Multi-Continental meals

I am eating oranges. Not this very second, but just as a general, hey, this is a thing I can do.

I realize that for most people, that will be a shoulder shrug at best. Allow me to elucidate. I am trying to be more open to foods and activities and experiences. For a long time, honestly as long as I can remember, I have avoided oranges. I've always liked orange juice, but never oranges. I suspect it is about the texture. There is a chewy gummy aspect to an orange that I don't find, what's the word I want, pleasant. As a young boy, I must have found it actively unpleasant. At least that's my hypothesis, because I like the flavor of the orange. So I think that long ago I formed this bias against oranges because I didn't like the texture when I ate them. But why should adult Erich be manacled to the whims of six-year-old Erich? He shouldn't! Stand up to the inner child!

You might want to sit down for this next one: I'm even eating cucumbers. Wait, wait, caveat: I will not just eat a slice of cucumber, and if they are in my salad in a easily pick outtable way, I will pick them out and give them to Alrica. But when diced cucumber is in my doner or souvlaki, I'm eating it. This is growth!

I've also drank tea when required, even mint tea (going from bad to worse) in Morocco. I drank coffee in Bosnia when Syarra's host mother served it to us. The point is, I am trying to keep my mind open to new possibilities. Thus far, I haven't found I like coffee (though I can stand it.) I definitely still don't like tea, but I can drink it when the situation demands. And as for cucumber, well, cucumber and I will never be friends. I've come to terms with that. I like to think cucumber has as well.

This is all a somewhat rambling lead-in to say that at this point, Alrica and I are comfortably settled into Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. We are staying in the The El Aouina neighborhood in a really nice apartment that has a rather well-appointed kitchen, and a TV that can get channels from about 40 different countries.

We haven't done a lot of the site-seeing of Tunisia yet. Later this week we plan to see the ruins of Carthage, and at some point we'd like to get to the Medina of Tunis. But we were behind on some of our work after the short stay in Geneva, so we have had several days of catching up on that and on rest.

But we have had some interesting meals. The influences on the cuisine are fascinating, in how varied they are and how widespread. For example, we went to a place called Crispy Naan. What we were served was similar to the souvlaki we might get in Albania. It was meat with vegetables and sauces and some fries wrapped in a large circular bread, but wrapped like a cone rather than a burrito. What was very different was the bread. It wasn't a sort of pita bread, but instead it was naan, the traditional bread made in India and Pakistan. The restaurant had a tandoor oven where they were making the bread. Naan is always delicious, and using naan to make the cones for the other ingredients is a win-win! Alrica got hers without spice meaning it was spicy. I got mine with spice meaning it was spicy! Tunisians tend to like spicy foods.

For lunch one day we went to a Mexican restaurant. At least in name it was a Mexican restaurant and we wanted to try that. We've missed Mexican food. Well, spoiler alert, we still do. The restaurant had tacos and burritos, but they were like the French tacos from Morocco that I described in an earlier post. I'm not complaining about the quality of the food. It was tasty. But nothing about the flavors gave it any sort of Mexican mystique. I'm not sure there was a microgram of cumin involved in the preparation.

My nasi goreng (Indonesian dish) with fried egg with runny yolk, which I ate. (More growth!)

Today we decided to try East Asian food. And it truly was similar to food from that region. This is fascinating to me. I'm in Africa, eating recipes from Asia, and reading the menu in French which is a European language. I enjoyed the food a lot and realized how much I have been missing rice.

We are also trying to take advantage of the fresh food choices. Today we bought a round loaf of bread at a bakery. The other day we got some tomatoes from the local fruit and vegetable stand. But don't worry, we are getting our recommended daily allowance of junk food too. Like check out this chocolate bar from a Tunisian company. It's better than the description might imply, in much the same way that oranges are better than their texture might imply.

Mmm, milky compound. That sounds appetizing.

If you're waiting around for some similar praise directed at cucumbers, well, you've got a long wait ahead of you.