Finally, I want to talk a little bit about experiences.
We've talked a lot about the different foods
you can eat, but I want to talk about the
activities that you can do to bring a greater
appreciation for food into your travels in Europe.
One of the most popular ways to do that,
especially these days, are cooking classes.
Again, these are so popular, they're
popping up all over Europe and it's a
really fun way to learn about the
culture and also to take home a skill.
You can go home and actually make some of these dishes at home.
I want to tell you about a really beautiful cooking
class experience I had, the ultimate in what you
can accomplish in one of these classes with a
Michelin star chef in a small hill town in Tuscany.
His name was chef Roberto.
I was staying in an agriturismo when they
set up this experience where me and some
of my friends could shadow chef Roberto
in his kitchen, and it was an education.
He was very proud of the local cuisine.
He took out two eggs, he said, "This egg is
a farm-fresh egg from across the street.
This egg is one that I bought at a supermarket.
I'm going to crack them both and you tell
me which one is the farm-fresh egg."
Pretty obvious that the bright orange
one on the left is the farm-fresh egg.
Then he swept that egg into a container of
flour and he added a few ingredients, and
he kneaded, and kneaded, and kneaded and
created this perfect classic dough for pasta.
He invited us all to touch it so we knew how our dough should feel
under our fingers when it was ready if we were making this at home.
Then he took that dough and he rolled it out and put
it through his roller and created these little bundles
where he rolled it up and then he pulled out his knife
and he started slicing off noodles at different widths.
As he went, he described which noodle he was making.
This is pappardelle.
It's wide.
This is tagliatelle.
It's a little bit less wide.
This is angel hair pasta, and with one
very talented chef and a knife in about
10 minutes, he had an array of about 10
different kinds of pasta before him.
It was so inspiring to be in the presence
of somebody with that kind of talent.
Then, when we went home and we made our own pasta, we
actually had a little more insight into how that worked.
Of course, we got to taste it as well.
Another really popular trend these days in Europe is food tours.
There's cooking classes, but then there's food
tours, which are designed to take you around
the city and introduce you to some of the
really interesting producers in that place.
I did a really excellent food tour in Spain, in the city
of San Sebastian, which is known for its tapas scene.
I've been to a lot tapas bars over the
years, but finally with this food tour,
having a great guide, I understood in a more
nuanced way the tapas culture of Spain.
When we walked in the door at one place, she walked us
past all of the dishes lined up on the bar in front.
In the back, you saw another line up of tapas that were all raw.
She said, "If you want really fresh tapas,
you skip the stuff up front, and you
come in the back and you tell them which
they want, and they'll grill it up fresh.
That way, you know you're getting the freshest food."
From that array of things in the back, she
ordered a plate of pimientos de Padrón.
They're a little bit like shishito peppers in the United States.
She explained the custom behind this.
They deep fry them, flash fry them with a little bit of coarse salt.
If you didn't have her with you, you wouldn't know
that because of the different amounts of sunlight, the
different parts of the plant get, some of these peppers
are normal peppers and some are really hot peppers.
It's kind of a Russian roulette sort of fun game for people.
[laughter]
Everyone takes a pepper, and you wait to
bite to see which one you might have gotten.
These are these great kind of cultural
nuances that you can learn on your own.
Of course, we tried to put these in our
guidebooks, but having a local person walk
you by the hand and show you all of this
stuff, it can really be an education.
I took another great food tour in Poland, for example, where I
learned more about Poland than I ever thought that I would know.
I learned a lot about Polish history and
Polish culture, not just Polish cooking.
The really best food tours are a good worthwhile investment.
The last type of food experience that I want to talk
about is learning about where your food comes from.
This is really interesting.
If you're really into food, you can actually go visit farms.
You can actually go stay on a farm.
There's a whole culture for this.
In Italy, it's called agriturismo.
Okay, agriturismo.
It's a place where you're actually staying on
a working farm, and if it's done really well, they're
going to create some activities and some experiences
that will help you understand what they're doing.
My favorite agriturismo is a place in Tuscany called Cletagliolle.
This is Isabella and Carlo.
They run this place.
I stayed there once, for a week with my family.
It was a real education in all different aspects of Tuscan food.
First, we walked around their actual farmhouse, we met Luciano,
the father of the family and the farmer who owns this farm.
One time, I was hanging out with Luciano, and he was
watching tourists try to harvest olives from his trees.
He kind of nudged me and he said, "This
is the problem with agriturismo.
There's a lot of turismo, but not as much agri.".
[laughter]
We made sure to have all different kinds of culinary experience.
They set-up a tour for us at a Pecorino cheese factory.
Pecorino cheese comes from this part of Tuscany.
We got to learn how Pecorino cheese
is made, the history of that cheese,
and we got to sample several different types of Pecorino cheese.
Then, we went on a truffle hunt through the woods.
We followed this adorable dog named Milly and her owner as she
led us on this kind of wild goose chase through a wooden forest.
Finally, she got excited and she started
digging, and her owner pulled her aside.
He pulled out his little shovel and started digging very, very carefully.
Sure enough, he pulled out this delicious little
nugget of truffle, and he gave us all a whiff.
The grand finale of our week at this agriturismo was pasta-making night.
We all gathered in the common room, and Isabella, the owner
of the place, first she made this giant wad of pasta dough.
Then, she broke off little chunks, and she distributed to each of us.
Each family had an opportunity to try hand rolling
the local pasta, the local noodle called pici.
We didn't all succeed, but we all had
a really good meal at the end of it.
It is possible to have these kinds of experiences all over Europe.
If you're in Eastern Europe, you'll understand that there
is a culture for people making their own plum brandy.
You can go to a little farm in the middle
of nowhere, and someone will take
you into their barn and say, "Let me
show you the plums that I harvested.
Then, let me show you the still, where
I make my own homemade brandy."
One of my favorite countries is Slovenia, where
they have a very proud beekeeping culture.
It's a really important part of Slovenian culture.
Near Lake Bled, which is a famous destination
there, there's a guy who opens up his
beehive and lets people see and learn about
this traditional Slovenian technique
of beekeeping and learn all about how
that's part of their food culture, but it's
also a very, very important part of their
national culture and their folk culture.
Folks, I hope that this has provided you with some
inspiration and also some practical tips for how to
incorporate food into your travels, and maybe after
this, you, like me, will consider yourself a foodie.
I wish you very happy travels and very happy eating.
Thank you very much.
[music playing]