It’s the oldest story in the blogosphere, but I want to tell you about what I had for breakfast.
Specifically, I want to tell you about the coffee I drank this morning with my oatmeal. Colombia Monteblanco Coconut Lemonade is a co-fermented roast from Sloane, one of Romania’s first specialty coffee producers. I picked up the bag of beans on my summer vacation, a dream rail trip that started in Paris and ended in Istanbul.
(About that itinerary: We were supposed to begin our journey in London, but a series of flight cancellations meant we had to skip the Chunnel and catch our train at Gare du Nord, the historic starting point of the Orient Express. And before we hack our way out of the logistical weeds, I should mention that Byway, a U.K. agency, booked tickets for the itinerary we plotted, saving us the trouble of deciphering timetables in seven foreign languages. Highly recommended!)
But back to the beans, and their subtle caramel notes. I knew I was going to eat well across Europe, and was especially excited about the provisioning trips to local markets that would precede our sleeper car stays. Unlike the Orient Express, the trains we took had no dining cars, so stocking up on cured meats, bread, cheese, and morning pastries was essential.
What I hadn’t anticipated was how well I would drink—and while I swear this isn’t a cheap plug for The Food Section’s new beverage vertical, how can I let such an obvious promotional opportunity escape?
Paid subscribers read on Monday about my Hungarian wine explorations, and related attempts to better understand what transpired in Budapest, Georgia at the turn of the twentieth century. But that was just one fascinating genre I encountered between my first café crème on the edge of Les Puces and my last glass of raki at the Pera Palace Hotel.
Of course, it helped that our route traversed places with exceptional liquid traditions. I’m not sure I would have come home from Manitoba raving about what I drank. At least on this trip, though, I was struck by how easily ingredients and people travel nowadays, meaning I can have a fine Bulgarian meal thousands of miles from the Balkans. Yet beverages tend to stay closer to home, either because it doesn’t make financial sense to ship them internationally, or because their exportation is restricted by various liquor laws.
Additionally, while this isn’t true across the board, beverages are generally more ritualistic than whatever’s served for supper. When a Romanian prepares your coffee, there’s no doubt you’re in Bucharest.
In any case, these were the drinks that stood out on a journey that was overwhelming from an aesthetic standpoint and staggering from an intellectual one. It’s impossible to tour former empires without considering brutality on a massive scale, including genocide and ongoing persecution. Among Nazism, Communism, and the far-right nationalism now absorbing central Europe, there was plenty upon which to reflect as I sipped.
Lemonade, Hunyadi Tér Park
Since our longest train rides were overnights, we didn’t have much chance to watch the landscape change. But we could gauge our progress from west to east over two weeks by interpretations of lemonade, a drink that was all-important during a stretch of August when the temperature in Celsius invariably started with a three.
No question, Budapest made it best. Every café prepares the drink slightly differently, but it’s hard to beat freshly muddled lemons, oranges, limes and a splash of soda water. That’s especially true if you’ve just climbed out of a thermal bath.
Agape Nichi Rosé Blaufrankisch, Soro Lume
Rumania, Rumania, Rumania! I can’t hear the country’s name without the catchy Yiddish tune playing in my head, but I never knew what its words meant before I went there: “Ay, in Rumania life is so good; no one knows of care/ Everywhere they’re drinking wine…What a pleasure, what could be better!/ Oh, the only delight is Rumanian wine.”
Lyricist Aaron Lebedeff suggests drinking wine while eating mamalige, which is just what we did at the outstanding Soro Lume in Bucharest. No offense to tomato sandwiches, but I’m persuaded there’s nothing more summery than toasted cubes of cornmeal with a lively rose from the tiny wine region of Banat in the Carpathian mountains. Biodynamic producer Agape, which occupies 15 acres of it, is committed to fusing art with viticulture, so there’s part of a poem by anti-Marxist poet Nichita Stănescu on its rosé bottle: “Get out of the tent, friend, let’s sit face to face/ looking at each other, let’s be silent together.”
Pirinsko Pale Lager, Елешница
One of the most interesting things I learned in Bulgaria is the former Eastern Bloc country in the 1970s embarked on a project to standardize its national cuisine. In true Communist fashion, the initiative involved theft and fabrications, but state agency Balkantourist was fairly successful in its attempt to ensure that visitors would eat the same dishes wherever they went. (Relatedly, The Red Flat—a fully interactive recreation of a Communist apartment that’s like an escape room with no escape—is worth a visit if you’re ever in Sofia.)
The other most interesting thing I learned, courtesy of a cabdriver, is there’s a restaurant near the Rila Monastery where you can choose the fish you want caught and cooked for lunch. Interesting, but not true, at least according to the folks at the monastery. But several cafes in the area grill Rilska River trout, which happens to pair beautifully with a popular Bulgarian beer that’s bitter and crisp.
Tea, Turkish State Railways
I went to Turkey with the idea that lots of people would look like my great-grandfather, who was born in Izmir. But that wasn’t even close to the case, since the once multicultural city of Istanbul has been reshaped over the past century by ethnic cleansing, expulsion, and mass emigration to Israel by Sephardic Jews like the ones in my family.
So, rather than seeing men who resembled Morris Benjoya, I had to settle for seeing things he saw. I’m certain that included making tea in a çaydanlık. While the conductor of our train from Sofia didn’t speak any English, another passenger explained he sold tea by the cup for a couple of Euros, made to order on the floor of his compartment. Even if the stacked kettle and hot plate weren’t part of my great-grandfather’s repertoire, I know he would have recognized the deep richness of the tea it produced.
Özerhisar Ayrani, Ayık Çorba
I had the great fortune to meet Alp Şehsuvar of Istanbul’s impressive MSA Culinary Arts Academy through Susan Barocas, a writer and cooking instructor in Washington D.C. Şehsuvar generously took me on a culinary tour of Kadıköy, where he was born and still lives. The neighborhood on Istanbul’s Asian shore is a fantastic place to eat: We sampled pickled green tomatoes, soaked-and-steamed Islak burgers, dried apricots, fresh yogurt, calf’s foot soup, and Turkish delight.
Yet I liked nothing better than stuffed lamb stomach at a restaurant with a reputation as a hangover destination. Before tomatoes and eggplants reached Turkey, stuffing fruits and meats with rice was one of its cooks’ favorite moves: When it’s offal that’s stuffed, rich lamb flavor penetrates the grains. It’s probably the wrong thing to say about stomach, but it’s a wonderfully heady experience.
And for balance, there’s ayran, or Turkish buttermilk. Tart, salty, and cool, it’s a drink that confirms you’ve left Europe behind.
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