Some travel for the food experience. They go out of their way to explore a country’s cuisine. They research famous restaurants, know the street food scene and often will try anything – insects, maggots, cuy in Peru, dog, cat, snake or whatever must be tried for the experience. That’s not me.
I am not a foodie. Food doesn’t usually play a big role in my travel. I generally don’t experiment and like to know what I’m ordering. A menu with only pictures is too much of an adventure for me. But I do like flavourful piquant food.
Food is one element of travel where enormous savings can be had. Buying food in supermarkets is cheapest and best quality. I travel with a cup, bowl, spoon, instant coffee, and sugar, and buy milk daily. I virtually always travel with breakfast. Granola or processed cereals with added nuts and fruit are available everywhere.
I purchased a Volkswagen California and drove 200,000 km around Europe and western Asia in 2017 and 2028, It is an expensive but deluxe vehicle with a stove and fridge. I ate in the van 98% of the time. The German supermarkets, Lidl and Aldi are everywhere in Europe and inexpensive. I ate much healthier food than in restaurants including a large salad every night. Europe was my cheapest destination.
Coffee. This is something I always travel with. Instant may not be the best but it has caffeine. Other types are not practical. I drink mine with sugar and milk. The sugar is easy to carry and I buy milk whenever I arrive at a destination, also necessary for cereal.
I am always astonished at the price of Starbucks coffee irrelevant to the country’s wealth.
Street food is often a country’s tastiest cuisine. Some countries have wonderful street food – Mexico, Pakistan, and South Korea come to mind. When I travelled for three months in Mexico in my camper, even though it had a complete kitchen, I virtually only ate street food. American Tex-Mex is not real Mexican food. Street food is invariably fresh and safe, especially at stands with a crowd.
American Fast Food. You know exactly what you are going to get. No surprises. I am a world authority on hamburgers and most fast food is centred on hamburgers or chicken. Hamburgers must be the commonest food in the world. They are available anywhere. Countries outside North America have it all wrong – too much bun, buns that disintegrate, no onion, pickles, mustard, tomato, and sometimes no mayonnaise. Burger sauce, a mixture of mayo and ketchup is best. They add crazy things like egg, cucumber and beetroot. Hamburgers are meant to be juicy and this requires fat in the meat. Using extra lean or expensive meat like Japanese wagyu is too dry. A good regular hamburger with no filler and a healthy sprinkling of salt and pepper is best. Onion and pickles are mandatory. A large browned piece of green chilli adds flavour. Bacon makes anything taste good. And there should be French fries – served with mayonnaise.
Do you know what the most popular restaurant is in France and Italy? These two nations are renowned for their cuisine but usually too expensive to eat regularly in restaurants. I routinely see lineups in the double drive-throughs 40 cars deep at McDonald’s in both those countries. McDonald’s is the rock bottom of American fast food. They have newer premier burgers that are passable. But their fries are atrocious and just pass when fresh – they get stale fast. This attests to the fact that Europeans don’t know hamburgers.
Burger King, Hardees and Wendy’s are about equal. In Canada, A&W is better than them all. They all have good crispy fries. Subway has more stores than McDonald’s.
Other Cuisines. Indian, Greek, South Asian and Middle East food is invariably good, but is often better outside those countries, all with a large diaspora. It is hard to beat meat in Argentina.
The best pizza, another almost universal food, is not in Italy (where I never had great pizza). I like a thin crispy crust, a well-flavoured sauce and buffalo mozzarella. The best I have ever had was in Phenom Phen in Cambodia and at a hostel in north New Zealand. American pizza is not great. Pizza Hut is atrocious and invariably expensive.
Restaurants are best avoided. You pay a lot for the décor, atmosphere and service. Most are expensive per calorie, an issue with the low-end traveller. The food is rarely worth the cost; I can’t imagine paying the enormous prices at Michelin-starred restaurants.
If you would like to get food poisoning, your best bet would be at restaurants, especially with a low turnover. Chicken is usually the culprit.
• Texas March 2008. After eating street food safely in Mexico for 3 months, I crossed the border at Del Rio Texas to treat myself at a Pizza Hut. Six hours later, I vomited 18 times. Classic food poisoning results from an exotoxin produced by Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that grows best in dated chicken.
• China. I have the most difficulty in China. I like Chinese food in Canada but that is usually Cantonese and not common in China. I dislike ordering from pictures, bone in the chicken, and the flavours. My Chinese girlfriend doesn’t even like Chinese food in restaurants.