Food

So Europe has some pretty great food. You have culinary giants like France and Italy, as well as less distinguished (although equally tasty) cuisines from places like Germany and Spain. Living in mainland Europe for five years , I got used to having fabulous food within my reach at all times. Whether it be the gasthaus down the street in my tiny village, or a French grocery store thirty minutes away on the autobahn, it was never a problem. Until now.

Macaroon. Pistachio. The best thing ever!

Fancy Macaroon; pretty and tasty.

Don't think about the snails, think about the garlic and butter and deliciousness.

For me, food is important. A friend once told me that there are two types of people in this world, those how eat to live, and those who live to eat. I consider myself fully in the second grouping; I look forward to each meal. This is why when I was deciding where to go to college, what food they offered on campus and what was available off, did in fact influence my decision. (Now of course I did chose a college also on its academics and all of the normal things too.) And I decided to come to USC. We have sushi here. Every day.

But other than the daily sushi I am going through some withdraws. I understand not having real macaroons, or escargot, or gelato, or apfelscholer or a schnitzel - I'm not in Europe anymore. But what about good Indian food? I have never lived someplace with so many Indians and yet I have not figure out where they go out to eat. What about authentic Italian? Well I'm thinking that Italian's don't live down here. What about interesting restaurants in general? Or lumpia that was at every event on base? I could seriously not get away from Filipino food at Ramstein and now it's not anywhere to be found. And where in the world is the good bread? Like a whole grain roll with lots of seeds on top? I thought good bread was everywhere! I was wrong in that regard, and would love a baguette, not a bag-et-tay (the name I have given the impostor here). 

These are things that I took for granted and did not expect to have to do without when I came to the capitol of South Carolina. But then again I am eating things I would never have dreamed about living here in the South. It's not bad by any means, but I'm still adjusting to the monochromatic brown color of my plate!

BBQ with hushpuppies and hash and the "salads" ( salad at many home cooking type of events here generally means potato or coleslaw, not big leafy greens with lots of fresh veggies and a nice balsamic dressing).

Boiled peanuts. All I have to say is don't knock it 'til you have tried it, they are good.

I recently attended a fish fry. This was my meal. Fried fish, fried potatoes, fried cornbread, with tartar sauce and a side of coleslaw.........yum. I went to it like I went to festivals in Portugal - ready for a cultural experience and not knowing what to expect! And it was a cultural experience. I walked in with my friends, bought my ticket, went through the line and received my food, then sat down and soaked it all in. I witnessed people eating the fried food, and sweets being wheeled around the room for them to buy. You never had to get up once you sat down because the attentive high school band students putting on the fundraiser were so attentive!  I hadn't given it much thought to what the fish fry was going to be like, but I can honestly say I did not expect to be constantly checked up on and offered more food and sweet tea by our adorable young lady with her heavy Southern accent. One of the highlights of the dinner was meeting a guy with a cool name, Quanlove. Now I thought his real name was Quanlove, no space, and it actually was not until we left that I found out that it was really Quan - Space - Love, forename - space - surname. Not as cool as when I thought it was one word (his name would have made it into the top five then), but sense people call him Quanlove and he responds, it is securely in my top ten coolest names list.