Vernacular: of, relating to, or characteristic of a period, place or group. In essence, native.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how travel and food intersect. Not just because I’ve only recently returned from a fabulously food filled vacation, although I have, but more because I find the two interests so intertwined as to be nearly inseparable. And then today, voila, an online chat about the New Yorker’s food issue with three writers supplied the term I’ve been searching for. Writer Calvin Trillin said he mostly writes about vernacular food, food attached to a specific place. He said his dislike of fancy restaurants often comes from the sameness you can encounter.
It’s perfect. Yes, I can eat Turkish food in the U.S. versus traveling there, and have done so deliciously twice in the last seven days, but what I loved about both meals was how firmly grounded they were in being Turkish. I might not NEED to travel to Turkey to eat those foods (though I would love to) but I do want the meal to make me feel as though I did.
I think I’d take Trillins thought one step further to include the totality of what vernacular means, essentially that a meal can be tied not only to place, but to the when and who of a meal as well. The experience of eating something is inextricably bound up in where you are when you consume it, when you consume it and who you share it with. Eating is about things that taste good, but as I’ve said on this blog before I don’t believe it’s only about what tastes good.
October brought a wonderful two week vacation that was very much about vernacular food and encompassed a trio of locales. A pitch perfect week in London with BOG /W, a long weekend in Kent for the wedding of PA/A, and four days in Barcelona to round it out. It was far flung and wonderful and full of fun, dear friends and delicious food.
In fourteen days we ate more than I could possibly include in one blog post, I’ll have to dissect and describe the culinary compendium later. But suffice to say highlights, in addition to the seaside paella, included: curry near Brick Lane; pad thai at a restaurant that features chilies so hot they brought the fire department, literally; grilled razor clams at a tapas bar inside La Boqueria; partridge cooked in a pear cider sauce in a 17th century inn in Kent; wonderful, lemony Afghani food in a tiny London storefront; churros and chocolate during a festival celebrating a saint represented by flies (long story involving French invaders and swarms of defensive insects supposedly sent by a dead saint); cozy soup in a cook book store turned café; and countless other meals.
Why is it that food tastes so much better when we’re traveling or on vacation? Even basic things seem luxurious. Is that because we’re paying more attention? Because drinking that bottle of wine at lunch on a Tuesday seems just a wee bit naughty? Whatever the reason I seem to find all my meals memorable when I’m traveling. And this trip was no different. The multi-cheese picnic consumed on the train after strolling around Borough Market stands out in my brain just as clearly as the two fantastic tapas meals I had at Tapas 24 in Barcelona. Go figure.
I like this concept of "vernacular" food. I think it explains why people are so taken aback at my "whiteness" at the sushi bar. I'm interfering with their imagined experience, the idea that for a moment they could step into Japan.
ReplyDeleteThe lovely flip side of this however, is the clients that we have groomed over the years to be Sato followers. These are people that when they go to sushi bars elsewhere they seek not Japan, but Sato and are disappointed and always return to us. Indeed, eating and the experience of it, the memories it produces, has so much more going on than just stuffing salt, sugar and protein into your mouth. Nice post! Keep it up!