They say that travel is broadening.  By this it is meant that travel expands the mind.  You learn about other countries and other cultures – things you couldn't learn in school. In my case, travel has also been broadening in another sense.  It expands me physically.  I always gain weight when I travel!  By Lynne Davis

Although I don't consider myself a "foodie," someone passionate about food, who wants to go to the best restaurants and puts that at the top of her list of travel priorities, I do seem to enjoy the food wherever and whenever I'm traveling.  In visiting a foreign country, the food is part of the culture; trying new foods is an educational experience.

It started for me in England, of all places, where the food has the reputation of being pretty  bad.  I went there at twenty-one, and worked for a summer as a waitress in a hotel in the countryside.  They served foods I'd never heard of – Shepherd's Pie, Bangers and Mash – and foods that I  had heard of and wanted to try--roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, the huge English breakfast with fried eggs, bacon, kippers,  fried tomatoes, toast with marmalade.  All of it looked great as I worked in the dining room, hungry and rushed.  And it was good!

After dessert they had a cheese tray, with all kinds of local cheeses – English cheddar, Stilton, Caerphilly--I had to try them!  And when there was something called a trifle for dessert, which everyone seemed to ooh and aah about,  I played the foreigner card, asking them please to let me try this dessert we didn't have in my country. 

On my evenings off, I sometimes went to a local pub with new friends and drank a few pints.  Or I went into town and had to try the local specialty, Devonshire cream tea, with scones and plenty of cholesterol.  Lovely.  British.  I was expanding.

After finishing up there, I went to London for some sightseeing, and then to France.  Alone and sometimes lonely, I  used food to console myself.  The baguettes, the morning croissants with cafe au lait, and the wine with dinner were my pleasures.

But no matter where I go or how I'm feeling, I gain weight when I travel.  How could anyone do that in Asia, where everyone is slim and trim?  If you eat what they do, shouldn't you  eventually slim down to the circumference of a pencil?  Not in my case.  I started out average, normal in America.  And then I got bigger.

Part of it is that the food is served differently.  At home I can tell pretty easily how much  I'm  eating when the food is all familiar, and usually divided into three sections:  meat or fish; potato, rice or noodles; and vegetable. 

In Korea, where I lived for a year, the proportions were all different.  Usually there was a bowl of rice at the center, and a big bowl of soup.  Then there were side dishes – small, saucer-sized bowls of meat and fish, vegetables and fruits, many unidentifiable to a western palate--but delicious.

The number of side dishes ranged from a few at the university cafeteria where I ate weekday meals to a seemingly infinite number at traditional restaurants; there,  the dishes crowded the table and were shared by everyone.  You had to reach across and pick things up with your chopsticks – a skill I have to say I developed pretty early, much more quickly than I progressed with the Korean language.

With this unaccustomed presentation, it was very hard for me to calculate my intake, and to control it.

Plus, the food was really good, so the motivation to control wasn't strongly felt.  I ate just about everything.  In fact, once I was at a banquet and reached for something interesting in the middle of the table.  Luckily, before I got it to my mouth, somebody stopped me.  I was about to eat the decoration, made of wood!

I was at a Middle Eastern restaurant once, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.  The meal was an adventure for me and seven or eight dining companions who were in the city for a TESOL convention.

We sat on cushions on the floor at a low round table and passed each dish around.  We ate everything with our hands – rice, sticky chicken, bread – I don't remember it all, but there was a lot of food, circulating like a twirling belly dancer, and I felt like I was swimming in food.  There was just no way to know how much you were eating, or to keep your hands clean and dry, crumbs from spilling all over your chest and lap.   At the end I was stuffed.

Another excuse I can offer for always gaining weight in foreign countries is the timing of the meals.  In Mexico when I stayed with a host family in Guanajuato, we had an early breakfast, a big, delicious one, before school in the morning.  Then we had dinner at three in the afternoon. 

I am used to eating lunch around noon,  so I needed a snack to get me through, and I soon found the small stores that sold the sodas and crackers and cookies I craved.

We ate the huge main meal in the dining room, with soup and meat, fresh vegetables and fruit, tortillas and other breads.  Then it was siesta time.

Late in the evening, there were sandwiches, then something sweet.

This was all different for me.  At home I usually eat dinner at seven.  But I took to the new schedule gratefully, hungrily, you might say – trying all the different foods, feeling like I was fitting right in to the culture – even if I no longer fit into my clothes.

When American students leave home and go to college, live in dormitories and eat those meals, they usually gain weight too, even though dorm food is notoriously bad.

Maybe they eat a lot of pizza and potato chips and Little Debbie snack cakes to compensate for these bad meals and to quell their nervous homesickness.  Maybe their schedules and their sleep habits don't allow them to eat properly.  The "Freshman fifteen" is a common estimate of the pounds gained by new students.

It also happens to foreign students who come to the United States.  It's not that they like our food so much – but they are no longer able to eat the meals they're used to, so they eat what's offered or find substitutes.  When the substitute is McDonald's every day, or doughnuts for breakfast, it doesn't take long for the clothes size to go up.

This happens even to Asians.  And you can imagine how fat they feel.  But the upside, for them, is that the added weight probably gives them a better selection of clothes here.  Many Asian  women at first have to shop in the children's department for clothes.  After a few months of Happy Meals, they might be ready for the adult sizes.

I've had some great experiences with foods in other countries – and also some homesickness for what I'm used to.  In Korea, there were times when the delicious array of side dishes just made me long for an American plate with three sections.  It happens to everyone, I think.  I had a Korean friend come to visit me a few years ago.  When we went out to breakfast, I scanned the menu and decided on bacon and eggs and toast.  I asked him what he was going to have.

"Don't they have rice?" he asked plaintively.  I had made sure I had rice at home, and kimchi in my refrigerator for him – but when we went traveling, I couldn't control the restaurant food.   I thought he might die if he didn't have rice with his breakfast, so we convinced the waiter to bring him some.  Of course, it wasn't the glutinous rice he was used to.  It was little pieces scattered all over the plate, next to his poached egg.  And they didn't have chopsticks.  But he humbled himself and ate gratefully, with a fork.  When in Rome...

Which reminds me.  I was in Rome recently.  In the airport, on the way there, I met two friendly Irishmen who had been to Italy and loved it.

"The language is easy," one of them said.  "Just like English, but with o's and i's on the ends of the words."

I thought that was funny. 

"The only thing that disappointed us was the food," he added.

The food?  In Italy?  I thought everybody loved the food there.

"They don't serve it all together," he explained.  "Say you want fish and chips."

Fish and chips in Italy?

"You want them to be served together, don't you?  Well, you have to tell them that."  He seemed exasperated, remembering.  "Otherwise they bring them separately."

When I arrived in Italy, I found that he was right, in a way:  They usually serve the food in courses:  antipasto, first course, second course.  It takes some adjustment, I agree.  I kept forgetting to pace myself, because there was much more to come after the antipasto.  I enjoyed the salami, prosciutto, bread, tomatoes, lentils, potatoes, and all the other delicious appetizers, only to realize there were two more courses to go.  Dutifully, I ate them all, and was, once again, stuffed at the end of the meal.  But I have no regrets.  It was so good!

And there was time, when I returned home, to diet, to eat small, three-sectioned meals, to cut down on the snacks and get back to normal.

I have American friends who would be very disappointed not to find their usual comfort foods in other countries. 

I can just hear my friend Melanie:  "What?  No BLTs? No Dairy Queen?" 

She asked me, when I returned from Italy, what they don't have there.  I thought it was an odd question.  Why not enjoy what they do have:  fresh pasta, delicious pizza and pastries, and my favorite, gelato.

If you're looking for exactly what you have at home, why travel to another country?  Isn't that why we travel, for the differences?  To open our minds to other possibilities, other cultures?  To open our mouths to other foods!

Bon voyage, et bon appetit!

Lynne Davis taught for over 15 years at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, USA