Do you try new foods when traveling?
 

Or do you seek out comfort food?

Or at least go for familiar things like beef or chicken as opposed to things like goose liver or blood sausage?

Or does your culinary tastes not change at all?


One thing I've noticed over the decades of travel is that burgers are now everywhere. Used to be that you had to go to fast-food chains or you might find the occasional restaurant offering an American style fare.

Not only are there more places that offer burgers, there are regular restaurants which offer it as a main course along with more traditional dishes.

And often, these places specializing in burgers have high ratings -- TA, Google, etc. Often the ratings are reflecting value as burgers can be 10-15 Euro versus say a steak being 25 Euro or more, way more.

That's not to say burgers don't have any merit as a meal, just that the much higher popularity and availability may reflect travelers seeking the comfortable and the familiar rather than risk the unknown. Or they may have dined a lot of the local cuisine but wanted to take a break and have a simpler meal.

Also seeing that there's more internationalization or globalization of a lot of menus. They all offer beef, chicken and fish of some kind, usually prepared with accompaniments which are similar to what you'd find in most industrialized countries.

I was looking at restaurants in Stockholm in Google Maps and only a few in central Stockholm offered the infamous pickled herring. Otherwise a lot of Japanese and Asian fusion restaurants, a large number of Mexican fast food or fast casual chains (I remember tacos seeming to be popular in Oslo as well so maybe it's a Scandinavian thing). Of course a lot of burger places.

About the only thing that stood out was one or two places offered moose dishes and deer (or maybe it was reindeer) dishes.

I guess tourism as it exists today, a lot of people may try the local cuisine but a lot of them go for foods that are sold everywhere in the world. That's not to underplay the fact that a lot of locals like this internationalized food too. It's not just tourists packing into McDonalds and Starbucks stores in Europe. I would assume that's the case for other internationalized foods.

A lot of it isn't an accident. I heard that the Thais had a strategy to spread their cuisine all over the world but they wanted to make sure a lot of the signature dishes all looked and tasted the same, would be prepared in similar ways. If there weren't such deliberate strategies, well business people who invest in and run restaurants would simply copy what they see working in other places.

I like to try local foods. I never order hamburgers when traveling in other countries.
My favorite place to travel as far as local food is Asia.

Great idea for a thread SCRB! In our case, I am more interested in pursuing new foods than Mrs Z.
And yes, its a mission each time to try and scout out something new.

Last trip was Montreal, where we shopped at markets with eyes open for new stuff.
Found pickled/candied hibiscus root. Expensive and not really worth it.
Can't win 'em all.
I am done. the tongue

I like to try new things and I have a dull palate so I can eat most flavorings (e.g., very spicy) without problem. But I do not try new things if they fall under certain categories such as blood, organ meat, pork, octopus, dog.

Yes! I like to try new things and I like old favorites too.
Just got home from a great trip to the Holy Land. Lunches were planned to give us new taste experiences. On the last day (yesterday) we ate at a monastery and "hamburger" was the third add-on option. I rarely eat them at home but was ready for a taste of the familiar. They served a plain hamburger patty. I asked about a bun. I was told that bread was over there (nodding at the end of the serving line. So I had a hamburger patty in pita bread. No condiments offered. LOL

I don't try new foods just to try new foods. But if something sounds appealing, I will try it. I haven't really been to any uber exotic places so I can't say I've ventured too much off the beaten food path.

Trying new foods is a huge focus of travel for us, and one big reason we rent places with a kitchen is to cook unfamiliar foods too. If I found myself eating hamburgers I’d be disappointed in a trip.

I enjoy trying new foods while traveling, but have no problem eating familiar food if it’s convenient or I’m in the mood for it. I finally tried haggis on our last trip to Scotland and discovered that I like it! I tried the fermented mare’s milk and salted butter tea in Mongolia and can’t say the same about those.

Trying new foods is one of my favorite parts of traveling. Although, I tend to steer more towards fish and vegetable dishes than meat. When I travel with my husband and daughter, we always order different menu items so that we can try more items.

I don't eat hamburger while traveling but I do eat familiar things prepared "their" way. I don't eat organ meats, blood, etc. and I don't eat fish because I can't stand the smell. When we visited Ukraine a couple of years ago with my nephew and his Ukrainian wife, I tried some of their foods for her, such as the dreaded pickled herring. Once was enough, thank you. I skipped the pigs' ears. They did have liquor called "tinctures" and one was red chili pepper and honey, which was fabulous. There were other specialty drinks in Italy - an Amaro called Branca Menta - and Storica Grappa, that was quite good. And then there was the whisky sauce in Scotland which we have been attempting to duplicate without much success.

Great idea for a thread, scrb11. Hub (Rhody) usually fetched a McD burger if we were wiped out and one was convenient, but trying new foods was an integral part of travel for us. The idea of making a national dish consistently made me think about the different moussakas and stuffed grape leaves we tried in Greece.

We had delicious, very thin crust, best ever pizza in Oslo. Found that mint sauce for lamb in Scotland is nothing like mint jelly. Hamburgers are best at home. YMMV.

One of my fondest travel memories is sitting in an elevated outodoor restaurant in Lahaina overlooking the ocean, eating a cheeseburger and drinking a beer. It was heaven. But I get your point. I rarely order burgers for dinner when on vacation. Besides, the few times I have ordered burgers outside the US, they just aren't right.

I didn't know anything about Japanese food the first time I went to Japan. I just did not recognize what was in it, even when they have the realistic-looking plastic/wax displayes. I did see one of those displays in Kamakura and thought it looked good but then I realized it was a Chinese restaurant.

MOS Burger in Japan is pretty good, inexpensive and quick. And you get to be surrounded young Japanese looking at their phones and doing silly things.

It was my third or fourth trip to Japan before I even tried the local food. That was on the flight over, in first class, where I chose the J-food knowing that I could always get something else if I didn't like. So, airplane food was my introduction to Japanese cuisine. I loved it, all of it, esp. the chawanmushi.

Yes, Japanese food is available in big cities around the world, including Oslo, but you are guaranteed to get the real thing in Japan.I had sushi in St Petersburg that was good, but i suppose Russians are not into fish in a big way and there was no raw fish sushi.

The thing about eating local is having many options in one place (like sushi, okonomiyaki, shabu shubu, ..., places all on one block in Tokyo).

True... or even steak, sometimes. We had lots of Chinese food in China obviously, although they said it was tweaked to American tastes, less greasy they said, but the one time they did steak for us, it was pretty ho-hummy. How do you mess up steak?

I always try new food. Although I would not try seaweed or some other local dishes but I have never ordered a hamburger in my limited travels.
Only once did I order steak (non USA) and was very disappointed (Paris). I was definently stereotyped as the steak was well done when I ordered med rare and it came with a bottle of ketchup plopped down on the table with the steak.

Even in the USA I try to order local specialties and always food I do not get to experience at home.

Trying new foods is one of the joys of travel. Added to that are local versions of foods I am familiar with at home. I always make it it a point to try local versions of "Chinese" food. DW is vegetarian and it is so much easier finding vegetarian menus outside of the USA. The best veggie restaurant we have ever found is in Edinburgh. There is also an excellent veggie haggis at an Edinburgh restaurant called Urban Angel in New Town.

I had a delicious steak frites in Berlin.

I love to try new foods, but also avoid organ meat. There are just some things that turn me off.
I do not order hamburgers when traveling. I remember when we were in Haifa, two people traveling with us were excited because there was a McDonald's. We thought they were crazy, but they loved their Big Macs.

Yes I try new strange food both at home and when I travel. One of the worst things I ever ate was at a Korean restaurant in Orange County (sea squirts). I like most fish and seafood raw or cooked (what is wrong with pickled herring?). Most animal flesh but not really into the squishy organ bits (most don't taste that great to my palate) although the Peruvian anticuchos are good. No dogs horses etc. but yes to bunnies , lambs and octopus. I rarely eat beef burgers so wouldn't likely waste a meal while traveling on one. The only fruit or veg I would pass up trying is durian. I am running out of things that are new. Maybe I should have tried the chapulines in Mexico after all.

I am not sure that all of the new international variety is catering to tourists. Maybe the residents like to try something different when they go out to eat, they can make "local" at home. I had a pretty bad meal at a "Mexican" restaurant once in Costa Rica. But who can blame them for wanting something other than a standard plate of meat, rice and beans with some cabbage salad.

Some places do try some different things. Eggs are a common ingredient in Europe.

Also maybe they have generally higher-quality sourcing for the meats and cheese though that's far from guaranteed.

As someone else noted, they're quick and convenient. If you're hungry and want something as fast as possible or if you want to eat quickly because you have a busy itinerary on a particular day.

mlgb - you reminded me that we tried durian ice cream and dried durian (I didn’t see fresh, I think it was out of season) in Penang. It wasn’t bad enough to actually make me gag but it wasn’t very nice. I would actually taste fresh durian just to say I’d done it.

That raises another issue, wasn't sure if it should be another thread or part of this one.

A person's willingness to try different foods may be informed by emotional or intellectual considerations more than curiosity or appetite.

For instance, notion of eating dogs is verboten in Western culture because of the emotional ties. But things like horses and pigeons are popular in some European cuisines while Americans won't partake.

Then I've heard recently that some people won't eat octopus because they're intelligent creatures, so kind of anthropomorphic reasons, that is dogs are man's best friend, dolphins are as smart as humans, etc.

There are a lot of practical reasons for these. Until factory farming of some meat and seafood staples -- beef, pork, poultry, fish, etc. -- people consumed things like dogs, horses, pigeons as well as organ meats. That's what a lot of these dishes reflect, that animal protein scarcity means they had fewer options than we do.

Certainly these preferences have environmental and climate implications. I'm not advocating for consuming these kinds of foods, which cause visceral reactions in many people.

But at least in the industrialized world, maybe we're not as adventurous as we think at trying different cuisines. Maybe our tastes have been shaped by availability of foods.

When we choose where to travel and read up on those places, there's a lot of content out there about local cuisine and dishes to try in these destinations. These older cultures are able to maintain centuries-old traditions better than America. So you see Bourdain eating bloody eel soups or bloody pork dishes in Portugal which even some of the most adventurous eaters would balk at.

I stay away from hamburger meat if outside my home country. I have been severely disappointed when I have so decided, it’s not worth it. The same goes for hot dogs and sausages. I may on occasion try but it doesn’t happen often. I stick with chicken and fish but depends on the kind of fish as I don’t like many vegetables. I often get tired of certain foods when traveling and it’s only been a week away. I do judge and not afraid to admit it. If it doesn’t smell or look good, I am not touching it.

I've had cuy (guinea pig), pork and pigeon so it has more to do with my personal "emotional" connection to particular pets than with how cute or intelligent a species is. Lambies and bunnies are pretty cute but I've not had one as a pet. Pigs are darn smart. My SIL won't eat octopus because she saw "My Octopus Teacher".

After having a bad reaction to mussels I am more cautious about eating mollusks etc. I have not tried goose barnacles and probably won't if given the chance. I do like the "blood" (or black) clams that you find in Ecuador and the north coast of Peru. I have also had them in Korean restaurants here in the States as a banchan side but I probably would avoid them in the future for fear of the source and lack of sustainability.

Yo TW, our experience with food in China was that the deeper we went into the country, the less often we encountered anything resembling international-style 'Chinese food.' Mrs Z and I encountered dishes that to this day, we're still not sure what they were.
Some other suggestions:

-Chicha morada i.e. blue corn juice (actually more purple), available in Peru.
-Raw sea urchin; surprisingly sweet and found around the Mediterranean.
-Cavaillon melon--found in season throughout Provence--do not settle for less.
-Turku yinklar fodorzii--a quince/ricotta dessert; you won't want to leave Istanbul.
-unagi: eel sushi; our fave food in Japan.

* bonus: ume juice, which is cold plum nectar from public drink dispensing machines in Japan= ambrosia on a hot summer's day.
**bonuser: interesting state in India to try new foods = Gujarat.
*** bonusest: gelsi neri, the rare Puglian mulberry granite/ice available in Polignano.

I am done. the mystery meat

Of course. Also burgers, when I grow tired of the local offerings (in England and French cafes, anyway).
Best steaks ever were in Scotland.

[QUOTE=zebec;17430390]Yo TW, our experience with food in China was that the deeper we went into the country, the less often we encountered anything resembling international-style 'Chinese food.' Mrs Z and I encountered dishes that to this day, we're still not sure what they were.
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And when you went to a Market in China, rats were for sale.

So zebec if you have any pictures of what you ate in China....given them a second look.!!!;)

[QUOTE=zebec;17430390]Yo TW, our experience with food in China was that the deeper we went into the country, the less often we encountered anything resembling international-style 'Chinese food.' Mrs Z and I encountered dishes that to this day, we're still not sure what they were.
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And when you went to a Market in China, rats were for sale.

So zebec if you have any pictures of what you ate in China....given them a second look.!!!;)

Yes, Zebec, do provide pics if you have them. We were served jelly fish at almost every meal (nic-named rubber bands for us) and pigeons and other things, as well. I admit I'm not a terribly adventurous eater... the duck was pretty wonderful and it was probably the first time (back in 2000) I'd heard of eating beef cheeks.

See, there is nothing in zebec's list that I haven't experienced as an ingredient if not a composed dish. All of it is readily available in California (including eel sushi and chicha morada). I can't stand uni and first had it as an initiation during my SCUBA checkout dive. It is harvested for export in California as well as for local consumption.
We call those melons Charentais and you can find them in supermarkets.
Never had ume juice, just umeboshi which is kinda gross (too salty) but just use a little bit as a seasoning.

Now if you want to try a really yucky Japanese food, natto is your man. Even in my BFF's extended family, only a few would eat it, including the older generations. She likes it, I tried one bite and that was enough. And I like slimy foods like boba, tapioca and boiled okra.

Maybe hamburgers have become so ubiquitous because they are so good! TBH, though, I don't eat whatever Mickey D sells under that label. One of the best burgers we ever had on the road was at a Burger King in Bavaria.

I now avoid hamburgers when traveling abroad. A few that I had in the past tasted like mutton. Not lamb. Mutton.
I have been semi-adventurous in eating and enjoying crocodile, kangaroo and wallaby in Australia, haggis in Scotland, and any number of strange foods in Japan. In fact, my Japanese colleagues would set dishes before me and dare me to try them. I didn't disappoint them. The seafood was good for the most part. But some of the fermented foods smelled and tasted like they were retrieved from sewers.
Regarding steak, the best I have ever had was bisteca fiorentino in Tuscany prepared over an open wood fire.
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"Regarding steak, the best I have ever had was bisteca fiorentino in Tuscany prepared over an open wood fire."

There was a restaurant in Switzerland that did that. Very nice indeed.

I try local foods as long as they're within what I will eat which has changed over the decades. Since the mid-70s, I totally gave up meat and then a bit later gave up poultry. Plus, I have to stay clear of my two deathly food allergies of corn and chocolate and also dairy, to some extent, but not butter. I didn't always have those food allergies. But, eating has shifted over the decades. However, if local foods fall into my food categories, then I try them. Plus, since the early/mid 70s, I've been away overseas on average from 3 weeks to 10 weeks straight, so I'm not going to only eat local food if I get tired of it. I will then eat something different. Although I love Japanese food, and ate it a lot as a kid, at some point within my three-week trips to Japan, it's time to switch to some other kind of food. It's the same wherever I go. I eat a variety of food types here at home in L.A. and do the same overseas. I remember when I was in Milan in 2017, my American friend, who lives in Italy, and I ate Italian food some days, but then I needed a switch and we accidentally found a Japanese restaurant and ate there.
Happy Travels!

Like many here, a big part of the interest & joy of travelling for me is to try new foods and ingredients. I try to get a cooking school/class with a visit to a market before the class into my Itinerary whenever possible. Typically, if I see something I don't know what is on a menu, I'll order it. I might/might not ask the waiter what it is first. That's how I discovered squid cooked in its own ink served over polenta. One of my favourite dishes.

It's frustrating to go to a place and have the dishes "westernised" because our appearance makes the staff/owners think we wouldn't want the local version. That was the experience in Bhutan until a couple of us finally took our guides aside & said we would not eat one more palid product of the bain marie and to please take us to their local eateries. They did and it was much more interesting and tasty fare. One of the curiosities there was that there were many roadside sellers with buckets of asparagus for sale, yet not once were we offered asparagus in any of the hotels or restaurants. Once we asked them to take us to the local hang-outs, asparagus and a delicious long green thing like snake beans, and a green grassy vegetable appeared, with liberal amounts of chilli & seasoning. Delicious!

Hamburgers: I only eat them here at a couple of places where I know they make the real deal - not those frightful "patties" made from gawdonlyknowswhatscraps. Or if I make them myself. Probably 3-4 a year, tops. I've had McDonalds a couple of times but - not my thing. I don't think it would occur to me to order them overseas. Away, my "go to" if I'm sick of whatever the local food is would probably be a steak or lamb. Maybe a whole small fish & vegetables. Steamed or pan-fried.

I've eaten most of the things on Zebec's list. Not the S/American juices. I'm not mad about sea urchin, but its roe is just a step too briny for me. Tastes like what I imagine the sludge on an old wellington boot buried in the ocean mud for a few years would taste to me ;)

I wouldn't knowingly eat horse or dog; am fine with most offal. Have eaten but don't love sheep's & fish eyes.

We were eating grass-fed, nose-to-tail long before there was a fashion or probably even the terms for it. Bred, killed, dressed and ate our own sheep, cattle & pigs. What we didn't eat ourselves went to the working dogs, so there was no waste.

And yes, at various times we did have pet lambs, foals, calves, piglets and kangaroo joeys who had been orphaned. None of them ended up on our plates though. The sheep, cattle & pigs all had multiple ear-marks and tags so everyone knew they were former pets and thus "sacred". We shore the sheep but the others just had a free ride, the boys were castrated.
Which brings me to the "prairie oysters". Mmmm... had them, chewy & not terrible, but not something I'd go looking for either.

I'm guessing not many of you have tried emu eggs. They are delicious. Rich, creamy and about equivalent to a dozen mid-sized hen's eggs. I also like duck & quail eggs.

We used to have an emu farm near us in MA so we often ate the huge eggs.
they were fun.

One of my favourites is curried, scrambled emu egg.

I knew our relationship wouldn't last long when we double dated at a Chinese restaurant in Boston and my boyfriend ordered steak and asked for a bottle of ketchup.

I think my trip to Italy a few years ago was great fun since we don't have good Italian restaurants near us. My first ten days were with a small group so we had the same private van drivers the whoLe time. One said he once was asked to find a Starbucks and he wanted to tell the family to get out of his car. We were staying in a very small town near the Amalfi coast. Our lunches were at wonderful restaurants in the popular towns we explored but our suppers were usually something modest and simple. We were supposed to dine at a local restaurant our last night but it turned out not to be open that night. We ended up at a local pizza place that was in the basement of a farmhouse. Our trip leader offered to translate the menu if a dish looked interesting. One person decided to try the pizza American style. Our trip leader said maybe her Italian wasn't good enough since the description didn't make sense to her. Well, the lady ordered it anyway. It certainly made us laugh. The pizza was topped with hot dogs and french fries.
At one lunch I decided to try the deep fried seafood medley which, of course, was not at all like what we get in New England. I liked all of it very much exept the deep fried little fish. Can'tremember if they were fresh anchovies or something else. Since they were whole I wasn't sure about eating the heads and after about two fish I decided to share the rest with the table.

Like pretty much everyone else, I enjoy trying new foods as part of the fun of traveling.

That's not to say burgers don't have any merit as a meal, just that the much higher popularity and availability may reflect travelers seeking the comfortable and the familiar rather than risk the unknown. Or they may have dined a lot of the local cuisine but wanted to take a break and have a simpler meal.

Also seeing that there's more internationalization or globalization of a lot of menus. They all offer beef, chicken and fish of some kind, usually prepared with accompaniments which are similar to what you'd find in most industrialized countries.

I don't think I agree that the presence of burger, taco, ramen, pizza, sushi, etc places in Stockholm (or anywhere) are there to give tourists a respite from the "local" cuisine. With a few obvious exceptions, restaurants are patronized by the local population. Perhaps more to your second point it's due to travel & globalization. Or maybe people just appreciate a wide variety of cuisines.

I've had an emu frittata. Similar tasting to chicken eggs but perhaps richer? Emu farms had a big moment in the US a couple of decades ago. I think their popularity dipped and leveled off. You can still find emu meat relatively easily though you have to seek it out. Not sold in your average grocery store. Eggs are scarcer and quite pricey.