A Welsh Feast on St David’s Day © The Trustees of the British Museum
If you spent any time abroad this summer—especially with children—you might appreciate Samuel Clemens’ humorous disdain for the food he encountered while traveling in 1878:
Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we can enjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I might glorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the Scotchman would shake his head and say, “Where’s your haggis?” and the Fijian would sigh and say, “Where’s your missionary?” ~ Mark Twain (Sam Clemens), A Tramp Abroad
My family members are older and tend to savor “foreign” food. But we all share Clemens’ longing for “ice-water—not prepared in the ineffectual goblet, but in the sincere and capable refrigerator.”
