Welcome to The Roaming Fork
A blog that aims to document travel through the lens of food experiences
When eating fruit, remember who planted the tree; when drinking water, remember who dug the well
– Vietnamese Proverb.
Hello. My name is Markus Kampl and welcome to The Roaming Fork. Travel and food (and wine, for that matter) have long been my biggest passions throughout my adult life. Having started traveling in my twenties, I have found that the longer I’ve traveled, the more the focus of each trip has changed.
More and more, the food experiences have become important for me. The research for each trip starts with the local cuisine and ends with a laundry list of restaurants, street food stalls, cooking classes, and markets that I want to visit.
About The Roaming Fork
The reason I started this blog was to have a means of capturing the convergence of travel and food, and recording and sharing the resulting impact.
I want this blog to explore food experiences using a “paddock to plate” life-cycle; that is, to follow the raw ingredients from the producers through to the final dish.
Farmers, fishermen, and other food producers are the backbone of many societies. They feed an ever-increasing population and work extraordinary hours at the mercy of the weather, all while dealing with shifting government policies and attempting to reduce their environmental footprint.
That is why I think it is important that for this blog I visit farms and other food producing facilities, in order to gain a better understanding and appreciation of where our food comes from and help connect us back to the land and sea.
Occupying central locations in towns and cities, markets of varying descriptions attract locals beginning first thing in the morning as they seek out the freshest ingredients for the home kitchen.
We will attempt to immerse ourselves into these markets, where a congregation of bustling shoppers negotiate their way through narrow aisles at the same time as the stall holders sing out their daily specials in distinctive rhythmic patterns.
Around the world on a daily basis, family cooks busy themselves preparing, cooking, and serving delicious meals to their families. Often these dishes are prepared following recipes handed down through the generations, and at the same time containing their own little secret combination of spices or herbs.
In order to get a firsthand understanding of how the raw ingredients are best married together in the pot, I will attend, where available, cooking classes that not only showcase the regional cuisine, but that also give me a chance to increase my own personal cooking skills without burning too many of the special ingredients.
But farms, markets, and cooking are only the beginning. Without a doubt, the most enjoyable “food experience” of all is the actual eating of delicious food!
Street food holds a special place in the hearts of locals and visitors alike. Every country has its own specialty dishes, and this blog will search out the tastiest, and devour as many as possible!
The eating will also include visiting restaurants with a special history and a story to tell, as well as popping into shops that sell all manner of specialty food goods.
Of course, travel is made up of more than just food (you have to do something between meals!), and this blog will also feature some local sites worth visiting as well as capture the essence of each destination through photography.
Join Me
You can join me on this food-related journey by signing up for my monthly newsletter, which will include links to my latest blog posts, or you can follow me by using one of the social media buttons below. Hope you enjoy reading!
You can’t just eat good food. You’ve got to talk about it too. And you’ve got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food.
– Kurt Vonnegut