I take into consideration meals continually, not in a passive means, however obsessively. I plan my subsequent meal whereas nonetheless chewing the final chew of a repast. I at all times carry snacks: dried fruit or roasted nuts, simply in case. After I journey overseas, I eagerly pattern native cuisines and take cooking courses at any time when I can. At dwelling, I scout for brand new eating places and sometimes host dinner events that includes my experimental dishes.
Generally I’m wondering how I got here to have this fixation.
Breakfast in our family consisted of boiled leftover rice, slurped down with tangy pickled greens. It crammed the abdomen briefly, till starvation crept again midmorning. That hole, gnawing sensation is one I’ve by no means forgotten. To today, I dread starvation the best way some folks worry the darkish.
That early deprivation imprinted one thing deep on me – not only a longing for meals, however a reverence for it. On this, I’m not alone. In Chinese language tradition, meals is rarely simply meals. It’s nourishment, sure, but in addition language, emotion and identification. Because the saying goes, “To the folks, meals is heaven.” As an alternative of “How are you?”, we historically greet one another with “Have you ever eaten?”
