culture shock: food

I heard before I arrived here that Belgians pride themselves on having good food and good drink.

With the amazing selection of fabulous beers I will definitely not argue there.

As for the food selection, I haven't explored the culinary options in the city enough to render a valid judgement. But going out to eat has been an adventure.

Mostly because my French is not perfect. I know many food related words, but not all of them, so I will have an idea of what I am eating but it never is what I expect.

For example, the first week I was here I ordered something that involved ham. I recognized "jambon" in the title as ham so I decided to try it. What arrived on my plate was something wrapped in ham, some sort of vegetable. Turns out it was endive, wrapped in ham and baked with cheese. It was pretty good.

The next week I decided to order something that I felt sure I recognized: "grill burger". I assumed it would be a burger and fries, but it was actually a hamburger patty, on a salad with fries. No bun. This also came with my choice of sauce, I guessed at one and it was pretty good.

Speaking of burgers, I am sorry to say that I have eaten at McDonald's or Quick (Belgian McDonalds) a bit more than I should (since really I shouldn't at all) because I have been cowardly about dealing with trying converse with a waiter in French. But even in the fast food world there have been some surprises.

Like, the fact that here it seems people do not expect their hamburgers at fast food places to be cooked completely. The first beef burger I had at Quick was pink in the middle, more pink than my American-E.Coli-fearing senses were comfortable with. Since then I have switched to chicken, like this Very Important Burger:



I confirmed my suspicions about the done-ness of the burgers when I was in line at McDonald's and they were putting trays of burgers out to be boxed for customers, and I could see red juiciness dripping off of the burger patties down the side of the bun. Now I am all for a good medium rare steak, but fast food burgers need to be well-done for my tastes. So I have stuck to the McChicken, specifically the 'large' McChicken meal, which is the same as the American 'medium' McChicken meal but twice as expensive.

At the moment McDonald's is having a special set of burgers called
Stars of America, I am curious about them, but I don't know if I will be able to get over my fear of pink for that.

By this time tomorrow, I will be in my brand new tiny studio apartment. I will be right in the heart of the city and have my own kitchen so I will no longer be dependent upon fast food and microwave dinners, then the real food adventures will begin!