Europe's Moveable Feasts
In my quest to experience Europe as the locals do -- intimately and on all fronts -- I make a point to eat well. My trip is always the better for it. (My challenge is broadening my perspective while leaving my waistline unchanged.)
These days, my job of eating well is getting easier all the time. Food tours and cooking classes have become a big deal all over Europe.
Most food tours have lunch or dinner versions, last about three hours, come with a mile of walking and include four to eight stops. Along the way, you'll sample a variety of local flavors for a bit more than the cost of a splurge dinner ($70 to $100), all thoughtfully explained by a local guide.
The eating styles vary: Some are mobile feasts, where you stand and share a plate of little bites, while others feature sit-down dining experiences. All will fill you up, and should be considered a meal and a tour, wrapped up in one (making the splurge easier to justify).
I'd skip the bigger, more expensive, and slower tours. The best ones move at a brisk pace and max out at eight or 10 people -- which means you can squeeze into small shops and boutique restaurants. The most expert guides fluidly intersperse history, tradition and local food culture while giving you a great glimpse into daily life in less-seen parts of a city.
Last summer, I signed up for a food tour of Paris' historic Marais neighborhood. Our first stop was a bakery that had just placed in the city's annual "best baguette" contest.
As we tore into our just-out-of-the-oven bread, our guide made sure we heard the telltale "crrrrriiikkk" of a perfect crust breaking. The French take their bread seriously: by law, a true baguette must contain only flour, water, salt and yeast. You can tell if a loaf is handmade by its pointy, not blunt, ends.
And then there were the croissants. Before this tour, I never knew that the shape of a croissant could tell me if it was made with butter. Butter produces a croissant with more or less straight sides. The "croissant ordinaire," with a curvier profile, is made with lowly margarine.
Our next stop was a "traiteur" -- a gourmet deli. Locals who don't feel like cooking (worn out by their 35-hour work week) pop in here for food to go. To dress up my bread, we were given a duck "rillette" (looks like tuna salad but tastes much better) and some thinly sliced ham.
Next we followed our noses to a nearby fromagerie, where the cheese mongers, standing white-coated like pharmacists, welcomed us in. How to choose from the wedges, cylinders, balls and miniature hockey pucks of cheese?
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