Rules for eating on vacation

Our eating habits rarely take a break when we do.

A recent weekend getaway to Savannah reminded me just how much we humans are creatures of habit.

Vacations offer the opportunity to break from routines. To sleep late, do nothing, be carefree, live in the moment.

Instead, what do we do? The second we lock up the house and hit the road — no, even before then, when we pack our bags — routines guide our actions. Why else would you pack your running gear if you didn’t want to keep up your daily workout drill?

But maintaining rituals while on vacation is most evident, I think, when it comes to how we deal with food.

These goofy gustatory-related patterns of behavior seem to fall into two categories. First, there are the items you consider so essential that you bring them from home. Because, surely, there are no stores where you’re going. Second, there are the food rituals you adhere to en route and at your final destination.

Because I am a coffee snot of the worst kind, tops among my comforts from home is the Aeropress coffee machine. It’s a threepiece, plastic gadget that is highly portable and turns out a highly satisfactory cup of coffee. The Aeropress, a few circular paper filters and a brick of Café La

Llave Cuban espresso-ground coffee all fit easily into a gallon zip-top bag. This is high on the packing list. Higher than underwear. My husband and I take it to an obsessive level because we don’t take our coffee black. So we also tend to freeze small plastic bottles of milk — whole milk for me, half-and-half for my hubby — and toss them into the cooler. Just like that, we can enjoy the same caffeinated pleasures each morning in our hotel room as we do in our home kitchen.

We’re not the only ones who make sure that our a.m. starts off right while on holiday. For our Savannah trip, we stayed at a house with a couple from Atlanta. She brought her bottle of liquid sweetener and added it to her brew each morning.

Next on the list: fruit. Gotta have fruit. There’s fiber there. And when you’re on the road, let’s just admit that you probably don’t get that five-a-day serving of fruit and veggies recommended by the USDA. It’s more like five-a-day of all things fried. About 10 years ago, my frequent flier friend Dan started packing Metamucil fiber wafers in his suitcase. Currently, apples get the job done for me. But I’m sure I’ll reach a point when I, too, have to munch on crackers made of sawdust.

You can’t overlook provisions for the car ride. When we lived in Ann Arbor, Mich., we befriended an Iraqi couple who kept Doritos in their car at all times. They said they used them to pacify their 2-yearold Ali when he got fussy. But his dad, Muhammad, repeatedly reached inside the bag during that 10-minute car ride we once shared to the University of Michigan campus. It was the first time I’d ever encountered this car equivalent to a restaurant’s signature dish. Genius.

Except Doritos can be dangerous for road trips. Pringles, pretzels and nuts, too. It’s the salt. Consume too much and you end up drinking too much water, leading to too many pit stops. Chocolate is a bad idea because it melts in a hot car. And again, there’s that thirstinducing problem.

So my snack strategy: Bring the bag of chips but also cut up some carrots. You still get crunchiness and, if you want it, a dose of smugness about how healthy you are on vacation.

(Warning: You can take this to extremes. In Barbara Kingsolver’s 2008 homage to rural life and self-sufficiency, “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: A year of food life,” she wrote about bags of fresh lettuce being an ideal road trip snack. When I suggested that to my husband and our then 12- and 8-year-old sons, they laughed at me and her, and called the whole thing absurd.)

Don’t forget the liquids. The driver is entitled to a can of Coke to help stay alert at the wheel. And there must be a bunch of water bottles — preferably half-frozen to provide maximum cooling relief, since everyone is a backseat driver when it comes to interior temperature control.

The strategy is a little different when transportation is via plane. One water bottle. Not frozen, since you can’t get that past TSA. Also, lots of food. Enough to survive the flight plus an hourlong delay on the tarmac. And perhaps a bit more to sell at an upcharge to fellow travelers in peasant class envious of your spread. Because being packed into a plane like a tin of sardines will put you in survivalist and opportunist mode. It’s every man for himself.

On Delta flights, I become a hoarder, asking for two packs of Biscoff cookies instead of the allotted one per passenger. (Whenever I purchase a ticket from Delta, the first thing I think of is: Yes! Biscoff! As if I can’t get them anywhere except at 35,000 feet.) Maybe you ask for the whole can of Coke instead of a measly plastic cupful. And if you’re really wanting your money’s worth, you request it with no ice so you can get your rightful share of soda.

So, we’ve arrived in Savannah. Keep in mind that one of our travel buddies teaches at Savannah State University, commuting there weekly. He knows the lay of the land. What did we do? Eat at his and his wife’s favorite places: Wiley’s Championship BBQ, brunch at cafe-bakery Goose Feather’s, ice cream at Leopold’s. Twice, in fact, our family ended up in the long line at that Savannah staple for frozen treats.

But when you discover a marker of culinary excellence in a city that you tend to visit with some regularity, it’s hard not to hit it up every time you land in town. Like my brother-in-law, who makes it a point to visit St. Louis institution Ted Drewes Frozen Custard whenever he and my sister bring their brood to town to see relatives. Actually, he tries to make Ted Drewes an everyday exercise, egging on his kids (“Who wants Ted Drewes?”) so he doesn’t get in trouble with my sister, who might harp about his weight. It’s not about him. It’s about helping the kids appreciate his wife’s hometown, the argument might go.

And that’s the beauty of vacation food rules. No matter how strange or manic your eating and drinking habits, just claim you’re on vacation and you can justify anything.