EYW Blog

All photos by Coen Wubbels

One thing was certain: Had we searched for dinner on our own upon arriving in Seoul, we never would have eaten fish cakes, rice cakes in gochujang, fried tofu, and anchovies with peanuts for our first meal. We don’t speak Korean, and we hadn’t yet done much research about what to eat here. Where would we have found these dishes? How would we even have known they exist?

My partner, Coen, and I were in luck. A Korean couple had followed our travel adventures on our website for a while, and when they learned we were coming to their country, Jin and Suna offered us accommodation in their home. Local people inviting you to their homes is always a gift, but...

It’s a famously overexploited, not quite endangered, species. But when conch is on every menu in town, there’s got to be a ton of ’em, right? A look at that beloved Caribbean mollusk, the queen conch—and how to help protect it.


Shell vendor on Potter's Cay, Nassau

“Are you feeling conchy tonight?” the waitress inquired with a smile when we wondered aloud about the Bimini conch linguine—a $22 Bahamian take on the traditional Italian clam dish, apparently. We were at a sports bar outside Nassau with friends and our collective flock of young kids, and we’d already had conch fritters and a conch patty earlier that day. The general consensus: Aren’t we always feeling conchy down...

Markets are often the best place to experience the very essence of a city's culinary culture—and quickly. Contributor Giulia Blocal brings us this introduction to the food markets of Athens, Greece.


The farmers market at Perissos. All photos by Giulia Blocal.
 

From the heart of the Mediterranean basin, Greek cuisine is composed of a wide variety of dishes mirroring its long history, variegated landscape, and crossroads nature. On a recent trip to Athens, I encountered lots of meat (pork, lamb, beef, goat, chicken, veal, and rabbit), vegetables, and tasty savory pies (including tiropita, layered phyllo pastry filled with cheese, and spanakopita, spinach pie), as well as Greek...

Some required viewing for when you don’t want to cook, you don’t feel like reading, and you’ve already eaten.

Chef (2014)

This cooking comedy, filmed in mock-documentary style, emphasizes the influence that modern social media can have on a chef’s reputation. Directed by and starring Jon Favreau, the audience gets an insider’s perspective of what it’s like to be the head chef of a once hoity-toity Los Angeles restaurant. Chef Carl Casper (Favreau) can’t deny that his cooking has seen better days when an unpitying food critic dines at his restaurant and tweets about how disappointing the meal was. Furious, Carl, once known for his creative food, becomes more famous for the...