How to Eat Like You Belong There
- Shannon Bard
- Oct 29
- 3 min read
Belonging rarely arrives with a passport stamp.
It comes quietly. On a stool too small for comfort, in a smile you didn’t earn, or in a bite that tells you the only rule is respect.
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In San Sebastián, you often pay not for what you order, but for the number of toothpicks left on your plate. It’s not a gimmick, it's trust, and that alone tells you something about how the Basques eat. Whole jamóns hang from the ceiling, thirty or forty at a time, glistening and dripping fat into the little cups that hang below each one. The air smells like salt and patience.
The first night, I stood in the doorway unsure of where to begin. Should I sit? Wait? Watch? The bartender caught my hesitation, nodded once, and handed me a plate. I breathed, stepped forward, and remembered what every journey teaches sooner or later. Curiosity is the ticket; humility is the table setting.
Learning The Unspoken Rules
Eating abroad is its own quiet education.
In every country, the rules are invisible until you break them. And then they’re taught with kindness if you’re lucky.
In Italy, I learned not to order cappuccino after noon. In Morocco, that eating with your hands is not messy but sacred, the right hand becomes an instrument of gratitude. In France, bread isn’t a side dish; it’s punctuation.
Belonging isn’t about mimicry. It’s about awareness.
The truth is... belonging isn’t about mimicry. It’s about awareness. Learn a few words, even if spoken clumsily. Please, thank you, good evening. Smile when you get it wrong. People don’t expect fluency; they respect the attempt.
Sometimes dining feels like theater. The key is realizing you’re not the star; you’re the audience invited to listen and watch.
Moments of Being Human
I’ve ordered in the wrong language more times than I can count. Thank-yous in French to Turkish waiters, Spanish to Italians, silence when my courage ran out.
There’s always a moment of pause, then laughter, a tilt of the head, a gesture toward understanding.
Travel humbles you. Every meal is a lesson in surrender. Surrender to flavor, to people, to imperfection. The world, in its own way, keeps teaching me. My teachers are waiters, grandmothers, fishmongers, friends, and strangers whose names I never learned.
The Flavor of Belonging
Everywhere I go, belonging tastes a little like warmth. The kind that comes from food shared before introductions. In Vietnam, it’s the heat of broth rising from a plastic bowl. In Morocco, it’s steam curling from mint tea poured higher than seems possible. In San Sebastián, it’s salt and olive oil on fingers you don’t bother wiping clean.
There’s always smiles. From friends or strangers. And always fire or heat somewhere nearby. For me, warmth has always been fleeting, but maybe that’s why I keep chasing it: each place offers a new chance to find home in the act of tasting.
What the Table Teaches
Respect and curiosity have no borders.
I travel as a chef, but more importantly, as a student. A student of rhythm, of restraint, of the untranslatable language spoken by people who love what they serve.
Every flavor has a story to tell. Every table is an invitation to listen.
The world is small; flavors are big.
If flavor were a language, belonging would taste like bread torn and passed, like olive oil poured without asking, like the final sip of wine offered instead of words.
The Aftertaste
When I look back, it isn’t the Michelin meals I remember most. It’s the silence before the first bite in a crowded bar, the laughter after a mistake, the nod of someone who knows you’re trying.
To my younger self, I’d say: stop worrying about fitting in. Watch first, taste slowly, honor what’s in front of you.
So wherever you go next, sit down. Order something local. Forget the menu.
And eat like you belong there. Because in that moment, you do.
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