Things I’ve eaten

“Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.” –Anthony Bourdain

Food is, without a doubt, one of the best ways to explore a culture.

This is why I’m grateful for my parents’ rules on food: 1. You must take at least a little of each thing offered at the table—even just a spoonful, and 2. You must eat what you take.

I travel with these rules, which have opened my tastebuds and my heart to sample so many cool, new experiences. To taste the local food of another land is to taste the pride of local life.

In Italy, it’s a toothsome pizza slathered in tangy tomato sauce or olive oil. It’s the rich, creamy  simplicity of cacio e pepe; sweet fresh squeezed orange juice; and mozzarella di bufala oozing with milk that invite a visitor into the ancient kitchens of ancient cities where recipes—simple, perfect recipes—and traditions have been handed down for centuries.

In Spain, it’s salty razor-thin slices of jamon Iberico that melt in your mouth. Marinated olives unlike anywhere else in the world. Savory paella divvied up on plates. And piles of cheese, bread and a smorgasbord of tapas complemented by bottles of Rioja, laughter and music shared among friends.

It’s piping hot fish and chips baptized in vinegar and salt from a humble chip shop in England. A steaming bowl of umami pho goodness for breakfast in Cambodia, chased by velvet coffee made all the more splendid saturated with sweetened condensed milk. It’s fresh-caught salmon grilled on a cedar plank in Seattle. Just-sweet-enough dainty macarons in Paris. Thick and hearty homemade lamb and veg stew slow cooked with love in New Zealand. And fat, doughy cream-stuffed “Long John” donuts painted with chocolate or maple in my hometown, Middlebury, Indiana.

The flavors. The stomach-growl inducing scents. The textures and unique freshness of foods. These are cultural experiences spooned through the mouth and into the heart.

Getting hungry?

Here’s the thing: I’m usually not asked what the best thing is that I’ve eaten in my travels. More often, it’s “what’s the strangest thing you’ve eaten?”

The answer is: It all depends on your definition of “strange.” Strange, as in, odd? Or, strange, as in unpleasant?

By both definitions, the “strangest” happened in Ecuador. That’s where I ate tripe for the first (and likely last) time. And guinea pig—odd, but not unpleasant. The tripe, I don’t need to taste again, even though it was cooked in bacon. The guinea pig was nicely seasoned and slow roasted over a coal fire in a small village. I was a guest, and though I had been warned against eating guinea pig (known locally as “cuy”) I knew I could not refuse. This was a very special meal prepared for me, a special guest. It tasted like chicken. (They insisted I leave with a takeaway portion for later.)

But Ecuador was also the first place I tasted the fresh lime-chilled goodness of ceviche and sweet, ripe, juicy—ugly looking—cherimoya fruit, flakey meat-stuffed empanadas and luscious, cool avocado and cream soup.

There was crispy duck tongue in Cambodia. Savory deep-fried cod tongue in Newfoundland. And beef tongue in, well, lots of places.

There was haggis in Scotland (not bad) and horse meat stroganoff in Switzerland (chewy). There were many attempts at pâté, which I didn’t like until I tried it in Paris; and many attempts at briny oysters on the half shell, which I only swallowed out of polite duty until I ate them with a friend in Boston—who taught me the right way to eat oysters.

There was canned grass jelly drink in Cambodia. I don’t need to repeat that one. It tasted just like it sounds: A flat soda with cubes of black gelatin flavored like…grass? I’ve never eaten grass, so I’m just assuming. Supposedly, the drink is good for you. And there was the time I played Russian Roulette with a vending machine on the streets of Tokyo and ended up with a can of something undrinkable that I can only describe as dirt pop tea. But at least I tried it.

One of the first things I ask a cab driver in a city I’m visiting for the first time is: Where and what should I eat while I’m here. What is this place known for? A cabbie in Edinburgh had a quick answer: Eat everything brown. He wasn’t wrong.

Food brings us into a culture, and it brings us together at a table. Bowls of steamy ramen brought me closer to my dear friend Kasey as we explored Tokyo’s alleyways. And more memorable than the weird grass jelly drink in Cambodia were the stories swapped at a table between new friends at a restaurant rest-stop.

Visit another place. Resist the familiar chains and ask the locals where they go. Pull up a chair at a local pub, food stand or proper restaurant and taste life.