Food Archives - Page 2 of 15 - i should log off

Eat Your Heart Out in Cyprus

March 1, 2013 By Jillian

When visiting the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, there are a few foods you won’t want to miss. While Greek influence is strong, Cypriot cuisine has a unique spin on some of the more typical Greek dishes.

Souvlaki is a favorite “fast food” on the island of Cyprus. Skewered lean meat, usually lamb, pork or chicken, is tucked inside a wrap of Cypriot pita bread. Lemon juice, tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley and onion are some of the accompanying condiments. White cabbage and green chili peppers are other common additions, as well as tzatziki dip made from yogurt, cucumber, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and spices. In addition to the regular souvlaki, you can also get it “mixed” with sheftalia, a kind of spiced and minced pork sausage. You might see either version being served street side or as a to-go food from neighborhood restaurants. Don’t miss it!

If it’s vegetables you prefer, Cyprus is known for its fresh vegetables including asparagus, artichokes, and elongated Cypriot potatoes. Many meals are complemented with a fresh village salad made from cucumbers, peppers, black olives, onions and tomatoes. It’s often tossed with local olive oil and feta cheese. While this may sound typically Mediterranean, in Cyprus fresh coriander is usually sprinkled on the salad giving it that extra Cypriot touch.

Cyprus also has plenty of delicious desserts that you can’t miss, even if you don’t have much of a sweet tooth! It’s worthwhile checking out flights to Cyprus when your sweet tooth strikes for some fresh Cypriot baklava. Baklava is a sweet concoction of finely chopped nuts, usually walnuts and almonds, combined with sugar, cinnamon, honey and lemon juice and wrapped in paper-thin layers of filo pastry. This syrupy nut and cinnamon mixture is a common basis for Cypriot desserts, similarly featured in daktila, a kind of finger shaped pastry.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Geoff Peters 604

A Traveler’s Taste of Polish Cuisine

February 26, 2013 By Guest Blogger

Editor’s Note: These Polish dishes sound absolutely delicious. We may just have to make a trip to Poland soon..

We all know food plays a significant role when traveling the world. If you decide to head to Eastern Europe and spend a few days in Poland, there are certain dishes you might not be familiar with, but you definitely need to try them in order to have a taste of traditional Polish food. Polish cuisine might be considered by many as “heavy” and “stodgy” as most of dishes are made of flour and cereal (pastas, dumplings, noodles), but putting a few pounds on is absolutely worth it! You will discover a fresh taste of sour cream, cottage cheese, mushrooms and Polish sausages and your mouth will start watering when looking at Polish cakes.

Here are 5 top traditional Polish foods you can’t miss:

1. Soups – Rosó? (Polish Meat Broth)
You can come across many different varieties of rosó?, but the one you should definitely have for your lunch or dinner should be traditional chicken soup, served with homemade thin noodles, fried onion, boiled carrot and parsley. This dish will definitely warm you up in cold days and get you back on your feet when you have a cold! It’s a custom to have it on Sunday.

2. Starters –Polish herring
Polish people love eating pickled herrings for Christmas and Easter. It’s not only tasty and affordable, but also very easy to make it. You can either have your herrings in sour cream or oil with some pickled onion. Traditional Polish herring is slightly salty and sour.

3. Main course – Polish pierogi
Pierogi (Polish dumplings) are made of unleavened dough and filled with either cottage cheese, cabbage with mushrooms, fruits or meat and vegetables depending on the season and the weather (strawberry and blueberry pierogi are mainly served in summer, cabbage and mushrooms in winter). Pierogi are extremely delicious, but difficult to make. They are boiled first and then baked or fried in order to get crispy texture. Served with oil, onions and tiny pieces of bacon or sour cream and sugar (fruit ones).

4. Snacks – Faworki
Faworki are thin and crispy biscuits sprinkled with icing sugar. They are often called “Angel wings” for the sake of their shape of twisted ribbons. Faworki are not very sweet, so it would be a perfect snack choice for anyone. If you want, you can put some strawberry jam or nutella chocolate on top. Faworki are eaten in the period just before Lent, often during Carnival and on Fat Thursday. I used to make them with my mom and grandmother for Christmas too.

5. Dessert – Hot szarlotka
Who would resist the temptation of a little piece of amazing Polish apple tart? Nobody, believe me! Especially when it is served with whipped cream or ice cream of your choice. Szarlotka’s crust is very sweet and it is made with butter, looks very sophisticated but is not that hard to make.

As you can see Poland has a lot to offer in terms of its traditional food. Whether you feel an urge to try something super sweet, sour or salty, Polish cuisine will definitely live up to your expectations.

About the guest author:
Agness is a Polish vagabond who, after graduation, left her comfort zone and set off for a journey of her lifetime to China in 2011. She has been constantly traveling the world since then (slowly, but surely as she says), living like a local for less than $25 a day. She became a photography passionate and adventure blogger sharing her life enthusiasm and travel experience with everyone around. Connect with Agness on Twitter or Facebook!

Photo Credit: Guest blogger Agness

Eating Vegetarian Abroad

August 25, 2011 By Becka

“No Problem, I’m Cooking Chicken”

While I am at home in States, I don’t struggle to find delicious vegetarian food. Restaurants that cater only to vegetarians are opening across the county, and there are a plethora of veggie friendly cuisines like Thai or Indian, but traveling can be a bit more difficult.

My first adventure outside the U.S. as a vegetarian was to Costa Rica. I hadn’t been a vegetarian for very long, so I was still learning to get creative with vegetarian cuisine, I scraped by on Luna bars I brought from home, mangoes, pineapple, and rice and beans. After a few days of that, lets just say my stomach was not in the best shape, if you catch my drift….it was there and then that I realized that my dream for lifelong travel would be a bit more complicated with my new eating habits.

Over the next few years I experienced a few different reactions when I arrived at a new restaurant or someone’s home and artfully announced in a non-offensive way that I was vegetarian. They ranged from a good hearted, “no problem!”, to utter disgust, to a few people even asking what that means with a face of confusion on why one would not eat meat. My favorite reaction was while visiting a rural home in the Andes. I was greeted with a rather rotund women who responded with a smile and ‘no hay problema, estoy concinando pollo’ (or not a problem, I am making chicken). Clearly vegetarian meant something different to this women, and I had to further explain that chicken too was off the menu. After some reassurance from me that I in fact am healthy and was perfectly okay eating the side items, she warmed up to the idea and we had a good time.

Visiting people’s homes is probably the hardest aspects of traveling as a vegetarian or someone with a special diet. The last thing you want to do is offend someone, and as you explain your restrictions, you need to respect the hosts culture and values. I find that being upfront with people, is usually the best way to conquer the issue. If you are bringing something as a gift, make it something you can eat! You should always stash something in your bag for later, just in case. In some cases you can skip out on trying a potentially revolting main dish, like I did in Laos, by simply being vegetarian. Extra bonus!

I like to think a few years on that I have mastered being vegetarian while traveling, that there is no place I can’t go and find food. While that is true, I’ve learned that the challenges are endless and in some cases that you just need to open your mind, and take a bite — there are new food adventures around every corner.

Read why I became a Vegetarian!

Open your mind and take a bite: Vegetarianism

August 2, 2011 By Becka

A few years ago I got to thinking ‘Just where does all the food I eat come from’. The easy answer was a farm. But then I started to read more about the food industry in the US and in the developed world in general. That’s when I realized that not only is my food grown globally, but it might not be done in the most sustainable way, and actually be in some cases detrimental to the development of some communities.

In fact most meat and produce in the US is either raised on corporate farms or shipped in from farms in developing countries. These farms are not always regulated in terms of environmental sustainability but also in terms of their social impact. Rarely is there fair wage enforcement, even in the US or much thought given to the impact on fragile ecosystems. The more I read the more upset I became with myself and my blind support of this industry. So I decided that I would become vegetarian as meat production has the highest negative environmental impact of the foods I ate (mostly through deforestation and methane production), and for the produce I do buy, try to at least buy from local farms in my area whenever possible.

I decided to go cold turkey and just start being full on veggie, not an easy task for a girl who grew up eating chicken every night for dinner and bacon for Sunday brunch. But after some experimentation and a lot of talking to farmers at the farmers market, I learned which ‘new’ vegetables and fruits would become part of my diet. Four and a half years later I am still vegetarian and still discovering new flavors and yummy recipes to try.

Traveler’s Guide to Food & Nutrition

April 1, 2011 By Jillian

As the saying goes, health is wealth and without it life can be pretty rough. As you can imagine, traveling around the world presented some significant obstacles to staying healthy and eating a balanced diet. Besides exposure to disease and limited medical resources, we also had to take into account the availability of fruits and vegetables. In some countries eating a variety of foods was easy, but in others we had difficulty finding anything remotely colorful or nutritious. The key was getting back to the basics.

Be Conscious of What You Eat. Your body will generally tell you through cravings what it is missing, but be aware of the fuel you’re giving it. Although fresh juices sound nice, they’re often heavily loaded with sugar. Make sure to eat protein, in many cultures the local cuisine is very heavy with starches and grains. Think of the food pyramid at meal times. Soups are a safe and easy way to get vitamins and minerals. On the other hand, don’t eat something spicy or potentially suspicious before you get on a long bus ride.

Eat Local. Your best bet to avoid a stomach bug and stay healthy is to eat the local cuisine. If you don’t see the animal/vegetable/fruit in the market, the locals don’t eat it and probably don’t know how to prepare it. Often local cuisine is more balanced than the “western” food you’ll find at a tourist hotel and in my opinion it’s usually safer. Choose a restaurant or food stall that is busy and where you can see the preparation. We ate street food in 50 countries and never suffered illness from a food stall. We did get sick from a tourist restaurant in Ethiopia. Go figure.

Try a Variety. Try new fruits and vegetables as much as possible. Remember that color is your body’s friend. Get a little out of your comfort zone and try the most colorful fruit in the market, or ask for a sample. Explore the market and see what is on offer. If you have a food allergy or special diet, the market is a great place to get ideas about what is available to eat. Ask someone to write down the names of grains, vegetables and fruits that you can eat. In rural Africa we had a problem finding a variety of fruits and vegetables and ended up taking a weekly multivitamin.

Brush Your Teeth. Ok, so this isn’t food or nutrition, but it is an important factor to keeping you happy and healthy. Trust me, the first time you meet a person missing 90% of their teeth you’ll never forget to brush and floss again. In all seriousness, oral health is really important and a toothache can ruin your trip just as fast as a broken leg. We were able to find international brands of toothpaste everywhere, although we were warned by many other travelers about buying counterfeits. With their misspelled labels and strange packaging, these were easy to spot.

Eat Your Heart Out in Cyprus

A Traveler’s Taste of Polish Cuisine

Eating Vegetarian Abroad

Open your mind and take a bite: Vegetarianism

Traveler’s Guide to Food & Nutrition

Recent Comments

Banking on the Road

Adventure Guides