What I Ate in Europe

When I was home for Christmas my brother mocked me asking, "do you photograph all of you food?" The honest answer to this is, "no, but I kind of want to." So on my trip to Europe last week I made a point of photographing as many meals as possible. When in Europe I feel constantly obligated to prove that not all Americans are fat lazy oil guzzling creationists which means that in addition to surveying the people around me to verify that I am squarely in the average bucket size-wise (or, in England comfortably seated in "skinny") I have to volunteer to walk anywhere (which one night resulted in a 45 minute hike before dinner, sorry Tonya) and make sure everyone I talk to knows I did not vote for Bush. I don't imagine that photography my meals did much to dispel the fat American stereotype but food is about the only subject matter that I feel confident pointing a camera at (thank god for the "macro" setting) and I knew that when I got home I'd need something to blog about. So, I present "Eating on the Continent" a Photo Essay.

KLM Friday night flight from JFK to Amsterdam

I suspect that KLM kept the plane parked on the runway for two hours only to nurture my appetite to the point of "will eat whatever she's given and will then fall into a sleep coma." I guess I should thank them for the 3 hours of sleep that this meal garnered. The stand out was the couscous salad in the front, the couscous wasn't at all clumpy and the salad had just enough parsley to taste fresh. Everything else can only be described as "carby." The pasta required that I repurpose the butter that came with the roll (not worth photographing or eating) in order to provide some distinction between noodles.

Lunch in Copenhagen

The traditional lunch option pushed at all tourists in Copenhagen are open face sandwiches called smørrebrød. There seems to be an endless variety of sandwich toppings but I was tempted to the roast pork and red cabbage because of a German childhood nostalgia for red cabbage (aka rote cole). The sandwich came on the dark heavily seeded bread that seems omnipresent in Scandinavia, as a fan of bread with lots of stuff in it I like the flavor but it was so dense that I had a hard time calling it bread. The pork was amazing, moist and smoky with just the right about of fat. The red cabbage wasn't as tangy as the sweet and sour version that Grandma and Dad have perfected but it was a nice sharp contrast to the savory pork.

Dinner in Malmo 1

To the entirely uneducated tourist (aka me) Malmo seemed to be a bit of a Swedish restaurants mecca. Our first night in town we dined at a resturant in the little square, where practically all of the eateries seem to live. Before leaving on this trip a friend tipped me off to the Swedish summer tradition of crayfish so when I saw this "Swedish tapas" (pictured on left) appetizer on the menu I knew I had to try it. The crayfish were served cold and garnished with a bit of dill (the Swedes love dill almost as much as licorice and karaoke) but they didn't need any other adornments. The dried tomatoes were a great addition to the tapas plate, chewy and sweet they were a great balance for the heavy cheesy and curred pork (both of which hardly seemed Swedish). The pickled herring trio on the right was probably better than version we tried the day before in Copenhagen, the fish was less mushy and the cream cheese it was served with was a nice accompaniment on the little fish sandwiches that we made. I mentioned this in a previous post but pickled herring is surprisingly not fishy tasting, the pickling seems to render the herring defenseless and you end up with a vinegary background for whatever sauce the fish is smothered in in this case we got apple curry mayonnaise, sweet onion and plain.

Dinner in Malmo 2

Our second night in Malmo found us at the Tempo Bar where the nicest waiter on earth sat down with us and translated the entire menu. We ordered a polenta starter which came with a vingery salsa of capers and olives, it made for a pretty presentation but a week later I can't remember what the appetizer tasted like. I also ordered a nettle soup which didn't photograph near as well as it tasted. I didn't even know nettles were edible -- it turns out they taste a lot like artichokes, I can't find any evidence that artichokes and nettles are related but it seems likley given the similar look and taste. Ox might just be Swedish for "cow," it showed up on the menu at multiple restaurants, my Ox fillet main was a great medium rare steak, the meat was tender and went great with the local beer.

Last Meal in Scandinavia

In an effort to spend the Danish change in my pockets before flying off to the UK I purchased 3 packages of licorice candy, a sparkling water and an unidentifiable juice from the in airport 7-11. The licorice mentos were a particularly exciting find and while I would not have thought to combine the flavors of mint and licorice I was pleasantly surprised. The orange box contained a much more sinister candy with a taste reminiscent of couch drops. The Super Flyers candy delivered on the mild promise made on its label but the licorice ropes were filled with a strange grainy white substance that, while not completely unpleasant taste-wise seriously diminished the licorice experience in term of texture. When I purchased the bottle of juice I thought it was likely a current juice but it seemed much too sweet to be anything other than the juice from the sugar cane plant, it was much more palletable when mixed in a 50/50 ratio with the seltzer water.

Proper English Supper

On my last night in Leeds my friend Courtney and her boyfriend Darren took me out to a pub for a traditional English meal. In the spirit of the evening I ordered a steak pie with a beer based gravy. The Brits must be getting fancy because they threw a bit of green on my plate -- I don't know what type of plant this came from since I refused to eat it -- no one eats greens in England! The pie was good, but not great -- I know this might be blasphemy but I think it needed some carrots and peas and potato bits, like in a chicken pot pie, this was all beef and gravy and a bit boring -- though the crust was great, flaky, crisp, everything Martha Stewart strives for.

Virgin Airlines flight from Heathrow to JFK

Everything here was fine and notably better than the KLM meal that the trip started with. The cottage pie (mashed potatos on top of mixed veggies in a tomato sauce) was a bit bland but still good by the standards of airline food. The pasta salad was also in need of flavor but the mozzerella balls kind of made up for the otherwise uninteresting experience (it's amazing the things that dairy can save). The wine was bitter enough that I had to force it down (can't let booze go to waste!) and the bread was so dry that I don't think even butter could have saved it. In the end none of the slightly disappointing food colored my feelings about the meal because Virgin had the good sense to end on a high note: The Frü-ty Pud. This tiny little lemon flavored dessert was scrumptious! the bottom of the container was filled with a tart sauce and ontop was a creamy lemon mouse-like substance. I've just spent 20mins googling "Frü-ty Pud" and have found surprisingly few references to the dessert or porn -- I think the internet is getting lazy.

After a week of good food I'm forced to accept at least two weeks of consciously healthy eating in order to maintain my sleek physique. The two weeks started today since last night Kajal made Dorito casserole in honor of the season premiere of Big Love. I can't recommend this dish mostly because I could never quite get over the scary concept of chips as binder. I know at least one reader will be disappointed that my first foray into Frito-Lay sponsored main courses did not include Fritos but I can't imagine that any chip could really make an elegant cross over from snack to dinner.

In conclusion -- Eurpoe has some good food, you should eat there, I give it 4.5/5 fat Americans.

Dispatch from Copenhagen

I spent the last two days in Copenhagen where I did not find any cherry liqueur but did find a few other things worth importing to the USA. Yesterday, at lunch, I tried pickled herring 3 ways, I have no idea if each type had a special name so I will call them "fish and cloves," "the vinegary one," and "the yellow one." Surprisingly I liked the clove version the best, you would not think that a flavor most commonly associated with pumpkin pie would work well with fish but it was quite yummy. None of the pickled herring tasted much like fish anyway, either herring isn't not a very fishy fish or the salt and vinegar are overpowering enough to mask any flavor. That said I'm not sure that us Americans are ready for preserved fish, but if someone would bring the following 5 items to Target, I promise to buy them.

A Few Things That We Should Import From Denmark

1. Bikes! there are bikes everywhere in this city, they are piled in impressive hills of handlebars and wheels or parked in football field sized bike lots. Lately, I have been toying with the idea of getting a bike myself but have been overwhelmed by the idea of shopping for a bike since I really just want something to tool around on and see no need for all of the fancy-schmancy silliness that seems to come with every bike for sale in New York. The Danish bikes are exactly my speed, they are bulky station wagon-like contraptions with huge wheels covered with bumpers and have wide comfy looking seats. I imagine that they are perfect for a big basket and a cruise into town to pick up a few flowers and some fruit at one of the quaint little kiosks in the city center (there are beautiful peon's everywhere and I bought a pack of the largest raspberries in the world -- each was at least 2 inches long!)
   
2. All Around the World! My travel companion, Tonya, and I stumbled into this store while wondering around in Stroget, a huge outdoor mall. All Around the World was like a hipper, Ikea (without furniture) and while I suspect it might be a chain I could not locate a website online. If I didn't have to carry it around Europe I would have purchased some cherry themed dishwear, a couple of brightly colored blue and pink floral pillows, and some elderflower cider (which I later had at a cafe and was very impressed with, and which does have booze in it, in case you were wondering). I would probably have refrained from purchasing the other 500 or so objects of desire in the store because at this time I was still unable to grasp the conversion from DKKs to USA $s which resulted in that hilarious time where I withdrew $700+ from my bank account and had to figure out if I would need to call mom and dad to put money in my account to cover my rent check. Good times.
   
3. Licorice candy. The only thing purchases we made at All Around the World were 3 different types of licorice candies (one in rope form, one in chewy capsule form (ala' Mike & Ikes) and one with 2 different types of hard candy). I've always liked Tonya but discovering her love for licorice has made her one of my favorite people. It turns out that Tonya's siblings (all 6 of them!) were much crueler than Kurt ever was as they made her trade other jellybean flavors for the licorice ones that they weren't willing to eat anyway -- Kurt always let me take those off his hands for free (thanks little bro! Who am I kidding? You don't read my blog... loser.) . I suppose when there are 7 kids in a family everyone becomes much more territorial. If you had dropped 7 year old me in that pile of children I'd most likely have starved to death. My favorite licorice candy version was the hard candy which had a slightly salty taste to it, I know that sounds gross but I doubt it matters, I lost all of my readership at the mention of licorice. The candy is so awesome that just typing about it is making me crack open one of the two back up bags that I purchased right before leaving the city this afternoon.
   
4. Blankets! All of the outdoor cafe's in Copenhagen have blankets on every seat! This was especially appreciated yesterday when the cloudy and damp weather had us fearful that we'd have to choose between ambiance and warmth. Why can't all outdoor restaurants offer this awesome luxury? We bundled up and enjoyed our open face sandwiches (I had roasted pork and red cabbage which was yummy but couldn't compete with the German red cabbage of my childhood).
   
5. Not getting dark until 10pm. I was quite proud of both Tonya and I for sticking it out in the world of wakefulness until this relatively late hour. Each of us got about 3 hours of sleep on the hop over the pond and were ready for naps as soon as we deplaned but in an effort to get with the European time zone program we kept busy until we collapsed in bed around 10:30. Dusk just darkening into night as I drifted off but when the boom of fireworks woke me at midnight me there was no light left. I assume the fireworks were in honor of the soccer match between Sweden and Denmark that had taken place in Copenhagen that evening. Earlier in the day this event had also provided Tonya and I with amusement in the form of drunken groups of Swedish boys shouting at one another while swilling large pints of beer. The next morning we would be equally entertaining by the occasional passed out adorable blond bow in the plazas around time. They're all lucky (or perhaps disappointed) that I didn't tie them up and bring them home.
   

American Imports in Denmark

1. 7-11 owns half of Copenhagen. The mini-mart was so omnipresent that when in search of a bottle of water we made no attempt to locate a source figuring we'd effortlessly stumble upon a 7-11 within 10mins.
2. Cowboys. Within 10 minutes of leaving our hotel on a wander around the city we came upon a group of Danish girls in boots, fringed shirts and cowboy hats performing line dances. Once dance was to an Irish reel which, though I'm sure the Irish would be appalled, actually worked quite well.

This afternoon we made our way across the bridge into Malmo Sweden so there will be more blogging to come. I forgot my camera cord at home so I'll update with pictures when I return on the 9th.

Best thing about Sweden so far: The lounge version of Black Hole Sun that was being piped into our hotel lobby.