The Obligatory Food Post

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, Croatia:

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 have talked 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).

1. Meal highlights

* Home cooked (by someone other than us), an incredible meal in London, thank you, again Deena and Sarah

* First few days in Saarbrucken including Mexican food fiesta night (Nick's decorations),

 and eating at a potato (kerfuffle) restaurant on day 2 in Saarbrucken,

Mulling over the water choice at the Kerfuffle (potato) restaurant

and a pretty decent Mexican restaurant on the square in Saarbrucken. A good start.

* Excellent Mexican food in Ghent, Belgium.

2. Meal lowlights

Going out to eat

• The fish and chips fail, already detailed  in https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2018/10/scarborough-fair-moor-or-less.html
•     Amsterdam interpretation of Mexican Food
•     British street food- 
• jacket potato which was great and a Cornish pasty (cheese and spinach) in Bath which just tasted like a jacket

   Not Going Out to eat

• An unfortunate bag of gluten free noodles in Eastbourne, UK first night 1/2 the bag mixed with a green (pea?) soup, next night the second half of the bag as an anchovy casserole which was even worse than it sounds, can still taste it

3. Most awkward meal(s)

Asking our very generous host at the bed and breakfast in Amsterdam 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 the bread stack as a Jenga tower, maybe removing one slice without the height ever changing.

4.  Food procurement

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.

-Commonalities throughout Europe

• Food basics are far less expensive then 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 then Trader Joe's. 
• There is 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.

• Beer is very inexpensive. $1-2 a bottle
  

• "American" speciality food is disgusting, mostly seen in  German markets.
  
  
  
  
  

-Differences to US.

• There is no canned soup in Croatia. 
• No one sells chocolate chips. 
• Rare to see salad dressing outside of UK.  
• There are no 100% corn tortillas and Mexican is usually interpreted as Tex-Mex which is equated to a sweet & spicy ketchup-like flavor
• Refried beans are a rare find, we substitute with whole kidney beans, Renal-Mex
• Farmer's Markets are really Farmer's Markets and carry local, seasonal produce at prices usually less expensive then the markets. Plus Fisherman's Markets.

- Best Solutions to US Grocery Problems

• You know how when you want to buy fresh ingredients for something you only want the ingredients for that meal, like when making soup.  Here is the solution; packaging it all together. This is brilliant. 

     

Germany

Waitrose ad at Victoria Station, even comes with the wine

Netherlands

• To use a supermarket cart, you pay a Euro to unlock it, you get it back when you return it. No shopping carts left in the parking lot. 

• -Best music - most markets piped in classic rock with the exceptional choice of  What's New Pussycat by Tom Jones greeting us on a Sunday morning at a huge Spar market in Pula, Croatia 

6. Ice cream  

Best has surprisingly been at Henry's in Saarbrucken, "spaghetti ice", ice cream that looks like spaghetti.  We will probably do more exploration.

7. Our meals

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, apples, citrus fruits, 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).

Guess we were well prepared, in case the nachos turned south on us

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. 

• Cheese- we have tried various forms of Trapist Sir, Tilsit, Emmanthaler, ButterKasse, Gouda (old and young) and Gauda, Basa, goat, Feta and others that we have no idea what the name is. 

• Jam, when possible we have been buying home-made from Farmer's Markets-Fig, Apricot, Berry, Pomegranate, Cherry-all have been great. 
• Fruit; great apples and pears everywhere plus excellent citrus in Croatia

We did finally buy a meal, on our last night in Pula, desperate to keep our promise to experience local restaurant but not hungry because our stomachs were still "mangeled", we went light with take out at Mlinar, the big bakery/sandwich chain of Croatia.

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.

Unlikely.

Bloc party in Zagreb

   

Another trip over the Alps, this time not by Easy Jet or elephant but by European Greyhound, the Flixbus, and this time not over the true Alps but the "Dinaric Alps" or also commonly called Dinarides (it's highest peak is 8839 ft in Albania) the mountain range that runs north-south through the Balkans.  We arrived in Zagreb after a five hour bus trip from Split. Traveling  from rock, scrub and olive trees to lush valleys surrounded by pine, while listening to a group of Croatian teens play a dirty version "Never, have I ever..." in a combination of Croatian and English. They read the questions in English, but unfortunately answered each other in Croatian, with lots of giggling.

The day was dreary, cold and gray as we entered equally gray and bleak looking Zagreb, which actually felt rather refreshing after the past few weeks of the stunning views of the ancient Adriatic coast.  Our rather drab first impression started to fall away as we were warmly welcomed by our very earnest Air B&B host, who texted us throughout our alpine journey to check on our arrival time so her son could pick us up from the bus station.


David met us and what would have been a five minute walk was shortened to a 3 minute walk to the parked car followed by a 1 minute drive to the apartment. We parked in front of a pockmarked concrete block building part of a massive housing complex. All  doubts about our housing choice were eliminated however, when we walked into a very homey apartment, probably the most pleasant we've stayed in.  They even left us a complementary chocolate bar.

 

We immediately set out on our traditional first day scouting, walking along a very clean (consistent throughout Croatia) street.  Vukovarska Street was lined by candles, which we later found out were there to commemorate the start of the Serbo-Croatian war on November 18, 1991 with the bombing of the city of Vukovar.


The walk was perfect! The boulevard flowed into an underground shopping street (below the train tracks) which opened up onto a classic, European grand square, complete with massive statues, beautiful buildings and the beginnings of a Christmas market-with a holiday skating rink and track. This was the first of three Christmas markets we saw under construction as we wandered through Zagreb.

 

Zagreb is Croatia's Capitol and largest city. Dubrovnik and Split felt and looked like coastal California if the California missions were limestone castles. Zagreb put us back into the Gestalt of Europe with grand buildings reflecting the changing roster of rulers; Roman, Ottoman, Napoleon, Austro-Hungarian and Communist Tito.  The ubiquitous graffiti being the contribution of the new generation.   Unlike the coastal cities clinging to the cliffs, Zagreb is in a spacious valley with plenty of room for multiple town squares surrounded by majestic churches,  government buildings and palaces, a pleasing mishmash of styles, with a richer varied architecture and art than the old fort cities  of Dubrovnik and Split.

While there was a lot to see, and since this was Croatia, a lot of stairs to climb, we were able to hit most of the tour-book sites in an afternoon.

Zagreb is like a layer cake- the top is the Kaptol where the clerics reigned. Here were government buildings, old convents and  monasteries converted into museums.

Gregory of Nin by Mestrovic in Split

One museum was the former studio of favorite son, sculptor, Ivan Mestrovic.  His sculptures have been a constant and familiar feature on our wandering through Croatia.

The Cathedral, like most, has been a work in progress for hundreds of years, remodeled by fires, earthquakes, wars and priorities of religious and secular (Communist) governments.

The middle layer is the Gradec where the secular rulers built their fancy buildings and squares. Gradec dropped into the bottom layer or Lower Town with  restaurants, squares, more churches and interesting shops (not that we would buy anything). Many of these buildings were designed by architect Hermann Bolle (native German, adopted by Zagreb as their own) with streets and squares named after the prodigal son who never came home inventor Nikola Tesla (sculpture also by Ivan Mestrovic).  This was a far livelier area then our apartment in the surrounding crumbs.

The World Cup results still being celebrated here

Okay, we probably would buy something here

On our walk back down, the candles were lit, another reminder of how recent the war was.  In May of 1995, Zagreb suffered two days of civilian targeted cluster bombing in the waning days of the war.

After our usual stop at the market, we came home and made potato soup.
Our potato-rationed  dreams were fulfilled as we awoke to snow.

In the morning, sitting in a warm kitchen, drinking tea and instant coffee, watching snow fall outside our window,
and a stereotypic elderly, overweight Eastern European woman dressed just in her black bra hanging out laundry on her porch across the courtyard. Feeling the old Republic of Yugoslavia.  Yeah, we could live here.

What better way to spend the snowy day then at the famous cemetery, Mirogoj Cemetery designed by Herman Bolle, as well.    We walked around for nearly 2 hours absorbing the sublime beauty of the acres of buildings and grounds housing nearly 300,000.

The two bell ringers

A hand-bell was rung, as funeral processions passed, another reminder of the deep attachments to Old World traditions.

In contrast to the current and historical Balkan fighting,  Catholics, Christian Orthodox, Muslims and Jews lie mixed together in peace. Although the tour-books mentioned Jewish graves and memorials, we could not find them on the map or during our fairly thorough exploration. This is pretty consistent with what we have read and seen about Croatia's relationship with Jews; minimal references, poorly memorialized coupled with revisionist history. In the old cities of Split and Dubrovnik, we had to search to find the kiosk sized synagogues which seemed to exist only as tokens for the Jewish tourists.  The one Jewish cemetery we have seen (Split), was completely neglected and no mention of why it was not used after 1945. It's poor condition is most likely related to the virtual absence of Jews in Croatia, down from about 30,000 pre-WWII to about 500 now.

Walking down from  Mirogoj Cemetery through the layers of the city, again, experiencing the Balkan melange of beauty and ugly- passing the Children's Hospital that was deliberately targeted on the last few days of the war,  deterioration of the buildings due to neglect and, those magnificent buildings.

Despite our ambivalence, we loved Zagreb.  It had a positive energy, it reminded us of Liverpool in some ways.  It was mix of everything good and bad in Croatia, and consistent with it's Cathedral, with each disaster and revolving government, it perseveres.








This week's photo of topless old man looking out window contemplating his life "Never have I ever, ...anything"