03-08-2025
Marriage Diaries: ‘My wife is an adventurous eater and it ruins every summer holiday'
It was the lapas that did it—a big, steaming plate of the things, grilled with garlic and butter. For the uninitiated (which included me and most of my family at the time), lapas are limpets. An Azorean delicacy.
How can I describe them? Well, you know when you've masticated chewing gum of its original flavour and you're about to get rid of it? Well, they're kind of like that, but a bit chewier and a lot more garlicky and slimy.
They seemed to be going down a storm in the restaurant that my wife had dragged us all to.
And the reason they were going down a storm was because the restaurant was packed with locals. When I say locals, I mean grizzled old fishermen with no teeth, which is probably why they were being eaten like mini-oysters and slurped down with copious quantities of the local hooch.
And, when I say restaurant, I mean a back street choked with tables, chairs, and dogs and cats, around an opening in a wall from which plate after plate of lapas kept appearing.
The reason we were there was because my wife is a very adventurous eater, and every time we go away, we are forced to adhere to her mantra of 'eating like locals'.
In the past, this has led to us being presented with fish eyes in Greece, octopus in Portugal, blue beef in Spain, and, of course, frog legs and snails in France.
Every time we go away, we end up eating another local delicacy.
And that's fine with me. I don't regard myself as an unadventurous eater. And the kids aren't picky either. However, what's not fine with me (and the kids) is that our quest for foods that many would regard as challenging now takes place almost every night of our week-long foreign holiday.
Thankfully, as I've mentioned, most of the restaurants where we eat these dishes are in back streets, surrounded by dogs and cats which means that the entire family have developed certain sleight of hand techniques that ensure we send a clean plate back to the kitchen so that we don't offend either the local chef or my wife.
And the local stray mammal population doesn't go hungry.
Then it's every man and teenager for themselves as we find our own ways to fill the groaning holes in our stomachs, bingeing on the bread basket or snaffling secret burgers in town.
The situation has even made me wonder if we can afford to venture across to the US, where eating like locals would surely involve burgers, hot dogs, nachos, or we may even have to endure 'low and slow' brisket and ribs, dripping in barbecue sauce.
I've even considered a staycation in one of those forest-based holiday villages where our dining would be a mixture of self-catering and traditional English fare, but the lack of guaranteed sunshine is putting me off.
However, we all love Europe, so, it's back to the land of adventurous eating and this time Croatia, where I've already researched some of the weirdest delicacies the country has to offer so that the kids and I are fully briefed on what we might be facing on our dinner plates – grilled dormouse or frog and eel stew, anyone?
However, this time there is a soft rebellion afoot, because unbeknown to my wife, I have booked an all-inclusive where our breakfast, lunch and dinner will be provided, buffet-style.
Of course, we'll still explore the local cuisine to keep my wife happy, our horizons broadened and the local dormouse population under control, but we can now face the local delicacies safe in the knowledge that if they don't get our gastric juices flowing then back at the hotel buffet, in the heart of the Balkans, 'Asia night' is waiting for us.
