When you travel to a
new place, how much food adds to your experience?
Are you eating to
live OR living to eat?
If you are the latter one
then I am sure apart from travelling to a exotic location one of the reasons
for deciding the location must be to explore the culture and food of the place.
For me one of the major
reason I travel is to experience a culture of the place, and food play a major
role in understanding the ethnicity of a city. I never miss to discover the
road side stalls and the street carts which might be serving the city's delicacy.
Always dining in a fine restaurant might not serve you the best of what the
city serves so I always look out for the street food because the best local
cuisine comes out from these small street side stalls or even rich authentic cafes. I can even relate to the hill top cafes with rustic interiors serving hot maggie acts like a heaven.
Before I plan to travel to a
place I make sure to learn about the
famous cuisines the town offers and the best places to have it be as small
as a sweet dish to some chaat or a sea food.
And it is interesting how
you relate to that particular place with the food or the aroma in it or
even the traditional style of preparing it even after the trip ends.
I still remember we were
told to stay away and be safe with the food stalls as you don’t want to become
sick while you are travelling but I really can't afford to miss out what the
place has the best to offer and when it adds to my experience of the place.
Street / local food is also good if you are doing the budget travelling because
fine dine can even make the hole in your pockets without actually much
discovering anything new about the place but these stalls would give the best
of taste in the best affordable condition.
Even if you are not planning
to connect the food with your travels, it somehow becomes the part of your trip
and you end up asking the cab person or the hotel man to tell you what is the
most famous cuisine or where you can get the best food?
I still remember the bicycle man serving misti
Doi(sweet curd) and Rabdi which was the best thing to calm ourselves from the scorching
sun in Shantiniketan. The town makes me remind of Bengali Cuisine. Did I say Bengali Cuisine? Yes
because the resort presented authentic & traditional Bengali cuisine even
for the vegetarian people like me. We were served with warm and aromatic
bhaat(Rice) with Posto Bora in green lotus leaves. Before this I have never
loved rice this much and I ate like it was my last meal.
When I travelled to Leh and
while all the people were having the hot tea against the chills of Ladakh and
Khardungla, and I was shivering and refused to have tea because I don’t really
like the smell and flavor of tea and I never
had it since childhood, and then the lady offered me a traditional and their local drink named
' Kahwah' which contains saffron and cinnamon that helps to keep the body warm.
And later I was mostly seen sitting by the window and sipping the same. Today
even after 2 years of the trip the first thing which comes in mind with Leh is
'Kahwah' and the warmth of chills in it. I have never loved thai food but i remember a cafe in Ladakh serving thai food and their thukpa was a treat to my taste buds.
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| Credits: Google (Because i didn't have a better picture of it) |
While you live away from
home for a long time or when you need a vacation from a vacation I am sure you
miss 'Ghar ka Khana' (Mommy's Kitchen) more than your bed and bathroom.
My five years of Graduation ended
with knowing which part of the city serves what and where can you get the
best sandwiches, cold coffee or the chai.
That is the power of food, it
helps you connects with the place in the most profound way possible. Imagine a
dining with the community or the friends you have and the memories it create.
In the similar way it connects a particular place and the memories attached to
it.
The world is full of incredible foods tempting to be eaten and they are just a road trip away or even as close as a next street. And even if you're not a foodie - well, you still have to eat, right? So why not eat a little, and make memories with the place.
Even if
this concludes me as a big foodie then i don't regret being one.
Happy food
travels and do share your travels with the taste !
