I will be honest that - especially with my more recent travel - I had not really thought about the role that cuisine plays in my travels. But in every trip, even in my most recent ones to Japan and Europe, I find that I am taking a picture at almost every meal. Whether it is because of the novelty or the true differences I find (probably both), the food (and the pictures) have become a strong part of my memories.
As I mentioned before, most of the places we ate were buffets connected with the hotels we stopped at. On the whole they quite good (I cannot think of one that was not) and almost every one featured local specialties.
Dinner, with the ever present baklava:
Cheesy mushrooms (it sounds better in Turkish):
More desserts:
I am guessing breakfast based on the coffee?
Gummy bears in Turkish. A universal food.
Lunch:
I love these posts. A country or region's cuisine is such an interesting glimpse into their culture, their climate, and their food production. That always fascinates me, I supposes because Dan and I try to grow as much of our own food as we can, and I'm always looking for new ways to prepare/cook it.
ReplyDeleteTextiles -> fabric, native dress and language are also fascinating.
Leigh - I certainly feel like we got exposed to more food outside of my wheelhouse on this trip than others - perhaps partially because of the fact that unlike many other cuisines, Turkish cuisine has been few and far between in the places we have lived. I would think that the bulk of what we had could easily be made by someone like yourselves that grows so much of their own.
DeleteUnfortunately due to modernization, native dress seems so hard to come by now. We have had a bit more luck with textiles (specifically rugs).
Those look like wonderful dishes I'd be too nervous to try for myself. Having ever been a picky child, it's been a struggle to try and broaden my palate when anything outside of "comfort food" either provokes a physical reaction, or a nagging insecurity that I'll waste the food or insult the host by not enjoying the dish for petty reasons - sometimes both.
ReplyDeleteStill, one has learned that most of my family's reservations about tomato soup is when it comes out of a can rather than a dutch oven. Small victories, and all that.
P_P - I can understand that. It can be especially challenging, especially when one does not recognize the food at all. Fortunately in this case, most every place had salad and cheese, which is pretty much the same the world over.
DeleteWe too take quite a few food pictures when eating foods not in our normal diets. Part of it is to show to others and part is a reminder so perhaps we can try to recreate when we get home. Our normal menu rotation at home has a lot of different cuisines from around the world, inspired by our travels.
ReplyDeleteEd, we are not as good about trying to recreate things as we could be. Hopefully in the coming month with the change in location (and only feeding two of us), we can start to experiment more.
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