Sunday 27 January 2008

Food and Eating and being Chinese

There is one reason why I don't think I'll ever be fully Chinese and that is because.... I don't have any interest in food. Nup, none at all. I eat because I'm hungry and because I have to. Other than that, I have no interest in food, eating, grocery shopping, cooking, or meal planning. Which is unfortunate I guess, but I can't change who I am. I do those things only because I have to but I really don't enjoy them at all. I don't mind eating out at restaurants but even that gets boring after a while.

The Taiwanese are OBSESSED with eating. Which is why it's a gastronomer's dream here. Food is everywhere. It's plentiful and cheap. There are little snack and drink stands everywhere, open at all hours of the day. I am surprised that they are all still so thin. I have a theory that it really is true that eating a lot of small meals (or snacks) is better for you than eating three ginormous meals a day. The Chinese snack all day long and obesity is rare compared to the Western world.

Being at both my grandparents' houses, they seem to think I need to eat like six times a day. I'm just not that hungry and I don't think about food 24/7. It's frustrating because noone really understands it. Generally the people who love cooking love eating. You'll never find someone who really enjoys cooking but doesn't enjoy eating. It doesn't make sense. So until I start to enjoy eating I'll never enjoy cooking (I think?) But I much more prefer eating over cooking. In fact, I don't even care how bad someone's cooking is - it ALWAYS tastes good to me. Even airline meals I don't even mind that much. At times I'm a fussy eater but most of the time if I don't have to cook it I'll eat pretty much anything.

I found this blog a few weeks or months ago about another woman who doesn't like to cook. I was shocked that someone shared the same feelings as me.
http://www.tertia.org/so_close/2007/08/i-really-really.html

But, if I do decide to get adventurous and make something that looks, tastes and feels half decent I'll be putting the pics here to prove it! haha.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I guess you can't be Italian, nor Greek, nor Spanish, nor Peruvian, nor... well, every other nationalities that sees food as art ;)

said...

You have a most interesting blog.

S said...

(Now that I'm in Taiwan I can actually post comments on my own blog, finally, yay!)

Amyee - I was Italian in my past life but that's another story.. The only way I see food as an art was that old 80's tv commercial with Pro Hart "Oh Mr Hart, what a mess!"

Tor - Thanks. You have a beautiful eye. :)

Jenfy said...

You should go live in Germany for a while. There you can eat bread with cheese and cold meats for breakfast, lunch and dinner and everyone will think that's normal. No one will bother you about eating because the best thing they can cook is a slab of meat with noodles and sauce and you'll be lucky to get this once a week. The rest of the time it's just noodles with sauce, or bread. After one year of this you'll be dying to get some proper food and you will never complain again!