Food. To say it’s the best part of travel might be a stretch. Or not. Traveling is about experiencing a different culture, but fundamentally my excitement is always in or around the food. Planning a trip essentially means planning meals out. And the implication of eating out is another exhilarating fact: NOT cooking. It means that every or nearly every meal, I’ll be served. Don’t get me wrong. Cooking is something I quite enjoy, usually. But it’s loads of work, with much less play. 

With home cooking, there are risks. Of getting in a rut. Of our palates growing sick and tired by the same concoctions over and over. Of dull snatchings of food from the fridge and pantry that just don’t measure up to our fussy finicky fastidious and fickle palates. And let’s not forget the kitchen is a treacherously dangerous place. Burns and chopped finger tips are ever at the mercy of misfortune. A hard day’s work only to confront a hard day’s cooking… I ask, where is my play and adventure?!

And to that, I answer: Travel. 

Travel is a must, for sanity’s sake. It’s the equivalent of therapy for all our appetites for life in one neat package. 

When traveling, we suddenly become liberated. Eating out, we can order what we’d never typically order or could ever cook on our own. We become excessive, decadent, insatiable explorers. Plucked away from our routine bubbles, we feel—finally—loosened and adrift. We can wander aimlessly down streets, clueless of time, and exalt in loosening up our strict regimens. We eat and drink more, and partake and step into a new role: as hero or heroine of the art of living. Because, if not then, then when? On our first night’s meal, everything which is brought to the table feels new and thrilling, that even if we find ourselves full, our palate for pleasure and discovery give us into a gluttonous orgy of tastes and smells and presentation and ambiance. We might slip into a food market and come out with a sack of exotic foods to chump merrily away as we wander onward. After fully sated from lunch. This is not hunger of the belly. This is our pleasure-boar come unchained. 

I don’t eat croissants for breakfast, but when in France, their flaky, still-warm-with-gently-unlatched-chocolate goodness somehow makes it all over my fingers, hair, face and lap. Offer me shark, impala, crocodile or fried worms (potato-chip style), and normally, I shall GASP in protest. But on a safari trip to Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa, you’ll find me shamelessly jolly in sampling each and all of them. Tempt me with an oyster and I’ll shun your kind gesture. But airy champagne and slippery oysters in Newport could not feel more right. And Chinese? It never so tickles my fancy as it does at Mr. Chow’s Miami, LA, or NY. The entire indecent portion of fat-laden peking duck somehow manages to never fill me until it’s gone. To all my fat cells. And you can bet I give the death stare to all who want in on my ducky-ness. Rarely am I tempted by a hot dog, unless I’m at Curry 36 in Berlin, where I give no reason or excuse for the Berliner Currywurst’s blatantly impure pedigree, with every drippy luscious bright turmeric-greased mouthful. And what about thick, moist, plush tongue at Hotel Le Royal in Luxembourg, or delicate tongue slices purring, curled up, and herbaceously oily at Chi Spacca LA. And of creamy guacamole and unctuous refried beans? Never do I ever crave or indulge in either, but oddly can’t seem to get enough, en Mejico.

Something else stands out in our behavior as travelers. We become hunters and gatherers. New flavors, new culinary combinations make their way back home with us. And lend a smooth transition as we adjust to our old perfunctory routines. Thanks to all the new foods I bring back home, cooking becomes a thrill once again. Cookies, chocolates, cheeses, deli meats, olives and canned goods… they all accompany and travel back with me, prized and cherished in their own luggage.

Realistically speaking, travel carries its fair share of mundanities and inconveniences. But these sporadic moments hold no consequence to our passionate hero and gypsy within. It’s what we bring back with us that matters. The cultural remnants and personal interactions left on our being. The photos which captured only the best of our journey. Our new treasures and findings, and all those life-altering cheeses and chocolates🤓. A newfound enthusiasm for cooking, thankfully. A refreshed perspective on routine, and our epicurean urges and life’s cravings all aflutter. 

So, dear Gastronauts, while it is true psychotherapy holds great value, so too does that therapy we so casually refer to as Travel.