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Absolutely! I have a home [and hungry friends] in South Florida, where Cuban cuisine, an abundance of seafood and the mixtures of many cultures gives us quite the restaurant choices as well as abundance of fresh foods and extensive spice collections to mirror our dining out experiences. Then, in complete contrast, I have a home in Northern Minnesota where wild game, domestic lake fish and home grown veggies dominate the palates and plates of my friends. So, I ship my spices from house to house seasonally with me and make trips to Minneapolis to purchase fresh ocean fish to treat my 'up north' friends with some South FL cuisine. And then I ship fresh venison, duck, pheasant, wild rice & walleye to FL and give my FL friends a new cultural food experience.

Charm City Cupcake: Food is sorta like yard sales; what is junk to some are treasures to others. In Maryland, we caught our own crabs and steamed with Old Bay is one of the things I miss most. Okra rules. Mayo seems to be a despised condiment to many but I cannot imagine living without it.

In Florida, I cannot get fresh blue crabs but I do pig out on fried mullet and grits. In the upper Gulf, we catch our own tiny scallops and freshly shucked, they are so tasty. Oysters from Apalachicola are soooo good.

Yes, I do think where you live matters. The only things I have never been able to like are turtle steaks and calamari.

To each her/his own. Aren't you glad we don't cook for one another?

I live in RI now after years and years of living in CA and AZ. Things I thought were heinous when I first moved here? Hot Weiners and Coffee Milk. I still hate that Coffee Milk, but I've grown to like (and maybe even crave at 2 am) the hot weinahs.

The fish is "fresher" here, so the sushi tastes completely different than what I used to eat in AZ.

I really, really miss Mexican food though.

@huneybumper - I think we are neighbors before and now. I grew up in New England and now live in a culinary wasteland.

@wellred - I am in Cincinnati and I hear ya! It's like the only spices that get used are put into what I call "that gawd awful Cincinnati Style chili" which has no resemblance to any chili I have ever met before!

I like my New England food: seafood, boiled dinners, clam chowdah etc.

Yes, absolutely. I have lived in Germany for 3 years. It's almost impossible to be vegetarian here. Don't get me wrong, they do have a fantastic vegetarian restauraunt very close to where I live, but it's hard to get non-vegetarians to go there. At a "normaI" german restauraunt I can get pommes or noodles, but that gets old after a while. Fortunately, I can go to the commissary and get "American" groceries. I seriously miss going to any town and finding a diner or little hole-in-the-wall and eating.

When I lived in an near Chicago, ethnic foods were easy -- both eating out and buying ingredients for home cooking.

Then I moved to Colorado, and finding an edible pizza was impossible, never mind anything ethnic. Now, after 10 years here, I've found some obscure ethnic stores and the selections at the regular grocery stores have improved.

But, things that I used to take for granted as easy take-out foods like gyros are still impossible, so I've had to learn how to make these things myself. Instead of gyros being fast food, it's a multiple-day process.

On the plus side, the closest farmer's market is about 5 minutes from my house, and there are several farmstands, on farm property. that are no more than 10 minutes away for the closest one. When I lived in Chicago, the closest farmer's market was probably a half-hour drive.

As far as aquiring a taste for local food, I've gotten to the point where I can choke down the local pizza if it's what's offered at a gathering. Sad, but true.