafood restaurant right on the dock. The fishing boats come in and deliver directly to the restaurant. That was one of several courses, but the most memorable.
White asparagus, Berlin. I used to teach there and there were places to get asparagus in every restaurant on my bus route on the way to the school where I was teaching. .
It’s funny how your mind shoots back to the ‘firsts’ as opposed to the ‘bests.’ Or, mine does, anyway. Like I have pizza and I think of Sam’s, on the corner of 20th and First, c. 1958. I have kofte and I think of this Armenian place in Worcester, c. 1968. I have dim sum and I think of Num Wah. Maybe sometimes it’s because the experience was unique but more I think your brain actually forms an image of that first one so that subsequent ones are recognizable. Like to me, ham salad – hardly exotic – I like with England, because I’d never had it until I traveled there. Croissant, Paris. It just goes on.
Sometimes it’s the best of course. I never had a good tortilla until I went to Mexico City – and I don’t remember any of them before that, and I do remember the precise moment I had that first ‘real’ one.
A wedge of idiziabal cheese with a baguette and port in Ciutadella park in Barcelona. The park is kind of a surreal place because the zoo is nearby, so you hear these exotic animal sounds while laying around in the grass under palm trees by a little lake with canoes. I rarely come across that basque cheese, but manchego is close. I just bought some with a baguette and wine the other day when it was in the 60’s and took it down to the Hudson River. Not the same lol
A crispy fatty pork sandwich and fresh warm bread and salty potato chips from a truck in hilltop town in Umbria eaten sitting on the grass looking at mountains. Chunky country pate on amazing rye bread with chilled rose at Antinori wine bar in Florence. Perfectly flavored vanilla gelato in a waffle cone lined with dark chocolate near Florence.
There are so many! I'd start with a street fair in Palermo -- panelle -- chickpea fritters with a squeeze of lemon on a sandwich, surrounded by amazing ingredients. Or tea jello at a street fair in Taipei...
Not in any particular order, but I cannot get them out of my brain, and they follow me wherever I go. The crispy fried olives and sage leaves with a cosmopolitan in the bar/lounge area of the Four Seasons hotel in Milan. The polenta with cheese and red wine in the fall at a festival in Lugano, Switzerland. A real falafel sandwich in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem. And Trattoria Stefano’s Roasted Coniglio with juniper berries and rosemary just up the road from us in Sheboygan, Wisconsin . The stuff dreams are made of.
Thank you, All. So personal and human. And yummy! I'm going to hop off this thread but feel free to keep the tour bus going.
Also, while you're on the line, let me also mention to the Bittman Bread bakers here that I'm back from vacay and will be checking in on those threads in the next day or two. So if you've got questions, suggestions, or want to share the latest notes from your sourdough journey, let 'er rip.
While in Madrid, try all there amazing restaurants like, Filandon for amazing fish and rice dishes. Another favorite is for Spanish omelette located in a market, Casa Dani, there is always a line. Now for that special night a go to is Paraguas for their morel and foie dish. I miss Madrid, I have recently moved to the Canary Islands and well discovering another type of culture and cuisine!
Santa Fe, New Mexico, learning the flavors of the chilis, eating Pueblo bread in a traditional adobe dwelling, outside of Taos, New Mexico.
Yum…good reading.
My first day in Auckland, many years ago. The perfect bowl of fresh summer fruit, full-fat yoghurt and topped with a generous swirl of Manuka honey. Vogel's toast bread with New Zealand butter and my first ever serving of Marmite.
The girl I went to visit was beautiful.
I checked again today. She still is.
Corsica. Sea urchin freshly brought in by diver friends. Served with pictures of rosé and freshly baked bread. Memorable.
Pupusas stuffed with beans or cheese and the curtido (pickled cabbage slaw) that goes with them makes me envision a couple memorable trips to El Salvador and the hospitality of the people I met and sat with in the rural areas.
My fave destination is Tuscany, or really any place in Italy. And the food that makes me want to go back over and over is the fresh pecorino and yummy bread that every little restaurant puts on the table to nibble onbefore your drinks arrive. Then the waiter takes your order, and as he walks toward the kitchen you can hear him say, 'Mama, un ordine!'
OK I need to put on boxing gloves before making this claim but I think SABICH is the best sandwich in the world. It's a creation of Jews from Iraq and available in different venues in Israel. The sandwich is more than the sum of its parts: fried eggplant, hard boiled sliced egg, Yemenite chile paste, mango amba, mixed with a colourful medley of pickled vegetables and smushed into a fresh warm pita. There may be other secret ingredients I am unaware of, sometimes a touch of lemony hummous along the inside of the pita.. The juices drip down your face and you believe you have tasted heaven. I have tried and failed to make this at home. I am going back to Israel in April and I found out about a place outside of Tel Aviv famous for its sabich. I heard a story that a woman walked into this place and was ordering a ton of sabich sandwiches--she was planning to pack them in her suitcase and take them home brave soul.
Street food in Hanoi. Nothing has ever come close to it.
The famous chef Joël Robuchon got his third star from Michelin for Jamin restaurant in Paris before I ate there in the late 1980's. My wife and I, along with our 8-year-old son, were going for a holiday and, unbeknownst to us then, to begin his introduction to the world of glorious food. Jamin was one of three Michelin three-star restaurants I made reservations at. Another was Taillevent. The third, who knows. The plan was to decide over the months prior to the dinner, just which reservation to keep. The NYT wrote about Jamin along about then and named it the best restaurant in the world. The choice was easy. We also picked a small hotel on Ile Saint-Louis as our base. Importantly, our stay there would included a long nap the day of the reservation to give our son the energy to endure a long dinner. The first course, frog legs, came. Our son tackled them bravely. And he got some big chocolate dessert to cap the night. My entree was deconstructed pig head. All the meat was picked off and artfully mounded on my plate. It was accompanied by what would become the chef's signature dish, pommes purée, in effect, a magnificent potato flavored butter, a distant cousin of which is sometimes called mashed potatoes in the U.S. I've loved them since and made them in January for my birthday. The wine was a Domaines Leflaive Rully 1er cru. While further details of the dinner are lost to the ages, the experience was nothing less than an epiphany. Shedding a little light on what we might have experienced is included in a 1991 Brad Spurgeon review {bradspurgeon.com/articles-as-opposed-to-posts/a-dinner-at-robuchons-jamin/} of Jamin.
Raclette and Fondue always remind me of being at my Aunt and Uncle's house in the French Alps.
One dish I try to replicate, though the air is different — the smell of the sea is missing — is a Spaghetti al Paradiso from a small cafe/restaurant at the top of the island of Ischia. It was February; we arrived on mopeds rented for the day, and those first rays of late winter sun were warming us as we ate outside. Spaghetti, peppers and onions sliced generously, olive oil, garlic and maybe a dusting of peperoncino, salt and pepper. Squared, and then squared again. That dish was perfection.
My sister lives in Recife Brazil, the northeastern coast and went first in 1978. We ate at a beach hut and the waiter was also the fisherman who caught our lunch. After he filleted it, his wife grilled it over a small grate on a large can full of wood coal embers. Salt and fresh lime, with a small ice cold glass of Brahma Chopp. I can't remember what fish was served but it was the freshest fish I have ever eaten. So delicious. On the drive home we stopped at a restaurant specializing in goat, stewed or roasted with plates of manioc fries. Her apartment was very near a Vietnamese baker we'd walk to for fresh baguettes every morning and have those smeared with a water buffalo cheese she'd pan fry on the stove. And really good, very strong coffee.
The warm ocean air, with all its smells, the birds I'd never heard before, I was totally smitten with my sister's home next to the ocean. None of these places exist today, but every time I go back her beautiful family feeds me well from churrascaria to vatapa. Not to mention the amazing fruit.
So fun to read the memories. Thank you.
It was The Millennium and we'd settled into an apartment in Venice for 2 weeks as a home away from home (Milan, 3 hours away by train) w/o giving into the travel hype that surrounded the year 2000. So of course we did our shopping at the local fish market — both terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure. The only thing we could do was trust — which is how we ended up getting talked into cooking the equivalent of a turducken (Italian-stye) of no fewer than 5 birds and a core of sausage stuffing. It was exquisite, and all the more so because (unlike other dishes I've tasted) I have no hope of ever replicating that dish.
My first visit to Paris and escargot and anything dairy in England.
While visiting Clermont Ferrand, my friend made an unlikely but brilliant salad of avocado, corn and grapefruit segments. She also introduced me to apricot clafoutis- a revelation! In Italy, the pesto in Cinque Terre and the Cacio & Pepe in Rome - which I ate every night in the same little family restaurant near the Coliseum. Also, white asparagus and egg in Verona. And chocolate almond croissants and Lakrids in Copenhagen. And and and...!
Hi Everyone! Mouth watering food makes me thirsty for interesting drinks. What about beverages abroad? I'll start with beers:
-Kolsch in Cologne when I was at a trade show for biz years ago. Loved how you signaled how many small glasses you wanted to a server passing through the beer hall and they took one from the pyramid stacked on their tray and marked your coaster with hash marks--all without spilling a drop.
-Cramming lime wedges into the bottlenecks Pacifica on the beach at Isla de Piedras near Mazatlan.
-In Tunisia, where instead of beer we drank six-packs of boukha--a clear distillation of figs akin to grappa.
I love the food of many of the places mentioned but the best thing I have ever tasted was yassa poulet on Gorey Island in Senegal. It was served on a paper plate with plastic silverware. So tender and flavorful.
Local Ocean in Newport, Oregon. Seafood from the local waters. My first experience with truly, truly fresh ocean seafood (I've had freshly caught trout, perch, catfish, etc.). I was there to run a marathon and we ate every meal we could at Local Ocean. I loved it so much, I went back to run a second marathon there.
A funny side note. Newport is on an estuary full of oysters. There was a stand set up in the middle of the race handing out oyster shooters. I passed on that
Wow, are these lighting up the memory synapsis. Like a perfect butter-ladden steak, al fresco, at a vineyard outside of Sienna...
On our honeymoon this Jersey girl tried for the first time hush puppies & fried orkra at Morrison's Cafeteria. Another is Gorgonzola Pear salad at a local restaurant that was on the buffet at my hubby's class reunion...I made 3 more trips to the buffet after everyone served themselves. My request for Mother's day and my birthday.
Ending a meal with local white pumpkin jam studded with almonds over fresh yogurt while sitting under the trees at night in late September on the island of Milos, Greece.
The smell of roast chestnuts all over Ticino, Switzerland in early November after dining on porcini risotto.
My husband's zia's big plate of la spatola (pesce bandiera/belt fish) alla ghiotta after a long walk up the many steps from La Marina in Scilla, Calabria.
In an Instant, What came to mind from today's Column are my travels over quite a few years to the wonderful culinary Paradise of San Francisco, Calif. to what became my Go-To place for Special Occasions and taking out friends and my wife last time we were there on a Napa Wine tour vacation: The Greek dining palace - Kokkari Estiatorio. If it's new to you, you owe yourself a visit to this exquisite restaurant, stylish interior, great bar area and spacious dining rooms aplenty. The Food is out of this world. I used to go first on business trips when I had a client equally enamored of quality dining as I was from my extensive travel and business life. The entire menu is recommended. ENJOY...!! Wayfarer doug - Now in New Mexico and fan of this project.
It is not so much the food as the potent memory that remains. For me it was molten chocolate cake on the first day of my honeymoon in France. It heralded a journey of bliss where all earthly concerns were temporarily suspended.
Another is the fresh baguette brought back to our RV that we parked hastily in Strasbourg after a harrowing nighttime drive (another trip!). My mother-in-law wandered out at 5:45 AM, discovered the queue to the nearby bakery and returned triumphantly with two warm baguettes. We all woke up at the smell that filled the RV and devoured them in 10 seconds flat (a wee exaggeration), still in our PJs.
What a great topic! In no particular order....
On my first trip to Italy, many years ago, realizing that the pesto there is so very different than any pesto I've ever eaten or made here. Also, eating coffee granita in a plaza in Rome. And a greasy sandwich from a bodega in Florence, with a splendid glass of wine from an unlabeled bottle. And the espresso, everywhere.
The shockingly spicy food of Xi'an, including a lunch place where we had noodle soup for about 12 cents each. My husband negotiated in sign language to make one of the bowls not spicy for our 7-year-old, who was in heaven because orange soda was the only drink to be had. That wasn't the only culinary revelation on that trip, but it stuck with me.
The farmer's markets in Montreal and Quebec City at the peak of summer, especially the cheese and pate and sausages. And the farmer's market in Madison, Wisconsin.
Po-boys at the New Orleans jazz fest made with crawfish, and in Ocean City, Maryland made with soft-shell crab.
Lobster on the coast of Maine, which really proves that the only place to eat lobster is on the coast of Maine. Blueberry ice cream on that same trip.
I think I was about 11 when on a family trip to San Francisco, we ate sourdough bread and dungeness crab outdoors on a dock, watching the seagulls. I remember the revelation that shellfish, that bread could taste that way.
Just last summer--an avocado sauce in Carlsbad, New Mexico. And a the surprise of a Belgian cafe in Carlisle, PA where we had beer and french fries--the good kind--and mussels for lunch.
Tor me, these culinary revelations are frequently tied in with memories of the people who cooked it or served it or ate with me. And the light and the feel of the place. Thanks--great way to think about travel.
Sunset on the beach, a plate of roasted, salted padrone peppers and teeny weeny limpets steamed in an herb broth, at Perla del Mar, in Tenerife, a seafood restaurant right on the dock. The fishing boats come in and deliver directly to the restaurant. That was one of several courses, but the most memorable.
Lot of italy in this crowd....
How often do you try to replicate those dishes at home, and how does it go?
White asparagus, Berlin. I used to teach there and there were places to get asparagus in every restaurant on my bus route on the way to the school where I was teaching. .
Since this is a little about Rome, I will say artichokes .....
It’s funny how your mind shoots back to the ‘firsts’ as opposed to the ‘bests.’ Or, mine does, anyway. Like I have pizza and I think of Sam’s, on the corner of 20th and First, c. 1958. I have kofte and I think of this Armenian place in Worcester, c. 1968. I have dim sum and I think of Num Wah. Maybe sometimes it’s because the experience was unique but more I think your brain actually forms an image of that first one so that subsequent ones are recognizable. Like to me, ham salad – hardly exotic – I like with England, because I’d never had it until I traveled there. Croissant, Paris. It just goes on.
Sometimes it’s the best of course. I never had a good tortilla until I went to Mexico City – and I don’t remember any of them before that, and I do remember the precise moment I had that first ‘real’ one.
A wedge of idiziabal cheese with a baguette and port in Ciutadella park in Barcelona. The park is kind of a surreal place because the zoo is nearby, so you hear these exotic animal sounds while laying around in the grass under palm trees by a little lake with canoes. I rarely come across that basque cheese, but manchego is close. I just bought some with a baguette and wine the other day when it was in the 60’s and took it down to the Hudson River. Not the same lol
A crispy fatty pork sandwich and fresh warm bread and salty potato chips from a truck in hilltop town in Umbria eaten sitting on the grass looking at mountains. Chunky country pate on amazing rye bread with chilled rose at Antinori wine bar in Florence. Perfectly flavored vanilla gelato in a waffle cone lined with dark chocolate near Florence.
There are so many! I'd start with a street fair in Palermo -- panelle -- chickpea fritters with a squeeze of lemon on a sandwich, surrounded by amazing ingredients. Or tea jello at a street fair in Taipei...
In the 90s I had my first chicken tajine in the Marais, Paris. It was a perfectly wonderful, lasting memory.
Not in any particular order, but I cannot get them out of my brain, and they follow me wherever I go. The crispy fried olives and sage leaves with a cosmopolitan in the bar/lounge area of the Four Seasons hotel in Milan. The polenta with cheese and red wine in the fall at a festival in Lugano, Switzerland. A real falafel sandwich in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem. And Trattoria Stefano’s Roasted Coniglio with juniper berries and rosemary just up the road from us in Sheboygan, Wisconsin . The stuff dreams are made of.
We'll get stared at 1pm ET. See you soon.