November 30, 2018
So, time to talk turkey, our obligatory food post.
We know you have all been waiting for the food commentary especially during the food lull between Thanksgiving, Hanukah and Christmas. We can start by showing our ex-pat Thanksgiving meal from our kitchen in Pula.
As we rolled into this Italian influenced town in Northern Croatia, we thought this would be the foodie portion of the trip, and it has been, we talk about food far more then usual. We even talked about going out to eat, reading more then one curbside menu and pointing out restaurants as we passed. We focused on pizza and seafood as options. We had neither, nor did we really go out, but you can quiz us on every menu in Pula.
For background, eating can be challenging for us. Our limitations are-gluten free (P for 15 years, which needs to be added so she does not feel trendy), vegetarian (both), no black or garbanzo beans (N).
What have been the highlights? Having a home cooked meal at a friend’s house in London and our first few days in Saarbrücken-
Conversely, the lowlights have been going out to eat including the fish and chips failhttps://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/scarborough-fair-moor-or-less/ the horrific Amsterdam interpretation of Mexican food and our attempt at getting British street food in Bath; a jacket potato for Patricia which was great and a Cornish pasty (cheese and spinach) for Nick which just tasted like a jacket. Surprisingly the other lowlight was not going out to eat. In Eastbourne UK on our first night, combining an unfortunate bag of gluten free noodles mixed with green (pea?) soup and then the next night mixing the other half of the noodle bag as an anchovy casserole which was even worse than it sounds (we are still tasting it).
Our most awkward meal moment was asking our very generous host at the Amsterdam bed and breakfast to eliminate the the tall stack of bread that she brought to us each morning along with jam, cheese, yogurt and fruit. She struggled to do so, each day treating the bread stack as a Jenga tower, maybe removing one slice without the height ever changing.
Our travels have been primarily through the aisles of supermarkets. We have gone to Rewe, Fredl, Aldi, Lidl, Netto, BioNature Mart, Delhaize, Albert Cuyp, Albert Heijin Bio and Bio, Spar, Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Morrison, Sainsbury, Spar, Tommy, Konzum, Waitrose, Istarski and many Farmer’s markets. Personal favorites were Albert Cuyp in Amsterdam and Waitrose in UK, Rewe in Germany (Nick), Aldi in Germany (Patricia) and every Spar in a variety of countries.
While there are differences between countries, there are some commonalities. Food staples are far less expensive than the US. In terms of our food essentials; eggs are very cheap $1-$2 for 10-12 eggs, milk $1 or less per liter, chocolate is dirt cheap and generally high quality especially in Amsterdam. One exception are nuts (one of our primary foods) which are more expensive than Trader Joe’s. There is also just less of processed foods. The packaged ready-to-eat food were usually decent as in the “1 main and 2 sides” of Marks and Spencer or Waitrose, like what you see in the prepared section at Whole Foods. Our prepared food phase in England consisted of buying fresh soup, pot pie, or vegetables.
Whenever there was “American” food, it was disgusting (mostly seen in Germany).
Of course there were differences in the markets in Europe and the US.There is no canned soup in Croatia, No one sells chocolate chips, rare to see salad dressing (which we don’t use and don’t miss), except in the UK, there are no 100% corn tortillas and “Mexican” is interpreted as Tex-Mex (usually) which is very sweet and spicy ketchup-like flavor, refried beans are a rare find, we substituted with whole kidney beans, Renal-Mex.
Farmer’s Markets are really Farmer’s Markets, they are daily and carry local, seasonal produce (and fish) at prices usually less expensive then the markets.
We do make an effort to try the local beer, wine and food. In Croatia when buying what we thought was spinach, we were introduced to Mangel, which are the leaves of a type of beet root. It took us 4 days to go through our kilo. At the Farmer’s market we also have bought a variety of jams; Fig, Apricot, Berry, Pomegranate, Cherry-all have been great. We have tried various forms of cheese: Trapist Sir, Tilsit, Emmanthaler, ButterKasse, Gouda (old and young) and Gauda, Basa, goat, Feta and others that we have no idea what the name was.
Since most places we stay at have, at minimum, a microwave and most have a full kitchen, we usually make our meals. Nick lives on eggs (next time we’re bringing our pet chickens). As an example, in Dubrovnik-66 in two weeks (with minimal help from Patricia). His other essential is his home-made “GORP” without the Granola or the Oats and more of a mix of cashews, raisins, almonds and peanuts, so “CRAP”. Sometimes walnuts and chocolates are added, to become, “WC CRAP”.
Our other go-to foods are carrots (which tasted better in Europe), apples, citrus fruits (amazing in Croatia), yogurt and berries, GF/corn pasta with whatever vegetables we get from the Farmer’s Market which sometimes works and sometimes not. We did make polenta once but it lasted for about 4 days overstaying it’s welcome (on day 1). But our staple is “anything you can fit on a corn thin” usually with either mustard, cheese and tomato or tuna. If we are partying then PB&J (100% peanut butter can be hard to find).
Surprisingly, after 15 weeks on the road and averaging over 6 miles a day walking we’ve each only lost about 10% of our body mass. Time to go read more menus.
Food blog rehashed on May 1 2023 https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2023/05/01/obligatory-food-blog-rehashed/
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