I Waited 38 Years for this Taste of England

A Return to Britain and Ireland taught me that sometimes the most meaningful travel experiences are served on a plate.

 

Food is one of the many languages of travel. A particular smell can ride the currents past you, awakening your mind to some long ago special event or place. Sometimes when travelling, you may return to a place you haven’t been to in a long time. You look around nostalgically, and then a certain smell fills your nose. With a fond sigh of remembrance, the experience is complete.

My earliest discovery of the power of food

I remember when I was a teenager and our family had been living in England for about 4 years. My dad was in the Air Force. We lived off base, and one of the fun escapades for us was to walk to the local Chippy for fish and chips.

Right before we moved back to the U.S., a KFC came to town. We were so excited to dive into a taste of home with a bucket of fried chicken. Well, I couldn’t believe my tongue. The chicken, nestled inside a thick crunchy fried crust, teased my memory of long ago tasty American food, but shockingly, it tasted like fish. I love fish and chips, but my chicken should not taste like fish! I don’t know if they fed their chickens fish meal, which is what I remember being told, or they fried it in the same fryer as the fish, but it was not proper KFC!

The reverse happened after we moved back to the States. Missing the taste of authentic British fish and chips, whenever I travelled across the country, I often ordered fish and chips if I thought the restaurant might serve the British style, longing for that visceral memory. Alas, nothing stacked up.

In 2012, I had the opportunity to finally return to England with some friends. We popped into a restaurant in London. I was salivating for proper fish and chips. Then it arrived.

The big pieces of haddock, lightly breaded, were fried with a beer-batter-crust. Sitting on the table was the wonderful brown bottle of malt vinegar which I delicately drizzled across my fish and chips. Biting into the fish, the juice dripped to my plate and the flavour danced through my mouth.

This restaurant’s version came with mushy peas, for which I acquired a new taste. As kids, we always got take-away, wrapped in newspapers. On this trip, although we were in a restaurant, the childhood memories of eating our fish out of greasy newspaper flooded my senses!

Awe, my London experience was complete.

Amazing that 38-years later, a taste of proper fish-and-chips transported me to my childhood as though it were yesterday. This is the power of food to arouse and awaken not only your tastebuds, but your memories as well.

 

 

 

Foodie delights in today’s global society

Whenever I travel, whether locally or internationally, my goal is to stretch out of my comfort zone. I vow to eat foods that I normally wouldn’t cook at home or ones that are especially unique to the local culture.

Last November, my sister and I rejuvenated our travel bugs with a long-awaited trip to Ireland and Scotland. We hadn’t been there since we were kids in 1970.

In keeping with the philosophy of expanding our palates, my list of Scottish delicacies to sample included Cullen Skink soup and Haggis with neeps.

On our first night in Edinburgh, I checked the box for Cullen Skink soup; a traditional creamy rich soup with smoked haddock, potatoes, and leeks. We were hooked from the first spoonful!

 

Three days later in Glasgow, we imbibed in an appetizer of Haggis (a pudding of lamb’s liver, heart, and lungs), Neeps (mashed turnips), and Tatties (mashed potatoes) with a whisky sauce. This was followed by a Market Seafood Stew with fresh fish and mussels in a tomato, fennel, celery, white wine base with garlic sourdough. We topped it off by sharing a traditional dessert of Cranachan (whisky liqueur, honey, raspberries and carmelised oats). Absolutely delectable!

 

 

Sometimes food is the destination

Besides my vow of tempting myself with new adventures along the path of tasty morsels, I consider the potential delicacy to be the lure that pulls me to a new destiny.

This very concept hooked us on the train carrying us across Scotland from Inverness to Edinburgh. One of the stretches became busy and a solo traveller joined us. After some introductory conversation, we told her we were flying to Ireland the next day and renting a car with thoughts of driving down the Dingle Peninsula. Her eyes lit up and she described an ice cream shop that was a must-experience destination, Murphy’s ice cream, and reeled off a half dozen unique flavours.

After arriving in Ireland and renting a car, we picked our day to experience Murphy’s ice cream. What an adventure. About a third of the way down the Peninsula, we got a flat tyre, fortunately fairly close to a petrol station which directed us down the road to a full-service station where they fixed our tyre.

Our tyre misadventure left insufficient time to give Dingle its due justice of exploration. To capture the highlights, we made a quick reconnaissance tour of town. We had a 2 ½ hour drive to make our planned dinner engagement with cousins, so couldn’t stay long in Dingle. Spotting our destination we parked nearby, anticipating a unique experience.

Murphy’s menu board amazed us with its selection of unique handmade flavours. We both had a scoop of Irish Brown Bread (the top suggestion of our train companion) and a scoop of Chocolate Whiskey, Irish of course.

Once we finished our ice creams, we hopped back in the car and started our drive north. We laughed at the unbelievably long distance that we travelled for ice cream, but definitely worth it. Aside from the experience with the flat tyre, the drive was a beautiful landscape of emerald-green quilted fields and stone walls!

 

Since I recently relocated from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast, I have a list of new foods to try. Adding new culinary experiences to our site-seeing excursions gives us the opportunity to taste test local culture!

Everyone with whom I travel, is used to the idea of me taking photos of every meal. If I excitedly start eating before taking my photo, they will often even remind me.

The health and joy of travel eating at home

Nowadays, whether eating at home or in a restaurant, I am more conscientious about healthy eating. I strive to stick with a Mediterranean style diet. This is particularly difficult in the U.S. which, as a generic statement, condones corporate profit, fillers, preservatives, and various other harmful ingredients, over health.

Lifestyles are changing in the U.S., however. Doctors are encouraging the Mediterranean and DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension). ‘Farm to Table’ is growing in the form of weekend markets, restaurants, with some small local stores stocking only locally grown produce and organic healthy food products.

Gluten-free options increasingly comprise whole sections of grocery stores and numerous options are available on restaurant menus.

For the last several years I have been researching and exploring all avenues of healthier eating. I spend hours in stores reading labels looking for simple healthy ingredients; often buying products from Canada, England, Italy, and other EU countries where they seem to have more health conscious laws and ideals.

The power of food as a language of travel

Food is definitely one of the plethora of travel languages in today’s global society. Every country, and in fact regions of some countries, have their own unique traditional dishes. One of my favourite aspects of travel is to sample the cultures through exploring their sustainable and local specialties.

There is power in the aroma wafting from a well-tended kitchen that can transport you through time, decades even. Conversely, the opposite is also true, when a long awaited taste is contrary to our memories, falling disappointingly short. Hopefully, more often than not, it’s a delightful step down memory lane.

Taste your way through an unforgettable journey, building memories and experiencing new perspectives. Keep exploring the magic of travel!