Results tagged “journey”

We're about to start a culinary journey around Europe and West Africa: finding out about (and testing!) the food, and talking to the people who grow, prepare and eat it.

We'll be posting pictures, recipes, food facts and (occasionally) general diary stuff. The "about" pages here have more information about the journey (where we'll be going and roughly when), and some information about who we are and why we're doing this.

But at the moment we're still in Cambridge trying to get everything ready: vehicle, documentation, camping gear, clothes for snowy Poland and sunny Turkey, and so on. And we still need to find some good cheap espresso cups.

During 2008 we undertook a culinary journey around as much of Europe, Turkey and north & west Africa as we could cover, gathering recipes and stories as we went.  It was incredible; we met so many talented cooks, both domestic and professional, and learnt a tonne.

We posted pictures, recipes, food facts and general diary stuff on the way.  We're continuing to add more now that we're back in the UK, so keep checking for posts added more recently for all the countries we've visited. 

Loading map ...

The map shows our journey and everywhere we stopped.  We split the adventure into two legs: first we drove east to Turkey and back; then south to Ghana, from where we flew home.  This is roughly how it panned out:

February	France, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland
March	Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania
April	Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey
May	Turkey, Greece, Italy
June	Italy, Croatia
July	Italy, France
September	France, Spain
October	Morocco
November	Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali
December	Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana

Hello and happy new year!

We made it back to drizzle-land, but only just.  As Matt had suspected, being so early for the flight did in fact turn out to be too good to be true, as we still managed to assume our usual position of last to check in.  (Virgin Atlantic had the cheek to imply I hadn't paid for my ticket, which caused some trouble, especially as it turned out to be true.)

So, now we find ourselves both officially unemployed, which is somewhat disconcerting, but also quite exciting as it gives us some time for an extravagant culinary road trip - the result of a couple of drunken conversations involving phrases like 'you only live once'.  Imagine a 'P'-ish-shaped route going around Europe, from the match day burger vans near our house in Arsenal, via Polish babas, as far as Turkish meze, back via Italian gnocchi, and then down past Moroccan tagines and Burkinabe baguettes to Ghanaian fufu.  The goal is to reach our mates Tom and Jo in Akwidaa, Ghana, in time for a Christmas rum punch on the beach - a party to which you're all invited.

Perhaps you can help?

If you can give us any contacts, tips or recommendations that would be really, really appreciated.  Perhaps you or someone you know can recommend beautiful places to stay, yummy foods to try, restaurants to eat in or work in (I plan to 'stage' in a few places), cooking schools, farms, vineyards, dairies etc to visit, mates with good local knowledge and/or a spare bed....  We'll be stopping everywhere along the 'P', but focussing mainly on France, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Morocco, Senegal, Mali and Ghana.  This sort of thing.

In return I can offer more recipes, drawn from our intensive research into the cuisines of the regions we visit.  They might not be so regular in future I'm afraid.  For example, you might not get one during the alarmingly long, very deserty and in places land-mined stretch through Western Sahara and Mauritania.  (Don't worry mum, apparently local armed guides can lead you through the worst patches.)

If you can help, please call or email.  Recipes will resume shortly...