Preface
I’ve traveled quite extensively over five continents.
Intrepid in general, I go without reservations or plans, get a guide book and phrase book, get a local transit pass and travel light.
I love to see the sights, and will gladly travel on my own in countries where I can’t speak the language, relying on hand signals.
:
Yet some friends think I’m a disgrace to travelers because of my taste buds.
:
I simply don’t get the demand to having to eat local specialties.
Often I simply buy fresh fruit and bread and bottled beer and that’s my travel diet.
I like some kinds of spicy foods, like Mexican, but not even mild curry. And Thai fish makes me nauseous. I cannot enter a Thai restaurant because of it.
I like many kinds of chocolate, but nothing with coconut in it. Doesn’t matter how much of a local favorite it is.
Simple things like the honey-flavored desserts of the near east will not be the treats everyone there thinks they should be. They will bring them out special and will get very pushy when I will politely decline. I’ve even feigned stomach upset and diabetes and they will still sulk.
So how bad is this?
The Romans said there is no point arguing taste, yet people I meet are sure that some things are treats to everyone.
When I saw the thread title I thought that it would be about insisting on McDonald’s or making people in the restaurant prepare the food a special way. That would be kind of lame. Buying fruit and water at the market isn’t wrong at all. One of the things that I enjoy most about travel is trying the different foods but you shouldn’t avoid travel adventures because of diet.
It’s definitely not wrong, as long as you’re not being rude about it, and it sounds like you’re not. Your food choices are ultimately your business and no one else’s.
Still… with respect, it does strike me as a little strange that someone interested in international travel is so rigid about their food likes/dislikes and unwilling to try new things. I’ve learned from experience that it’s always possible to cultivate an appreciation for new foods, even if you don’t like them at first. I could understand people reacting with confusion when someone who appears to be adventurous and open to new experiences suddenly shuts down when the subject is food… could that be what you’re interpreting as pushiness?
As one of the lucky people who are able to eat just about anything without gagging, it does seem like you are missing out on something by not trying local food when you travel. It isn’t, however, “wrong” of you not to. It’s your trip, your money, your experience–as long as you aren’t going out of your way to bother people, whatever you do is right.
Frankly, a lot of my travelling could have been a lot more pleasant had I stuck to beer, bread, and peeled fruit. When I get sick, I get really sick.
It seems to me, and do tell me if I’m wrong, that you’re one of those ‘eat to live’ people, rather than a ‘live to eat’ person, like myself.
I love food in all its varieties and part of the joy, if not the main joy, for me in travelling is trying new foods. I’ll never understand people who don’t think the same. I even broke up with a boyfriend over his faddy food habits cos it just drove me mental when he wouldn’t try new things, but hey ho. Different strokes and all that.
It’s one aspect of the reason I travel - I’m really really into the local food. I tend to think it’s a shame if people don’t make an effort to try it - but then I sometimes skip cultural events (two hours of Cantonese opera put me off for life) which I think others might find rude. Each person gets out of travel what they want.
People travel for different reasons. I’ve been accused of not “really” traveling because I stay in hotels rather than striking up an acquaintance with a friendly local and wrangling an invitation to stay at his/her house instead. I also don’t consider diarrhea, lice, and STDs evidence that I “really” traveled. On the other hand, I like to try local foods. YMMV, and that’s okay. Nobody gets to make rules about the meaningfulness of your experience.
I try local foods when I travel, as long as they conform to the rules of kashrut and don’t have any ingredients in them that I know I won’t like. It’s never been a problem- of course, I’ve mostly gone to places where pushing food on strangers isn’t a big part of the culture (western and northern Europe and Australia), and Mr. Neville and I are pretty introverted- we don’t tend to meet people on trips, and we eat at restaurants, not at someone’s home.
Different people enjoy different things about travelling, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Most people wouldn’t have gotten much out of the highlights my dream vacation to Australia last year- feeding kangaroos, seeing southern-hemisphere stars that you don’t see where I live, and seeing that the moon was upside down. A lot of people go on vacations to lie on beaches, while I get bored after about ten minutes of that.
Another vote for not “wrong”, but it seems like you are missing out on something.
Of course, when I’ve traveled to foreign countries, I’ve eaten a lot of meals in hotels. (With my tour group). Eating in a hotel is not neccessarily bad–but I’ve often gotten the feeling that the food I was served was designed to cater to European or American tastes, and not representative of the food which the locals ate. (Often lunch meals and sometimes breakfast struck me as being more “what the locals ate”).
And there are those who think real travelers don’t travel with tour groups, but explore the country by themselves. But I kind of like letting someone else decide where we’ll eat and sleep and what we’ll do in between.
So, if you are happy doing what you’ve been doing, who cares if you are missing out on part of the experience. There’s plenty of room for travelers whose taste in travel range from total immersion to no immersion in the culture whatsoever.
I agree with others that it is not “wrong,” but that you are missing out. What I think you are missing out on, though, isn’t just the food, but the social connection. Especially if a host is offering you something. In those cases, it is impolite not to take a little and puts a barrier up betwen yourself and your hosts.
I’m really picky. But when I went to Greece I tried stuff. But I lost weight on that trip for sure. I’ll try anything that doesn’t have the chance of severly offending my picky taste buds, but some things I know I will not like because of certain ingredients. Trying at least some stuff is part of the experience but you should eat what you like. That pork on a stick with some yellow sauce served in a paper bag on one of the islands of Greece was friggin amazing. As was some fried cheese stuff we had. But I stayed away from the feta.
I would never say it’s wrong, but I would say, “What’s the point?” For me, it’d be like visiting a foreign country and always wearing an Ipod, or never leaving my hotel. In each case, I remove the stimuli that that country has to offer one (or more) of my senses, and replace it with something comfortable, familiar, and easily accessible 95% of the year back at home. If I’m going to go somewhere, I’m going to explore, and that means culinarily, too. I don’t have to like everything, or try something that might strike me as too “strange”, but replicating the diet that I keep in the states defeats the purpose of travelling for me.
This is one that I really don’t gain. (“What again?” you all say.)
If I travel to place X, I don’t have any intent to adopt the local religion, dress in the local style of clothing, etc.
Why, of all these personal choices, would food be singled out? People have a lot of religious/personal/ethical reasons for eating/not eating certain things. A political border magically makes these reasons irrelevant?
I don’t travel for the food. It’s for seeing things in person and meeting people. If I want a certain type of food, that is what restaurants are for.
(Yes, I do sample local dishes. But that is purely my choice and I would never think for one second to criticize someone for making a different choice.)
For those who say, “You’re missing out”: But if you don’t like food or it doesn’t interest you, then what exactly are you missing out on?
Some people like to visit museums on trips while others would rather sit on the beach. Some people like to bike or backpack, while others would rather take a bus tour. Some like to camp, others would rather stay in a hotel. Some enjoy sampling new foods, while others don’t. I think it’s all a matter of personal preference. Are you missing out if you don’t do any of those things? Maybe, but if it’s not something you personally would enjoy doing, then I don’t see how you’re missing out. Missing out doesn’t include torturing yourself with something you hate.
It’s not clear whether OP doesn’t eat any of the local cuisine or just certain dishes which he has tried and disliked. If the later, then what’s wrong with that? I doubt that many people can say they like every dish of a particulur country. OTOH,
Not every Thai dish has fish or coconut. And northern Thai food is different from southern. I’d be hard pressed to find a country where absoultuely nothing there pleases me.
This strikes me as really odd. Food is the primary reason you go to other countries? For me, it would be somewhere around reason #549, right below, “I want to try out my power outlet adaptors for my electric razor.” I’ve known for a while now that I’m not nearly as interested in food as most other people seem to be, but the idea of going through all the hassle and expense of travelling to another country just to eat is frankly baffling. Hell, when I travel, I invariably lose weight, because I’ve got better stuff to do over there than waste my time in a restaurant.
For me, it’s a significant part of the enjoyment of travelling; avoiding eating the local food out of fear or ignorance is somewhat contemptible, but avoiding it because you know what it is and don’t really like it seems OK to me
I think some people are mixing up “vacation” - one or two weeks where you want everything to be “just right” for that short time - with traveling “quite extensively” as mentioned in the OP. To my mind this means months at a time in different places. If I am right (and this may be my own experience, rather than the OP, speaking), then you’re really going to have a miserable time not eating the local food. The best food I’ve had on my travels has usually been experienced at street stalls in third world countries, eating stuff I couldn’t have conceived of existing, or combinations of ingredients I would never have even thought of tasting, had I not been there. Usually for about 5c a dish.
I always lose weight on vacation. I’m way more active than normal, I don’t really schedule food, and it’s hard finding something that I think I’ll like. I will, of course, eat anything that is offered to me. But for the most part, things aren’t offered, I have to go to a restaurant and pay for them. And often, I’ll look at the menu and think “not really wanting anything there. Let’s move on.”
The same thing happens here when I try to find restaurants. But here, there are 24 hour stores that I can find and junk food that I know I can munch mindlessly.