Book Review: ‘The Food Traveler’s Handbook’

by Meg Nesterov on

Full disclosure: I know Jodi Ettenberg, author of “The Food Traveler’s Handbook.” I’ve eaten with Jodi and explored cities with her; she’s even inspected the spices in my Istanbul sublet apartment. Rather than let my friendship with her just guarantee a great review of her book, I will use it to vouch for the fact that she’s the perfect person to write a food guide for travelers: intrepid, resourceful, curious and (of course) always hungry.

On the road full time since 2008, Jodi has explored the world through food on her blog Legal Nomads. To keep costs down and her palate happy, Jodi strives to eat as locally as possible, chasing down the best street eats, cab driver hangouts and mom-and-pop restaurants. With this handbook, she shares her tips and resources for eating well, cheaply, and safely anywhere in the world. The guide is peppered (pardon the pun) with anecdotes from Jodi and other travelers (blogger Nicola Twilley recommends revisiting a market at different times of the day for different experiences), quirky facts (how about a 1742 recipe for ketchup that will keep for 20 years?!) and guidelines for local dining culture (you’ll keep getting your coffee refilled in Jordan until you learn the proper way to shake the cup and signal you’ve had enough). The book is infused with an enthusiasm and passion for food that’s contagious, and you may quickly find that planning a tour of the world through dumplings seems like a must.Jodi’s travel style may not be for everyone – some people crave familiarity and easy comfort, especially when traveling, and the prospect of eating a mysterious dish at a tiny food stall might be daunting. But for those looking to expand their horizons through food, connect with locals while traveling or just get a good meal without risking food poisoning, “The Food Traveler’s Handbook” is worth tucking into. Just be wary of reading it on an empty stomach, or you might find yourself, as I did, propelled out of bed at 8 a.m. with a strong craving for soup.

“The Food Traveler’s Handbook” is available in paperback and as an e-book for Kindle. Additional books in the Traveler’s Handbooks series include guides for Career Breaks, Solo Travel, Luxury Travel and Volunteer Travel. Additional resources for food travelers can also be found on Jodi’s blog here.

[Photo credit: Jodi Ettenberg]

Classic Scandinavia: Celebrate Fat Tuesday With Swedish Semlor

by Anna Brones on


For coffee lovers, Scandinavia is a bit of a mecca. In the heart of winter, there’s nothing better than stepping into a warm cafe, brimming with people and their stacks of winter layers next to them, the windows steaming up as friends meet over coffee. In fact, in Sweden, coffee is such an important part of local culture, that there’s even a specific word for coffee break: fika. A verb and a noun, it indicates that time of day that you take a break from everything else to enjoy a strong cup of coffee accompanied by a delicious baked good. If there ever was a reason to travel to Sweden, this is it.

If there’s one thing that distinguishes fika in Sweden in the first months of the year it’s semlor. Cafes and bakeries are filled with the classic baked good, a flour bun filled with almond paste and topped with whipped cream and powdered sugar.

Historically, the fettisbulle, or semla, was made for fettisdagen, Fat Tuesday, a rich treat before taking on the fasting that comes with Lent. In the modern day world, however, it’s perfectly acceptable to eat a semla anytime between the New Year and Easter.

Want to know where the best places in Sweden are to score a semla? Start by consulting semlamannen, a food blogger who eats one semla a day between the first of the year and Fat Tuesday. For those with a Stockholm visit in the near future, score one of the classic pastries at Vetekatten.

If you are up for it, you can also make your own. Here’s my personal recipe, adapted from an old Swedish classic.

Classic Swedish Semlor
Ingredients

  • 100 grams butter (7 tablespoons)
  • 1 1/4 cups milk
  • 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
  • 4 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • 3 teaspoons powdered cardamom (the best is to get whole cardamom and grind it – that way you have small cardamom chunks)

Filling

  • 2 cups blanched almonds + ¼ cup sugar blended in food processor
  • Inside of buns
  • ½ – 1 cup milk

Topping

  • Whipped cream
  • Powdered sugar

Directions

1. Melt butter in a saucepan and add the milk. Heat until the liquid is warm to the touch.

2. In a bowl beat the egg and add in yeast, salt, sugar and milk mixture. Mix until yeast is well dissolved. Combine baking powder, cardamom and flour and mix thoroughly. Cover the bowl and let rise for 30 minutes.

3. Place dough on lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Form into round balls and place on greased pan. Cover with tea towel and let rise until double the size.

4. Brush the balls with a beaten egg. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 450F. Let the buns cool.

5. Cut off a circular “lid” off of each bun and set aside. Scoop out inside of bun with a spoon or fork. Mix in a bowl with almond paste and add enough milk to make a smooth mixture. Fill buns with mixture and top with whipping cream. Place lid on top of whipping cream and garnish with powdered sugar.

[Photo Credit: Anna Brones]

Crap Food No Longer The Norm At Museums

by Dave Seminara on

It all started with a damn good slice of pound cake at the British Museum in London. Then I wondered why the bowl of corn chowder I devoured at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art cafeteria, Lickety Split, was the best thing I’d eaten in weeks. And by the time I had a plate of mouth-watering chipotle chicken quesadillas at the Getty Museum cafeteria in L.A. several weeks later, I wondered what the hell was going on. Museum cafeteria food is supposed to be overpriced crap, right?

Ordinarily, I hate to get stuck eating at tourist attractions. In December, on an excursion to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, for example, I neglected to pack drinks or lunch for my kids and was distressed to find $5.19 fountain drinks (one size only), cups of soup for $7 and a selection of crummy looking sandwiches that cost roughly the same as Burundi’s per capita GDP. This is more or less what I expect from dining establishments at any sort of tourist attraction: a rip off.But there appears to be a real trend toward good, moderately priced food at a host of art museums I’ve visited over the last year. Aside from the otherworldly chowder, Lickety Split at the Mass MOCA in the Berkshires has tasty burritos, great coffee, microbrews and fresh baked goods. The British Museum has cafés featuring good sandwiches, soups, pies and baked goods. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has two gourmet restaurants, a café and a cafeteria, all of which looked appetizing to me on a visit last summer. And the Art Institute of Chicago has a pretty decent cafeteria, a café, plus a fine dining option.

But my favorite museum culinary experiences in the last year came courtesy of the Getty Museum and the Milwaukee Art Museum. The Getty has a few dining options, ranging from casual to gourmet, but I was hard pressed to make a selection at their cafeteria, which is loaded with good-looking, healthy food. If the weather is good, as it usually is in L.A., you can sit outside and enjoy a lovely view along with a good, reasonably priced meal (see video below).


Café Calatrava at the Milwaukee Art Museum offers fine dining with a view of Lake Michigan (see photo on the right). The seasonally inspired menu is created to match the museum’s featured exhibits. When we visited in December during the Treasures of Kenwood House exhibit, there was a British theme featuring offerings like ale steamed mussels, ploughman’s lunch, wild boar and sage bangers and mash and Cornish beef and veggie pasties. I had the pasties, which were first rate, and my wife had something called Col. Mustard’s chicken, which came with some tasty dauphinoise potatoes.

I hope the experiences I’ve had at these museums is indeed a trend and the days of having to smuggle food into museums and other tourist attractions are numbered. Let us know if you’ve had good, bad or indifferent dining experiences at museums and other tourist sites around the world.

[Photo credits: Getty Center (sea scallops), Dave Seminara]

Photo Of The Day: Some Som Tom Salad

by Meg Nesterov on


I don’t mind food photos, even when they clog up my Instagram feed or distract me from my dinner companion. As long as they are interesting and tell me something I don’t know or might not have experienced otherwise, I think they are a great expression of social networking. I spotted today’s Photo of the Day in the Gadling Flickr pool taken by Ladyexpat of a Som Tom Salad. This turns out to be the Thai version of a green papaya salad. Not sure how she grated those amazing shapes that look like waffle fries, but the dish is a combination of the four local flavors: hot chili, tart lime, sweet sugar and savory fish sauce. The photo is full of color, texture, and the brightly painted nails and jewelry give it character. I’ll have what she’s having!

Share your favorite travel food discoveries for the Photo of the Day by adding to Gadling Flickr pool.

[Photo credit: Nancie (Ladyexpat)]

Spice Up Your Valentines Day With These Surprising Aphrodisiacs From Around The World

by Reena Ganga on

With Valentines Day fast approaching, you may be wondering how best to set the mood for some romance. Aphrodisiacs have been a popular approach throughout history and people around the world have invented all sorts of creative concoctions to up their game, so to speak.

What kinds of concoctions you ask? Well, put it this way: if all you’ve tried are the usual oysters and chocolate, you haven’t lived. Read on to learn about some of the more surprising aphrodisiacs used by different cultures, from crushed insects to sea creatures and beyond.

Note: some of these foods might leave you feeling nauseated rather than turned on. Don’t say you weren’t warned!

China: Sea Cucumbers

This sea creature’s claim to fame as an aphrodisiac may have something to do with its physical properties: it’s shaped like a cucumber and squirts out sticky white threads to defend itself from enemies. Yes, exactly. Sea Cucumbers (see image above) are often touted as a natural alternative to Viagra due to their high concentration of vitamins and minerals that have potential for boosting performance in the bedroom. The Sea Cucumber doesn’t have much flavor but locals whip it up into a soup or stir-fry to make it more palatable. Cleaning, soaking, cooking and preparing the gelatinous sea slug for eating is a rather a complicated process, so you may want to pick them up from an Asian market where most of the work has already been done for you. You can also find Sea Cucumber in dried or capsule form.

South America: Giant Leaf Cutter Ants

These giant ants, which grow up to three quarters of an inch long have been used to spark romance in South America for more than 500 years. Locals remove the wings and legs of the insects before roasting them up for a crunchy pre-sex snack that’s high in protein and low in fat. The Leaf Cutter Ants are so known for their aphrodisiacal properties that they’re considered a traditional gift to give to newly married couples. The ants apparently taste like bacon, so if you go this route, you can at least rest assured your partner won’t have to endure insect breath.

Ethiopia: Camel’s Milk

In Ethiopia, locals believe camel’s milk possesses powerful aphrodisiac qualities. The creamy white drink isn’t widely available in the West, but has long been a staple dairy product among those in Africa and the Middle East. Camel’s milk is rich in vitamins, with more than three times as much vitamin C as regular cow’s milk, as well as lots of iron and B vitamins. Because of this, camel milk aficionados tout the drink as a cure-all for whatever ails you – including any trouble you might be having in the sack.

Europe: The Spanish Fly

This aphrodisiac from Europe is made up of the dried up remains of a bug. Unlike many aphrodisiacs, which have more of a placebo effect than anything, Spanish Fly actually works – although we don’t suggest you try it since the remedy could seriously jeopardize your health. Spanish Fly does its job by irritating the male organs and causing them to swell up – but not in a good way. The chemical in Spanish Fly is actually toxic and can cause kidney and gastrointestinal problems and in some cases, even death. It’s not exactly the kind of bang you want to end your night with.

Italy: Salami

Probably the most mundane and approachable of all the aphrodisiacs on this list, salami is the key to getting hot in the cot according to a poll of Italians. More than a quarter of Italian women say that their aphrodisiac of choice is salami, while other common stimulants include cheese, risotto, and even steamed vegetables. Experts say the most effective kinds of salami are the super spicy varieties, since the chiles in them help to increase blood flow – helping you spice things up.

[Photo Credits: Flickr users Ed Bierman; Geoff Gallice; Zaid Al Balushi; Wikimedia Commons user H.Zell; Flickr user TheDeliciousLife]