The Path to Taste the Globe

I spent the past thirty years in the corporate world, with much of that time in international roles. Together with personal travel, this afforded me the good fortune to travel to 60 countries so far. From my first visit out of North America to Italy in my early twenties to now, I developed an ever-growing passion for great food in general, and more specifically for the adventure and discovery of eating interesting and (mostly) delicious foods from the countries through which I was traveling. In fact, when I would call home from international business trips, I would regale my wife with stories of my most recent amazing meal, to the point that she wondered whether my goal was simply to do enough business to remain employed and get from one meal to another.

Though my food experience memories are many, one in particular stands out on the journey to creating Chowager.com. A number of years ago I was in the city of Temuco, Chile, about 400 miles south of Santiago. One of our soon-to-be Chilean business partners took me and a colleague to dinner at a local Temucan restaurant. There we had several tasty dishes, but the short rib that was prepared and served with a combination of merquén (a local smoked chili pepper spice blend) and mulpun (a condiment made with the same smoky chili pepper as merquén) was possibly the best tasting beef dish I had ever had. My immediate thought was that everyone back in North America should know about this! Though I didn't pursue the initial plan to create a merquén/mulpun import business (remains an opportunity as mulpun is generally not available outside Chile), the experience planted a seed in the back of my mind that there should be an easier way for people to discover, cook and eat the diversity of global cuisines at home, whether or not they have the means to travel. Others had the same idea, as there are now several great sites which provide global food info, but not exactly in the way I had in mind.

As I pursued my passion at home for cooking global food, I would eventually find the information and ingredients I needed, but it was never as easy as it might be. Chowager.com is meant to make it easy to discover, explore, cook and eat food from every country of the world. Whether you're looking for a country or region focused cookbook or simply a recipe that captures the essence of a place, you should be able to find it here. And importantly, all of the ingredients and food products you'll need to make the dish truly authentic can be found and purchased through the site. This passion project is just getting started and who knows where it might lead, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy your voyaging through a world of chow!