Wyn Drabble: Infuse your food with the romance of place

No fine restaurant ever served crayfish as good as that eaten in my fingers by the coast. Photo / NZME

COMMENT: Last week, one of my sons sent a photo of the meal he was about to eat in Bali. The key reason for sharing was the price he paid – just a couple of New Zealand dollars.

I recognised the meal – gado gado – so I asked him if it was as good as the one I quite often make at home. The answer was a definite no but, sadly, mine lacks the romance of place. It's not that home isn't very special but it is deficient in the areas of palm trees and warm seawater.

Another son once shared pictures of some of his meals in Mexico. All of them featured the romance of place but none, he said, was as good as the versions from the local Mexican back home. The Mexicans could not even match the margaritas of home.

Timely here to remind you of the old joke about the authenticity of Mexican restaurants in other parts of the world. You'll know the restaurant and the food are genuine if the waiter recommends that you don't drink the water.

The third son once shared a photo of his caponata meal from Italy. His mother makes a better version at home but its only shortcoming is that it's not surrounded by Sorrento.

I realise that, in the countries mentioned there would have been far better examples available but that would have been at a price beyond the boys' travel budgets. The fact still remains that the romance of eating can be enhanced by place. It is perhaps the culinary equivalent of real estate's location, location, location.

Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker. Photo / NZME

While it is true that the French create some of the world's finest food, the fare served at those vast sidewalk cafes in Paris is often very ordinary at best. And outrageously expensive.

But, while you may be served better and cheaper food at a cafe in Tirau or Cambridge, it is hard to match the romance of sitting at one of those Parisian tables being served by a tray-bearing waiter and having your bank account drained of funds.

This romance of place principle does not just apply to exotic overseas locations. No fine restaurant has ever served me crayfish as good as that eaten with my fingers while sitting on the coastal roadside in Kaikoura. For one thing, the restaurant cannot match the smell of kelp swirling in the salty air, a key part of the experience. And, in the restaurant, no seagulls mew their plaint.

No wonder then that some of the most memorable fish and chipperies are on wharves or jetties at which the fishing boats moor and unload their catch. Straight into the shop. Fresh.

It is all linked, I suppose, to the French concept of terroir, the idea that a given place, with its climate and soil, will influence the taste of a product. Nowhere is this more important than in the world of wine where a cultivated ecosystem and type of vine work together to produce distinctive and regional differences.

I'm not a big drinker of rosé, for example, but in Provence I often chose it. The blushing beverage was the right choice because it was of the place. Often it could be successfully complemented by another glass of exactly the same.

I vividly remember my first time in the south of Spain. I was wandering through a white village hoping to experience some local food when I came across a blackboard outside a cafe. Probably aimed at British tourists, it read (oh, shock, horror!): We serve baked beans on toast.

If my romance of place principle is right, I'll wager they wouldn't taste as good as they would back in Skegness.

• Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.