| | | I once drove from Seattle to Chicago, and we nicknamed the areas in between The Land of Bland. The only place you could find any food with flavour was the Chinese restaurants, and even then it was very bland compared to the Chinese and Chinese Canadian food I was used to.
After we pulled into Chicago, which was impossibly hot and humid for guys from the West Coast, we were surprised to spot a beach right by The Loop, so went for a swim to cool off. Then we met a guy who invited us to stay with him and took us to a blues club where a local legend was celebrating his birthday, The music and scene were great, but best of all, the price of admission included a big plate of very spicy and flavourful lasagna. I can still recapture the feeling of pleasure during the first few bites after days spent in the Land of Bland.
The only blander places I have been foodwise were rural Ireland and Scotland, where it was also darn hard to find vegetarian food. (At one point in Northern Ireland we were overjoyed to spot a sign for a salad bar, only to find that only 3 of the 8 'salads' on offer actually contained vegetables.)
This reached its peak in Stronoway on then Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides I was very happy to find an Indian restaurant, but even after I assured the owners I was used to hot food. the first night the supposedly hot curry barely reached mild. Then I happened to mention to the owners I was from Vancouver, and because they had cousins running a restaurant here, the other shoe dropped. The second night they went all out and reached what I would call medium heat, which was truly delicious to me after all that blandness,
LC |
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