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The Food Traveler’s Handbook Kindle Edition
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The Food Traveler's Handbook is part of The Traveler's Handbook series and offers:
- How to discover the world through food.
- Delicious stories to learn from.
- How to use food-specific themes to plan long and short-term trips.
- Ways to source cheap, safe meals in developing countries.
- Tips and tricks from chefs, food writers and long-term travelers.
- Ethical considerations when eating in far-flung destinations.
- Guidelines tailored to travelers with special dietary needs such as food allergies (celiac disease, nut allergies, etc) or vegetarians.
- Packing, planning and learning resources for the food traveler.
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateSeptember 14, 2012
- File size11606 KB
Editorial Reviews
Review
"If you're looking to read one book about how to eat out while traveling, this is it. Jodi understands that it isn't just about the food. It's also a quest, a chance to create an adventure, a memory, and a connection to the local culture."- Tyler Cowen, author of An Economist Gets Lunch
Jodi Ettenberg provides a personal and practical road map to understanding the part food plays in cultures and how to better experience those cultures through street-level eats. A bonus: she guides readers in navigating the perils of potentially dicey food, favoring caution instead of fear."- Spud Hilton, travel editor, San Francisco Chronicle
From the Author
I traveled for shorter periods on vacations from my law firm, but I wanted to see more. Once I had saved up enough funds to quit for a year of travel, I left New York to see the world for myself. That one year morphed into two, then three and now almost four-and-a-half years. As I traveled, my journey shifted perceptibly from a focus on places and people, to a focus on those places and people through their food.
When I left New York, I started a website, Legal Nomads, to chronicle my misadventures and keep my friends and family apprised of my whereabouts. Over the years I've been thrilled to see the site grow into its own, with a passionate community of readers who also love to experience the world. And they love their food.
As I continued to focus more and more on the anthropology of what we eat (and why we eat it), the idea of a food book took form. I received emails from worried travelers who wanted to eat at street stalls but feared becoming ill. At the same time, I found myself encouraging others who did not focus on food to use eating as a guide, a way of understanding a new place.
The Food Traveler's Handbook explores both of these sentiments. It addresses why food matters and how travelers can explore the world through the many ingredients we find on our plates. It also tackles very valid safety concerns, from sourcing fresh eats to finding market stalls that serve hygienic meals. The book focuses primarily on cheaper food in developing countries, but its principles and tips can be applied worldwide.
Product details
- ASIN : B009WVI0T6
- Publisher : Full Flight Press; 1st edition (September 14, 2012)
- Publication date : September 14, 2012
- Language : English
- File size : 11606 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 132 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,355,923 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #4,715 in Specialty Travel (Kindle Store)
- #64,370 in Travel (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Jodi Ettenberg was born in Montreal and has been eating her way around the world since April 2008. She is also the founder of Legal Nomads (www.legalnomads.com), which chronicles worldwide travel and food adventures. Prior to founding Legal Nomads in 2008, Jodi worked for several years as a corporate lawyer in New York City. She gets the shakes when she goes too long without eating sticky rice.
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"In a true dive bar, you're worried about getting stabbed. In a "dive-themed" bar, you likely want to stab everyone else."
The Handbook is largely about 3 things:
-Good food
-Cheap food
-Getting the two above safely
The book is born from the desires of former corporate lawyer, Jodi Ettenberg, to explore the world through the canvas of food. Jodi left the world of Big Law in order to pursue her hunger for world travel; chronicling her experiences at Legal Nomads for the past 4 years.
As noted above, Handbook is mostly about good, cheap food. Jodi points out what most food lover's already know: very often the best food is not found in nice restaurants. Personally, I've always referred to this as "shack theory." If you're in an out-of-the-way area and come upon a ramshackle looking place serving food-but the parking lot is full-you should probably stop and eat there. People aren't there for the location. Or the decor. Or that it's somewhere cool to be. They're there for the food.
Jodi lays out how to explore new countries and cultures in pursuit of flavorful, local cuisine. Handbook lays out why cheap is often better, and gives good information on how to find and bond with local food lovers. Jodi has been solo for most of her traveling so also brings to bear lots of nuances and tips that only an experienced traveler would have when it comes to safely going off the beaten path in search of food.
But what sets Handbook apart-what makes it compelling-is the telling of the tale. Anyone can give such simple advice: Eat good, cheap food. People understand that, it's straightforward. Big deal. Who needs an entire book about it?
But very rarely does simple, straightforward advice compel people to action. It doesn't win hearts and minds. People gloss over it, are indifferent They've heard it all before. To catch people's attention you need a hook-a tale to tell-and Jodi has them in spades. Throughout Handbook, Jodie interweaves her own experiences in China, Malaysia, Russia (and more) into the book, creating a compelling narrative of exploration that makes the reader want to embark on their own culinary adventures. Handbook makes the reader want to do something. This is the highest form of persuasive writing.
It's a good thing that Jodi left corporate law because such a talent would be a waste there - but not here. Telling a story that motivates people to action is difficult thing and it's a pleasure to see it in action when you come across it.
If you want to learn how to explore a foreign food culture, I can't imagine a better choice.
Then I read The Food Traveler's Handbook. Part practical guidebook, part food lover's diary; reading the Food Traveler's Handbook is like having a lively conversation with a friend over a great meal on the road. From stories around meal based connections with locals, to advice on food and travel safety, Jodi provides a practical and entertaining travel guide that reminds us that food is not only for sustenance, but a means by which to connect with local people and experience new cultures.
The book contains not only great tips on how to eat inexpensively while experiencing the best the countries have to offer, but other practical tips on things like basic travel safety (because of Jodi I now carry a plastic door stop with me when I travel). There's even a guide to local food etiquette that is not only intriguing, (how many people know the proper way to drink coffee in a Bedouin tent?), but useful for blending in with (and not offending) local hosts. Furthermore, for travelers with food allergies, there are tips that make navigating finding food on the road a little bit easier.
Fair warning to readers: this book will not only make you hungry, it will make you want to pack your bags immediately. Because of one picture of a tagine dish in Morocco, the country is now on my list of "must visits", a list that seemed to get longer with every next picture (particularly as Jodi and I appear to share a love of the soups in SE Asia).
I highly recommend this book for both active and aspiring travelers. If you are a veteran, you'll enjoy Jodi's stories and make good use of her food related tips, and if you are an aspiring traveler, this book will give you some practical tips for being on the road, and continue to inspire you to head out the door. Just make sure to go hungry!
Top reviews from other countries


Although the meat of the book is, as the title suggests, in the form of a "handbook", it is the bite-sized chunks of our guide's personal food memories which are the highlights here - reflective vignettes on the joys of being a global food citizen. Kicking off with "Laos Tapas" on the pavements of Luang Prabang, by the end we've eaten our way around the world from Moroccan spices in France to cheesy Corn bread in Columbia and food and fashion in Burma.
Jodi's skill - the literary spice which lifts this above standard food porn - is her expression of how the street food experience, its rituals and the human interactions they demand allow each serendipitous snack to become a pathway into a better understanding of where you are and the locals you're meeting. Plus, she's recruited fellow travel writers to add more great tales and tips from Zambia, India and Mexico.
These are great pieces which ring true - having collected a few passport stamps myself, I'm on the same page of the menu as Jodi as to the importance of diving into local food for the deepest, most satisfying of travel experiences.
For me, her insights were where I got most out of my reading, but this is a "handbook" after all and our author's lawyerly discipline eventually comes to the fore, with informative sections on every possible food-related issue. Whatever travel experience a reader might be considering - from one-week vacay to global epic, there's a ton of info here - savvy suggestions on making smart food choices to avoid illness as well as a personal take on why allergies and food intolerances didn't stop the author in her tracks and won't stop you. Jodi even flags some important ethical choices readers might need to consider.
The Food traveler's handbook is a very modern tome - a paperback is available for the dead tree fetishists, but I imagine most of target audience will pick this up via Amazon Kindle and with colour photos and info panels throughout, it's made for the modern tablet audience. Lengthwise, we're way past a longform article but not quite in sight of a coffee table book - there's a lot of stuff here people, and it's well worth the price of admission.
If you're lucky enough to be visiting a new and foreign culture anytime soon, or know someone who is, then get this book - it's keenly priced and worth every cent. Buy the book, get outside your culinary comfort zone and expand your mind as well as your waistline...


