The choice between a steamed pork bun and a plate of cabbage stir fried in sesame oil was obvious when I was just a boy in Taiwan: either or both, never neither. Food was always made to taste. I learned an entire vocabulary of food texture and smell before I learned how to write my own name.
My father would even rag on me at the dinner table when I couldn’t distinguish sub- categories of general tastes be it sour, sweet, salty and even bitter (an acquired taste). Each and every component of food was essential.
Food was life. Food was hot dumpling soup on a windy winter night, served with cloves of garlic peeled right at the table. Food was sesame puff
pastry with scrambled eggs sandwiched in between, dipped in hot soymilk for breakfast on the walk to school.
Food was chewing the fat with my father’s sisters and brothers and my cousins, the fatback straight from under the hogshead at the market butcher’s stand, seasoned and stewed all day in a Taipei city flat. And then there were the slurps of oolong, the cracks of soy-roasted pumpkin seeds between tough tobacco-stained molars, well past my bedtime.
You might say that food was a pretty big deal, practically sacred.
Even after I moved to America, the art of the sandwich was hard to master. It didn’t feel right to put square-shaped, ambiguous protein with just any cheese or just plain mayo between two crusty pieces of carbs. My
heart leaps at the thought of rare roast beef paired with the right amount of horseradish on a focaccia roll with Muenster cheese melted on it in the oven.
I am hardly a food snob though. Like any college student, I like a double quarter pounder with cheese at the end of a Crossfit WOD. It’s engineered (literally) with just the right amount of melted grease and meat squish.
No matter where I go, food stays with me in everything that I do. It was a culture shock in my adolescence when I realized that not everybody looked at food the same way.
Food could be evil. A second helping of macaroni and cheese was “too many carbs and going to make me fat.” Some desserts – like marshmallow topped sweet potato casserole – is reserved for winter holidays, a sort of sinful feast season.
Beyond the physical compulsion, the body shaming, the social rules, I still cannot fathom why my peers won’t eat to be happy. Food is a joy to share. Food is life, and because good food fills our hunger.
If there is ever to be an ethical consideration to how we eat, we should turn to our overconsumption, our ignorance about food sourcing and perhaps how we can better prepare and share food. I can’t imagine anything sexier than a homemade pecan pie from a significant other or more nourishing than my foster mom’s post-Thanksgiving ham and bean soup.
Bring food love back people – please!
