Souvenirs from Cape Town

What do you cling to, to hold on to the vacation glow?

Mine was salt and vinegar chips left over from a week staying in Cape Town.

My friends and I had rented an Airbnb just outside of the central business district, and my first order of business upon arrival was sorting the food situation. Luckily, there was a Woolworths Food just down the road from our house, and I ended up visiting the M&S doppelganger three times in our first two days of vacation. (For those unfamiliar with Marks & Spencer, imagine a high-end grocery store, shrunk down to the size of a 7-Eleven, with all the ingredients you would need for cooking at home -- produce, meat, bread, etc. -- supplemented by lots of prepared options if microwaves and ready to eat are more your style).

I had selected the sharing-sized packet of salt and vinegar chips thinking that our merry band of four friends would have ample snacking opportunities during our week in this coastal city. But as it played out, we came to the end of our stay, ready to fly to the eastern part of the country for some safari time, and the bag had remained untouched. I considered leaving the chips for the next Airbnb guests, but an inexplicable fear that we would find ourselves somewhere desperately hankering for some salty-sweet fried potato goodness -- on the airplane, during the drive to the lodge, in the game viewer 4x4 doggedly hunting down an elusive big animal -- pushed me to hastily stuff the chips into my carry-on.

Of course, the game lodge did a superior job of feeding us and hunger became but a distant, abstract notion during our four days of safari. By my count, the lodge offered a meal or snack no less than every two to three hours, from our pre-dawn coffee and muffins to the nightly four-course dinner. And so the salt and vinegar chips got buried deeper and deeper under a mass of khaki and olive green clothing in my luggage.

Neither did my 28+ hour return journey proffer an opportunity to justify my impulsive snacking purchase, so I found myself back in the United States with an errant Woolworths branded packet of salt and vinegar chips amidst sundry other relics of our South African adventures. And it was there, in the jetlagged, disturbed cicadian rhythm haze of my re-entry into the real world, that I finally feasted.

With their origins in Ireland, salt and vinegar chips are hardly the most representative items of Capetonian cuisine. Coincidentally, I had also purchased a packet of peri peri potato chips that, due to their more exotic appeal, got consumed before we even left Cape Town. Yet, over the next few days of returning to work, stressing over how to feed myself absent a full game lodge culinary staff, and waking up at 4 am, each time I turned to that bag of sweet and salty goodness, I felt flushed with a wave of nostalgia for our South African vacation. Others might use postcards or kitschy souvenirs to recall the glory days of a recently completed vacation, but this was no ordinary Lay's packet of chips; these chips traversed hemispheres to accompany me back home.

Finishing out Tokyo

Whew, who knew it could take so long for me to blog about 48 hours in Tokyo? But here I am finally finishing out my posts on my August trip. Clearly the two weeks in Hong Kong that preceded Tokyo will see this blog through the end of the year...

Just some bits and pieces that didn't quite fit in anywhere else or didn't seem to merit a full blog post on their own:

In-flight snack on ANA; I'll take this over stale pretzels and coke any day (thanks again for the deluxe air tickets Mom!)

A big part of the reason I was intimidated about navigating Tokyo on my own.

A manmade stream-like feature running through a park in Ropponggi where people can "rent" a seat:

Further along in the park, a tranquil scene at dusk:

A fairly delicious avocado and "Italian frozen yogurt" shake from the food basement of Mitsukoshi in Ginza. What made it "Italian", I don't know, but the attention to detail with the petite mint leaf tickled my fancy:

Lunch at a delicious Kyoto-style small plates place in the Nakameguro neighborhood. This place was tucked away from the street down a narrow little path with nary a sign (as far as I could tell) to indicate that it was even there. Definitely would never have found it on my own. Thanks for lunch Taro and Christine!

Cold udon was perfect for the 30+ degree Celsius weather

The history of Sensoji temple juxtaposed against the hypermodern Sky Tree broadcasting tower in the background

Cheerful mini-temple

Something about the way this bike was parked outside the restaurant and the black and white photo in the window made me think of an old Japanese film. Maybe channeling the quiet simplicity of an Ozu film?

All the guidebooks talked about the "salarymen" aka government workers who throng Tokyo's izakayas and bars after work. I have no idea if this crowd worked for the government, but this picture captures the faceless anonymity that that term always conjures in my head:

A big reason I was delighted to be navigating Tokyo on my own -- more tonkatsu for me!

This was at Maisen, a well-known tonkatsu establishment. Their special sauce totally made the meal -- none of that thick gloppy sweet stuff you squeeze out of a bottle.

This stuff was fresh, with I have no idea what inside it, but definitely had hints of fresh ginger and maybe even pineapple? I recommend dousing the tonkatsu with it to get that perfect bite:

All in all, not too shabby for a glorified layover methinks!

Sensoji Temple and Carving Out Your Own Fortune

For some reason, Senso-ji, the major Buddhist temple in Tokyo, was closed when I visited it in early August.

Luckily, my visit to Asakusa, the neighborhood around Senso-ji, was not a complete waste. Not far from the temple is the kitchenwares district, with shops upon shops selling all sorts of food-related implements. Including those awesome plastic food models found outside many a restaurant. I was actually hoping to come away with some kind of plastic food as a souvenir (how cool would it be to have a bowl of udon on my desk, ALWAYS), but the prices seemed exorbitantly high for this unemployed vagabond (USD$20 for a keychain with a plasticized crepe at the end of it at one store!).

There is also a shopping street, the Nakamise, leading up to the temple that was bustling despite the temple’s closure.

In addition to the usual knickknack and souvenir stores selling fans, ninja costumes, and perpetually waving cats, were snack stands selling freshly made rice crackers:

I chose to indulge in a deep fried cake filled with a green tea paste:

Though I didn't get to actually enter the Senso-ji temple, I did participate in one of its popular rituals.

How to get your fortune told at Senso-ji temple:

(My favorite part is the warning at the end against being arrogant or fearful based on your fortune.)

Step 1: Shake the canister (politely!) while thinking of your wish.
[insert picture of tall hexagonal silver canister with a small hole at the top here. I tried to take a picture, but just couldn't get a good photograph out of it.]

Step 2: Note the number on the stick and find the corresponding drawer:

Step 3: Open the drawer to reveal your fortune:

If you get a bad fortune, you might want to do this so as to leave the bad luck behind:

But if you are destined for awesomeness, like me, and draw stick number 78, feel free to carry your fortune with you and go on to rock out in life. Of course, in case you have doubts about your proverb-interpretation skills, you can always consult the handy breakdown of what this all means in layman's terms at the bottom:

No matter what you draw, though, don't forget the final takeaway from those initial instructions: "You can carve out your own fortune."

Sushi Breakfast at Tsukiji

Of course, no visit to Tsukiji is complete without a sushi breakfast (or so the guidebooks tell me). Although there are several places to eat in the outer market, two places in particular have become the “biggies” that attract all the attention.

This picture doesn’t quite do the crowds justice, as the line breaks off after a certain amount of people, and continues around the corner.

Finding places to eat while travelling can be an interesting process. On the one hand, you want good food, which usually means following some kind of recommendation, whether from friends, friends of friends, guidebooks, online forums, etc. Often a few places rise above the pack and end up getting repeated by everyone – which presumably ends up being a testament to the quality of the place. On the other hand, I often question the real value of going to said "must-visit" places. Is this place REALLY so much better than the others? I have this perpetual instinct to try to find the "undiscovered" gems instead, rather than following the previously trodden path of so many others. At a crossroads, I’ll sometimes err on the side of risking a bad experience for the opportunity to stumble on an undiscovered gem, rather than following the crowdsourced advice of "tried and true".

Thus I was of a mixed mind about where to eat. On the one hand, I only had 48 hours in Tokyo, and precious little time (and stomach space) to waste on a so-so meal. On the other hand, I had heard that most of the places in the market were of fairly comparable quality, which seemed to resonate with me. I mean, they’re all getting their fish (purportedly) from essentially the same source (i.e., 20 yards away) – what could make them so different anyway? Ever the bargain hunter, I decided to eschew the long lines in front of the “biggies” in favor of finding a less-touristy, potentially cheaper option.

The sushi bars must be in collusion, though, as there didn’t seem to be a cheaper option to be had. Apparently using lower prices to draw more customers in isn’t the practice here. Despite the fact that almost every sushi place, save the biggies, was practically empty, they pretty much offered the same options: various set menus starting around 2100 yen (at the time I was traveling, about USD$25-30) and up. Suddenly my options seemed to be 1. wait in line with everyone else to have the iconic experience at Daiwa Sushi or Sushi Dai, or 2. take my chances on one of the other places that seemed essentially deserted.

Standard offerings

Overwhelmed with indecision (as I am wont to do), I finally ducked into Ryu Sushi (i.e., not one of the “biggies”) on a whim.

I wish I could say that my gamble paid off. I wish that I could tell you to head over to this place on your next trip to Japan, rather than those too popular for their own good biggies. I wish I could say that the sushi set I ate made me feel like I had died and gone to heaven, and included the freshest fish I had ever tasted. Lord knows that’s the prescribed formula for most travel writing.

Looks great, but is it tasty?

Like the time I got a free “student” haircut and ended up with much too short bangs instead of shelling out the cash for a real live professional stylist (now that I think about it, actually, I’ve done that twice…), however, my sushi experience was only kind of so-so. Truth be told, aside from the novelty of being in Japan, at Tsukiji, and not entirely able to communicate with my restaurant staff, the sushi I ate was fairly forgettable. While undoubtedly fresh (as in, I couldn’t smell anything off about it), most of the fish I ate was distinctly tough and chewy. Not the end-all, be-all of sushi eating that I had heard legends about.

Much-prized "toro", or high-grade bluefin tuna, on the right

Surprisingly, the most enjoyable parts of my breakfast involved eating things that I don't normally enjoy eating. Like eel.

Whether sliced in rounds and steamed with some soy sauce and ginger, or lathered with sauce and broiled in the form of unagi, I just don't like the texture or the taste of that snakelike sea creature. And yet the eel here was (here’s the travel writing formula kicking in again, though I say this without any exaggeration) a revelation to me. It melted in my mouth with just a hint of sweetness from its accompanying sauce, something slightly thicker and sweeter than soy, but definitely not the usual unagi iteration.

Tsukiji Fish Market

*For those people who find images of carved fish heads and bodies disturbing, please note that such images occur within this post.

Almost every account aimed at educating tourists about the famed Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo will tell you that the key to a successful visit involves waking up well before the sun rises. The fish and seafood actually start arriving from all over the world before the previous day has ended, and by 5 am the wheeling and dealing is in full swing. This is what most people come to Tsukiji to experience: a glimpse into the nexus of a multi-billion dollar industry unlike any other.

Many of the write-ups, however, also mention how a 2008 incident involving a tourist allegedly licking a tuna head has made what were already wary employees even more disdainful of the unanticipated and unwritten addition of "tourist attraction" to their business cards. As the always considerate, always respectful traveler, and appropriately scared off by warnings that the people who do the real business in Tsukiji hate bumbling tourists getting in their way and taking pictures willy-nilly, I early on decide not to attempt to navigate the wholesale auction aspect of this behemoth. Instead, I reason that I can save the early morning taxi fare (new procedures have tourists lining up hours before the subway trains start running), abstain from participating in the depletion of the world’s stock of tuna, and still soak in the atmosphere of the more tourist-friendly outer market.

After a few delays thanks to the snooze button, I finally drag myself out of bed, hating, as usual, the feeling of having to wake up while it is still dark outside. In this part of the world, however, the sun rises early, and despite the cloaked-in, wee hours of the morning feeling of my hotel room, I draw open the curtains to see that it is full daylight outside.

Or perhaps I simply don’t get up at 6 am enough to realize that this is the norm in the summer, regardless of geographical location.

When I arrive at Tsukiji, I’m immediately thrown for a loop. Thinking that I had missed the height of the wholesale chaos, I nonetheless encounter an endless stream of trucks, mechanized trolleys aka "turret trucks", and scooters that seem destined to mow me down at some point. I can hardly figure out where one is supposed to go, and blindly walk in what seems to be the direction of the center of activity.

I've never seen one of these before, but I'm pretty sure it can take me out in a heartbeat

As I try to make sense of my surroundings, I find myself in the outer market area where auxiliary businesses support the main business of the fish traders: stalls selling all manner of knives, tubs of assorted pickled vegetables, bins upon bins of bonito flakes, ceramicware ranging from the intricately detailed to straightforwardly functional, thick logs of tamago (egg cakes), and, of course, a host of sushi purveyors. I weave through the pathways of this more familiar, consumer rather than wholesale setting, and begin to feel calmer, less overwhelmed, and more able to keep my wits about me.

Finding my safe zone

I've never seen soybean pods still on the branch before

By the time I have explored every nook and cranny of the outer market and filled my belly with a sushi breakfast, I feel reasonably satisfied with my visit, notwithstanding the fact that I have yet to actually see where the real business of Tsukiji takes place. As I walk around considering where to go next, however, I see some tourist-looking people headed towards a large building. In one of the few instances of finding comfort in the presence of other tourists in the context of traveling abroad (as opposed to that, "Oh, man, you're here too?" feeling), I reason that they must know where they are going, and that there is some shielding from the wrath of angry fishmongers to be found in sticking with other tourists. So I take advantage of a momentary lapse in the steady stream of traffic that still surrounds the market, and with the help of TWO crossing guards, finally find myself in the main seafood market.



There's a definite buzz going on, but as I pick my way through puddles and dodge temporary styrofoam aquariums, I come to realize that I have inserted myself into something less than a full-fledged business trading floor. I also learn that if you want to fit in to this place, the key is to invest in some rubber boots.

At around 9:30 in the morning, the height of the activity has long since diminished, but there are still a few hours to go before the market fully shuts down for its daily top-to-bottom cleaning, replete sprinkler trucks. Though the main attraction of Tsukiji is the bluefin tuna auction drawing buyers and sellers from around the world (though most of the fish ends up in regional restaurants), I find a certain magic in this winding down time, in limbo between the real business of the day and the full-shutdown of the market. The wholesalers are standing around, or visiting each other’s stands, and I feel like I am granted a glimpse into the underlying camaraderie that must maintain the social networks of this place above and beyond the wheeling and dealing. A gray-haired gentleman leans in closely as a younger protege slices through a massive hunk of deep red tuna with careful deliberation. Others walk a U-shaped pattern, coming down the narrow walkway between the freezers and trays in front of their stall, briefly joining the public path, then turning to walk up to another stall to greet their friends, competitors, and colleagues with a handshake and perhaps a word on how their accounts went in the hours prior. There is still some business to be had, tourists or other regular consumers taking their bounty away in bags rather than crates or order slips, but for the most part, this seems to be a window of time dedicated more to socializing than to transactions. Not only do I feel distinctly outside of these exclusive social circles, I am also acutely aware of my status as one of the few females in what is clearly a male-dominated industry. Rather than globalized trade routes or international commodities, I think of sociology studies, of the inherent fraternal nature of this place and the business it supports.

Interestingly, this fraternal socialization thrives even amongst the vaguely abattoir setting of a wholesale fresh (and freshly killed) seafood warehouse. There is good reason for the ubiquitous rubber footwear worn by those in the know: against the dark floor, it is difficult to discern spilt water from spilt fish blood. While I am an unabashed omnivore, and reasonably accustomed to confronting the realities of living at the top of the food chain, I find the constant reminders of death intriguing, a candid mix of mortality, the moribund, and the morbid all together. A few styrofoam containers appear stained with a deep garnet hue, while others hold more explicit deep sea entrails. Turret trucks neatly cart off open tubs of fish carcasses, while mounds of fish heads patiently await their due processing on the ground.

I come across a lone fish cutter, hacking away at a giant head. The presence of a few other tourists gathered around him makes me think that taking a picture would be okay, and with my flash turned off, I quickly do so.

Then another man comes up to the fish cutter, says something in Japanese, and they both glance in my direction. "Shit," I think, "so much for being the considerate and respectful traveler." The fish cutter gives a shrug, though, and continues about his business. I've been let off the proverbial hook, it seems, though I wouldn't be surprised if I was unwittingly the subject of some bad words in Japanese.

Though I still would not recommend this place for the squeamish, there is actually a greater sense of sanitization amongst the refuse here than in some of the wet markets that I've walked through in Hong Kong. Perhaps this comes from my knowing that the market completely shuts down every day for the sole purpose of cleaning. Or maybe it is just that, unlike those markets that I visit during regular business hours, here I am seeing people in the active business of cleaning up following a day of work, methodically soaping up and hosing down their stations. I was struck in particular with one stall that had long since packed up for the day. At the very front of the stall, carefully laid out on a wooden chopping block were, literally, the tools of trade. All sorts of knives of varying lengths and sizes, lined up with such precision one might think that Her Majesty the Queen's butlers had stopped by with their rulers. Taken by the latent sense of non-ostentatious pride in the display, this time I seek permission before taking out my camera. Mobilizing my limited Japanese language skills, I tentatively call out to the man smoking at the back of the stall.

"Sumimasen?" I mime taking a picture of the knives.

He doesn't respond at first, and I think, "Shit, I'm that horrible tourist they hate." But then he nods, and without a word or a smile, flicks on the lamps that hang directly over my subject before leaving me to my business. I quickly snap a few photos, and then, having already used up most of my Japanese skills, draw upon the dregs of my vocabulary. "Domoarigato," I say as I do a sort of odd, uncertain bow, which seems both appropriate and totally out of place at the same time. He just nods, cool as a cucumber, and descends to re-extinguish the lamps.

I finally leave the place in awe of some of the amazing things I’ve seen. But I also leave with a conflicted sense of this place’s status as a “must-see” tourist destination in Tokyo. In tourism studies speak, the Tsukiji fish market presents a blurring of the front- and back-stage areas of tourism performance. The massive scale of trade that goes on in this place has made it an international tourist destination. And yet, what makes this place more touristic or less a workplace than any other wholesale distribution warehouse on the outskirts of a major city? What makes these fish tradesmen more “performers” than their lesser photographed and visited counterparts on the docks of New York or outskirts of Paris?

The back of the backstage

A wholesale food distribution warehouse is right up my alley as an interesting diversion, a distinctive experience, and an opportunity to better understand our food supply chain. But I also sympathize with those Tsukiji employees who find the due course of their business impinged on by people looking for something new and novel, people who see a place of work as a playground for leisure, rather than as a livelihood. Perhaps, though, this all reflects the general theme of globalization that underlies modern tourism and trade. Just as globalization renders geo-political borders subservient to commerce and money, the barriers between everyday life, tourism, and performance get blurred as well.

The Authenticity Predicament

Posole Guerrero from Oaxaca, Mexico. Tasty? Incredibly. Authentic? Up for debate.

Authentic: it's a loaded gun when it comes to food. Especially when referencing food that comes from another culture. So I give props to Michael Bauer, food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, for how he handles the question, What is authentic?, in a recent blog post. The post came in response to a reader challenging the idea that certain restaurants in the Bay Area hailed by Bauer served authentic pozole.

In the months that I spent researching culinary tourists' notion of authenticity in online reviews, a lot of people asked what I meant by "authenticity."

No, no, I said to them. The question is, what do THEY (the reviewers) mean by authenticity?

Ah yes, you know you're in the social sciences when you refuse to make definitive claims about your own views, but instead refer to other people's opinions. You also know that you're in the social sciences when you say, "X is a social construction."

Well, this is what I have to say about authenticity: it's a social construction.

That is, authenticity means different things to different people, and often in different contexts. What is and isn't authentic to any given individual is fluid, rarely conforms to any standardized schema, and often has as much to do with one's audience as with one's own opinions. To muddle things even more, some scholars propose the concept of an experience being authentic to oneself, lending to a certain sense of self-realization, even if the experience or object of consumption is not thought of as "authentic" (for you nerds out there, object-related authenticity vs. existential authenticity).

As for Michael Bauer, he thinks that,

When people say something isn’t authentic, it’s generally to set themselves up as experts. What they’re really saying, in most cases, is that a dish is not like the one they had when they traveled in Mexico, Italy, India or whatever region is under discussion...

There are as many recipes for posole as there are cooks, so what makes one more “authentic” than the other? I think most times the one we deem as “authentic” is the one that is most familiar or appeals to us.

In the context of social construction, I find authenticity fascinating. What people do and don't think of as authentic says a lot about them and how they see the world. The marketing of "authenticity" also plays an integral role in destination branding, creating a sense of limited resources (e.g., one can only get authentic posole in Mexico vs. authenticity as socially constructed whenever and wherever one wants).

When it comes to food, though, my overarching question is, is it tasty? Michael Bauer and I sometimes disagree on what restaurants serve tasty food. But we do seem to agree that the question of authenticity is more about the who rather than the what.

George Orwell knew something about culinary tourism

Courtesy of the ASFS listserv:

George Orwell: In Defence of English Cooking

"We are not likely to succeed in attracting tourists while England is thought of as a country of bad food and unintelligible by-laws."

Speaking of airport food

Following up on my comments on David Lebovitz's proposals for better food at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, this gets me very, very excited for what travellers can look forward to at the new Terminal 2 of San Francisco airport:

SFO Terminal 2 to include sustainable food

Though I'm a sustainable food advocate, it's not just food for hippies (though, befitting for one's aviation gateway to the land of Haight and Ashbury, no?). Famous household names like Tyler Florence and Cat Cora will have their own culinary outposts, and The Burger Joint and Pinkberry will also have a presence.

Being the foodie that I am, though, I'm most excited about Napa Farms Market, a "5,000-square-foot gourmet food emporium designed by BCV, the firm responsible for the Ferry Building Marketplace." The Ferry Building (and even more impressive, the farmer's market that is held there on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays), is one of the quintessential San Francisco destinations, along with the Golden Gate Bridge and cable car lines.

Coming to an airport near you?

In fact, to be honest, though the Ferry Building is beautiful and full of unique foodie finds, it's got a bit of a hoity-toity air on non-farmer's market days. But when the outside area around the Ferry Building gets packed in front and in back with stalls selling amazing veggies, fruits, honey, mushrooms, grilled-to-order grass-fed burgers and sausages, and with everyone handing out generous samples of their goodies... well, words just fail me. You have to see it to believe it.

I'm guessing that even the best attempts at improving airport food will still fall short of that magic, though it sure sounds like they're going to try:

"Napa Farms will be studded with familiar names - Acme Bread, Cowgirl Creamery [both of which also have locations at the Ferry Building], Three Twins Ice Cream - as well as a bounty of seasonal produce from local farms. There will also be "picnic boxes" available for takeout, and Vino Volo will open a Bay Area-focused wine bar."

As a San Francisco native, I am thrilled about the image of the city such food options at the airport will project. That said, I know that this kind of food comes at a cost, and the downside is that the prices will turn people off from "San Francisco" food, and reinforce the idea that good, sustainable food is just a project of the elite. Then again, airport food has always suffered from dubious price-gouging -- at least this time it can come with some local flavor and flair?

Culinary Diplomacy in Jerusalem

From Discovering Secular Jerusalem, writer Daphne Merkin sees some culinary diplomacy potential in the Mahane Yehuda open-air market:

"The smells are enticing, the characters are picturesque, and you come away with a sense that between the eagerness of the multiethnic vendors to cut a deal and the eagerness of the multiethnic shoppers to go home with the freshest wedge of halvah at the best price possible, peace in the Middle East might be forthcoming in the not-too-distant future."

French Culinary Diplomacy Through Stamps and Airport Food

As an expat American who has lived in Paris for several years, pastry chef and author David Lebovitz blogs about France's coveted gastronomic offerings, his own mouth-watering dessert recipes, and the frustrating inanities of French bureaucracy. With an air of self-deprecation and a healthy sprinkling of wit and beautiful pictures, his blog long ago became part of my daily internet routine. So I'm not entirely surprised that his most recent entries both speak to a type of French culinary diplomacy... or perhaps a missed opportunity for such.

In French Food Stamps, he recounts his surprise discovery of beautiful snail mail stamps featuring artistic renderings of various French regional food specialties. The stamps are works of art in and of themselves, and the fact that they feature food only makes me wish I had some way of getting my own hands on these babies (you can see them here, although Lebovitz's blog has some more appealing close-ups).


Special edition American-cuisine food stamp?

Lebovitz notes, however, that La Poste seems to have missed an opportunity by making these stamps only available for domestic mail. Stamps and snail mail might not represent the cutting edge in information and communication technology, but what a beautiful way to, quite literally, project attractive images of a country through its cuisine to foreign publics.

As for foreign, and even domestic, publics travelling into, out of, and through Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport, Lebovitz poses the question, Why is the food so abysmal at Charles De Gaulle Airport?. In this capital of gastronomy, it seems only fitting that one's first and last impressions should be tempted and reinforced by food options at the airport. Just as Vegas has slot machines in McCarran Airport, as gateways to new places, airports can help reinforce a nation or city brand. Lebovitz lists the airport offerings in my hometown foodie city of San Francisco: "wood-fired oven pizza, teriyaki, traditional Italian pastries, sushi, dim sum, or a pretty decent burrito". (In my own travels, I always pick up a slice of cheesecake from the Just Desserts stand in the United terminal whenever I'm flying in to SFO). Yet the Paris airport offers very little by way of good food in its inner sanctums. Lebovitz expands on several suggestions for how to rectify this situation, which range from the obvious (cheese shop, wine bar, bread bakery), to the innovative (planting a garden in CDG's circular Terminal 1 with its criss-crossing plastic-enclosed escalator tubes).


Pre-flight snack?

It does seem rather a pity that Paris, birthplace of haute cuisine, lacks good airport food, both for practical purposes and culinary diplomacy objectives. Closer to home, it might be asking a bit much to get a Ben's Chili Bowl outlet in Dulles, but surely even we can do better than Wendy's and cold sandwiches?

Mexico

I've been horrible at updating this blog, and sadly, it's not because I've been eating delicious things instead. Then again, I suppose reading about delicious things (thank you Anthropology of French Food and Culinary Tourism courses!) isn't so bad either.

So, in honor of UNESCO's recent recognition of Mexican food and the Michoacan paradigm as products of intangible cultural heritage,* I take you back to a simpler time, when so much of my everyday experience was focused on food. Rewind five months to my five-week program in Oaxaca, Mexico, birthplace of chocolate and mole:

Posole



Ballpark hot dog, cheering on the minor league Oaxaca Guerreros



Street tacos in the Zocalo



Amazing salsa at the women's weaving cooperative in Teotitlan del Valle



Nieves



This is all that you'll see of the tacos al pastor. Because they were that delicious.



Hot chocolate


Mole coloradito, my favorite of the 7/1,000/7,000 moles of Oaxaca


And of course, the infamous chapulines (grasshoppers). Legend has it that eating chapulines assures that you will return to Oaxaca.


I guess I better start looking for plane tickets:

(photo courtesy of Laura)


*For a more nuanced take on whether this recognition is actually a good thing, see Is 'Culinary Heritage' a Good Idea?.