Casual Conversation

I was traveling in northern France recently with my brother and dad. I speak French pretty well but my culinary vocabulary is a bit lacking so I couldn't always tell what exactly the menu said. So we're at this pub in Arras, and my brother has this bad habit of simply pointing to a menu item and not even attempting to pronounce it because his french is non-existent. So he points at something on the menu and the guy is like "le Welsh?" and I have no idea what a Welsh is or what my brother thought he was ordering so I just tell him that he wants whatever he's pointing at. And what arrives is essentially a large bowl of greasy, melted cheese with a slice of bread at the bottom. It was the only genuinely nasty thing any of us got the entire time we were in France. My brother learned after that to just make an attempt to pronounce the thing on the menu so he wouldn't get burned again.

On a more positive note, when we were in Bretagne, I tried their regional Mead as well as the "Galette Saucisse" (basically a savoury crepe wrapped around a sausage) and both were amazing. I still have dreams about the Galette. I wish there were Breton crèperies here in Canada.

I went to Lousiana to visit a friend’s family, and I was fed so many delicious things that I was willing to try anything offered to me. And then someone gave me cow tongue. Now the biggest complaint you’ll hear about tongue is the texture, but I was fully expecting that part. I wasn’t expecting it to be pickled.

I do love pickled meats, and I’ve eaten and enjoyed cow tongue pho! Just something about the flavor/texture combo hit wrong, I was thoroughly offput hahah

Good: Came to ye olde green mountain state where I now reside, learned it makes the best breakfast food I've ever had.

Bad: My old place of residence still treats garbage plates like their equivalent to pasta in Italy or escargot in France.

Went to Puglia (South of Italy) recently, had no specific expectations, the food was top notch.

When wide away from the tourist hotspots in Turkey, deep in the backcountry, I was surprised how simple and "dry" the local food was (->Germans eating many things with some kind of sauce). Now, years after these many visits, missing the taste/composition. And also the people, then.

I found the best local chipper in Bruges and pretty much all places in Belgium offering croques were great quality.

Sea Island pea cakes in Charleston SC were divine. Cracker barrel carrots seem like they came out of a ice cream fountain machine.