When we first moved to Indonesia I spent the longest time at our local grocers looking for coriander. I eventually gave up and grabbed something which seemed to smell and look similar. Wanting to show my early travel prowess I announced with great excitement to a group of new friends that I’d made an amazing discovery.
“It’s called Cilantro and it’s just about exactly the same”.
When the group could eventually maintain its laughter a fellow Aussie put me out of my misery “It is the same you idiot”.
It was my first introduction to the fabulously popular international game of Name That Food. A game which is closely related to the slightly more frustrating past-time of hungry travellers Find That Food.
I’ve spent the last 14 years of my life playing both games in various forms around the world. If the game stretches out for too long it usually ends with me doing an interpretive dance/game of charades while standing in a vegetable stall. Do you know how hard it is to mime an eggplant?
Over the years I’ve enhanced and developed my culinary vocabulary. Capsicum to peppers. Zucchini to corguettes. Spring onion to scallion. Rock melon to cantaloupe. Eggplant to aubergine. Jam to jelly. But there is also the world of the unknown. Right name, wrong food.
In North America I quickly learnt that gravy was not gravy, biscuits were not biscuits and jelly, jam and jello could have me requiring a dark room and a panodol – except there was no panadol. In a cafe in Canada the little travellers searched for the bubbles in the lemonade I’d ordered, “oh this is home-made” I explained, “it’s not fizzy drink, it’s kind of like lemon cordial. I’ll ask what they call lemon fizzy drink.”
“Ma’am, I don’t think we want to go there today do we?” the waitress replied.
As confused as we were by her answer, it’s a phrase I’ve kept with me. Do I really want to go there today, do we really need to have the potayto/pahtahto, tomayto/tomahto discussion again? Interestingly, the little travellers now always refer to anything fizzy as Pop. Our Canadian life has stayed with us in various forms.
In Libya it was the yiros shop on every corner that got the conversation going. After debating with fellow Aussies over whether it was a yiros, kebab or souvlaki, we learnt we were all wrong, it was a Shawarma. And after 4 years in the Middle East it will now always be a Shawarma.
And then there’s the political food. A recent salad search had me looking for Moghrabieh in the local shops, a large round cous cous that I’d heard the locals refer to as Lebanese Cous Cous. I’d found a fantastic recipe for my lebanese cous cous which involved pumpkin that had been roasted in brown sugar, nutmeg, chilli flakes, cumin and garlic. I’d added rocket, sultanas and prosciutto. It was declared Instagram worthy.
“Is that what Americans would call Israeli cous cous?” someone asked.
My Lebanese cous cous was now controversial cous cous. As controversial as an Australian and a Kiwi at an International School bake sale discussing the heritage of a Pavlova.
I thought about our waitress in Canada. I don’t think we want to go there today do we?
*What have I forgotten? Have you rediscovered cilantro? Insulted a turnip by calling it a Swede?
Hmmmmm… I’m not sure we want to go there today on the Pavlova debate….. 🙂
It’s interesting how confusing food can be around the world. I’ve had many conversations with people about food and ingredients, only to discover that we’re talking about the same thing, but neither of us knew it!
Hahaha…LOVE! It wasn’t until we moved to Japan that I learned coriander and cilantro were the same plant. In the US, only the seeds are called coriander. I thought it was a pretty fantastic discovery. I feel your foodie pain. Especially in countries where even the alphabet is different, you have no hope of figuring it out on your own. Thank heaven my daughter knows katakana and some kanji. She’s helped me with labeling on a few occasions, so I don’t end up with fermented bean paste when I think I’m choosing chocolate. And before I even got to that part, I was pretty sure you were talking about Israeli cous cous. Love that stuff! I have to have it shipped in via Amazon, though. 🙂
I’ve seen friendships fall apart over the pavlova debate. 🙂
I thought I’d bought black bean paste the other day and STILL have no idea what I bought. I think its some sort of star anise based paste but it appeared to have pods in it from a bean or olive? Further investigation required. Loved the picture of you thinking you’d got chocolate only to discover it was bean paste – Oh the disappointment! 🙂
How could you forget chips / French fries and chips / crisps? It does my head in every time. Sadly, I’m the only one in this family who likes Israel couscous. I think I’ve also seen it called pearl couscous, possibly on a restaurant menu.
Oh yes, I find that I have to be fluent in 5 different dialects at times to get my point across. The candy/sweets/lollies thing is always an issue and every time we go out for lunch we still order lemonade instead of Sprite or Seven-up.
I had a kid look at me like I was mad recently when I mentioned that it was so cold my daughter had to wear a singlet. ‘What’s a singlet?’ I couldn’t think of a reply until my British friend piped up ‘It’s a vest’.
My all-time favourite was when my husband asked a Canadian mate to ‘put the stubbies in the esky and the snags near the barbie’ the look of confusion was priceless.
And, yes, we will always call it a schwarma now.
Still giggling over the stubbies in the esky and the snags near the barbie. Love love love it!
I think for a long time I just asked for wedges to stop any confusion 🙂 I actually stood at a party on Saturday night with a wedge in my hand asking someone “what do you call this?” I wondered if she had a different name for it. The music was loud and I had to repeat myself a couple of times. It felt like something out of the movie The Castle “What’ya call this darls?” “It’s a wedge.”
Thank you! I now know how to ask for “Israeli” couscous in Kuwait…
Tamarind paste? Does it taste sour?
I’d never heard of cilantro either till we got to the States, and also only heard shawarma for the first time here at the middle eastern deli, but normally it’s kabob! I mean, kabob! What a silly word that is. It will always remain a kebab to me. And two years in my husband still insists on calling fries chips which gets him disappointed a lot. I find myself increasingly saying ‘wodda’ and ‘tomaydo’ and ‘bay-sil’ etc, to get understood more quickly. Sometimes you just have to give in! Great piece.
I’m always given a strange look when I ask for an iceblock – here in Liverpool, they call it an icelolly, even when it is icecream based… what the what? And after 7 years, I still struggle with the crisps/chips thing. It should be chips or hot chips.
When we moved to the US I struggled with so much – I remember my first trip to Safeway and it was the straw that broke the camels back in that move – I absolutely lost it when I couldn’t find napisan, it took a well placed phone call to my darling sister in San Fran to discover what I was looking for was oxygen activated soaker! The humiliation of it all! Another favourite is the garbanzo/chickpea name – took me months to discover! The vest/singlet thing seems to have been settled now we live in the UK, but that did start an argument between the cousins last year.
Oh yes, shopping was sooo fun when we first arrived in the States. A Brit growing up in South Africa and transplanted to the States. Was it an aubergine a brinjal or an eggplant? A baby marrow, a courgette or a zucchini? Peppers, pickles, cornichons … The trunk or the boot, the hood or the bonnet, the pavement and the sidewalk … and of course all that driving on the wrong side of the road … A pinafore now a jumper, while a jumper was now a sweater, a waistcoat became a vest, and a vest became a wife beater … dreadful name. oh .. .the fun.
Best one in India was when we asked for avocado.no one sold it, jet available in almost all restaurants….turned out it’s called butter fruit which we found out by accident. Now enjoying large quantities of butter fruit when in season!
Coriander – I thought it was called “Chinese parsley”? At least, that is what I have to buy in Singapore in order to get the same thing…
Mmm…I think we need to see a Vimeo of you miming an eggplant..or is it an aubergine? 😉
My kind of post….have spent hours in many countries searching the markets and grocery stores for items with names different than what I was familiar with. Gets even harder when the alphabet is different as well.
One incident in Nairobi is still vivid. I went to 7 yes 7 kitchen shops (small in the olden days) looking for a “cookie sheet” and every single shop owner told me he didn’t have it, until finally in shop 7 I actually saw one and pointed it out. “Oh, no,” said the man, “that’s a biscuit tin.”
PMSL… I was laughing at this thinking about Pav, AND then you mentioned it! Great minds…I think the Kiwis win that Pav battle IMHO.