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I spent 4 glorious days tooling around the tiny paradise of Harbour Island, Bahamas, in a golf cart with my sister-in-law. We had won the trip off of a local radio station and we were staying at a 5-star resort that was so expensive that we could not afford to eat there. Instead, we explored the island, asking the locals where they went to get the best food. We found the greatest little hole-in-the-walls which served the most amazing, succulent seafood, conch fritters, peas n' rice and other local favorites...it wasn't fancy at all...often we'd be sitting on what appeared to be nothing more than someone's front porch, on plastic chairs, eating off of paper plates....but the bouganvillia perfuming the evening seabreeze and the sound of the chickens scratching in the front yards was the perfect accompaniment to our delicious local fare.

When I was in college, I spent a summer teaching in a rural village near the Sichuan/Yunnan border. On my first night, I was invited to dinner in a family home, where they served us the local specialty: big thick hunks of pure pork fat. I was reading Moby Dick at the time so I tried to pretend it was like the whale blubber Ishmael was so keen on, but I couldn't swallow it and ended up hiding the whole thing under my rice.

Sometimes its the most mundane things that seem paradoxically ironic. When I was in rural Chile in the 90s, I was presented at one dinner with what was proudly claimed as the local specialty:

Hot dogs stuffed with cheese! And nothing a whit fancy or unusual about either - standard hot dogs, bright-yellow velveetaish stuff. I swear we had the same thing in the cafeteria in my high school.

The summer before I turned 6, I think I'd found every lavatory in Israel...

My mind remembers Tuscany and all that pure, beautiful food that went with it.

I went to Haiti when I was in 6th grade to visit my great Aunt and Uncle. Dad said how much he liked the water cress soup - tasted like grass to me - so we had it every day after that. But the good thing was you could not drink the water without boiling it, so each morning you would have a thermos of cool and tasty citronade (limade)

Uhmmm Mexico? Canada? I've never really traveled. I love to eat in Vancouver BC though.

So I'm in the middle of the jungle in Belize. I'm from Connecticut. The guy walking next to me is from Chile. He asks me where I'm from and I tell him the town where I live. He gives me the exact exit off the highway that I take every day! Turns out, the guy owned an international transport company and knew northeast roads like the back of his hand! I really freaked out.

Taking acid on an overnight flight to Portugal in 1985. Got in the rental car just as the sun was coming up, and we had to avoid all those pedestrians crossing the highway in Lisbon. After that the drive to the Algarve was a breeze.....

I once went to Tijuana. great prices on knock-off luxury items, liquor, switch blades and chiclets. i stayed away from alleyways, police and drinking the water. good times!

One of the most memorable meals I've had while traveling was in 1999 when my mom and I went to the Galapagos Islands. We were traveling on a 105' sailboat with eight other lovely, friendly passengers and a crew of five. When not hiking the islands, viewing wildlife or snorkeling, I'd sit on the bow of the ship for hours scanning the blue Pacific for whales. It was magical.

The crew fished off the back of the boat when we sailed from island to island; one afternoon they hooked a yellowfin tuna and pressed Mom and another passenger into service to reel it in. Fifteen minutes later the ship's chef presented us with a large platter of sushi complete with all the appropriate condiments. It was the freshest fish I've ever eaten and a gorgeous lesson in the flavor and sublime pleasure that results from truly "local" food -- from really knowing the origin of your meal.

Having not travelled to much out of the country, I don't have any "remote" locations that could be really listed outside of the Dominican Republic.

Vacationed with family at an all inclusive resort which was the first vacation I've had in over six years... the only drawback was that the food really wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be, though the customer service was phenomenal. The chef even attempted to make sushi one evening for me hearing that I was a big fan of sushi. While the quality wasn't that good (rolling, rice, or fish), the effort did bring a smile to my face.

Running around as evening came and stores closed, looking for some kind of weird yogurt-type beverage in a village in the Netherlands. Strange freedom.

I haven't gone very far, but I loved going to Quebec City and eating some really amazing French onion soup. :)

Rural Minnesota totally counts as a "remote foreign country" to a Jewish girl from the East Coast. They put mayo in EVERYTHING!!!!

I've traveled a lot in the US but not much outside of it so being from New England I guess the midwest is pretty exotic for me. That's where I discovered how fabulous a pastry called a pinecone is!

During a village-hop-tour in western china, we were greeted by a welcoming committee at a miao minority village. Their welcoming committee was decked out. I'm talking three tables of moonshine, consumed for purification purposes prior to entering the village; a water buffalo fight (no fences of course, you gotta know how to hustle) and a token village drunk. We ate the losing water buffalo. My friend and i were staying with the village "chief" of sorts. During supper we noticed that there was one ball in my portion of stew and his portion of stew, but nobody else's. we quickly realized that as guests, we were given the testicles. it's definitely not my go-to snack, but we were honored and chowed down. It was chewy, very very chewy.

Eating phenomenal french bread (crusty. warm. sweet.) in Hanoi. I know I've eaten more exotic things but it was so unexpected, I'd have to call it one of my favorite experiences. Oh, and then crossing a busy street without a crosswalk, without making eye contact with any of the drivers. Because that's how you do it.

I lived in a small village on the west coast of Mexico for a month when I was 21 and I got so sick from the water (my host family was giving me untreated water and saying it was bottled) that I couldn't eat anything but corn tortillas for about 3 weeks. woo hoo

Though I was in Japan, I lived quite a long train ride away from the city. The first day I arrived in Japan, I had not yet received my luggage (it was coming separately) and while paused before a very steep hill in a town I had never been to before, was welcomed by a bird dropping a 'present' on my head. That memory aside, the small town of Mizonokuchi (who no one in Japan has ever heard of) became a really great place for me to live. I frequently went to the depaato (department store) food courts for character shaped breads, and even got noodles from a vending machine.

By far the weirdest thing I ever had to eat when I was in Japan though was a traditional Japanese breakfast -- little salted fish heads -- in Kyoto! I tried a few and then moved on to the other 10 or so dishes. I also accidentally ate natto (fermented soy beans with a mucus-like consistency) sushi. The natto was covered up with greens and when I picked it off of the conveyor belt and put it into my mouth I literally almost threw up! No amount of chewing could get the sushi down fast enough.

Every day on my way to school I also passed a suppon (turtle stew) restaurant, but never got a chance to try.

We arrived in Paris too late to find any restaurants open. We asked the hotel concierge if she knew where we could get something to eat. She very kindly offered to make us some ham sandwiches. While accepting her kind offer, I cringed inwardly because growing up in the UK ham sandwiches usually comprised two slices of white bread with a thin slice of ham between. I was so surprised when she returned with lovely baguettes filled with the most delicious butter and the best ham I have ever tasted. While we had many lovely meals in Paris, I have never forgotten those wonderful baguettes.

My favourite is when I was in Malaysia and ordered take-out. We drank teh-bing (iced milk tea) and ate assam laksa (spicy and sour soup noodles) out of a tiny plastic bags.

As kids, my younger brother and I spent a summer on a farm in Oslo, Norway -- I loved everything about the stay, from the running around the farm and woods all day, to jumping in the hay silo, to fishing in the lakes: I've still never forgotten the taste of freshly picked wild strawberries that the older girls took us out to find. We probably ate half of what we brought back, but there was still enough for a little jam.

The New Territories bordering Hong Kong... 20 years ago....A floating seafood restaurant. So many different things to try.....to this day I have no idea what any of it was!

The furthest/most exotic place I've been is the Ecuadorian Amazon, where food was not quite the most interesting thing on the menu, if you know what I mean. I did eat live ants and beetle grubs, neither of which I can really recommend. The fruits down there,however, mango, papaya, guanabana, etc. were the best I've ever eaten.

One of the stops on the Baltic cruise that I took with my family and some family friends this summer was Warnemunde, a German port city about 3 hours from Berlin by train. We didn't want to splurge on the train ride there and back so we just explored the little town instead. Interestingly, for Chinese people, the symbol of German cuisine is not sausages or beer, but pig knuckles, or "eisbein". The tourist maps that we were given at the port had an ad for one in it, so we followed the poorly drawn map before we found the place. What a wonderful experience! It was a family-run restaurant that was in its fourth generation and the owner was very friendly and accommodating. He even made the point to play a song called "Eisben mit Sauerkraut" by a German band while we were eating, and gave us little buttons with eisbeins on them and played the harmonica as we left. It was probably one of the best meals I've ever had.

Greece is the most remote country I've visited (yet!) A surprising bridge between Europe and the Middle East- my favorite memory is of the dockside tavernas, which identify themselves by hanging octupus tentacles to dry on clotheslines in front of the entrance. The best seafood I've ever tasted!

When I was about 10 years old, my father and I went to Rome. When we were ready to head back to the airport to head home, the taxi drivers were on strike. We called for a private car. The car company said that they needed to pick up a few people and take them to the Vatican - we would have to share the ride. Of the people that shared the ride with us (all priests), one lived in Cleveland - about an hour and a half from us, another grew up in my father's neighborhood (in NYC), and the third had breakfast most mornings with our cousin (in Massachusetts).

In Jamaica, I had the most wonderful jerk chicken, made right alongside the road in many places.

I went on a service trip to El Salvador when I was 16. We spent some time in some pretty remote areas, and I remember almost driving off a cliff on a school bus (maybe not that's not how it happen, but that's how a 16-year-old perceived it), almost drowning in the ocean, and being warned not to eat street food for fear of food poisoning.

Believe it or not, it was still a great trip. A host family cooked for us on multiple evenings, and they made some delicious concoction of bread and cheese as a side dish almost every night. I wish I could remember what it was called...

Been to many places around the world but nothing satisfies me better gastronomicaly than Vegas!

I have seen a few rainbows in my lifetime but was amazed to see some giant ones very clearly in Boquete, Panama, and soon was stunned even more by my first sight of DOUBLE rainbows!

super fresh and tasty tortillas from Mexico. The real stuff!

Eating the freshest seafood dishes at an outdoor seafood market in Hong Kong. The market is right on the water, you pick out the live seafood, and the kitchen cooks the dishes.

The Caribbean isn't exactly remote, but our family rented a yacht for a day off of St. John's where my sister was getting married, and went to the British Virgin Islands. We went to the far side of Jost Van Dyke and were taken to a beachside bar/grill where we ate lobster rolls from lobsters that were caught 20 feet from us. Such a great day for our family, and one of my favorite meals ever.

Our first trip to Tokyo was anything but planned. We decided to spend each day in different part of the city and just wander around with no destination in mind. It was the best way to experience Tokyo. We were always fond of the small noodles shops, crafts markets and local produce markets we came across. We never got lost even once during the 3 weeks we were there (and we still didn't get to see all of Tokyo!).

I was on a solo trip in India. It was a very hot day, I was thirsty and looking for water. For whatever reason, there seemed to be no stores near by selling water bottles. As I was contemplating what to do next, a store keeper asked me what I was looking for. After I told him, he went back inside and given me his water bottle. Most of my trip involved me haggling with people every step of the way, so it was kinda of nice to be on the receiving of some genuine kindness.

Just returned from Eleuthera, Bahamas where we simply walked up to the local fishermen as they prepared for a day of diving and placed our order. A few hours later I was in the kitchen with lobster, conch and grouper. Can't get fresher than that.

About 10 years ago, we took a trip down to Mexico to visit a friend who was working down there. None of us really knew the language and we took a 12 hour trip across the desert to see a museum of dead people. While the museum doesn't really hold any fond memories, the trip was definitely unforgettable. I fell in love with guacamole while there as the salsa they served with our meals was always way too spicy for me.

in the bahamas we had some wonderful rum coated chicken and amazing shrimp that was seasoned so right- yep hot but yummy

I had the world's best peaches in Budapest

We got some baked casava bread on the side of the road in Dominica, from a fellow cooking it on a pounded-out piece of iron. Boy was that tasty!

when I was 9 my parents and I went to acapulco, mexico before it became the tourist attraction it is today- I was walking down a busy street with my parents and we got separated. About 6 hours later, my terrified parents found me in the middle of some barrio eating menudo with about 15 kids and 3 mexican grandmas. Aside from worrying my family, it still remains one of the happiest eating moments in my life.

I've spent my whole life in cities. Even when I've gone on vacation, I would simply visit another city. I never knew a moment of true silence in my life. I thought I understood silence, but it wasn't until I went to a remote ancient temple in Italy that I understood silence. I was stunned by the quiet. Not even a whisper of a car engine from the distance.

at the end of my first trip to Europe, on a shoestring: my friends and I saved up for one really good meal in Paris. We had enough for the meal but no wine, no dessert, and looked like the shabby backpackers we were, despite our best efforts to dress up. A table of businessmen quickly assessed the situation and took pity on us - they generously sent over bottle after bottle of excellent wine that they had "tried" and sprung for dessert - a memorable kindness and memorable meal.

Unfortunately, I've never been anywhere other than the US. That SO needs to change.

I was in college when I first visited Israel, and had never left the East Coast... So I was shocked to have fish served to me with the heads on. I couldn't eat the little thing while he was staring at me! BUT I did have Nutella for the first time there, which was life changing!

Street food in Ecuador. Paid the price for weeks afterward, but the food was oh so good...

not that remote, but rather foreign--when my brother and I went to Tokyo, we took the train from the airport. the train was very crowded, and an older lady got on board with bags of groceries. my brother silently gave up his seat for her, and she gave us some boxes of Japanese candy in thanks, though we couldn't quite figure out what she was saying because we don't understand Japanese. we also couldn't figure out what the candy actually was, because all the writing on the packaging was in Japanese....it was tasty, though.

Not exotic but a sweet story...many years ago while visiting Rome, I was robbed and on my birthday to boot. At dinner, the waiter heard what happened from my dinner companions and presented us with an entire (gigantic) cake! He said it was to replace my bad memory with a good memory about Italy and the Italian people.

India, munching on some sort of leaf wrap that tasted a lot like anise. Also all the wonderful curries. I never thought seriously about becoming a vegetarian until I saw what was possible.

I can't wait to get back

While in Spain, we went to a small restaurant where you stood at high tables and had a quick meal. I looked over to the next table and witnessed diners digging into what looked like sheep skulls. I had to weave myself out to the curb to sit down and breathe to keep from passing out. Oh my!

one of my fav traveling stories is that the best italian food i ever had was in.... spain!

Mexico isn't too remote, but the tacos sold at street stands are better than any I have ever had.

Upper Michigan may not seem that far for an IL girl but that's where we've seen the strangest food of anywhere we've traveled; deep fried pickles!

My wife, whose parents had emigrated to the US from Chile before she was born, and I were visiting her uncle's small farm in rural Chile, where he raised pheasants and lambs for restaurant tables. We were standing in the gravel driveway talking, when a car appeared in the distance. It was a taxi. When it stopped, none other than my wife's father stepped out, freshly off the plane from the US. My wife burst into tears. What a great surprise! In the afternoon, her uncle had one of his lambs dispatched. The women talked in the house, while the men sat around tending the rotisseried pieces of lamb, which had been marinated in garlic and chile sauce ("aji"), over the charcoal fire. Everyone drank pisco. It was a great family meal. To this day, I think of it as the most amazing lamb I have ever eaten, though I admit my memory could be clouded by the fun surrounding the day.

Yum! I love this food.

Street food just about anywhere I've been. Croque Monsieur in Paris, Choripan w/ chimichurri in Buenos Aires, mmmmmmmm.

I've never travelled to a foreign country (other than Canada, which doesn't really count), but I'd like to someday. Unfortunately, my health and my finances prohibit international travel for now.

I travelled to China with my family when I was young. Once, at a dinner with some of my father's colleagues, they ordered fresh prawns for the table. The prawns were so fresh they crawled right off the plate. When I started to cry, the host, alarmed, demanded the live prawns be sent back to be cooked. They came back, pink, a few seconds later, which made me cry even harder. I'd like to think I'll be more culturally sensitive and adventurous if I'm ever lucky enough to return...

While I wouldn't call it remote, my trip to Morocco was very foreign, staring with having to turn over my passport at the border, dress regulations, not being able to go about in certain areas, never being able to go about without the guide...and discovering Moroccon food for the first time. Anyway, it was the trip I had to study the most for, just so I wouldn't offend anyone or make a total fool of myself.

I was lucky to travel alot during my 13 years in the Air Force. I was able to enjoy the cuisine and cultures of England, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and others. It was a terrific taste adventure!

Many many years ago, traveling by ferry, rail and bus across the Algarve, and being pointed at and giggled about by small Portuguese children who apparently had never seen an Asian person before. Glad I could expand their world.

I haven't been to any foreign country, but would love to at least exeperience some of their cuisine.

On a camel ride in the Australian outback (okay - we were tourists, I was young), we had to ride 2-to-a-camel. My dad sat in front. I was disappointed that he got to be in front right up until the moment that the camel turned its head toward us and sneezed green goo all over Dad. Then I was okay sitting in the back. At the end of the camel ride, the leaders of the group treated all the riders to a few bites of camel jerky. I thought that was pretty weird. Ride the camel then eat the camel? But it was such fun! Dad still grimaces when I remind him about it :-)

India for sure. I was lucky enough to travel to India with my dad when I was 17. We ate in 5-star hotels some nights, but he had been many times and knew where to go. I had some of the most amazing food of my life on that trip - from restaurants to street carts. I think my favorite meal was in the home of a co-worker we visited. Amazingly prepared food and even better hospitality.

Jamaican patties fresh from a little bakery in Ocho Rios when I was 11. The first really spicy food I had ever had. Paired with a sort of everything-in-the-blender fresh fruit juice drink it was our go-to breakfast every morning.

My only foreign trip was to Canada as a child. While staying in Quebec, we ended up in a French only little family restaurant called Chez Oscar at lunchtime. My parents' high school French lessons apparently did not cover restaurant menus. They discovered later they would have been served sweetbreads (not a favorite dish) had the restaurant not been out of them. I don't remember what we did eat, but it was nothing unusual.

I haven't been to any remote countries, so it would have to be Mexico. We stopped for breakfast along the way in this small diner. The meat there was delicious, not what my preconcieved notion of mexican food was like.

Traveling to Portugal and having mussels galore!!!

My buddy John and I went on a road trip through Mexico. We had lived together at college and our house was right next to a Church's Chicken where we never ate. As we approached the border, we both jokingly made a pact that we would eat at Church's if there was one in Mexico. When we were filling out paperwork to get into Mexico, we met this older man named Jerry and got to talking. When he said that he built churches, John excitedly and without hesitation asked, "The fried chicken place?!" It turned out that he in fact meant the more spiritual kind of churches. He was only mildly offended by John's question and invited us to stay at his place outside Monterrey.

This town is Salinas Victoria and was unlike anything I had ever seen before. There were chickens walking in the streets and people and music everywhere. There is only running water half the week so, among other things, we had to pour water from this huge barrel into the toilet to get it to flush.

When we got into town, Jerry asked us if we wanted to go to a restaurant or some locals' house for dinner. We obviously opted for the latter. We drove to a small house owned by a house painter who went by Demus. His wife, la doña, looked like she came straight out of a Diego Rivera painting. They had a few kids who were all really cute and friendly. They cooked these steak tacos with guacamole as well as some sausages. The wife made this amazing guacamole by smashing the ingredients (which she cut up ridiculously quickly) with the back of a cup. Afterwards, we played dominos and I kicked the soccer ball around with the little kids for a while.

It was culture shock of the best variety.

When I was visiting Russia we had great fun counting beards as we travelled. Before we got there we had the stereotype of a full beard, and a big mountain man. Come to find out, the average Russian male was quite thin, and almost always clean shaven.

The only real beard trove we found was the biggest Orthodox seminary in Russia, which on its own tripled our beard count prior to that.

I studied abroad in Botswana in sub-Saharan Africa and had the amazing chance to stay in a Basarwa (indigenous people of Botswana) settlement village in the middle of the Kalahari desert. I remember waking up in my tent at dawn when the roosters would crow and having my Basarwa host mother make me tea with fresh goats milk and at least 5 tsp. of sugar. Not exactly the way I take my tea but it helped me warm up from spending the night in the below-freezing desert air and the gesture was incredibly heartwarming and generous.

I have not been to a remote place but I did travel to Mexico with my family many years ago. We were sitting in a restaurant when all this smoke started pouring out of the kitchen. At first it was a little funny but then we saw all the cooks and the wait staff running out of the building. They never said anything to the customers but we figured we had better get out fast. So we ran out with everyone else and watched from across the street as the fire trucks arrived.

The most 'remote' place I have visited is Ensenada Mexico, so I confess to be more than a bit sheltered. I travel in my kitchen to all the places I dream about visiting someday; I figure if I can't get there I can at least try to taste the flavors of all world.

went to tahiti for our honeymoon and after eating resort food for about a week, we went to chez louise in taha'a for some homecooked local food and it was AMAZING and we also got to throw the seafood skins and crab shells back into the ocean for the fish to eat.... THAT was worth eating resort food for a week!

I LOVE their books! My favorite culinary travel memory is eating traditional khmer snacks of rice and coconut baked in bamboo from the side of the road in rural cambodia.
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A display of medieval battle at Harlech castle in Wales back in the late 80's.

Perhaps not my favorite story, per se, but I was recently in Palermo for school with a few of my classmates. We were on the hunt for a tiny couscous restaurant (Al Garage), in the Albergheria. We found the restaurant, but it was closed! We ended up going to a bar, then to this tiny Indian fast food place (delicious), then to a Ghanian immigrants' bar with a Ghanian guy we met on the street, then back to the original bar, where two random Sicilian guys almost ran us over in their car, showed up in the bar, bought us drinks, tried to get us to pay for them, and jumped the two guys I was with when we wouldn't. Luckily every day was not as eventful as that one...

@RockinTACO: Haha! Same thing happened to us. At that bus station, we took the local bus instead of the express to Teotihuacan. We were in no hurry, and it was just fine. On the bus back to Mexico City, which was just as charming, we found ourselves standing next to a group of four or five European backpacker types in their early 20s. Two of the girls were French and apparently spoke no Spanish or at least not with enough confidence to say "pardon" when trying to squeeze by on the crowded bus. She rudely mashed herself into my girlfriend and didn;t even look my girlfriend in the face. I suspect that the French girls were disappointed that the presence of "Americans" on the bus that was otherwise full of charming locals, and we were spoiling their "authentic" moment. Well, I am American but my girlfriend is a native French speaker, and my girlfriend could hear every rude word the French girl was saying about us to her friend. My girlfriend said something pleasant to the rude girl to the effect that she was welcome to squeeze past, and it apparently just infuriated the French girl. A widely held European perception is that all Americans limit their travels to cushy resorts and don't take rickety buses through backroads villages like REAL travelers do. The only thing that spoiled her authentic Mexican bus ride more than the presence of Americans on the bus was Americans who fluently spoke her language. I loved it!

not an unusual culinary adventure, but a fondly remembered one - indian food in london when i was exhausted and sick with a cold (probably acquired while punting at midnight down the cam....) after a short orchestra tour. indian food has been comfort food since then. =)

I spent a semester of college in Vienna. I explored every nook and cranny and spent many of my weekends traveling. It was a magical time I saw and experienced so much. I had little money but it did not deter me.

Sitting at a tiny topped table having gyros in Zaragoza Spain with a team of people I was working with. We had stopped after about 24 hours of travel. Exhausted and eating messy wraps one of the guys I was with grunts out, 'dese napkins sok' in his italian english because the napkins on the table were equivalent to single ply kleenex or tissue paper. I will always remember it.

Eating kababs with salad and tea while in Azerbaijan, in a little roadside stop high in the Caspian mountains. Amazing.

Have never eaten outside of the USA except for Canada and Mexico but truly enjoy preparing and eating dishes from all over the planet.

I went to Istanbul for a conference, and had heard about the legendary stray, aggressive dogs that roam the streets of the city at night. As I like to take walks at that, I also was told not to worry. So one evening I went for a walk with my friend who I was staying with, who's lived in Istanbul for most of her life, and also the one who gave said advice. We were walking along the Bosphorous and it was beautiful and I was feeling not unlike Orhan Pamuk, all full of poignant melancholy, when sure enough a pack of dogs spotted us and and chased us. And chased us . And chased us. Suddenly it seemed there was no one out but us. Eventually a group of teenagers came our way and chased the dogs off, but even now when I see a dog on the street in NYC, I wonder if their inner Cujo 's going to come out.

My parents came to visit when I was living in Serbia. I met up with them in Vienna and we traveled to Slovenia then Croatia then Montenegro back to Serbia, watching the cultures blend into one another and the presence of cigarette smoke increase along the route. What seemed charming to them initially developed into less and less charming, culminating in a cramped van ride along the entire coast of Montenegro that would somehow manage to pack in more people each time it came to a stop. The busdriver refused to let us open the windows, yet he billowed cigarette smoke and loud music. Watching my parents take in the beauty of the country (including gnarled olive trees) from between folds of people was priceless.

Definitely eating rice with peanut sauce from a communal bowl for every lunch while I was in Mali :)

Eating Peking duck in China with other Chinese tourists. The guy next to me kept talking about how much better the Peking duck was in Berkeley.

we went on a class trip to china and the best part was staying with families in a remote village in Guizhou. we had to hike all day to get to the village, but when we got there, all the people were waiting to welcome us in the traditional way. we were exhausted but felt so happy.

My favorite remote travel adventure to date was the frightening but ultimately satisfying climb in a small RV up the Stelvio Pass in Italy. The hairpin turns would be scary on foot, much less in a large vehicle. The worst was when a full-sized tour bus had to pass us...we literally all stood on the far side of the RV in hopes of expanding the mere-inches gap between us.

Bali, Indonesia, being made anchovy pasta on the night of the silent new year by the light of a tiny flashlight.

It was the fall of 2005 and I was wandering the Sol district of Madrid, Spain, tapas bar hopping. I peeked through the window of one and deemed it worthy from the clientele (filled with locals). I eased my way to the counter and tried to make sense of the chalk board specials. I had stupidly forgot to purchase a phrase book and in my youth, chose to take French instead. The gentleman next to me was tucking into a plateful of fried something-or-other. It looked like fried cauliflower. My attempts to speak to him in English failed but my drool (on my pathetic looking face) must have moved the man enough. He took a toothpick, lanced a piece and handed it off to me with a hand gesture "go ahead...eat up". I chomped down and to my surprise, it wasn't cauliflower. It was soft and creamy but I knew it wasn't fried cheese. The man waited for my response which came in the form of a smile and a thumbs up. Playing food charades to communicate what I'd just ingested, he then placed his finger to his temple and proceeded to moo. I had just eaten fried cow brain and loved it.

During one summer of college, I went to Thailand for a study abroad class on Thai textiles. We traveled up from Bangkok, to Northeast Thailand, to Chiang Mai and a little south of Bangkok. I had never been out of the United States, much less the Southeastern corner, so this was a grand adventure. The people were so kind and their blended culture was a comfort to girl from a small city in North Carolina.

Every where there was art and craft and it was such a beautiful place. My favorite meal was in Chiang Mai, where we ate traditional Lanna style food during a dinner show with traditional Thai dance. It was completely different from the food that we had been eating in other areas of Thailand, but it was very delicious. I think traveling to the Maesa Elephant camp, feeding, riding and watching the Elephant show was one of my favorite parts. It was hard to choose amongst visiting weaving villages, outdoor markets, temple trekking and boat travel.

In NE Vietnam I was dining at a holiday feast in a remote village and I was handed what looked like a typical spring roll, but the filling was smashed duck skull. Impossible to really chew and it was hard to swallow it down as I fought being ill over the grinding of the bones in my mouth. Great trip though!

I've never been anywhere remote--would love to soon--but I had a fantastic time studying overseas in London a few years ago. My friends and I had a great time checking out not just historical sites but also the modern stuff. Best Indian food I've ever had.

My favorite foreign food memory was when I was with my university's chamber choir in Poland. I wandered away from the group on a free day and had a full (FULL) meal for $8. Whole spiced apples, borscht, classic kielbasa (better than any I have ever found in the States), and the list went on. My favorite place by far!

traveling to Barcelona for the first time was an unforgettable experience. I was a vegetarian for the most part( except for bacon :D )... but one night after one to many glasses of Sangria we wandered into a cozy restaurant. In my admittedly drunken state I allowed my friends to talk to me into sharing a whole suckling pig...WOW! crispy skin and buttery meat knocked my socks off. to this day i no longer call myself a vegetarian. I can thank the fne people of Spain for converting me :D

On my last trip to Taiwan, we paired the trip with a couple days touring around Japan. That was amazing with all the different kinds of Japanese food we had. I still remember making that stop and making our own tempura to fry individually.

I was about 6 and visiting PR with my parents. My mother ordered an octopus salad and while I have become an ambitious eater, I grew up with standard "American" food. The salad was packed with the suction parts from the legs, but none of the meat. My sisters and I thought it was the craziest thing we had seen.

Getting dropped off at a trail on top of a mountain in St. John, VI with my 2 best friends. We were novice hikers, armed only with a bottle of water to share and a pack of almonds. Loooong story short, we got seriously lost, emerged 8 hours later, sweating, starving, and scared, by hitchhiking a ride with a Corona-chugging, Santa-look alike who proceeded to scold us for being so naive. What an adventure!

The Outer Hebrides of Scotland is about as remote as I've been.
We were pleasantly surprised by a sauce of nettles accompanying the fresh caught salmon.

One of my favorite traveling memories, also relating to food, has got to be a day spent in Yangshuo, China in September. Spent the morning climbing Moon Hill, biking around the town and spent the afternoon in the home of a local farmer enjoying a wonderfully local home-cooked meal.

When I was living in Japan, I went hiking on a ski slope while I was visiting a friend. I rounded a curve, and was confronted by six or seven little Japanese women picking mountain vegetables. They insisted on sharing their food with me, since "I was so skinny, and don't eat enough", so we all sat down and ate onigiri on the side of this mountain. It was such a welcoming thing to do, especially considering I speak very little Japanese, and none of them spoke any English.

As a student I took a trip to Jamaica with some classmates. We stayed in a beautiful villa near the coast (but unfortunately not near a beach). We were there working with a local church, and some nights the members would bring home cooked meals to us for dinner. One night the church members had brought, among other things, some curried goat. We told some of the girls on the trip, who refused to eat goat meat because it was weird, that the curry was beef. They never knew the difference underneath all those spices. And our hosts weren't offended.

I periodically travel to Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, the birthplace of the dodo, and the home of a vibrant, rollicking Chinese-Hindu-Muslim-Tamil-French-British-and-Creole community. In the mornings my godfather gets on his motorbike to buy freshly-baked French baguettes. We dine on the crusty loaves with just-picked mangoes, small, sweet bananas, and lychees that have just come into season, and we wash it all down with sweet milky tea my grandmother makes in a big tin teapot. Later in the afternoon -- tea time! This is a former British colony after all! -- there are gateaux piments (deep fried chili-studded fritters), roti from the street hawkers, and kari ourite (a wonderfully toothsome octopus curry). I eat and eat until my sides ache. And, if I somehow revive enough to head out into the streets of Port Louis for a walk, I become mesmerized by a man peeling and coring pineapples with a machete, the blade moving so swiftly and deftly that in a few moments, he presents his hungry customer with a beautifully notched prize, glistening with golden juice, the air heavy with its sharp scent. I join the queue, mouth already watering.

I traveled on a study tour in Europe with a group of other 18 year old kids from the Midwest in 1976. I remember our hotel in Madrid brought out freshly made paella with squid and octopus and mussels and nobody in our group was brave enough to eat it. They quickly made some pasta with a tomato sauce (spaghetti!) and we were happy.

I loved being the tallest person within sight for 2 weeks when I went to China. Even taller than all the non-Asian tourists despite being Asian myself. That was fun.

Looking over an entire giant plaza over people's heads. It was fun.

On my trip to Peru, I had a chance to stay with a local family. They made us great peruvian food and I ate 'cuy' or ginea pig, to the dismay of my traveling partner. Tasted like a cross between grilled frog legs and roasted duck. YUM! Sorry to those who have these as pets.

I traveled to Spain in 1979 with my aunt (who would spent her summers in Madrid). She introduced me to eating tapas at different "bars" around the city in preparation of eating our dinner (around midnight). It was a different kind of eating, bits and pieces with some sort of drink...

I tasted a lot of different "foods" that I would probably never touch again.

Street sausages in the Czech Republic!

I haven't gone that far but we enjoyed some unbelievable goat stew in Oaxaca.

When I was in Jakarta, the noodles were really really good!

Was invited to a banquet in China that was hosted by the mayor of a city there. He personally served each of his guests an individual bowl of the local speciality---WORMS! In order to honor my esteemed host I had to pretend to myself that mine were a bowl of spaghetti !

I have not been lucky enough to do too much traveling, but going way upstate New York, near St. Lawrence College and the Canadian border was quite the trip. Instead of American flags everyone had Canadian flags flying! It was like we were in a whole other land.

I haven't traveled out of the country yet, but I will be going to China within the next year to get my adopted baby girl from China. So winning this would have special meaning for me!

I have not traveled very much but my first trip up north (obviously, I am from the Deep South) was the awakening to strange, new foods. What a different culinary world that was. None of the food was anything we tasted as kids. We did not eat out as children and only was accustomed to what we ate at home. We had never heard of pizza much less all the other foreign restaurants and their different smells. I became especially enamored with Greek cuisine. To this day, a gyro and baklava is still one of my favorite meals. I may have missed sweeten tea and butter laden grits but what I discovered to take their place was amazing. I had traveled to a wild remote island named New York City.

we roamed the outback in austrailia, it was wonderfully empty

We've travelled all over the world, but my favorite travel adventure story was when we got locked in the St. Louis cemetery in New Orleans.

I had a wonderful meal in the historic part of San Juan, Puerto Rico that included flan and mufungo. It was delicious and the atmosphere was wonderful.

Years ago, when I was a young teenager, I travelled to Shandong province in China accompanied by my older sister and cousins. It was a trip our parents sent us on to "discover our roots". Little did they know that the tour guides provided 10-15 1 liter bottles of beer at every meal as a sign of courtesy...made for interesting times at the hotel afterwards! Our distant relatives lived in a rural village and came unexpectedly to pick us up so we could stay with them and pay respects to our ancestors buried in a neighboring vineyard. We drove in a minibus on rough roads making little conversation with our limited mandarin. Hours into the trip my cousin and I severely needed a rest stop. The only thing around was a small farm where we stopped. The old farmer sat on a fence eating corn with black fingernails and nodded towards two old wooden walls facing the fields. We walked over to them and peeked over the other side. There was nothing there but a dozens of horseflies hovering over a hole with an ancient form of a sewage system...millions of worms which lived off excrement! Beggars cannot be choosers so we took turns swatting the horseflies off each other's bare bottoms. I've never felt closer to my cousin and it's always been a memory that makes me laugh out loud.

We visited Mexico last year and had a wonderful time. Got to eat some super mex food. Had super appetizer at one place called empanadas

Just food from a street vendor in the Bahamas.

The Lake District in Great Britain. We hiked the fog shrouded hills from Farmhouse and/or pub to the next one on our itinerary.

Had an amazing goat cheese and tomato tart in Paris. Also tried escargot for the first time. Quite good.

Five years ago I had the opportunity to travel to Thailand. While there I got to eat stir fried ants. It sounds gross but the ants didn't really have much taste to them (they were kinda lemon-y). I also had the chance to eat street food, mmmm... pad thai, so good.