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.