Jaunted

Foreign Grocery Friday / Peru Travel / Cusco Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: The Alpaca Meat of Peru

Alpaca as breakfast meat

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

If you're a regular reader of our Foreign Grocery Friday series, then you'll already be aware of the fact that we rarely shy away from trying local specialties, even when it comes to meats (see our review of kangaroo and conch). Where you'd normally see cows in America, you have alpaca in Peru, so it's no wonder alpaca meat replaces beef quite a bit. In Cusco alpaca is even favored over beef and, after eating it at breakfast and dinner, we totally understand why. It is tasty!

Note: Cusco also enjoys serving up "Cuy," which is guinea pig meat. Sadly we didn't have enough time to try it on this trip, focusing as we did on the alpaca meat.

more ›

Food Travel / Foreign Grocery Friday / Peru Travel / Cusco Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: The Chicha Morada of Peru

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

A few weeks ago in Cusco, we talked a bit about discovering the city's ridiculously nice Starbucks. A few of our Twitter followers (you awesome people) quickly admonished us for hitting up an international chain rather than try a local drink, from a local place. Alas, that's always our plan! Starbucks was a momentary diversion for their free WiFi, but rest assured we guzzled our share of Chicha the rest of the time.

From Wikipedia we learn that chicha was used by the ancient Incas for rituals, including in Machu Picchu. In modern-day Peru, this fermented corn drink that usually occupies the same grocery shelf as Coca-Cola. Chicha Morada seems to be most ubiquitous; it's a purple corn version of chicha with a pineapple-limey zestiness and a clovey-cinnamony spice.

more ›

Food Travel / Foreign Grocery Friday / Peru Travel / Cusco Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: The Sweet Cucumbers of Peru

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

Though it's mostly pre-packaged foreign snack foods and beverages that boggle the brain, every so often we'll pass a produce cart and pick up some fruit or vegetable that has never before made it onto our plate. Last time this happened was with the Salak of Southeast Asia. This time, it's on another continent entirely and at the foot of the Andes, in Cusco, Peru. The mystery orb? A sweet cucumber.

Holding it in hand, you'd never guess this to be named cucumber anything. Its looks are closer to a tomato mated with a beach ball. In fact it goes by other names we find more fitting, including "pepino melon" and "mellowfruit." A sister fruit that seems to be found on the US west coast is the "lemon cucumber. Yum!

more ›

Foreign Grocery Friday / Australia Travel / Tea Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: The Exotic Lipton Iced Teas of Australia

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

This grocery find may look like a product found in the good ol' US of A, but looks can be deceiving. On our travels, we routinely find some American-branded products with a local twist or an interesting flavor and Lipton has come to the rescue with their line of flavored iced teas. Each of the three drinks emulates the flavor of our favorite cocktails without possibility of a hangover.

more ›

Foreign Grocery Friday / Singapore Travel / Food Travel / Fast Food Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: The Craze Hottis of Singapore

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

This series is typically devoted to fantastic foods we have sampled in far-off lands that we find in grocery stores and even restaurants. This time we found our latest interesting fare at a Singapore 7-11 and, while we do know this is not an authentic eatery, it still sells some snacks that the locals love. Craze Hottis being one of those snacks.

On display in the shop window, like a beacon guiding ships into port, the Craze Hottis machine is illuminated like a popcorn machine and immediately caught our eye. Outfitted with paper bucket and a self-serve scoop, we had to dig in. Opening up the door to a warm cave of crunchy goodness, we filled our container and waited in line to pay and high tail it out.

more ›

Food Travel / Foreign Grocery Friday / Chile Travel / Santiago Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: The Mote con Huesillos of Chile

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

While the northern hemisphere is unpacking the down vests and preparing to layer for the winter, the southern hemisphere is stripping for the quickly warming temps of spring. Down in Chile, this means the arrival of the Mote con Huesillos vendors, streetcarts which shovel cooked wheat (mote) into a cup, add dried peaches (huesillos) and pour a cold peach-sugar-cinnamon liquid to fill it to the brim.

It's good. It's real good, and it's cheaper (not to mention healthier) than buying a Coca-Cola.

more ›

Foreign Grocery Friday / Singapore Travel / Food Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: The Bak Kwa of Singapore

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

Singapore can easily be considered a foodie's dream destination. From fine dining to inexpensive street food, the city caters to all types of flavors, cuisines and budgets. We have already brought you the kaya toast and the BBQ'd stingray, but now we highlight the addictive taste of Bak Kwa, or BBQ'd sliced dried pork.

more ›

France Travel / Foreign Grocery Friday / Food Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: the Apéricubes of France

When you think France, you think cheese. Delicious, delicious cheese. So do we, and whenever we hit France we always find amazing stuff even in the supermarket. (And in the local village's summer market too, but that's for next week...)

We love us some creamy Saint-Félicien, piquant Morbier, stinky Époisses, crumbly bouchons of chèvre... but there are some things you just remember from a childhood trip to France and go OMG WANT -- and for us, those are Apéricubes.

more ›

Food Travel / Foreign Grocery Friday / Island Travel / Turks and Caicos Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: The Conch Meat of the Caribbean

Fried conch in the Turks & Caicos

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

You know those massive, pink-lined shells from which it's told you can hear the sea? That's called a Conch shell, and for all its beauty, there's an ugly little creature living inside of it. Extract that creature, fry it up and serve it on a white plate and the positive returns: it's damn tasty.

Conch is available all over the Caribbean, and you can do just about as many things with it as with shrimp. Think about that scene in Forrest Gump where Bubba names shrimp dishes, but replace "shrimp" with "conch." "Conch salad, conch gumbo, conch patties, conch fritters," and so on and so forth.

more ›

Drinking Travel / Booze Travel / Tallinn Travel / Estonia Travel / Foreign Grocery Friday / Champagne Travel / Food Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: The Sovietskoe Shampanskoe of the Former Soviet Union

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

This week we're in Tallinn, Estonia, and our selection comes from the liquor aisles in pretty much any supermarket east of Germany, west of Japan and north of China: советское шампанское.

That's "sovietskoe shampanskoe", or "Soviet Champagne," and dates back decades to (you'll be absolutely stunned to know) the Soviet era in Russia and northeastern Europe.

And yes, that's the price in Euros in Tallinn's Viru Keskus supermarket. Keeping it classy with our three-Euro sparkling wine.

more ›

Nantucket Field Trip / Photo Gallery / ACK / Nantucket Travel / Summer Travel / Massachusetts Travel / Island Travel / Foreign Grocery Friday / Food Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: The 'Sconset Sweets of Nantucket

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

This week we've been doing our part to help you enjoy the notoriously expensive summer vacation destination of Nantucket, MA. The island may have no shortage of multi-millionaires wearing Nantucket Reds, spending the season in their fourth home, but it does have a shortage of yummy baked goods.

There are no Panera Breads, Le Pain Quotidiens or other chain bakeries on the island. What it has are small, independent bakeries that run out of the good stuff before noon. We stayed on Nantucket with a descendent of the very first settler, and this man who knows the island inside and out recommended we hit Nantucket Bake Shop, a short bike ride south of town on Orange Street.

There we discovered delightful little powder sugar-coated 'Sconset Sweets, a local pastry named for another town on the island.

more ›

Food Travel / Foreign Grocery Friday / Chocolate Travel / Dessert Travel / Germany Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: The Schaumküsse of Germany

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

Hope you like marshmallows. And chocolate. And stuffing giant, sweet treats into your mouth. You see, there's these things called "Schaumküsse" and they're just as much a part of a German childhood as, say, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were to yours (assuming you're American and born in the last several decades). These Schaumküsse are giant marshmallows on a waffle cookie base, but completely entombed by a hard chocolate shell. Biting into them means breaking the barrier to reach the fluff inside—the "foam kiss."

Wait wait wait—here's the best part. The slogan of the popular Dickmann's brand is "Man, they are Dickmann." Awesome.

more ›