What the Tourist Remembers

After reading the excerpt from Lucy M. Long’s Culinary Tourism, I found myself thinking about my own experiences with tourism and how food can serve to shift ones perspective of a given culture, and what is viewed as acceptable or familiar. When I was still in high school, I traveled abroad with an organization that’s highest aim was to bridge the gap between different countries and to value cultural differences around the world. This program allowed me to travel with a group to several European countries, in a short amount of time. I was reminded of this experience not simply because I was unashamedly a visible tourist while abroad, but because I inherently experienced the perception of otherness through food and other mediums while abroad that Long focuses on for several passages of Culinary Tourism.

What was unique about my experience was how food became a sort of medium. There were ways in which we could experience the otherness of a culture, by tasting the foods that were traditional and favored in the given country. As Long points out, this is a large part of the tourist’s experience. However, since I was a part of a group organization, our menus were often planned out for us. Interestingly enough, restaurants that hosted us, often tried to “Americanize” our dining experience. It was their way of making us feel at home and welcoming us. I cannot tell you how many times we were served French fries and hamburgers. Sadly, the presentation of these meals made me miss home even more and crave the authentic tastes of my home country. But even more so, I wanted to experience the food of that culture. I didn’t want them to make me feel at ease or home in their culture, I wanted to experience that sense of otherness, to try different foods that might shift my way of thinking and open my taste buds to a whole new level of acceptance and familiarity.

What I recall most about my trip was the food and how tied it was to culture. Although we experienced several badly prepared, “Americanized” meals, there were also times in which I was able to really immerse myself in a given culture, through the experience of food. I remember sitting in a café with my friends in Paris, dividing a glazed scone hot from the oven between us, and sipping of thick, creamy lattes. When we took a ferry from England to Ireland, I remember the fish and chips, how they didn’t have Ketchup available but slathered their fries with mayonnaise instead. I recall trying Escargot for the first time, and thinking how it really did taste like a buttery gummy bear, like Chris off of Gilmore Girls described in one episode. I remember the soft mold of Belgium chocolate, the richness of the white and dark swirls shaped into tiny objects from shells to high-heels. What I regret the most about my trip is not taking every opportunity I had to experience the food of each culture I entered into. If I could go back, I would buy the Belgium waffles from the street vendor in Brussels, and eat the crepes and baguettes in Paris. Now, I tell myself, I have to go back. After all, you cannot fully experience a culture if you leave with an empty stomach.