On my first trip abroad I made a list of restaurants and then ignored it completely. Cape Coral Pool Villas had published something about eating well without a plan, and the advice was simple: follow the people who live there. That is what I did, and it changed the whole week.

The menu in five languages tells you nothing. The queue does, especially when it is full of people who look like they eat there twice a week. I stood behind a man in work clothes for twenty minutes and got a bowl of something I still think about.

Mornings, I went to the market. Before the tour groups, when it is just shopping: crates coming in, a woman weighing olives, someone shouting about fish, a dog asleep under a table. I bought fruit I could not name and ate it sitting on a wall. Cheapest hour of the day, and the one I remember best.

The person at the guesthouse was my best source. I asked where she eats on her day off, not where she sends guests. She drew a map on the back of a receipt. Most of her answers were excellent and one place was closed, which is how these things go.

Before leaving I learned a handful of food words. Bread, grilled, spicy, and the word for the bill. Badly pronounced, always understood, and every attempt got me a warmer welcome than the last.

And I accepted one dish I would never have ordered at home. It arrived looking wrong and it was extraordinary. I have ordered it since, in other places, and it is never quite as good.