On Food

How can you travel without thinking of food?

Supermarkets in Croatia are much smaller. While there is an incredible assortment of yogourts, from drinks to flavoured yogourts to yogourt-like items, the quality and quantity of meat is not great. Ham and sausage are plentiful. I think I have eaten a lifetime supply of ham. The smoked Dalmatian ham is particularly good. The variety of fresh fruit and vegetables is limited. A favourite vegetable here is swiss chard which is cooked with boiled potatoes and served with some olive oil. There is little other ethnic cooking except Italian. Pizza is available everywhere. The Dalmatian coast was once under Venetian rule -maybe that is one reason for the fondness for Italian food.

Most towns have open air markets where fruit, vegetables and flowers are plentiful. Here you can sometimes find items not available in the grocery stores. In Split we passed the meat market - several shops with carcasses hanging in the windows. Nearby was the fish market - the fresh catch being sold from plastic buckets- no refrigeration.

Restaurants serve a lot of seafood. - several varieties of mussels(we passed what looked like mussel farms on our bus trip to Split) as well as scampi, cockles and other seafood. Even salads are often offered with octopus or squid.

The fresh fish is excellent ( I have not yet had the nerve to try frog fish). It is usually just grilled and served whole. Fancier places come and and cut of the head and take out the main bones.

Cafes are plentiful but only serve drinks - often alcoholic drinks as well as coffee. There are many ice cream places and with the heat we have experienced lately, this is understandable. Sometimes it is hard to find a place to have lunch.

But on the whole we have eaten very well.

Travelling on...