Food, glorious food! No matter what country you may find yourself in, there will always be plenty of different foods to try. And in every country, no matter how small, there will be something the locals eat which you will be urged to taste, whether it be regional variations of national dishes or the town’s own special treats. If you’re with a local family you might get to try recipes that have been passed down for generations, and if you’re just walking down the street, you might not even have to go inside a restaurant to taste the community’s best grinds. Yes, street food! Though some folks bypass street food altogether because of hygiene/health concerns, or because they don’t know what to order, there are some amazing things to feast on that are usually prepared in minutes that put a lot less stress on your wallet. In Japan you might hear this expressed as “umai! yasui! hayai!”— tasty, cheap and fast!
When we first moved to the city of Damak in eastern Nepal, we were quickly introduced to the wonderful dumplings that are called momo. The picture above is actually from our very first lunch in Damak, when our son Kai was 2 years old and he had his first plate of momo. As you can guess by his expression, he was immediately a big fan, and over the course of 2 and a half years, there’s no telling how many momo we consumed! There are a wide variety of styles and fillings to try, from pure vegetarian to yak meat, and every town and city in Nepal has its favorite places to order them. In fact Kai loved momo so much that we had a hand-stitched t-shirt made for him that declared “I ♥ Momo!”
Of course we did eat other things in Nepal, but every time we left the country and returned, it would be momo that we craved first. In addition to being delicious, affordable and quick, momo became a comfort food for us, and these “tastes from home” are often the ones we seek out when we’ve been traveling for awhile or living in a different country for some time. There’s also comfort in having food rituals— food you eat on a certain night every week, or food you eat during certain holidays. In Damak there was a guesthouse that served the staff, families and friends of the UN refugee agency and the IOM, and every Thursday night was Pizza Night. In fact Thursday was the only night we could get pizza at the guesthouse, so it became almost a pilgrimage of sorts to head there every week to meet colleagues and friends and enjoy some pizza pies, good conversation and laughs.
As for holiday foods, every place around the world has them, and these foods are sometimes so deeply associated with a particular holiday or festival that you might rarely eat them any other time of the year. In Nepal the holiday food I most fondly remember is called sel roti. Sel roti are homemade ring-shaped “donuts” made from sweet rice bread, and these goodies are always prepared during the autumn festivals of Dashain as well as my favorite Hindu celebration Tihar, also known as Diwali or the Festival of Lights. There’s a lot of care put into these delicious treats and the batter is almost always prepared the night before to ensure the best consistency and taste. Using a frying pan called a karahi, the chef pours the bread batter into bubbling oil and immediately starts stirring the batter in a circular motion with a long wooden or metal stick, creating circles that become the donuts. It’s fun to watch the batter puff up and rise as it cooks, and just when it becomes a nice crispy golden brown, the chef flips it over to cook the other side. It’s best eaten warm and crispy, and it’s so good with freshly boiled milk tea. I have so many wonderful memories of being treated to sel roti by my dear Nepalese friends, and among the members of our global trio, Kai was always the biggest fan! In fact, when I lived in Egypt and went back to Nepal for a visit on my own, my dear friends packed a whole box of homemade sel roti for me to bring back to Kai! Here’s one of our favorite chefs, the mother of dear friends and teaching colleagues, masterfully making sel roti for us during the Festival of Lights in 2013:
Actually until I started writing this post, I didn’t realize just how many foods we typically eat only during one holiday or one time of the year. For example, if you’re American, you won’t see eggnog, candy canes or fruitcake unless it’s Christmas time, and although you could eat pumpkin pie anytime, most pumpkin pie is consumed during autumn and especially at Thanksgiving. There are also seasonal foods which aren’t based on holidays but rather when and where foods are harvested and when they are fresh. Some cuisines like Japanese cuisine are very much based on the seasons, and shun is a Japanese word referring to seasonal ingredients as well as the time of year when a certain food is most flavorful. If you’re lucky enough to get to Japan and have a traditional multi-course meal called kaiseki, you’ll know exactly what is meant by shun. I would define kaiseki as a visually gorgeous and nutritious feast that connects what’s in front of you to what is happening outside (the climate and season). The presentation of kaiseki cooking is exquisite, with various delicacies served on small plates and in small bowls, all accompanied by seasonal accents such as cherry blossom chopstick holders in the spring and real crimson maple leaves during autumn. And then there are foods like nabe—hot pot dishes full of fresh vegetables, mushrooms, meat and seafood— that are most often enjoyed in the winter, when it’s cold outside and you wanna warm your body up.
I could probably write an entire blog about beautiful seasonal Japanese foods, but what I want to share now is more universal— how time and place can evoke such strong emotions and memories, especially when it comes to food. We can all think of certain foods that immediately bring us home, and most of us can even imagine the aromas and just smile because of it. Sometimes you can’t find these foods anywhere else in the world, and sometimes the food just tastes better because it’s made by someone special. One thing I’ve come to realize is that when you travel quite extensively as my family and I do, you find yourself not only longing for those tastes of home but also for those tastes of other places you have visited. Thankfully, due to globalization, migration and a rather common desire to not eat the same food all the time, there’s a good chance you can find foods from around the world in your own neighborhood. Though it may not be as authentic or not particularly authentic at all, I’ve often been surprised by the high quality of international foods just down the street. Some of the best Italian food I’ve ever eaten? In Japan! Some of the best hamburgers I’ve tasted? In Egypt! I fell in love with Ethiopian food in Washington, DC and enjoyed my first Afghan cuisine in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I even found an appreciation for Spam in Honolulu! Yes, Spam, the infamous canned meat! While I’d never buy Spam at the store, it’s surprisingly good when it’s grilled, put on rice and wrapped in nori— a treat the locals call Spam musubi! And remember those dumplings we loved in Nepal? Well, we’ve enjoyed excellent momo in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Portsmouth, New Hampshire as well! In a way, food is not only one of life’s most important necessities, it’s also one of the best examples of how we benefit by sharing with each other, at a real gut level— pardon the pun. 🙂
So now I’m extremely hungry having written all of this! Have I made you hungry too? Hahaha, I hope so. I should let you go to enjoy something tasty… but since you’ve read this far, let me share one more food experience to help whet your appetite before you go. When my family and I lived in Egypt, we were very fortunate to have made a trip to the city of Aswan, a charming and uncharacteristically mellow place given its strategic and historical importance in Egypt. Aswan is located in the southern (called “upper”) part of the country on a beautiful stretch of the Nile River, and we were immediately delighted by the place— colorful markets, numerous open-air spice stands and stunning views of the river dotted with felucca sail boats. In fact I was so inspired by the views that I wrote a haiku poem about it: Feluccas set sail/ The Nile glistens like diamonds/ And peace fills my mind. But by far the best surprise of the trip was staying in the Nubian village, a small settlement of the estimated 3 to 4 million Nubians who live in Egypt today. I can’t elaborate in detail about what happened to the Nubian population, but basically both Egypt and Sudan displaced their Nubian communities in the 1960s in order to construct the Aswan High Dam. The Nubian village is located on Elephantine Island and you take a small ferry boat to get to/from the city. From the banks of the Nile it doesn’t look particularly special, but what we discovered there was a labyrinth of avenues lined with homes, all painted in an array of colors, many with murals and all with fantastic front doors. And inside these homes are wonderfully friendly folks who warmly look after their guests and each other— a community (commune + unity) in the truest sense of the word. We stayed at a guesthouse named Baba Dool and were welcomed and treated like family. And I really mean we were treated like family because our hosts took the time not to just cook meals for us but instead to serve delicious feasts that were full of local flavors and love. I mean, imagine our thrill waking up to the beautiful breakfast spread you see here! And then later in the evening, we were served a scrumptious traditional dinner of Nubian dishes to share, and all the food was of course included in the inexpensive cost of the stay. We were excited for every mouth-watering feast, each one presented on a large circular platter and covered with a walil, a woven basket cover that’s handcrafted in a variety of colors and patterns. And with our gracious Nubian hosts, we found a truly perfect intersection of Food and Travel to be at 24° North, 32.88° East.
