Food and Travel

Last night, our family in London celebrated the Feast of Epiphany (the visit of the three kings to the baby Jesus) with a delicious Galette des Rois, acquired from the French bakery, Paul, on the Kings Road. Galettes are a type of cake, typically filled with frangipane, in which a small porcelain figure is hidden. The person who gets the piece of cake with the figure is King or Queen for a day and wears the crown that is usually supplied with the galette with enormous pride.

Food can take us on journeys even when we stay home. Celebrating with a Galette des Rois took this family back to a time when we shared our holidays together in France. We had lots of fun partaking of this very French tradition and the galette from Paul was quite good. Eating Galette des Rois is not a perfect substitute for crossing the Channel but it certainly turned last night’s family dinner into a Gallic inspired celebration.

Thanks to several NoCrowds readers, 2008 is off to a fast start on the subject of food and travel. In case you missed it in the comments section, John Chypre provided a terrific list of international food sites including C’est moi qui l’ai fait which has a good looking Galette des Rois recipe for adventurous cooks who speak some French. For lovers of German food and language, you can also find a recipe for a Galette des Rois (Dreikoenigskuchen) in John’s recommended Chili und Ciabatta. From an American in Frankfurt came the excellent suggestion that we check out the websites for Road Food and Simple Cooking.

Here is the list of all the food sites readers have generously sent in so far. For more details straight from the source, check out the Comments section of the previous post – and feel free to add any great sites for lovers of food and travel.

Cup cake
C’est moi qui l’ai fait (in French)
Papilles et pupilles(in French)
Clea cuisine (in French)
La cuisine de mercotte (in French)
Chili und ciabatta (in German)
Road Food
Simple Cooking