The Top Non Santa Claus European Christmas Traditions

by David Farley on
When I was young, my dad liked to narrate Santa Claus’ travels to me on Christmas Eve. I’d hang on his every word as he’d announce, just after dinner, “Welp, Santa should be pulling into China right now.” A few hours later, around 9 p.m. St. Nick would reportedly be in Australia, and by 11 p.m., about the time I’d go to bed, dad would inform me that Santa had made the jump to Europe. California, it always seemed, was his last stop. But I know better now: China? Santa Claus wouldn’t go to China! If I’d been in college at that point, I would have called my dad a cultural imperialist.

In fact, Santa doesn’t even visit every European country. At least not in theory, though he’s knocking on the door. There are a scores of Christmas rituals that don’t involve ol’ St. Nick. And in general, yuletide traditions across the Atlantic usually involve one main thing: stuffing the face.

Here are some of the top non Santa Claus European Christmas traditions.

[Photo by Feuillu via Flickr]

Roman Holiday

Before the year 312, when Roman emperor Constantine made it official-that the small, but growing cult of Christianity would be officially tolerated within the empire and its ardent followers would stop being fed to the lions in the Coliseum-December 25 was known as Saturnalia, a winter solstice celebration. The burgeoning Church then cleverly decided to plop their own holidays on top of the pagan ones (it’s worth noting that Easter-celebrating the resurrection of Christ-occurs during a pagan holiday, honoring the onset of spring, the rebirth of nature), thus ensuring an easy transition for new converts. Christmas was born.

But oddly enough, the world center for Catholicism isn’t filled with the yuletide frenzy often found in, say, Boston or Baton Rouge. Rome’s version is a low key event, punctuated by a mix of traditional religious settings and, as you might guess, a lot of food. Meat is technically forbidden, so fish is almost always served, sometimes it’s a traditional dish is capitone, a large female eel, roasted or fried. Yum! After dinner, most Romans stroll through the historic center, popping into various churches to check out the ornate nativity scenes that have been set up for the occasion. Midnight mass is usually an obligatory event for Romans.

On Christmas day, gifts are swapped next to the Christmas tree (some presents even come from Santa himself), and sweets are nibbled on. Panitone, a sweet bread that contains candied fruit, is a favorite. So are pastries with nuts and almonds, a peasant folk custom alleging that eating nuts favors the fertility of the earth and aids in the increase of flocks and families.

But the celebrating doesn’t end on December 25. The Feast of the Epiphany on January 6, which is the twelfth day after Christmas, can be maddening chaos if you’re on Rome’s Piazza Navona. As the story goes, the old witch, La Bafana, brings presents to good children while bad ones are left with a lump of coal. Today, however, all children are rewarded, as the “coal” is a black rock candy that tastes great.

Oh, About That Sweet Golden Pig in Your Living Room

North of the Alps, Czech holiday celebrations may not involve witches and fried eels, but there’s something just as seemingly drug-induced. Traditionally, Czechs fast on Christmas Eve (which, by the way, is on December 23; Christmas is December 24). If a Czech has fasted properly, he or she will be rewarded with a heavenly vision: a golden pig. That’s right. Accompanied by a chorus of angels and dazzling light from above, a golden pig mysteriously appears in the living rooms of meat-famished Czechs on the night before Christmas.

The next day, when the family sits down for a long meal, turkey or even ham is not the center piece of the meal. It’s fish, and not just any old fish. They eat carp. The fish we’ve relegated to inedible riverbed shit scavengers is actually quite tasty if prepared the right way. The real fun, however, is the week before Christmas, when massive plastic tubs full of live carp appear on every street corner in cities around the Czech Republic. If you want, the grizzly man working the corner will take his machete-like knife and slaughter the fish right there in front of you, letting the insides fall into the gutter. But it’s preferred that you take the fish home alive and let it swim around in the bathtub until Christmas arrives. The meat is fresher that way.

Santa vs. Baby Jesus

Over the centuries, the Czech lands have been invaded by Papal armies, Austrians, Germans, and Russians. They’ve had Catholicism and Communist forced upon them, and in a violent way. As a result, the Czechs have become largely suspicious of foreign ideologies, including religion. In fact, about a decade ago almost fifty percent of Czechs claimed to be atheist on a recent census. The anomaly is Jezicek, or “Little Jesus.” Despite their irreverence for all things Jesus-like, the main event on Christmas day is marked by a visit from Little Jesus, who rings his bell after he has come and left presents under the Christmas tree.

Lately though, Jezicek has had some competition in the gift-giving business. Each year since the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which ushered the Soviets out of the country and American businesses in, Santa Claus has become increasingly present in the month of December.

It’s a celebrity death match of sorts: Jezicek vs. Santa Claus, with baby Jesus “the bell ringer” Christ being the odds-on favorite to KO Santa “the death cause” Claus in the first round.

At least that’s what Prague resident Stan Vitecek believes. “I just don’t see it happening here,” he said. “Jezicek persevered through communism, despite the authorities’ disapproval of anything religious. In the end, Jezicek will stay.”

Hey, Fat Stomach

Next door, in Germany, the Christmas landscape becomes a virtual candyland for adults. Rivers turn to wine, animals speak to each other, tree blossoms bear fruit, mountains open up to reveal precious gems, and church bells can be heard ringing from the bottom of the sea. There’s another name for it: drinking too much.

Which is exactly what a lot of Germans do on Dickbauch, or “Fat Stomach,” an old term known to the rest of us as Christmas Eve. Not many Germans obey by the Dickbauch tradition these days, but if they did, it would go something like this: if you don’t become a Dickbauch on December 24 by eating and drinking as much as possible, demons will haunt you during the night. To ensure a proper night’s sleep, most Germans spare no expense, hauling out the suckling pig, jellied pigs feet, umpteen varieties of sausage, duck, and a myriad of sweets. Remember, being a Dickbauch is a good thing, so the next time you see a fat German man, don’t be afraid to pat him on the belly and tell him what he is!

On Christmas day, the stuffing of the face doesn’t stop: roast goose, Christstollen (long loaves of bread bursting with nuts, raisins, and lemon), lebkuchen (spice bars), marzipan, and Dresden stollen (a moist, heavy bread filled with fruit), are just some of the delights eaten by Germans as they sit around the Christmas tree drinking wine retrieved from the nearest river.

This Christmas I’ll know better when my dad tells me that Santa has just pulled his sleigh into the Czech Republic. I’ll say, “Santa doesn’t go to the Czech Republic. It’s Jezicek, you stupid Dickbauch!

Where They Ate: Authors, Eaters, and Food and Travel Writers Tell Their Favorite Eating Experiences of 2010

by David Farley on

I’ve always been baffled when I hear someone say eating is overrated. After all, these types of people, the thick-necked fratboys of the food world who mindlessly consume things only to feed the pain of hunger, are completely ignoring one of their senses. For most of us, though, eating is more than just sustenance. It’s what propels us out the door and onto airplanes and down alleyways in dodgy parts of towns our parents would have warned us about. It’s what makes us risk a night of being planted on the toilet seat or blowing our paycheck for a four-star dinner at an acclaimed restaurant.

And so I decided, with the year coming to a close, to break out my rolodex and ask some great eaters one simple question: where were your best meals of the year?


After the jump, where they ate: authors, eaters, and food and travel writers tell their favorite eating experiences of 2010.

• Frank Bruni
Former New York Times restaurant critic and author of the books Ambling Into History and Born Round: A Story of Family, Food, and a Ferocious Appetite; twittilicious twitterer.

Three wildly different moments from 2010 stand out: moments of complete and utter eating bliss, when the world shrinks to the size of your table and what’s on it and how deliriously happy you are to be making your way through it and how sad you are, already, in the course of it, that it will come to an end. In chronological order:

–I remember a lunch of fried octopus fillets at Casa Aleixo, a rustic and charming restaurant in the beautiful city of Porto. The Portuguese love–and do so, so right by–octopus, and this was a treatment of it I’d never had: essentially thin octopus cutlets, if you will, prepared by these elderly, stout women in white in a nearby open kitchen of abundant Old World charm.
–I remember a special lunch that the Danish chef Rene Redzepi prepared at the downtown restaurant Momofuku Ko, and I remember in particular this one gorgeous, perfect, amazing langoustine tail served on a little boulder: a great bit of theater to accompany a few perfect bites of one of the sea’s great delicacies.
–And I remember, in a totally different vein, the pimento cheese toasts at Cookshop, one of the many comfort-food snacks on that Chelsea restaurant’s menu. There’s not enough pimento cheese in this life. Not nearly enough. A friend and I split an order of these toasts, then got another, then debated a good long while before passing on a third. I regret the decision still.

• Gary Shteyngart
Author of the novels The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Absurdistan, and, most recently, A Super Sad True Love Story; one of The New Yorker‘s 20 best fiction writers under 40; contributing editor at Travel + Leisure.

I ate the most awesome thing in Vancouver at a restaurant called Vij’s. It was called a Punjabi Heart Attack, it came on a spoon and it involved mostly ghee, the clarified butter. More than that I can’t recall.

• Susan Orlean
Staff writer at The New Yorker; author of The Orchid Thief, The Bullfighter Checks her Makeup, and My Kind of Place; queen of the twitter.

— Fresh cider donuts at a farm stand in the Hudson Valley. The donut was warm and sweet, the air was bright and cold, and I could have eaten a dozen. I don’t know how I managed to stop.
— An Ethiopian feast at Awash, on the Upper West Side. My first experience with Ethiopian food, and I loved the earthy warmth of it, and couldn’t get enough of the “injera” — the spongy, grainy Ethiopian bread.
— Eating maple-syrup snow in Mt. Tremblant, Quebec. Hot maple syrup is poured on snow (clean, one hopes) and then is quickly rolled up on a stick and, just as quickly, devoured. It’s not quite ice cream and it’s not quite candy, and it’s definitely worth standing in a winter storm to enjoy.

• Tim Cahill
Author of several books, including Lost in My Own Backyard and Hold the Enlightenment


–I was a visiting professor at San Jose State University last winter/spring semester. I drove to that job in San Jose from my home in Montana. The drive started in January, in the midst of a nasty ground blizzard with temperatures near zero. I arrived in San Jose two days later. The house I’d rented–sight unseen–had an orange tree in the backyard. We don’t see a lot of those in Montana and the first thing I did was pick one of my rented oranges. It may have been the best orange I’ve ever eaten. I think circumstances had something to do with the taste.
–Similarly, while we in Montana are blessed with rivers full of big dumb trout, seafood is not at its best here 700 miles from the nearest ocean. While in the San Jose, I ate all the fresh seafood I could. My favorite was petrale sole, which is simply not available in Montana. I sauteed it in butter and lemon or ate it lighted crusted in panko crumbs. The lemons were, of course, fresh and courtesy of neighbor with a tree in his yard.
–Back In Montana, the boys who hunt have discovered that elk shanks can be very successfully and tastily braised. We’re eating elk osso buco out here.

• Pauline Frommer

In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to do. No, actually, I knew at the time that it was a stupid thing to do. And when you drag along your 7-year-old daughter, stupid actions become grossly irresponsible.

And yet climbing Volcano Pacaya in Guatemala (which entailed trekking first up a steep dirt path for an hour and then over jagged, brutally sharp outcroppings of new rock for another hour) is something I have trouble regretting. I got to watch my little Trixie (her nickname) conquering, with single-minded determination, what was likely the greatest physical challenge she’d ever encountered. It was a really grueling hike, and yet she didn’t complain once. In fact, the 20-something backpackers who were with us couldn’t keep up with this middle-aged mom and her mountain-goat of a child. And then, when we got to the top, we made use of the long sticks we’d been carrying to roast marshmallows over the lava. It was the equivalent of a champagne toast to my first grader, and, without a doubt, my top eating experience of 2010.


That all being said, I really can’t recommend this experience to others at this time. A month after we made our trek, almost to the day, Pacaya erupted, killing at least four people, badly injuring 70 others and damaging hundreds of homes. Its apparently still quite active.
As I said at the start, taking Trixie up there wasn’t smart. But we were lucky. And we experienced an adventure together that we’ll both remember for the rest of our lives.

• Dan Saltzstein
Assistant Editor, New York Times Travel section; twitterer.

–The Glenview, Isle of Skye
In reporting a column on seafood on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, I was lucky enough to eat at some terrific places, including the much beloved Three Chimneys (it didn’t disappoint), but it was this cozy spot that really grabbed me, with a combination of stunningly fresh seafood and produce — all from on or near the island — and friendly service.
–Corson Building, Seattle
This spot has rightfully earned a following out west. I loved the simple but satisfying dishes that the kitchen puts out, and you can’t beat the surroundings: a garden (complete with chicken coop) surrounds the farmhouse-style building, all nestled in a charmingly industrial neighborhood.
–M. Wells, Long Island City, N.Y.
As a long-time Queens resident, I was thrilled when this diner-with-a-twist opened earlier this year. Doesn’t hurt that it’s a 5-10 minute trip on the 7 train from my office, too. The food–available for now only from 10am-4pm–is a combination of kicked-up diner classics (say, an egg and hash dish that features both mussels and pulled pork; it works) and even kookier stuff. I try to avoid words like “addictive” and “orgasmic” when referring to food, but the appetizer of marrow and escargot comes pretty close to filling definitions of both words.

• Jay Cheshes
Restaurant critic and travel writer.

My most memorable and certainly most surprising eating experience in 2010:
The Townhouse, in tiny Chilhowie Virginia, which serves cutting edge cuisine in the middle of nowhere (hours from the nearest major metropolis). The constantly changing menu, featuring many ingredients foraged from the woods near the restaurant, is the work of a young couple, John and Karen Shields, who decamped from Chicago (he worked for Grant Achatz at Alinea). Their new restaurant struggles but for very good reason John was chosen as one of Food & Wine‘s best new chefs last year. I wrote a piece about the place for Hemispheres.

• Mary Morris
Novelist and travel writer, author of The River Queen, and Nothing to Declare among other books; twitterer.

–The tuna festival in Zahara de las Atunes on the Atlantic Coast of Spain. We roamed from restaurant to restaurant, sampling tuna tapas and voting for our favorites. By midnight we were following an old fisherman’s wife as she danced in the streets.
–Wandering around outside the medina in Tangier, Morocco, I found a restaurant named Hamadi. I tasted their lamb tangine with prunes and their chicken couscous and thought I’d walked right back into my grandmother’s kitchen. And she was from Ukraine. But now I think I am descended from Berbers (which may in fact be true)
–And right here in Brooklyn El Jalapeno–closest thing to real Mexican I’ve had since Mexico. Tiny place, wonderful kitchen and I love the portabello fajitas. The owner dresses like a cowboy, not sure why.

• Daniel Mauer

Editor of New York magazine’s food blog, Grub Street.

The most memorable meal I had this past year was also the least expected. I was traveling down the Lewis and Clark Highway, along the river that separates Washington from Oregon, when I saw a crudely drawn sign saying “SMOKED FISH.” I forced my friend to make a U turn and we drove into what was essentially a makeshift trailer park where some fishermen were camped next to the water. One guy, a Native American of few words, emerged from his car, and after showing me his homemade wooden smoker, he sold me his last bag of smoked salmon (or at least he said it was the last bag– he clearly sensed that I was excited enough to pay heroin prices for it). It was incredible– just thinking of those chewy, briny little nuggets of fish, and the way they lingered in my mouth long after I ate them, makes me want to build a smoker in my backyard. Months later while I was driving through Nova Scotia I encountered a guy selling smoked salmon out of the trunk of his car– it still kills me that I didn’t have enough cash on me to get some smoked cod as well. The guy definitely didn’t take credit cards.

• Andrew Zimmern
Host of the Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods; author of The Bizarre Truth; prolific twitterer.

–I am not often at home and when I am I try to sit on the couch or in the backyard, unmoving, immobile, stationary…but my Dad came into town and I wanted to get out and about for one night at least. He and my wife and I went to Piccolo, a restaurant I am convinced is the best new restaurant to open in the Midwest in years. The brainchild of owner/chef Doug Flicker, this small 16 seat café offers extremely food forward cookery, modern in style but firmly rooted in traditional flavors. It’s rootsy elemental cooking. Flicker cooks with wisdom, his food is off the beaten path, humble indeed, but out of this world. My favorite dish is a signature of sorts, he takes brown eggs, scrambles them delicately, turns a dollop or so out into a lowslung hammock of a bowl, pairs them with slow cooked pigs trotters that have been braised, pickled, and then pulled, the meat and gelatinous nubbins pan-crisped at the last minute before being snuggled up against the egg. Finished with truffle butter and seriously good Parmesan, this dish is a small notion of what food is like in the afterlife.
–Farther afield I spent a few weeks in Chengdu China and on a night that I shall remember forever I had a chance to dine both in the kitchen and at a table in Chef Yu Bo’s restaurant Yu’s Family Kitchen. Don’t let the name or the price point fool you, this is one of the world’s best restaurants and Yu is an insane technician with the soul of an artist. I ate roughly 40 courses, some were simply a small forkful, others a bit larger, nothing too precious or too generous. In a town where the star chefs are all seemingly trying to impress the new money (both local and from out of ton) with dishes like Kung Pao Foie Gras, Yu is championing a modern vision of traditional flavors and ingredients. From the private dining rooms to the 16 course cold vegetable tapestry laid out in geometric precision upon sitting, to the roasted duck, brined and cured like a country ham served with small steamed buns for sandwich making, to the rarest of the rare hand-collected vegetable roots that Yu’s army of foragers find for him all over the province, served in small bundles, pickled and plated so delicately that they taunted me…I nibbled, despite wanting to down the whole pile at once. Four soups alone that night boggled my mind, including what to me was easily the best chicken soup I have ever eaten and as a Jewish kid from NYC you know I am familiar with that territory. I asked Yu what his top dish is and he told me that currently it was his shrimp, twice cooked with fermented chile bean paste and fish flavor, a petite single bite serving of the Sichuanese stalwart that inspired it. Yu’s version comes in a small bowl, a single upturned shrimp, bathed in a vibrant, rusty crimson sauce. The dish typically comes spiked with fresh peas in most cases but Yu Bo freeze dries and fries his peas, creating a crackling contrast that underscores his insanely deep salty/spicy/fishy/ chile glaze. This is a restaurant worth flying to from anywhere in the world, and at roughly 50 bucks a person for over 40 courses it might be the single best fine dining value on the planet.

• Spud Hilton
Travel Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle; twitterer.


—Chops Grill on Oasis of the Seas:
On the largest passenger ship on the planet, traditionally the bastion of the banal buffet, we sat down on the first night in Chops, an alternative restaurant. Expecting passable “cuisine,” I was stunned when the former waiter and confirmed foodie next to me said, simply,”This is the best steak I’ve ever had.” I concurred and I’m pretty sure we didn’t talk again until the plates were empty.
—Bodeguita Romero, Sevilla, Spain
While wandering the back streets of Seville, looking for a barber (yes, really), we stumbled into a typical tapas bar that, based on the cool reception, was primarily a locals joint. The waiter endured our stupid questions in crappy Spanish until finally I asked: “What dish is this place known for?” He eyed me cautiously (expecting another annoying tourist who needed details in English) and rambled off something in Spanish — twice. I didn’t understand, but said, “Whatever it is, if you say I’ll like it, I’ll take it.” He immediately warmed to us, and quickly brought a plate of tender pan-seared pork with lightly fried potatoes. By far, it turned out to be the best plate during a 7-day stay in Spain. I still keep a picture of the meal on my iPhone.
—Dean’s Bar, Tangier, Morocco
The guidebook had outlined the bar’s history as a hotbed of espionage during WW II and the Cold War — supposedly, Ian Fleming learned much of what he knew of spies in the dark corners of Dean’s. When my wife, Ann, and I finally found the place, we plowed through the door – and found ourselves facing a room full of Moroccan men, most in traditional garb. I asked the bartender if Ann would be welcome, and he jumped up, shook my hand as if we were old friends and herded us to the only empty table. Within seconds, beers appeared (unsolicited but greatly appreciated) and, a few seconds later, a generous bowl of what turned out to be a freakishly delicious seafood paella. After taking a few notes and soaking up the atmosphere — I’d never heard Arabic in the dialect of Drunk before — we paid the bill for the beers (the paella was on the house) and headed toward the door. In the corner, across from the bar top, was a kitchen about size of the toilet stall, in which the cook was making more paella. I expressed my thanks by grasping at my heart, and took his picture. It’s still in my iPhone.

• Andrea Sachs
Staff writer and editor at the Washington Post Travel section.


Geka’s in Elmira, N.Y., replaces the meat with heart and soul. Once a month, the vegetarian/vegan restaurant offers free food to those in need of a hot and healthy feast. At the kitchen window, a caring arm handed out plates of homemade lasagna, vegetable curry, and salad topped with a lemony tofu dressing. As a thank you, I ordered an additional meal (rice and beans, steamed broccoli, crusty bread), happy to give back with my stomach and my wallet.

• John T. Edge
Author, food writer, and Director of Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi.

This past summer, I spent a week on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, a kind of Land of the Lost for heritage livestock, heirloom vegetables, and merroir-specific oysters and crabs. Exmore Diner, an honest to God stainless steel clunker, served my favorite meal of the trip: fried drum ribs, fried swelling toads, and fresh collards. You want to talk local foods? The Eastern Shore in general, and the Exmore Diner in particular, had all the credentials and none of the pretense.

• Katie Parla

Food and travel writer, author of the blog ParlaFood; food-crazed twitterer.

—Speckfest in Alto Adige
During a recent road trip through northern Italy, my dad and I hit the Speckfest in Santa Maddalena. This German speaking town in the foothills of the Dolomites celebrates their speck production every fall with a big party on a plain above the town. Eating mountain-air cured pork on a large lawn surrounded by grazing cattle was unforgettable.
—Osteria Francescana in Modena
Chef Massimo Bottora is perhaps Italy’s most beloved and is famous for his artful interpretations of Emilian cuisine. I visited his restaurant in Modena for the first time a couple of weeks ago and the meal was nothing short of spectacular. The 36-month aged pancetta, foie gras popsicle (foie filled with 40-year-old balsamic vinegar, then rolled in toasted hazelnuts), tortellini alla panna and lasagna were off the charts amazing. But the most inspired dish was a slick soup made from pig’s head, smoked morels stuffed with cotechino, crispy pancetta, ciccioli (compressed pork fat nuggets), fregola (a sort of grated pasta), coriander and Matera chilis. I’ve never dreamed anything like it could exist.
—Zushi Puzzle in San Francisco
In August I ate at Zushi Puzzle on the recommendation of friends who live nearby. Through some finagling, they scored me a seat at the bar, next to the sushi chef, Roger. I asked for omakase, gave Roger free reign, and he went to work preparing an epic feast that included monkfish liver, uni with organic tofu, live scallops, soy marinated grilled tuna cheeks, and dozens of pieces of sushi and sashimi made from fish sliced and filleted to order.

• Don George

Writer, Special Features Editor for Gadling, book critic for National Geographic Traveler, and editor of several anthologies including A Moveable Feast.

Here are my top three eating experiences in 2010:
–Kyoto, Japan: The amazing Misoguigawa–French cuisine prepared by France-trained Japanese chef Teruo Inoue and served Japanese kaiseki style, in a converted former geisha house on the banks of the Pontocho river in Kyoto. One of the best and most memorable dining experiences of my life.
–San Francisco: Gary Danko–my first time at this legendary place and every course was extraordinary in presentation, taste, texture – the kind of creatively conceived, masterfully modulated, savorily sensual, entirely fulfilling meal that makes you remember why eating out matters.
–Cusco, Peru: Inkaterra La Casona–I loved this gracious colonial-house-converted-into-a-hotel from the moment I saw that its doorway bore no sign; it looked like a private house and I had to knock on the door to be let into the lobby – but what really sold me on the place was the weary night when I slumped into a chair in the elegant restaurant and asked the waiter if the chef could just prepare me a really hearty Peruvian-style soup. It wasn’t on the menu, but he kindly concocted the soup of my dreams – robust, full of fresh-from-the-market vegetables – a homemade bowl of heaven, replete with warm, thick, crusty peasant bread, from a place that truly felt like my Peruvian home.

• Ayun Halliday
Author of No Touch Monkey, Dirty Sugar Cookies, and, most recently, Zinester’s Guide to New York City.

Tong Sam Gyup Goo Ee Korean Restaurant
Going here reminded me of what it’s like to be a timid first-time traveler, worried about doing something foolish, like drinking the finger bowl liquid, or that the best parts of the experience will be denied you because you don’t know how to ask for them, or that you’ll get stuck with all kinds of hidden costs. In the name of full disclosure, I should also say that my husband and I were just coming off of a ridiculous, explosive fight, spawned by his insistence on driving to Spa Castle (I always take the subway), then refusing to pull over for directions when we got lost. Embodying a tired punchline sucks but there’s comfort in knowing that anyone who’s traveled with a romantic partner should relate. Did I mention that it was his birthday? And that I’m the one with the mania for pursuing unfamiliar dishes served in out of the way locations? He would’ve been content with a nice meal in our neighborhood.

I’m still not sure he preferred grilling strips of pork belly on a convex grill set into our table over say, Steak Frites at Bar Tabac, but it was delicious, and filling. The novelty of the food and our surroundings provided ample conversational fodder to speed the recovery from the many harsh words unleashed earlier in the day. Our waitress, who spoke Spanish and Korean but very little English, snipped homemade kimchi into bite-size pieces with scissors and showed us how to cook and eat the meat. A big TV in the corner broadcast an Asian newsmagazine-type program concerning, if what I gleaned is accurate, a therapist’s attempt to teach the parents of an autistic child how to not resort to violence when everybody was approaching the ends of their tethers. I remember consuming a lot of chili-marinated bean sprouts, while various family members occupied the table across from us, doing homework and dealing with giant mounds of raw produce. (We’d arrived in that nether hour between lunch and dinner) There were only four items on the menu, not counting bibimbap which could be added to any order for $1.99. Actually, there was no menu, just a sign listing the four items. Were I to go back, and I’d like to, I would endeavor to bring another couple, preferably of jolly disposition and expansive palate. We could order BBQ pork and beef intestines in addition to the Sam Gyup Sal, and maybe even laugh about how I virtually ruined Greg’s birthday by taking him to Spa Castle.

• Jim Benning
Coeditor of World Hum; thoughtful twitterer.

Bratwurst and sauerkraut in Berlin
It wasn’t that the food itself was extraordinary–it was at an otherwise forgettable diner–but I was happy to have just arrived in Germany, and I was famished, and I’d ducked into this place from the cold. The bratwurst and sauerkraut were earthy and tart and sweet, served up from a busy kitchen, by a woman who was juggling a dozen orders from locals on lunch break. It was just an ordinary meal. And yet it warmed me up, hit the spot and reminded me in the most elemental of ways that I wasn’t in California anymore.

• Andrew McCarthy
Actor; director; travel writer; winner of the 2010 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award for Travel Writer of the Year.

Earlier this year I made a batch of popcorn. It was tight and firm, lightly buttered and perfectly salted. It ruined me. I’ve made at least two dozen batches since, but none have approached the texture or flavor of that bowl. I’m afraid I’ll never pop corn again.

• Jessie Sholl


My best meal of the last year was in fact a week of feasting in Tokyo. I’d recently been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, an incurable and potentially debilitating autoimmune disease; unwilling to accept my diagnosis, I tried everything to reduce the inflammation in my joints. Since fish oil is a natural anti-inflammatory and miso is nutrient-packed, in Tokyo I gorged myself on sushi and miso soup-with the occasional irresistible steaming bowl of ramen. By the end of the trip all of my joints felt better and my knuckles were visibly less swollen. I’ve continued to get better and I can’t help but credit the week of meals in Tokyo with getting my recovery started.

Read the sequel: “Where They Ate in 2010, Part II: The Ensnackening.”

South Australian cattle station debuts tasting room

by Laurel Miller on

There was a time when Wagyu beef was eaten by only the most sophisticated of travelers. True Kobe beef is from Wagyu cattle that are raised in a very specific manner in the Hyogo Prefecture of Japan. Technically, Wagyu is the Japanese term for all cattle, and Kobe beef comes from a strain known as Tajima.

Kobe Wagyu receive massages to reduce stress and muscle stiffness, a summer diet supplemented with beer as an appetite stimulant, and regular brush-downs with sake (which is reputed to soften their coats, not act as some bizarre form of on-the-hoof marinade). At anywhere from $200 to $300 a pound, Kobe beef is the most expensive in the world.

Wagyu have been raised in the U.S. since the mid-seventies, but the market really took off in the nineties. Today, it’s not unusual to find “Kobe” steaks and burgers on menus, but it’s a bit of marketing hyperbole. It’s actually “American Wagyu,” or “American Style Kobe,” or “Kobe American Style.” It’s still great meat, but it’s not Kobe beef, and most American Wagyu are crossbred with Angus cattle.

What has all this to do with a South Australian cattle station, you ask? Australia has its own burgeoning Wagyu industry, and in May I visited Mayura Station, a full-blood Wagyu operation just outside the Coonawara wine region. I’m a longtime advocate of the farm-to-fork concept, and Mayura produces some of Australia’s best Wagyu beef, supplying an impressive roster of restaurants in Melbourne and Sydney, Penfold’s Magill Estate in Adelaide, and the Ritz-Carlton Singapore. As it happened, I’d tried Wagyu for the first time the week prior at Penfold’s, and it was delicious. But it was also obscured in sauce, and I didn’t have a real sense of what the big deal was. I was a bit skeptical, to be honest, so I made the trek out to Mayura to find out more.

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Mayura is owned and operated by the entrepreneurial de Bruin family, who first brought over live, full-blood Wagyu from Japan in 1998. Today, they have a sustainable operation that produces award-winning beef from one of the largest (1,700 head of breeders) full-blood herds outside of Japan. Most of the meat is exported to Southeast Asia and the UAE, but their newest business concept is likely to create a larger domestic fan base.

In May, Mayura debuted its tasting room, a professional demonstration kitchen equipped with a long counter in front of the flattop range. Visitors from all over the world can now let their tastebuds discover why Wagyu is such a big deal.

Explains manager Scott de Bruin, “We felt there was a strong need for visitors and valued clients to experience various cooking styles from a simple tasting ($80AUD/pp), through to a full degustation paired with local wines ($120AUD/pp). The tasting room is a serious take on the “paddock-to-plate” concept, designed to mirror a state-of-the-art Teppanyaki bar.”

I visited Mayura as part of a Limestone Coast excursion for Tasting Australia. The country’s largest food and wine festival, it’s held in Adelaide every other year. While there’s an emphasis on South Australia, which produces most of the country’s wine in its 16 growing regions (including designations within), it’s generally a celebration of all things edible and Australian. For one hedonistic week, there are tastings, pairings, classes, tours, dinners, seminars, demos, and a riverside “Feast for the Senses” with dozens of food stalls.

En route to visit some wineries, a group of us had arranged to visit Mayura and do a vertical (head-to-tail) tasting. The tasting room accommodates 14 to 40 guests by appointment (self-drive required if you’re not with an organized group, so call well in advance to see if you can fit into an existing booking). All visits include a tour to visit the cattle, so guests can learn more about the breed, industry, and Mayura’s animal husbandry practices. You can even buy packaged beef on-site, for domestic travel.

We were greeted by de Bruin and on-site chef Kirby Shearing. Our group of 14 lined up in front of the place settings running down the length of the demo area. A huge overhead mirror provided a bird’s eye view of Shearing, as he showed us the various cuts of beef we would be tasting, in order: tongue, flank steak, filet, bresaola (thin slices of air-dried beef), and strip loin. Then de Bruin talked about Mayura’s history and the Australian Wagyu industry.

The reason Wagyu is so tender (not accounting for feeding practices, which includes extra finishing time on a blend of specific grains) is because the cattle have a higher percentage of marbling, due to selective breeding practices over thousands of years. Most of the fat is monounsaturated, the meat high in conjugated linoleic acid, and Omega-3 and -6 fatty acids. Wagyu beef actually has myriad health benefits similar to those found in grass-finished beef. It isn’t aged the way some American beef is, because the fat will break down. The fat also dissipates throughout the meat as it cooks, making it more forgiving to work with.

Japanese beef is graded on a scale of one to five (highest), based on marbling, yield, meat color, firmness and texture, and fat quality. Wagyu should be at least 25% marbled fat (by comparison, USDA Prime meat must have six- to eight-percent, and our grading system doesn’t include a classification for Wagyu). Thus, Japanese A-5 Wagyu is considered primo, top-of-the-line. It should be tender, with lustrous fat and a sweet, fine flavor, even when eaten raw, as with a carpaccio.

Shearing started us off with a tasting plate of tongue that had been brined and poached. It was silky and mild, practically melting in my mouth. Next came flash-seared cubes of flank, a lean cut that is usually marinated, and cut across the grain to make it more tender. Not this steak. It was unctuously fatty, in the best possible way. Buttery. Juicy. Addictive.

Filet is already a rich cut, so I was especially curious to see how Wagyu compared to Prime.
The meat fell away at the touch of Shearing’s knife, it was so tender. Absolutely delicious, but as with regular beef, I prefer a ribeye or New York steak, because they have more flavor and a bit of chew to them. The flank steak had a little more complexity to it.

The bresaola was made from eye of round, and my least favorite, only because I’m not a big fan of the preparation. But the strip loin that concluded our tasting was a unanimous hit. While Wagyu is undeniably more subtle in flavor than standard grain- or grass-finished beef, it was deeply flavorful, and just slightly toothsome. Yet it still retained that glorious, fat-infused richness. Paired with a side of Shearing’s crisp, airy onion rings (his secret weapon: adding gin to his beer batter).

Our visit concluded with a tour of the open barns where some of the cattle were being finished on grain. They’re pretty things: Stocky and chocolate brown, with short horns that slant upwards. I was duly impressed with the property we saw on the tour. As a food and agriculture writer, it’s easy to tell when you’re dealing with a facility not on top of its sanitation or animal husbandry practices.

So here’s the thing about Wagyu…or Kobe beef. It’s pricey as hell, but get the good stuff, and it’s so rich, you can’t eat more than a few ounces. I now understand why true Kobe beef, and the cattle it comes from, have such a reputation. A little Wagyu goes a long way.

Getting There

The Limestone Coast is located in the southeastern part of the state. It’s a diverse mix of remote beaches and sand dunes, pine forest, ancient caves (including Naracoorte World Heritage Fossil Site, worth a visit, especially if you go caving), and farmland and vineyards. The adorable seaside town of Robe, in particular, is a great place to spend a weekend and feast upon the crayfish (actually spiny lobster) the town is famous for.

Of the Limestone Coast’s six wine regions, Coonawara is the most famous (primarily for its Cabernet Sauvignon). It’s a one-hour flight from Adelaide to the pleasant town of Mt. Gambier, famed for its stunning Blue Lake, which is actually a volcanic crater. Mayura, which is located just outside the town of Millicent, is a thirty-minute drive away (you can rent a car at the airport). The Barn in Mt. Gambier makes a good overnight base for Wagyu- and wine-tasting excursions. Just in case you return still hankering for a ribeye and a glass of red, The Barn Steakhouse wine list has over 400 selections from the region. .

Qantas and the South Australia Tourism Commission are giving away unlimited flights for two from Los Angeles to Adelaide for one year, in a contest running through December 31st, 2010. To enter, visit unlimitedflightstoaustralia.com.

Tasting Australia 2012 will be held April 26-May 3.

Worlds most expensive beer made from Antarctic ice

by Kraig Becker on

Australian beer maker Nail Brewing revealed the secret behind its latest ale, which set a new record for the most expensive beer ever produced when it was sold at auction last month. The new limited edition brew, which was produced and sold for charity, was made from melted Antarctic ice.

Dubbed Antarctic Nail Ale, the beer first went on the auction block to raise money for the Sea Sheperd Conservation Society, an organization dedicated to protecting whales and other sealife around the globe. On November 3, a single bottle sold for an amazing $800 AUD (roughly $780), setting the new record for the worlds most expensive beer in the process. That auction was just the warm-up however, as another bottle went up for sale on November 19, smashing the new record. That second bottle sold for a whopping $1850 AUD ($1805)!

The beer was created by John Stallwood, the owner of Nail Brewing. Stallwood’s brother-in-law is part of the crew on board a Sea Sheperd ship, and recently visited an iceberg floating in the waters off Antarctica. He collected some of the ice there and flew it back to Tasmania, where it was melted and then passed on to Stallwood to use in the beer.

I’ve had some expensive beer before, but $1850 for a single bottle? I’d have to nurse that one for a really long time.

Top ten cheap local fast food items worldwide

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Food is usually a major cost on the road, a significant component of any careful travel budget. Very good, inexpensive food is on offer in most of the world’s destinations, no matter how expensive average meals may be. Here are ten delicious fast food items from ten different destinations around the world.

1. Burritos, San Francisco. San Franciscans are passionate about their burritos. It’s easy to inadvertently inspire an argument through an offhand if opinionated claim about your personal burrito likes and dislkes. Try a riceless burrito at La Tacquería (2889 Mission Street) or drizzle your burrito from Tacquería Cancún (2228 Mission, among other locations) with distinctive green salsa. For $6, you’ll be sated for hours.

2. Currywurst, Berlin. Currywurst is an extraordinarily popular German fast food, a sliced pork sausage doused with curry sauce. At Konnopke’s Imbiss, a famed food stand in Berlin, a currywurst goes for just €1.70 ($2.25).

3. Okonomiyaki, Osaka. This delightful, greasy food item can be found in a number of spots around Japan, though it is firmly associated with Osaka. It’s a cabbage pancake topped with several ingredients. These often include pork, green onion, other vegetables, shrimp, fish and seaweed flakes, mayonnaise, and a dark sauce. An all-but-the-kitchen-sink okonomiyaki in Osaka will set you back around 750 yen ($9).

4. Pintxos, San Sebastián, Spain. For just a few euros, you can fill up on extraordinary pintxos (Basque tapas, see above) in countless bars in the lovely seaside city of San Sebastián. That San Sebastián is also home to some very expensive restaurants is an entertaining notion to contemplate while you’re scarfing three perfect €3 ($4) pintxos for lunch in a crowded bar. See Todo Pintxos for a listing of pintxos perches.

5. Hawker centres, Singapore. Many of Singapore’s hawker centers, which are more or less open-air food courts, serve up very high quality portions of food for very little. As little as S$4 ($3) will get you off to a good start. Among Singapore’s many hawker centers, check out Maxwell Hawker Centre, Chomp Chomp, and Lau Pa Sat.6. Kizilkayalar’s Islak burgers, Istanbul. They’re cheap, at 2 lira (under $1.50) and they’re delicious. These small burgers are a late night Istanbul mainstay. Kizilkayalar has two locations in Istanbul.

7. Bò bía, Saigon, Vietnam. This delicious Vietnamese food item consists of pickled vegetables, sweet sausage, small dried prawns, and noodles wrapped in a rice paper roll. This typical Saigon street food item, adapted from Chinese popiah, is cheap and delicious. Cost: around 10000 dong ($.50) per portion.

8. Chivitos, Montevideo. Chivitos are the top Uruguayan fast food option, a huge mess of a beef sandwich with egg, bacon, mayonnaise, vegetables, and other toppings. A fast track to a heart attack for sure, but a delicious one. The cheapest chivito at Guga Chivitos goes for 90 pesos ($4.50).

9. Som Tam, Thailand. This spicy salad made with not-yet-ripe papaya is a popular street food (and restaurant dish) across Thailand. It’s an appealing taste sensation, with sweet, salty, spicy, and sour components. A decent helping of som tam shouldn’t set you back more than 60 baht ($2).

10. Roti, Port of Spain. The capital of Trinidad and Tobago is full of roti shops selling this extraordinarily filling Caribbean fast food, and locals have very strong opinions about which shop does the best job. You shouldn’t need to part with more than TT$30 ($4.75) at any of several dozen roti shops for a perfect lunch.

Thanks to fellow Gadling contributors Jeremy Kressmann and Meg Nesterov for suggestions.

[Image: Flickr / RinzeWind]