WHere?! Nomad Local Blog

“I’m gonna make a popular Turkish breakfast,” Ahmet said while chopped some tomatoes. “You have never tasted something like this before.”

I was just observing how my friend mixed some tomatoes, onions, red peppers and garlic. And in the end, he added slowly beaten eggs out with a low heat.

He seasoned in the end with the basic spices and, in couple minutes, he had such an incredible Turkish Menemen. He put the pan it in the middle of the table and we ate it directly from it.

The recipe was really cheap and easy, but overall I didn’t expect such basic ingredients could be used to make a very delicious tradishional dish.

In the following days, I observed with more caution the process and I realized that the secret of cooking so was in its own simplicity.

This taught me something important for my journey: Local Cuisine reflects the effort of generations for learning how to live, sometimes with their minimal resources. And this was old!

Learning to Live throughout Local Cuisine

Throughout the years, our cultures have learned to produce and manage the resources by knowing how to save them and use them.

These skills now can be seen when cooking: as much you know how to mix the ingredients, as much your adaptation will be to different kind of enviroments you will be ready to face.

When you carry out a Cultural Travel everyday counts. So when you buy made-food, you may lose important resources, and, in couple of days, you could struggle about how to get the money back.

“Local Cuisine reflects the effort of generations for learning how to live”

But the secret has always been in front of our eyes: the best way to cook is throughout local cuisine, and directly learned from the people.

It can be from markets or locals’ homes, both serve recipes that have helped the community to enjoy  a meal on the table everyday. And when you start a Cultural Travel you realize soon the titanic effort of this task, only possible cooking mom’s recipes.

Also in WHere?!: Discovering Strength and Opportunities: Lessons from Cultural Travel Volunteering in Macedonia

That’s why when someone hosts me, the gratitude is infinite because they pass me all this heritage and teach me how to live like them.

And this helps me to stand up in other expensive countries, practically imposible to live with a low-budget, like London, where I currently write this article in.

Cooking Local Food for Wisdom and Sustainability

During my Cultural Travel I have seen both sides: home food prepared by the friends’ families around the world, or restaurants. that orovide Thus together give a complete panorama of the country’s gastronomy. But the one you cook at home have advantages than the restaurants provide.

It’s not about which food is cheaper or better than the other (so you can find in both sides great preparations and with diversity of prices). Nevertheless, in a Cultural Travel, local dishes have more impact when it comes to learning and sustainability.

The decision between Local Cuisine and Made-Food is about the possibilities. If you can choose between eating at home with your host or outside in a restaurant, there’s more knowledge when cooking.

“local dishes have more impact when it comes to learning and sustainability”

But there are going to be moments when your host will be in a mood for a restaurant or fast food, in that case you will have to choose wisely what to ask whether you have a budget.

The experience can be a great chance to make bounds with your host whether likes to go out, but only recommend this in this kind of scenarios.

But I always recommend go for a cozy house dinner. Because in a Cultural Travel is focused on learning from the world, and the traditions are always not just the most delicious things but also the most sustainable way of living.

Besides, I also mean cooking your local food, thus it’s also a shown of love an service, which will be a good help to connect more with your hosts and locals. But this a topic of other articles.

So all this heritage will help you to cook great dinners to yourself and other hosts, while will hence, at the same time, your understanding of different cultures of the countries you will live in, through their flavors and generational recipies.