I have a small doubt.
Does food actually taste better when we're travelling, or do we just become very easy to impress once we leave home?
I am not talking about the local cuisine here, that can be a hit or miss. I am talking about the very same food. It's the same chai, the same chutney cheese sandwich and the same packet of Lay's Cream and Onion that I can buy from the baniya shop under my building. Nothing about that packet has changed. Same company, same flavour, same disappointing amount of chips inside. But I open it on a journey, and I don't know how it just feels a lot more satisfying.
Does Lay's have a separate production line for people going on holiday? I don't think so.
So, as ACP Pradyuman says...
And before you try to close this case by saying, "bro, you are just hungry." Yeah! I get it. Walking around all day does that to me. By lunchtime, I'll definitely appreciate everything that comes hot and doesn't require any further walking. But let me be very clear: that doesn't explain all of it.
There's definitely something else about eating when I'm going, or when I've arrived somewhere, that I just enjoy more.
On a Trip, Deciding What to Eat Is Part of the Day
At home, we mostly know how lunch will happen. Even when we don’t know the exact dish, we know the routine. Lunch fits somewhere between things we need to do. We eat, get up and continue.
On a trip, “What should we eat?” is a whole different itinerary. We’re looking at shops, reading menus, checking what somebody else has ordered. Someone may spot something across the road. Someone may remember a recommendation. Well, now we’re walking in a completely different direction because "maybe" there’s good food there.
I can't really complain because I like when food gets this much attention. And it isn't always about a famous restaurant or some local dish that I researched before arriving. Sometimes it’s just something that looks irresistible at the exact moment I pass it.
And there’s a lot of excitement before eating it because you don’t quite know what you’re getting into. You’re seconds away from having a mind-blowing moment, which can go either way. Of course, travelling doesn’t protect us from those. Irresistible is not always equal to amazing. But when it works out, even a simple meal can feel like we’ve found something worth telling people about.
Hunger Definitely Helps
Credit where it's due. Hunger.
You, cute little soul, leave after breakfast, walk around, take a few wrong turns and keep postponing lunch because there’s something else you want to see first. By the time you sit down, you’re hungry enough to become slightly unpleasant company. Not blaming you at all. You are just hungry, that's it.
The food arrives, and there it is. The cute little soul is back.
A hot meal at that point has a lot going for it. So does the chair. We should probably include the chair when reviewing the experience, don't we?
But I don’t think we need to be exhausted for food to feel good on a trip. Sometimes we’ve barely done anything. We’re just sitting somewhere we like, with something we want to eat, and nobody needs us to finish quickly.
That can be enough.
We Have More Time to Enjoy the Meal
I think this matters more than I usually admit.
When I’m travelling, I can sit somewhere and eat without immediately feeling that I should finish and get on with something else. Unless I'm rushing to catch a train, in which case everybody should stop suggesting me another coffee.
But on a day with a little room in it, I stay. Order something else if I want. Talk about what happened that morning to a completely random stranger or maybe just watch what’s going on outside.
Even deciding what to eat next is a perfectly acceptable use of time.
At home, spending that long over lunch can feel like the afternoon has disappeared. On a trip, that might have been a really good afternoon.
This is part of why I enjoy travelling slowly. I like having enough time to notice ordinary things, including the food in front of me.
Maybe I enjoy it more because I’m actually there for the meal. I haven’t finished half of it while looking at something on my phone and then suddenly noticed that I’m eating.
I’m paying attention. Occasionally even to the person sitting with me.
Can the Place Change How Food Tastes?
Apparently, our surroundings can affect what we experience while eating and drinking.
In one study involving 441 participants, researchers served whisky in different themed rooms. People’s ratings of its flavour and their enjoyment changed with the setting. Oxford’s Somerville College explains the experiment here.
That doesn’t explain every holiday meal. It does make me wonder how much the place contributes when I say something tasted amazing.
Maybe I liked the food. Maybe I also liked sitting there, hearing what was going on around me and knowing I didn’t have to leave yet.
I can’t give you a percentage for each. I was eating lunch, not conducting a science experiment.
Sometimes the Food Really Is Better
I also don’t want to give my holiday mood all the credit. Somebody cooked that food.
Maybe it’s fresh. Maybe that place makes one thing really well. Maybe we happened to walk in when it had just been prepared. Or maybe the recommendation was actually useful for once.
On our Goa trip, we stopped at an old bakery near Mapusa for Bebinca and Dodol. We ate at Gunpowder, went to Garden of Dreams and made random food stops while riding around. Those are still places I remember when I think about our very unplanned Goa trip.
I can’t neatly separate the food from everything else we were enjoying. But I also don’t feel any need to. We were there, we ate, and it became part of the trip.
What I find funny is how confidently we recommend a meal afterwards.
“Bhai, whenever you go there, you have to eat this.”
And I mean it. But the other person might arrive tired, have to wait forty minutes, order something different and wonder what I was so excited about.
Now I’m defending a restaurant in another city as if I secretly own a 16% stake in that restaurant.
So, Why Does Food Taste Better When We’re Travelling?
Probably because a few good things happen together. We find food we enjoy, arrive hungry, give it more attention and have time to sit somewhere we actually want to be.
I’ve written about how different I feel when I’m travelling, and I think that feeling sometimes comes to lunch with me.
It doesn’t mean every meal away from home is wonderful. We’ve all spent money on something we should have left alone. But the good meals tend to stay with us, along with where we ate, who was there and what we were doing that day.
Sometimes it’s an ordinary cup of chai, but we’re happy because we’ve finally left, our bags are with us and there’s a whole trip still to happen.
The chai gets to be part of that.
Anyway, if I tell you something tasted better on a trip, please don’t immediately explain that I was probably just hungry.
I was there. I ate it. Let me be excited about it for a bit.
Food stops, unplanned trips and whatever else happens along the way. We write about those in our free newsletter, World Is Local.
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