International living experiences and food

Lately, several people have made mention of "when I lived in...." This has me curious.

How many people here have lived in countries other than that of your birth? How long did you live there? Are you still there? How has it influenced your food choices and cooking repertoire? Anything you miss about the cuisine? Do you routinely prepare recipes from that other place?

I'll go first. I lived in Los Angeles for several years, but I think that just felt like another country. I still have a virgin passport burning a hole in my pocket, so I can't lay claim to any interesting answer to my own thread.

Next!

[Jenise]

A brief history:

Los Angeles (the formative years)
Manchester, England (1.5 years)
Saudi Arabia (1 year)
The OC
Anchorage, Alaska (5 years)
The OC
Bellingham, Washington (3 years and counting)

I don't think I cook recipes from the other places so much as I cook regionally wherever I am, and I've always loved the foods of other cultures and explored whatever was available near where I lived. Since almost everything's available in Los Angeles, I had a good start. And since I travelled out from wherever I was living, I gained even more exposure.

I'd say it was the cumulative travelling, not so much living in the places that I lived, that further broadened my perspective about food. Of course, I would have a diffferent report had I been living in Paris vs. beans-on-toast Manchester, or Cairo instead of a closed society like Saudi Arabia.

With the exception of a stint with the Marines, I've lived within 10 miles of my current home all my life. A 13 month overseas tour consisted of 8 months in Vietnam and 5 months in Okinawa. In Vietnam I only ate what the Marines fed me. There was some really good food on the ship while sailing from Vietnam to Okinawa (The Navy knows how to travel). We did eat in some of the local restaurants in Okinawa - some pretty good food - fried rice, etc., but one time while on a training march across the island, we stopped for a rest along the side of a trail and an old lady came up to us selling fresh ripened pineapples for $1.00 each. Without a doubt the best pineapple I've ever had. We sliced them up using bayonets.

Well, I lived most of my life in North Georgia, a short stint in Tampa, two years in Tennessee, and 5 years & counting in Oklahoma. Tampa felt like a foreign country at times, and vacationed twice in Canada, but no real out of the USA experience at all.

I lived in Texas between 2 and 10 years old. It didn't used to be another country!

Age 0-6 Saudi Arabia
6-16 Kenya
16-now I feel like I'm living in a foreign country lol! I've never quite felt at home in Finland.

SA isn't a great place for culinary delights, but Arabia left its mark on me and I've been back someplace there almost every year. And yes, Arabian cuisine as exemplified by Lebanese and Syrian, is a favourite of mine.

The Swahili cuisine is a bit like a mixture of Arabian and Indian, so obviously I love that too. What I miss here in the North, is the spicelessness of food that isn't made by me - it seems that salt only is used (and I don't really care for much salt) and just a little bit of pepper is too much for most people. Blandness is a virtue over here.

-O-

What I miss here in the North, is the spicelessness of food that isn't made by me - it seems that salt only is used (and I don't really care for much salt) and just a little bit of pepper is too much for most people. Blandness is a virtue over here.

-O-

Otto, I'd send you a spicy care package of dried habanero chiles, but not sure the package would make it through customs, seeing as how it's a plant product. But if you want some, pm me with an address. What you can do to combat bland restaurant food is keep a stash of chile flakes in a small container with you at all times. It's guaranteed to liven up anything, but keep the napkins handy, it'll raise a sweat real fast!

Two years in Iran before the 1979 Revolution.

Putting aside the amoebic dysentery I contracted while there, I ate my way through the experience and miss some foods:

Iranian flat bread...it is thick, soft yet firm, and right out of a stone oven it smells like a trip to paradise. Topped with goat cheese and fresh tomatoes, it made great homemade pizza.

Yogurt that we bought every two days. The yogurt shop sold it in bowls that you turned in when you bought your next bowl...a few cents for sixteen ounces.

Sometimes I flavored the yogurt with raw honey, which in Iran often came with bee parts embedded in the honey.

Large roasted sugar beets and corn on the cob that were sold by street vendors with steaming carts.

The ever-present chellow kebob skewered lamb and onion served beside a mound of white or yellow rice at the top of which was a raw egg that you cooked by mixing the steaming rice over it. Sold throughout Iran like our hamburgers are sold throughout America.

Fresh pistachio nuts that I could afford to buy and eat with abandon.

Sheep's brain soup that I had at an Armenian wedding and again at the home of an Armenian family.

Honey pastries.

RIESLING! Among the best Rieslings I had tasted to that point in my young life. Produced up north, near the Caspian Sea area.

1001 (yech-hezaar-yech) a red wine that was produced near Shiraz and tasted quite a lot like a Rhone wine.

Interesting topic Cynthia...It's nice to hear about everyone's experiences.

I have lived in several major US cities, but never abroad. However, my husband is from England (as is his family) and I do feel like I have had to adapt my cooking to more of a British or French style of cuisine. I also and very familiar with all kinds of British products that most American's have never heard of.

We go to England often to visit as well...can't say there is much that I miss about the food...LOL! However, when my In-laws lived in the "Country", we used to go to the local pub, and there was a Fish n chips guy who can around in a truck every Wednesday evening...Oh my, they were the BEST fish n chips EVER. I think it must have been the 10 yr old oil he was using to fry the fish .

I have travelled...but probably not enough to fall in love with any local cuisine.

[Robin Garr]

How many people here have lived in countries other than that of your birth? How long did you live there? Are you still there? How has it influenced your food choices and cooking repertoire? Anything you miss about the cuisine? Do you routinely prepare recipes from that other place?

I've been lucky enough to get to travel a fair amount on both business and pleasure ... thinking over the question, I figured that I've visited (not counting just airport layovers or plane changes) about 25 countries in every continent except Africa and Antarctica, as well as all 50 states.

In addition to my home town, I've lived and worked in New York City, the Catskills, the Los Angeles area, the Bay area and southern Idaho.

But although by my rough calculation I've spent well over a year of my life outside U.S. boundaries, I've never actually "lived" in a non-U.S. country.

Having been a wild-eyed "foodie," either amateur or professional, during all these travels, though, I've absolutely been influenced by the cuisines, taking advantage of every opportunity to sample the local fare wherever I go, and in most cases either to replicate it at home or pick up tips and tricks to add to my culinary tool kit.

Well, if we are going to talk about trips...whew! I'd have to think hard about that: so many places and so many foods.

I spent a year in Greenland, but that was a military assignment. To get through that trip, especially when an arctic storm hit (or a B52, which crashed into the ice while I was there) the thing I swallowed with greed and to excess was alcohol

Haven't lived, per se, outside US. However, many places overseas for visits or business, some of them many times, and a good fraction of these trips were explicitly to learn about food, and were very helpful therefor. (Though did lead to occasional painfully compressed food tours, e.g. eight meals in 2.5 days in one HK visit; commiserated with a British travel writer there, friend of the family, who did about twice as many at the same rate, for an assignment. He could barely look at food, when I talked to him. It's not natural: Too many deliberate meals, even eating lightly, and the appetite vanishes. Some of you may have experienced that.)

Otto, I'd send you a spicy care package of dried habanero chiles, but not sure the package would make it through customs, seeing as how it's a plant product. But if you want some, pm me with an address. What you can do to combat bland restaurant food is keep a stash of chile flakes in a small container with you at all times. It's guaranteed to liven up anything, but keep the napkins handy, it'll raise a sweat real fast!

Thanks Robert, but it's not that I don't have spices available (I do since each time I go to the Near East I bring back lots that I freeze), but that others refuse to use them. So, thanks for the offer, but I'll dip into my freezer for some to take along when I eat out!

-O-

Born and raised in Southern California. Went to school in Chicago for 4 years, then to New Orleans for 5. Entered the service. Lived in South eastern Turkey for 15 months; Germany for 3 years; Croatia for 6 months; Japan for 3 years; Northern Italy for 3 years. Back to Northern California for 4 years.

Born and raised in Southern California. Went to school in Chicago for 4 years, then to New Orleans for 5. Entered the service. Lived in South eastern Turkey for 15 months; Germany for 3 years; Croatia for 6 months; Japan for 3 years; Northern Italy for 3 years. Back to Northern California for 4 years.

The food memories, Eric, the food memories...

Great topic, Cynthia!

I spent my senior year of highschool living in Iwakuni, Japan (Marine brat) and I remember we ate a lot of yaki soba, but that hasn't carried over into my adult habits (I don't each much Japanese food at all, with the exception of sushi, but who doesn't eat sushi??).

As for food tasted while traveling, the following thoughts come to mind:

Thai food is consistently good almost anywhere you go; it's one of the few cuisines that I personally feel can be as good in the US as in it's country of origin. (Not so for Chinese, unless you're lucky enough to live in the SF area).

Burmese food is surprisingly bad considering the country is bordered by two nations who have world class cuisine (India & Thailand).

I want to try Georgian food again! We had it while we were in Russia and were very pleasantly surprised, but there are no restaurants in the DC area. Guess I could probably buy a Georgian cookbook and give it a whirl myself...in fact I think I will.

South African food is great if you're a rich, white tourist! We had the most amazing game and vegetables while visiting last year, everything was cooked to perfection, the wines went fabulously with everything we ordered...it almost makes me want to cry thinking about it. I really liked their local farmers sausage too (boerewors in Afrikaans), lots of spices and cloves.

Military dependent, Military, and incessant moving and traveling for nigh onto six decades now.

Got to touch on the cultures of

Georgia
Florida
Kentucky
Texas (all five parts)
Louisiana
Arkansas
Wisconsin
Washington
Alaska
Montana
Wyoming
Idaho
Oregon
Arizona
Nevada
California (North)
Canada (BC, Alberta, Ontario)
Mexico
Chile
My job and my desires keep me traveling constantly, so I've visited and worked in most (but not quite all) the US states frequently; I'm missing Vermont, North and South Dakota.

Okinawa
Korea
Phillippines

Ireland
UK
France (extensively)
BeNeLux
Germany (lived there as a teenager; traveled extensively)
Italy (11 of the 20 wine regions)
Spain (extensively)
Switzerland
Austria

Echoing Jenise, it's as much the places I've traveled to/worked in as the places I've lived that have influenced me. I've been on an eternal quest since I first broke out of my family region of South Central Georgia and Northern Florida, with only family obligations and currency (lack of) holding me back, and I try to sample and consume all I can of every culture I come across. Each one has influenced me.

New Jersey --> Texas --> Germany --> Italy --> France --> Germany --> Vermont --> Germany --> New Jersey --> California --> ???.

About 20 years in Europe about 35 years in the U.S.A.

Lots of travel from those places outward. Those were just locations where I actually resided for more than 3 months at a clip.

Culinary Aphorism: "It's all good!!"

Lessons Learned: There are more similarities than differences. It doesn't take much to turn braciole into Fleischrouladen, pancakes into blini, pita into lavosh.

I spent three years in England in the mid '90s but I can't say my thoughts about food were changed in any fundamental way by being there. Probably the biggest adjustment in cooking while I was there was necessitated by the fact that our rental house was equipped with a traditional AGA cooker, which offered a real challenge at first. Most of those lessons I gladly forgot when I returned to the US and escaped the AGA, though

Jenise's melon thread woke me up!

How could I have forgotten to mention the Persian melon I used to eat in Iran?

Have yet to taste a melon anywhere near as lusciously, enticingly, even erotically, sweet.

The closest I've come to a melon like that is Ogan, an Israeli hybrid melon that I grow, when I can find seeds in a catalog, which isn't every year.

I've been on an eternal quest since I first broke out of my family region of South Central Georgia and Northern Florida, with only family obligations and currency (lack of) holding me back, and I try to sample and consume all I can of every culture I come across. Each one has influenced me.

Hey Hoke, we may be related! My Dad's from South-Central Georgia!

I've been on an eternal quest since I first broke out of my family region of South Central Georgia and Northern Florida, with only family obligations and currency (lack of) holding me back, and I try to sample and consume all I can of every culture I come across. Each one has influenced me.

Hey Hoke, we may be related! My Dad's from South-Central Georgia!

Possible, Robert. Any banjo-strumming overall wearing albinos in your immediate family?

Have yet to taste a melon anywhere near as lusciously, enticingly, even erotically, sweet.

Whew! Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

I've been on an eternal quest since I first broke out of my family region of South Central Georgia and Northern Florida, with only family obligations and currency (lack of) holding me back, and I try to sample and consume all I can of every culture I come across. Each one has influenced me.

Hey Hoke, we may be related! My Dad's from South-Central Georgia!

Possible, Robert. Any banjo-strumming overall wearing albinos in your immediate family?

LOL!
Not much musical abolity in that sid eof the family that I know of, except the sort that comes after a mess o' beans & cornbread!