Why You Should Cook Dinner While Travelling
“What kind of clickbait nonsense is this? This walking bushel of receding Marrickville hemp has the nerve to tell me I should be on my tired feet cooking dinner while I’m meant to be enjoying my much needed and incredibly expensive holiday?”
Why yes I do fictional angry person. Unless your idea of a holiday includes a meals package and a room without a fridge, here’s why you should live like a globe-trotting Julia Child might suggest, enjoy the joy of cooking abroad.
This is an average night when we’re not filming (we’re fun I swear). In Nuremberg I made crispy cheesy spätzle that honestly looks a little burnt looking at it now but it tasted great.
It’s Cheaper
Let’s get this point out of the way and move on. Going to a special restaurant while overseas can be an amazing experience and for a lot of people cuisine is a big deciding factor when planning a trip. Do this every night however, and the bill adds up, especially if you are in a region with tipping or exorbitant sparkling water prices (seriously, 12 francs in Switzerland).
Planning a few home cooked meals a week while travelling means you’ll save a bit of money which is a necessity when you’re travelling for at least a month or a from a country with a weak currency like Australia. That way, you also don’t have to pinch pennies when it’s time to dine out. Plus, when you’re sourcing ingredients you get to…
Discover Foreign Supermarkets
You ever go to ALDI or Miracle Asian Supermarket and think ‘woah! I’ve never seen that type of biccie before! How very novel!’ or something like that? Foreign supermarkets are like that but with a whole country’s worth of inter-dimensional and often hilariously named fast moving consumer goods.
Yes, you can also go to organic growers markets and buy straight from the producer like you’re on a road trip with Jamie Oliver, you definitely should. But when it’s time to whip something up midweek, the convenience and guilty pleasure of the supermarket can’t be beaten.
Cool new cereals and muesli bars with funny mistranslated taglines.
That’s How The Locals Do It
While holidaying in the supermarket, you might notice it’s the not the most touristy of places. Who are the other people there? They are the locals of course and they are buying ingredients for tonight’s dinner. Depending on the day they might be buying ingredients for something extravagant, eating for sheer sustenance or seeking comfort in a microwavable fondue or something as equally perplexing.
If you’re lucky enough to be able to stay with a local while travelling ask if you can join them in the kitchen one evening. Here you might learn cooking traditions and techniques that are new to you, finished off with something delicious (hopefully). Plus you get to pretend you’re the host of your own travel cooking show which is a very important thing to do. Best of all if you get to do that you get to…
Croziflette: Oven baked bacon, onion, alpine pasta topped with a wheel of local Reblochon cheese. Lovingly prepared by my mate Tania (pictured).
Take The Recipes With You
One of the bittersweet moments of international travel is finishing a local delicacy that was life-changingly delicious. You’re feeling full, there’s a little tear in your eye and you’re already planning your return trip before that final golden morsel goes in your mouth. Well, if you try cooking some local specialties while travelling you don’t have to wait until your annual leave/bank account says you can eat it again, you can make it yourself at home.
Learning a local recipe is like taking a food pic that you can eat. It’s equal parts souvenir and life lesson with the power to transport you back to your trip. Because of Tania’s croziflette I now know to look out for square alpine pasta and reblochon cheese if I want to feel like I’m back in the French Alps. Previously I’ve never been to a German food market but might now if it means I can score some spätzle. Seek out the ingredients, up your travel playlist, get those nostalgic smells sizzling and whisk your palate back to your favourite places.
