FOOD ISSUES

The Winners! A list of my favorite foods from their countries.

England: scones, tea, chocolate, desserts in general, fish & chips, Shepard's pie, sandwiches and pre-made fresh salads, anything with lamb and soups.

France: bread, cheese, croissant, pastry and desserts, quiches, roast chicken and salads.

Italy: tiramisu, gelato, cappuccino and espresso.

My favorite food memory is sitting outside at a Parisian cafe with Leigh eating cheese, bread and drinking wine near the Eiffel Tower (we could just see it lite up over the top of a building).

How often do you eat out? How often do you go to a restaurant by yourself for lunch or dinner? Can you imagine going out to eat for every meal, every day by yourself? Of course I didn't eat in a restaurant for every meal or even every day but whatever I did, it was on my own. Truthfully, my Europe food experiences in general were not good and it's my number one complaint about traveling for an extended period of time.

In the United Kingdom I got breakfast with my room price, hence the name Bed & Breakfast (B&B).  And they serve a really nice breakfast; eggs, bacon (not smoked like ours more like what we would call Canadian bacon), toast, baked beans, etc. This was a great way to start the day and it helped with my budget because it kept me so full I usually only needed to buy a late lunch.

In the UK they differentiate between hot and cold food at meal times. Hot food is available from 12-2pm only and then again at dinner from 6-8 or 9pm. There are some pubs that serve hot food at all hours. In between 2 and 6pm you can always buy cold food. This isn't as noticeable in London. There are these little eateries - sandwich shops - called Upper Crust, Pret-a-Manager, Sainsbury grocery store and so forth. These sandwiches are delicious - fresh baguette, fresh ingredients, thick sliced real chicken breast, real cheeses and significant amounts (oh, and refrigerated). And all at a good price. These eateries are all over and even in the train stations - very conveniently located. Of course 2-6pm is when you go to "tea".

When you leave the big cities and head to the country the times that hot food is available becomes more obvious and rigid, and a lot of pubs stop serving hot food at 2pm until dinner.  So, you really have to plan your day around when you can get hot food if you want a hot meal on that day.  Basically, I usually ended up eating sandwiches.  Going to dinner wasn't always a good option. For example if my B&B was a bit away from the eateries, if it was a cold and dark night and I didn't know the town very well or there weren't very many choices....you get the idea.  I skipped dinner a lot and......I ate a lot of sandwiches.  They were good sandwiches but to have one almost every day or every other day did begin to wear on me.

In Europe, France and Italy especially, they take breakfast as seriously as flossing. Their idea of breakfast is an espresso and maybe a croissant or pastry. There are places that sell "breakfast" to Americans/Tourists but it's a bad value.  For 11 euros (about $16) you get an espresso or cappuccino (sometimes they have "American style" coffee but not always), a piece of bread, a croissant and about 1/4 cup of canned orange juice.  Easy to pass up, huh?

In France I could find these great little quiches about the size of a tea cup saucer. Yummy! Of course, bread and cheese are everywhere and so good you feel like you've become addicted.

The French and Italians don't eat dinner until 8 or 8:30 at the earliest. I mean they will actually turn you away and ask you to come back in an hour if you arrive at 7:45pm for dinner. I'm referring to local restaurants not those in the tourist area. Those are full of tourists at 6pm eating dinner but the food is meager at best.  The French and Italians believe that dinner, or any lunch, should last about 2 hours. To be honest I'm not going to walk in the dark in an unfamiliar city to sit by myself for 2 hours in a restaurant so I basically didn't eat dinner very often. Lunch was my main meal as long as I got to an eatery between 12-2pm I might get something hot, well in Italy my food was never hot. I was lucky if it was warm.

Sandwiches, bread, cheese, pastry, Italian or French food are OFF my personal menu for a long time. I am so sick of those foods.

Main dream topic for the last 4 weeks of my trip:  eggs, bacon and hash browns.  When my brother picked my up from the airport we bee-lined it to a great mom & pop place that serves breakfast all day long and I got my dream meal.  It was delicious. Oh and I had fresh squeezed orange juice too.