Food

This is Part I of I'm sure many blogs to come from food we experience around the World.

Spain:
Spain’s olives were really good. The paella, which was the local rice dish, was tasty but like all the other food in Valencia it did not have any spicy kick.

France:
I think I already mentioned that I love crepes. Crepes were definitely the winning feature from France. There are two kinds of crepes. The buckwheat Gallete is served as a savory entrée crepe filled with veggies, meat, seafood, etc all typically tasty options. Then there is of course the dessert crepe filled with anything from Nutella to Apples and ice cream to flaming liquor. Everything else was kind of nondescript but always had a lot of butter either cooked in or served along side the meal.

Morocco:
The French breakfast of bread, butter, jam, and coffee carried over to Morocco as well. The specialty was Tajine (tagine) or couscous. Tajine happens also to be the name of the pot which the meal is cooked. It is clay with a flat dish bottom and a domed top. The meal is cooked covered and usually consists of a meat and some veggies or almonds or prunes in an oil base. Couscous is served as a Tajine side and the spices varied depending upon where we ate but they were very good. The Couscous dinners were basically a whole box of couscous and then your meat or veggies cooked and put on top.

So far, Morocco has the most refreshing drink we’ve come across which is mint tea. I know Steve journaled about the process of making mint tea, I don’t know if he’s posted it, but Hassan was our teacher so if you have any questions you’d have to ask him. Even when it was sweltering heat, the mint tea was always refreshing. Overall it was served with slightly too much sugar but if we’re not counting the calories from all the bread and butter I guess it doesn’t matter.

Dubai:
The food options were mainly hotel restaurants that catered foods from all over the world…kind of like restaurants in the US. We did not eat out except for the little café we walked to but we did find good canned Hummus at the market.

Egypt:
The Egyptian falafel, Ta’miyya, has been our favorite right along side the Baba ghanouj. Tahini is also used a lot in the food, as a side, or dressing. The local drink options have been a Hibiscus tea, Karkady, and a couple brown drinks that the server said he didn’t know what were the ingredients. We tried one and it tasted fermented which could either mean it was bad or it was made from some sort of fermented bean. I’ll look it up online if I remember the name.

Milkshakes are also very popular in Dahab. Everyone serves milkshakes and advertises that theirs is the best. Steve’s form of “milkshake” is the Lassies they prepare with fruit and yogurt blended into a smoothie.