And therein lies the difference between foodies and non-foodies.
I’m with ArchiveGuy: the most fun part about traveling is the food.
That’s it. I eat to live. Over the decades, I’ve tried a lot of foods. My ex was a good cook and we were in a couple of gourmet clubs for years. So I do try things.
But not when nobody’s around. I only care about food because of peer pressure.
When “cooking” for myself it’s always sandwiches and cereal eaten standing up. Jerry Seinfeld is my food hero!
Well, as a foodie, I don’t understand at all. But I respect your preferences, and envy your ability to travel as broadly as you have.
Thing is, food-sharing is one of those things that goes way back- as in prehistory- as a ritual of friendship or alliance. There’s a reason why the laws of hospitality were considered sacred, and most ancient folklore includes cautionary tales about the obligations of a host. Quite often, the gods were said to travel the world as beggars or pilgrims, so the host should be careful about the treatment of guests.
In light of that, you can’t really blame folks for being put back by your refusal to engage in this social interaction, or even responding negatively toward you. To them, you are refusing to allow them to fulfill their role in the ritual, and that’s just bad manners. Same thing goes for eating out in groups; refusing to participate in the food-sharing ritual stirs up something very deeply ingrained in much of the human population, across cultures, classes, and creeds.
So your best bet is to try to avoid situations where you are being hosted; but that necessarily limits your interactions with local culture. This isn’t a case where you’ll be able to have your cake and eat it too (hah!)
I’m a non-foodie, definitely in the ‘eat to live’ camp. I’ve become a lot more adventurous in food in the past few years, though some things still usually makes me nauseous.
Hmm. If I was traveling to another country, I would do my best to learn about these things before going, and try to fit in.
Looming much larger, though, is the question of alcohol: I will take no more than a few sips of alcohol when it is offered. I understand that many cultures consider drinking plentifully and successfully in company to be some kind of test of true personhood.
Is there a travel guide to these kinds of customs? Kind of like an inverse ‘foodie’s guide’ showing what places and cultures are not upset by people going their own way?
That’s where we differ. I travel looking at ideas, landscapes, architecture, and music (among other things). Food is just one of those things one must do to keep going.
I never said it was primary, but I would consider it, for me, an essential part of the experience. Some people travel to relax and “get away from it all”; others, like me, travel to explore and discover new things–to see, to hear, to learn, to appreciate, and to eat. In the book/movie The Accidental Tourist, it portrayed a type of person who travels but doesn’t want to be reminded of the differences, instead preferring to insulate themselves with things safe, cozy, familiar, routine. Some people are like this but I find it unfathomable–if my purpose is to discover, why eat the same thing I cook myself every day? For me, travel is adventure–not necessarily “bungee jumping” adventure, but opening your eyes and ears (and taste buds) to things unique and, in many cases, impossible to replicate anywhere else. And I’ve never travelled anywhere where I didn’t have a food story–whether it was something I ate, the location I ate it, the way it was prepared, or something that happened while eating it that was memorable in some way. YMOV.
(it sounds like Athena would be a perfect travel partner! 
)
I keep kosher, and will only eat out in kosher-certified restaurants, so the vast majority of food almost anywhere is off-limits for me. (I end up cooking for myself in plug-in hot water boilers and such, and eating lots of fruit. I have been known to travel with the Duffel Bag of Starches and Tuna.) It’s one of the only times that I feel ‘deprived’ because I keep kosher, and I’d always love to try the local cuisine, but I certainly don’t let that stop me from traveling! The world is too interesting to let my specific food needs keep me at home, and I can find plenty of other interesting things to do to keep myself entertained besides eating. I love trying new foods when I can, but even with a very dull diet (noodles, oatmeal, and fruit) travel can be amazingly fun.
No its not rude, but you have to really pick and choose your restaurants when you are abroad don’t you? I have the same trouble.
There are certain things that I will not eat. Mostly in the vegetable category. I just find the taste of many vegetables to be absolutely foul. (And believe me, my mother made sure I tried all of them). But it makes it hard to eat when I go overseas for a vacation or work. The eternal search for a restaurant where I am comfortable is just the price I pay. It also means I have to learn some of the lingo to inquire about what is in a certain dish and make it clear if something needs to be removed.
Could the locals be pissed? Sure. But I guess I’ll have to live with it.
Yeah, but I do that at home, too, so I’m used to it. Mr. Neville and I always look at a menu before deciding if we want to eat at a restaurant we haven’t tried before, to see if they have stuff we can have and that we might like. On vacation that’s kind of fun, actually, walking around and looking at different restaurant menus.
I’m another member of the ‘travel to do different things’ club. I can’t even get my poor little head around the idea that people don’t actually enjoy eating that much. The absolutely last thing I want to do while in Paris is look for the local McArch emporium.
Now I’m not much fond of seafood or organ meats but I will even try things like that on occasion just to see if my tastes have changed and if maybe ‘furrners’ can do a better job of making them palatable. Hence one of the tastiest bits of fish I’d ever encountered handed me by a Hawaiian local who was barbequeing his freshly-caught fish on the beach. OK, it wasn’t the shores of the Amazon but it was still pretty nifty.
You’re not so much ‘wrong’ but I agree with the ‘you’re missing out’ pov. The only bad thing about trying new and wonderful foods while travelling is that without access to recipes and native ingredients, you mayn’t get to taste them again.
(Thinking wistfully of Great Meals I Have Known). Sigh.
Fah. Make that ‘mightn’t’.
I travel for all the same reasons… except for the eating. Food isn’t “an adventure.” It’s just food. You eat it so that you can do the stuff that’s actually interesting without passing out. A few years back, I went to Spain with my parents and aunt and uncle. And we spent an ungodly amount of time sitting in restaurants. Fancy ones, too, not KFC or McDonalds (neither of which I’ll eat in the US, let alone abroad). After a while, it was maddening. The food was fine, but I didn’t sit on an airplane for eight hours so I could eat sopa castillano. I’ve seen soup before; we have that here. Show me something I can’t possibly see in the US. You’re not going to find something like that sitting on your ass in a restaurant.
Well, there was this one restaurant in Amsterdam, where this lady took a banana and… but that’s neither here not there.
You’re in Paris - there’s the tower and the Louvre and Notre Dame and the d’Orsay and Sant-Chapelle and wandering the left bank and Sacre Coeur and the Arc de Triomphe and… and you want to waste time eating.
I can’t do or see any of those things at home. I can eat at home. I do that every day. Plus, I don’t have to worry about paying an insane amount for food I don’t really like at home.
I don’t think I’ve ever thought wistfully about food. Longingly occasionally, but that passes quickly.
And that is the disconnect in our various mindsets. You’re assuming that not trying everything on offer = McDonalds. If someone can’t stand chicken or spicy food, they have to be able to work around it.
Frankly I love fish, but can’t stand sushi. I tried it before I went to Japan. Well I gave it a shot and damn near threw up in the restaurant when I tried uni. That’s not fun or exciting. But I can still go out to Tempura or noodle joints and do ok without resorting to TGI Fridays.
When I travel on business, my expat colleagues try and shove every last thing down my throat assuming that I will love it because they do and its a local delicacy. You have no idea how many times folks force fed me caviar when I was in Moscow. I hate just about every kind you can think of. And frankly, chasing every bite with vodka to clear the taste is worse. I am a pretty lousy drunk.
The OP probably can find something enjoyable in any country. But he/she has to be able to do it on his terms without being judged as some low-brow hamburger muncher.