A Culinary Sense of Place

Certain beverages are closely tied to a particular place. Due to their earthly provenance, wine and whiskey come to mind. Certain foods are also intimately connected to places. One specialty item that ranks high on the list of local favorites in nearby Milwaukee, aside from beer and cheese, are brats. Sandy D'Amato, The Kitchen Technician, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a traveling food connoisseur.

Most popular food travel destinations, from Lonely Plant blog

As a chef, D'Amato is always on the look out for what makes any given city or location "culinarily unique." Citing examples of "fried clams and lobster in Maine, po' boys in New Orleans or Key lime pie in Florida," D'Amato wants food that "provides a sense of place."

His story reminds me that I don't get to Milwaukee, or anywhere else, often enough!

There are many specialty dishes associated with very specific locations. What are your favorite place/flavor combinations?  Please leave a comment if you can think of some good examples!

It seems that the combination of fantastic cuisine and unique locations is a bustling industry. Just last month, the Lonely Planet blog listed its reader-generated Top 10 of food/travel destinations. They even created a neat little wordle from the results, as seen above. There is a magazine called Food and Travel. And a food and travel blog (unrelated to the mag., as far as I can tell). In June, 2010, Budget Travel let readers know where some of the best street foods are around the world. For writers, combining "travel writing" with food reviews seems like a great niche. Good work, as they say, if you can get it.

Memories of travel and tastes that stand out for me are a certain coffee in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, a Jaeger Schnitzel I once had in a German village somewhere near Bitburg, and fresh caught walleye from the wilds of Northwest Ontario. How about you?