Here's a silly thought for a silly maybe lighthearted thread. When traveling have you ever found yourself having a craving for some food item that you are probably not going to be able to satiate?
In London, there I was in a Co-Op picking up some groceries to take back to my room. I'm looking in the bakery case when I'm suddenly having a hankering for a muffin. And not something simple, oh no! I was craving a corn muffin, with cheese and jalapeños.
American dry curred hickory smoked bacon.
Chicharrones.
Cheetos and Dr Pepper, but that was a long time ago.
Tex-Mex if I am gone a month or longer.
Pay Day candy bar. I'm allergic to chocolate so Pay Days or red licorice are my go-to candy. I now pack a couple when I travel.
Laura Scudders Natural Nutty Peanut Butter
Half and half for coffee. Sometimes I can find pourable cream.
I don't want a coffee that is one part coffee and 867 parts milk.
Toast and peanut butter.
Very few Italian rental apartments have toasters.
I just have to make do with delicious apricot jam filled cornetti instead….
Peanut butter for me, too. And Mexican food. Occasionally other things if I'm in a rather non-cosmopolitan environment for multiple weeks.
A decent cup of tea. Even if I take my own teabags it’s often only possible to get UHT milk which is just not nice.
Where are people travelling to where they're unable to find peanut butter? I don't think I've been anywhere and certainly not in Europe where peanut butter isn't available.
I can't say there's anything I particularly crave when I'm away (if I was living elsewhere for some time then that would be a different matter) but, like Helen, I will bring teabags with me (Twinings Full English, not to be confused with English Breakfast). Also milk and fruit juice has to be fresh, I can't stand the UHT stuff.
For 5 weeks on our annual Italy trips, I try not to crave my own giant mug of breakfast tea and my giant chopped salad that I make almost every day for lunch at home. But for 57 weeks I have to try not to crave things I can only get in Italy.
I was driving around Texas on a three-week solo road trip, about 20 years ago. I was in lovely Galveston for a couple of days prior to heading to Houston for my flight back to London and I got hit by the most intense desire for a pork pie.
And I mean one of those specific Melton Mowbray pork pies made with hot water crust pastry and some jelly inside, eaten cold with some good chutney or maybe a pickled onion.
And obviously there was zero chance of finding something like that in Galveston, as I realised while disconsolately wandering around a supermarket wanting a taste of home and realising it really had been a long trip.
Peanut butter is hard to find. A few of the Spar markets sell some sort off nasty tasting offbrand, but for the good stuff you pretty much have to go to the import food store down in the rich neighborhood and pay 8 euro for a small jar of Jiffy ... which I do.
TTM, I have never had good TexMex outside of Texas and never had great TexMex outiside of San Antonio. We have a couple of Mexican restaurants in town and they are down right yucky......
ANd I will add, a decent cup of coffee.
Ironically just this weekend. A very weird thing too, just a plain baked potato is all I wanted. We were in a very small fishing town, so the food there is mostly seafood. We had our fill and a potato is what I wanted. My husband went to a plain that said they had some chili cheese potato, so asked for just the potato. Nope, they did not have it as apparently it was the wrong day for that dish. Nothing else sounded good, but we needed dinner, so I had him order a sandwich for me from the kids menu. It was fine, but it was NOT a plain potato;)
Chicago Style Italian Combination, beef & sausage sandwich, with fresh Giardiniera. OR a Chicago style hot dog on a poppy seed bun with mustard, onion, relish, pickles and celery salt. (NO KETCHUP!) MMMMMM that is eating high off the hog, Chicago style
Yes, SJ! Toast! I so miss having a toaster when we are in Italian apartments! I ca get the peanut butter, but last month I resorted to “toasting” bread in a hot non-stick skillet.
I also often want a simpler meal than they serve in restaurants at night: just a nice salad, with some creativity, not an insalata verde which is so ordinary. Insalata Ricca in Rome does great, creative salads and they are open at night.
I find the only thing I miss when traveling is my own cooking. Not enough to make me want to rent an apartment and cook, mind you.
I'm always amazed that my husband doesn't crave peanut butter when we travel, since that is his go-to snack and light meal choice at home. But he will go up to 8 weeks when traveling without even once mentioning it. (Smuckers Natural Crunchy, just peanuts and salt.)
No food cravings but I do crave my mountain bike and my kayak.
I am forever sussing out trails and bodies of water and thinking how good it would be to tackle them.
Eggs over easy, hash browns, crispy bacon and toast on a Sunday morning.
Not really. I find myself trying to eat through the local menu and rarely have enough time to try everything. Though I must say I prefer US Kit Kat bars to the UK and Euro cousins.
German bread on my travels in the USA.
Simple aromatic coffee on Hurtigruten ships. Their coffee tastes awfully.
A belief I've always had is that foods – recipe, techniques, & ingredients – are local, a product of time and place. Influences move in all directions, and what “was” in one location is not the same when in another. It's futile to travel and expect to find a New York slice, a Chicago dog, or Mission burrito, and if you want a full English, well you have to be in England. Then in our travels why do we use good & authentic synonymously when describing food?
Not really. I find myself trying to eat through the local menu and rarely have enough time to try everything.
Yes.
Another vote for Tex-Mex food. Two beef enchiladas, one beef taco, rice and refried beans. And possibly an ice cold Modelo Negra beer!
Craving a jalapeño corn muffin in London—now that's a unique and tricky desire!
Proper bacon at breakfast. It's a regular disappointment, the nasty sort of thing so many countries - both in Europe and the two Americas - claim to be "bacon." Why cannot they just do it right like the British and Irish do?
Also, I missed decent cheese in the US (not another orange, glowing lump of plasticine, please) and fresh, creamy, drinkable milk in Spain. Both things don't seem to exist outside niche shops.
Nick, we might come to blows about British vs American bacon preparation. I cannot stand any bacon outside the US> It is usually undercooked and greasy. The stuff in a breakfast buffet in Italy or the UK makes me cringe.
When I had been in the Puglia region for 10 days last May, I was craving some northern Italian food. I actually found a place in Lecce that had Spaghetti Bolognese - total tourist food, but it tasted wonderful!
And thinking about Puglia while here at home, I was so excited last night running across some photos of their amazing Pasticciotto! A reason to return! : )
Oh come on, it's all bacon and I do not understand why we get work up over the minor differences. Back bacon, belly bacon it's all a beautiful thing and should be glorified and praised. Enjoy what it is where you are.
Craving a jalapeño corn muffin in London—now that's a unique and tricky desire!
Absolutely, it was a bit strange. There I was looking at pastries and it was the want for a corn muffin that popped into my head.
VAP, cornbread-types of baked goods are not usually found nor well-known, at least in Italy, IMO. When I worked at the American Embassy in Rome, I made cornbread for the Italian guards and brought lovely, soft, butter and honey. They really didn’t know what to make of it and were wary, but after trying they pronounced it “like baked polenta” and good with the honey.
When living in the USA I would sometimes crave:
Good European fresh baked crunchy bread
Pastries that did not feel like chewing gum
A Xuixo
Real Fuet de Vic (they only have imitations in the US)
An authentic Tapas bar experience
Pimientos de Padrón
Flavorful fruit and vegetables (like tomatoes)
A good Cortado
Spanish style Horchata
Oh, Carlos…. Pimientos de Padrón. I crave those regularly here in the U.S.
Oh, Carlos…. Pimientos de Padrón. I crave those regularly here in the U.S.
Yes they were impossible to find!
However, since living in Sweden, I was surprised that one can easily find fresh Pimientos de Padrón imported from Spain in the local supermarkets like Hemköp and ICA... the wonders of intra-EU trade policy :)
Goose liver. Its so expensive we can only get little bits. Also, creamed cod row. I will eat both of these until I'm ill. :)
When we lived in Poland, decades ago, we used to host or help host an American style Thanksgiving dinner. The two foods that intrigued Europeans the most were pumpkin pie and corn bread. Both were hits, by the way.
I found the poke in Europe generally disappointing. Then again I find most poke in the US disappointing, so there's that. I did have wonderful tuna poke in Copenhagen, along with spectacular (though expensive) fish and chips.
One thing I miss when I have fish and chips in England is cole slaw. It's so much better an accompaniment than mushy peas.
