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@skinnylatte I feel this with you. Growing up in America on an extremely tight budget, my mother had this magical ability to walk into a grocery store with $20 and come out with a week of meals. It was magic and it kept me alive, but none of it was fresh, fresh was expensive and required immediate fixing, something my piano teaching mother couldn’t afford in money or time. I was starving in America, everything fresh was truly too expensive to eat, so I ate small portions and rationed myself. Paying $10 for one dragonfruit wasn’t available to me. People didn’t talk about food often, except to complain about how expensive it was or that they “had to” cook for themselves.

Then, upon being embraced by a food centered culture here in Thailand… food is king, fresh food is abundant and inexpensive. Dragon fruit is about one dollar. Sauces are made on the daily, some with vinegar, but more for the taste (sweet, sour, spicy coalescence) than for preservation. One of our most used greetings is to ask, “have you had rice yet?” Conversations around food we love or want to eat could carry on through a meal, working up our appetites for the next meal during our current meal. We have “play food,” eating for fun and enjoyment, just to taste together. Now I am no longer starving or rationing, but it’s taken almost three years to break this habit. I don’t know how we will eat if we go back to America.