A new experience preparing chicken
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” -J.R.R. Tolkien
One of our favorite things to do while we are traveling is to eat locally by cooking our own meals. When traveling in Europe, we often like to stay at an Airbnb or self-catering apartment that includes a kitchen. When traveling with a family of four, it is often cheaper than two rooms at a hotel and we are usually staying in a real neighborhood rather than in a more touristy area. It’s nice to be able to cook at your temporary “home” and it makes you feel like you are more of a local.
We do this when traveling in the US as well. On Orcas Island, we’ve had fresh oysters from the Island Market, and spectacular Dungeness Crab from the Crab Guy who comes to the Co-Op on Saturday mornings. It was amazing! Whether traveling in Europe or North America or elsewhere, we recommend shopping in local grocery stores and markets and cooking some of your own food. It’s awesome!
When we travel in Europe, staying in a place where we can make our own meals lets us save money by making our own breakfasts in the morning. It tends to make our morning launch more relaxed, which is really nice. We eat in our pajamas, sleep in a little longer, and make as much coffee as we want. The apartment begins to feel a little more like our home away from home.
But the real fun thing for us to is to prepare nice evening meals with locally sourced food. We often try to prepare a regional dish and try to shop like the locals do. It is a really interesting activity to go to a city market or a local grocery store and try to find all the ingredients you need for a special meal.
You will likely be surrounded by locals trying to do the same thing, and as pedestrian as grocery shopping may sound, you might find yourself totally out of your element shopping in a foreign country. Think how disorienting it can be to visit a new grocery store. Now compound that with foods you’ve never seen and everyone speaking another language. When we were in Tuscany one time on one of our small group trips, we had a tough time finding eggs to make for breakfast with our guests. We finally found them at the end of an aisle of boxed foods. Europeans frequently do not refrigerate their eggs! We knew that, but had forgotten it while we looked all over the refrigerated section!
The local market is even more fun! In many parts of Europe, cities and towns have weekly street markets. Vendors travel from city to city selling everything from fresh produce, meats and cheeses, and fish to jeans, sweaters and underwear. It is a throwback to a time before department stores. Many of these towns heavily rely on the markets and they are a lot of fun. Unless you are close to a big city, you may be miles away from a supermarket or department store. You will not see a Wal-Mart. It is nice.
Once you’ve loaded up on your groceries, it’s back to the apartment to cook. This is a time to make lasting memories. Some of our most memorable meals when traveling in Europe are seafood paella in southern Spain, fresh pasta in the Provence region of France and beautifully braised chicken in Tuscany. None of the meals were perfect but the memories remain strong because of the challenges and the camaraderie involved in preparing and then sharing the meals together.
Often the kitchen can be as disorienting as the shopping experience. European kitchens tend to be much more “compact” than those in the US. Any directions on appliances will be in a foreign language, and some things you may take for granted-salt and pepper, large baking dishes, sharp knives-may be non-existent in your adopted kitchen. I will never understand the purpose of serrated chef’s knives, but we have found them time after time. It’s all part of the fun.
Our kitchen in Tuscany. Note the coffee pot!
With the paella mentioned above we had no paella pan but we were in Spain! We went to a little market just a couple blocks from our apartment and picked out some seafood. Somewhere we found some saffron and chorizo was easy! We used the largest skillet we had and squeezed it in. It was probably the only skillet we had so we had to do everything in this one inadequate pan. It was a bit of a struggle but we had a blast and it was delish!
The pasta in Provence was a little less difficult. What made it memorable was the teeny picturesque town we stayed in had no store or bakery and we made it back to our rental with no bread. We had however noticed a sign in town that said a pizza truck was coming for a visit that evening. So while Chelsea and I manned the kitchen, Betsy and David went down to the pizza truck the see if we could get them to cook us just a crust with maybe cheese and garlic. Betsy speaks French quite well but couldn’t quite get the cook to understand what we were asking for. We didn’t get exactly what we wanted, but they came home with a white pizza to go with our pasta. Again, quite memorable and very tasty!
Pasta and pizza in Provence
When we arrived Tuscany once while doing a pre-trip for one of our small group trips, Betsy and I hadn’t cooked a meal for ourselves in over a month. Chelsea was with us and we hit a grocery store on the way in to Montichiello-again a town too small to have a food store, bakery, or weekly market. Shopping with Chelsea is an experience in itself, but the girl knows what she wants. After a week in Piemonte we needed some lighter food. We decided on a simple green salad, faro and Romanesco cauliflower, and a roast chicken. All the chicken looked very nice and in recognizable packaging, but then Chelsea spied a blue-footed chicken. We knew it was blue-footed because it still had its feet…and head! When we got it home, I realized that although it was de-feathered, it had pretty much everything else. There were no neatly packed gizzards wrapped in paper inside the carcass. We also realized that even though the kitchen had a combo microwave/oven, we couldn’t figure out how to make the oven work. That’s how our roast chicken became a stovetop braised chicken!
When I cut the chicken into pieces (I couldn’t help but think of the “Christmas Story” when I cut off the head), I was surprised that there was no smell at all. It was amazing! I have never had a chicken this fresh.
Chelsea needed white wine for the braising liquid so I went down to a nice little wine bar we passed walking into town and in my best Italian asked for a bottle of white wine. It wasn’t perfect, but I got my point across. Unfortunately, they couldn’t sell me a bottle, but they sold me a glass…in a styrofoam cup…with a lid. Perfect, just what we needed. The meal was fabulous and a great way to spend the evening together.
Home cooked Tuscan meal. Notice the fancy wine glasses and cutlery!
When we rent a place like this, we cook in about every other night. That gives us plenty of time to sample the local restaurants for lunch and the alternate evenings. It is also a very special way to understand the culture and feel more like a local.
Are you planning a trip somewhere in Europe? We can help with that! Remember that we are always available to you and your friends and family for custom trip planning to Italy, France, Ireland, England and all of Europe. Feel free to reach out via email — I'm always available to talk about travel!!
Greg Ball – Greg is co-founder and partner of Euro Travel Coach (ETC), which crafts custom European vacations for independent travelers and leads small group tours to Europe. In his previous life he taught Woodwinds and Jazz at the university level for 30 years. As a professor he took his bands to England, Ireland, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, and England. Since “retiring” in 2017, he and his wife/ETC co-founder Betsy have been traveling through Europe for up to nine months of the year. Together they have visited over 40 countries and counting! He loves cooking, hiking, listening and playing music, and wine and holds a Level 3 certification from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust.
When we create a Custom Travel Itinerary to Europe, we sometimes include nights when our clients, or we, can cook on our own. Recreating local dishes in France, Italy, Ireland and the UK makes us feel even closer to the culture. Check out our experience cooking in an AirBnB on an Italy Travel Itinerary we enjoyed before a small group trip to Tuscany.