A foreign adventure gives one writer a new appreciation for ‘home cooking’
I’ve recently learned something major about eating. As thrilling as it is to navigate the foreign and unfamiliar, the food is often better at home. Over the past couple of months, I haven’t been eating locally much. Sustainably, perhaps, but not locally. I traveled all over the Czech Republic, through Germany, and, for a bizarre set of reasons, jetted from Dresden straight through to Honolulu. (Note: this is not a circuit I’d recommend — especially given the fact that I took the wrong passport to the airport in Germany and had to be re-routed through Canada when I missed my flight.) When on the road, some people organize their days around museum hours or curtain times; as a food-focused traveler, I organize my days around where and when to eat. As at home, getting good food while traveling can be hit or miss. But the thing about eating in your own neighborhood is that you learn to distinguish the hits from the misses.
I was pretty charged up to have two weeks to marinate in Bohemian and Germanic cuisine. “Succulent” was the word I was ready to use. I liked the idea that I’d delve fully into one cuisine, not dip in and out the way I do at home — none of this “Tonight let’s eat Italian and tomorrow we can have burritos.” I was just sorry I couldn’t ramp up my palate for the trip beforehand: after all, there are few places in Boston to get truly Germanic food. (Raymond Ost at Sandrine’s Bistro in Cambridge makes a terrific Alsatian choucroute, and Eastern Standard is great for schnitzel.) I romanticized the idea that I’d uncover a whole range of dishes that would turn me on to the splendors of the cuisine.
Here’s one thing I learned: these people put caraway seeds in everything, not just rye bread. They’re in cabbage, in soup, in noodle dishes. I had some wonderful meals: crisp red-cabbage sauerkraut and pigs’ knuckles at an old “shooting club” in Dresden; an amazing risotto with duck confit, wild mushrooms, and grated black truffles at the Four Seasons in Prague. But I also tasted truly terrible, leaden dumplings — the local specialty, puffy and pale balls the size, shape, and texture of matzo balls, but with the charm of boiled Wonder Bread — all over the Czech Republic. We also made a study of pork. (Interestingly, in German cuisine, the other white meat is mostly served pink, similar in hue to a corned beef on rye.)
For the first few days of my trip, I loved everything. I devoured the huge pigs’ knuckles. I sopped up every trace of the sharp berry sauce served with the sauerbraten and marveled at the variety of dishes that used the liver of some animal or another. But then I got so sick of it that I wasn’t sure I could continue my all-local quest without sneaking off to the sushi bar in Prague or the Thai hole-in-the-wall on the Czech/Germany border. (Note: I did resist, and I learned to distinguish “great” sauerkraut from merely serviceable and to enjoy a perfectly roasted pork saddle. I also got over my fear of rabbit. Does not taste like chicken.) By the third day, I started to choke and began thinking mistily about how lucky I am that “local and sustainable” has a limited meaning to those of us who live in Boston. We’re able to eat all over the world without boarding more than the T. How totally suffocating it would be to live on the steady diet of only what is local and has been cooked and eaten for centuries in a given country. As an urban American, I am so unbelievably fortunate.
After almost 14 days of two or three meals of Bohemia’s best, I concluded that for me, German food is just plain boring — even when it’s done well. (No wonder German princes and dukes all imported their chefs from France.) I feel safe in making this declaration, though I’d never make such an absurd generality about the food in Asia, Italy, or any place else I’ve ever been. The heavy, simple, slow-cooked meat-and-potatoes menu is so far removed from the way we eat today. After a few days, your palate starts screaming for any color other than pink, brown, and white. (I did have one fabulous green salad in Prague at a little bistro called Lary Fary.) I didn’t just roll into every cute-looking little café, either. I did my homework: surfed travel and food sites on the Web, called up The New York Times travel pieces on my BlackBerry, and asked concierges, friends, and taxi drivers. I figure I’ve sampled the best of Bohemia, or at least made a reasonable survey of the best of the best. And I couldn’t wait to get home.
Louisa Kasdon can be reached at food@stuffatnight.com.
