Adrianna Tan
Yesterday in my AAPI book club we were talking about a great book ‘Unassimilable’, and of course the convo in the side was 80% about food.
I said ‘when I moved here from Southeast Asia I think my biggest culture shock was, what do you mean your moms aren’t walking around looking for snacks all day, driving to other cities and countries to eat food, taking you on vacations to eat food? All moms do!’
Adrianna Tan
I also said my biggest party trick when I go back to Singapore / Malaysia / Indonesia is I sometimes tell people, ‘you know I’ve met some really interesting people overseas. People who say they literally don’t care about eating delicious food, don’t like it, and that the blander and less spicy the food the better’
People always make me repeat it to them, like I’m telling them a story about ghosts. They’ve never heard of anything like this
Adrianna Tan
@LinuxAndYarn I had a neighbor here who could not deal with the sight of rice. Would literally want to vomit even seeing it. He also told everyone that hotpot was super disgusting and unhygienic. His Chinese gf.. would come over to our home to cry, and eat. They broke up.
Rachel Rawlings
@skinnylatte A roommate of a friend, both of whom were in the anime club at Drexel Univeristy in the 80s and 90s, used to get plain white rice from the Chinese restaurant across from his apartment and eat it with salt. Not soy sauce, just salt. He spent a semester teaching English in Japan and lived on KFC and Wendy's.
I mean, I'm fucking Irish-American and couldn't fathom that.
Adrianna Tan
@Ashedryden I don’t mind ranch. I think there should be more dietary fat, and less sugar, in most ‘white people food’ here
Ashe Dryden
@skinnylatte “and they eat ranch dressing with EVERYTHING”
Wolf
@skinnylatte
Me: In the USA, they have thousands of breakfast places. They serve eggs, lots of cheese on everything, pork, potatoes, but no rice!
Lola: (turns pale)
Me: Then they eat breakfast in their cars. WHILE THEY DRIVE.
Lola: Haiya! Liar!
Adrianna Tan
@PublicWolf in Seaside, CA next to Monterey, there is a Filipino American breakfast spot called butter house. It’s got pancakes and fried rice!
Adrianna Tan
@PublicWolf oh they do. With a huge hulking slab of pork belly
Wolf
@skinnylatte That's a place I'd eat at. 👍
Maybe see if they serve tapsilog. It's a pinoy classic. A little garlic and vinegar the side.
Wolf
Adrianna Tan
@chrisjrn I come from a culture known for our utter devotion to top shelf ingredients and bland food (Teochew / chiu chow and Cantonese), and lemme just say most other bland food is just terrible
Christopher Neugebauer
@skinnylatte on the one hand, I think there's value in subtle flavours that I don't think I've experienced in the SEA food I've had, but on the other I do not understand spiceless diner food that doesn't even come with salt
Adrianna Tan
@chrisjrn very traditional ones can be! Not the stir fried stuff
Like claypot rice with no salted fish and only a teaspoon of soy sauce which offends me greatly
Christopher Neugebauer
@skinnylatte wait, you think Cantonese food is bland?
Adrianna Tan
@chrisjrn oh I don’t mean bland in a bad way at all. There’s a Chinese word for bland which actually means bland but flavorful. Different from bland bland
Christopher Neugebauer
@skinnylatte I could probably find that fulfilling. Fermentation flavours of soy sauce can be fascinating
Adrianna Tan
@mcmullin is she Cantonese? :)
David McMullin
@skinnylatte
(But they’re both Chinese, for what it’s worth.)
David McMullin
@skinnylatte
My mother-in-law is like that. She hates lamb and beef, and cannot eat anything even the tiniest bit spicy. Pepper (not chili pepper, just salt-and-pepper pepper like every diner has in a shaker on the table) is more picante than she can handle. Other than that, she’ll like anything in direct proportion to how sweet it is. If she could survive on the diet of a hummingbird, she would. Meanwhile her husband really loves and cares about great food. Opposites attract!
Adrianna Tan
@mcmullin oh that is interesting. I’ve never met a Chinese elder who wasn’t obsessed with food but I think you would be ostracized in southern Chinese community for being that way
David McMullin
“You see, she doesn’t care at all about food. It’s just calories and nutrients to her. She always made sure I was adequately nourished, but all my life, nothing she made me was ever good to eat. And I never held it against her, because I know she doesn’t care about food herself, so I figured of course she can’t cook; that’s just the way she is. But after tonight, I know: she CAN make good food when she tries—and for me she never tried.” 3/3
David McMullin
@skinnylatte
Everything went great, the food was delicious, I was relieved and happy. In the car as we left, my wife (girlfriend then) said:
“I am so angry at my mother right now!”
“What, why?”
“The food she made for you”
“It was great, I loved it—what are you upset about?”
“That’s exactly what I’m upset about!”
“Huh?”
2/n
David McMullin
@skinnylatte
The first time I visited their home for dinner long long ago, my wife’s parents made a big multi course meal for us. It was a high stakes situation where we all wanted to make a good impression and were all afraid of giving offense or not getting along. They were (needlessly) afraid I wouldn’t like Chinese food so they went overboard with a million different things to try. I made sure to eat a lot of everything and to praise equally what Mom made and what Dad made… 1/n
David McMullin
@skinnylatte
No, Shanghai
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.