I am a terrible eater on research trips. I always start my research excursions with good intentions. I go to the grocery store and buy stuff to create healthy meals. This lasts for a few days and then I find myself at the local pizzeria ordering a steak and pepperoni stromboli or something similar.
I am thus glad that I recently came across Rachel Herrmann’s article, “Eating on the Road to the Archives.” She offers some helpful tips for eating right while you are traveling the world conducting historical research.
Here is a taste:
If you do not enjoy cooking, at least allow yourself to enjoy food when you have time to eat it. Food is your break from the archives, in the middle of the day—if you’re of the sleepy weeper category—or at day’s end. Food is my way of marking the time when I can come “home” for the day and stop working.
Don’t be afraid to eat alone; people do it all the time outside of the United States. The difference in places like Europe is that no one brings you the check there until you ask for it, but so long as you leave a nice tip, there is no need to feel rushed while stateside.
If I am going to a restaurant, I read reviews online beforehand, keeping in mind that postings from sites such as Yelp.com can be biased. I sometimes go to places that are reviewed most frequently, rather than those with the best ratings but only a few comments. If I am looking for a nicer-than-usual restaurant to reward myself for work well done, I use Groupon.com to find special deals in the city where I’m staying. I also have to remind myself to find a restaurant before I am hungry, or else this activity devolves into my looking at menu after menu while bemoaning how starving I am.
If you absolutely cannot imagine eating alone in public, get takeout, hole up in your apartment or hotel, and indulge in a massive reality-TV marathon. If you are staying at a really cheap hotel, as any self-respecting graduate student should be, take Styrofoam plates from the breakfast buffet, and save them to warm up your takeout leftovers.
Research is a solitary business, and food is one way to break up the monotony. While my interests have shifted from food to food’s absence, the fact remains that eating is still deeply important to me.
Working in archives has simply changed how I dine. I eat less, but I also try to enjoy food more when I have time to find it. I exercise if I can, but having suddenly found myself displaced in an East Coast climate, and unwilling to buy cold-weather workout clothes that make me look like a sausage wrapped in its casing, I revel in the fact that I am eating less for the sake of my research, and thus do not have to go for thrice-weekly runs. I walk to the archives when I can. And I’ve bought a pair of “research pants.” Just in case.
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