Laurie and I got into a long discussion about why people like the foods they do. We did not come to any conclusions, but we did turn it into a parlor game. At the risk of coining a meme: if you could only eat one cuisine for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Laurie said Italian or Mexican. To nobody’s surprise, I said Thai.
So, what’s your answer?
This reminds me that I just read and enjoyed Steven Shaw’s new book, Asian Dining Rules. It’s a primer on what and how to order at the most popular types of Asian restaurants, but with lots of jokes and tangents. I especially liked the part about the Chinese restaurant where he could only get good service if he brought his baby. Even if you know a lot about Asian food already, you’re going to get something out of this book.
I was having this discussion (about why people like the foods they do) not long ago with my Carleton friends. Lots of us have been influenced by where we studied abroad. And along those lines I will say: Italian, no question.
I am fascinated by what I think of as primal foods, dishes that seem to mean more to people than just being food that tastes good and fills them up. (Ask Mam sometime about whether she’s switched to brown rice yet, to get an example.) Pasta and minestrone, for Italians of certain regions–miso soup–corn tortillas. I’m sure you could think of others.
Incidentally, Laurie reminds to me say, I got the Shaw book free.
Oh, and on the subject of rice, the way you can tell that I’m not from a rice culture is that I will eat the same kind of rice for a few weeks and then get bored with it and switch to another. Usually I go back and forth between jasmine and calrose, but sometimes basmati is just the thing.
I like many whole grains, but brown rice is not one of them. Have you had the semi-milled Japanese rice whose name I can’t remember, though? It’s good.
Have you tried short-grain brown rice? It’s what converted (no pun intended) me over to the brown side of the rice world – cooks more evenly and quickly, and just tastes better than any of the long-grain brown rices I’ve had.
it’s an interesting thing to think about, this…food is (obviously) so much more than merely fuel to make our bodies work. it encompasses, surely, nature-vs-nurture…maybe people associate their, say, studying abroad with their “chosen” food; that’s when they (first) felt the most awake/alive, independent, adult… and also why my friend krista feels like maybe she only likes bland, “safe” foods (french fries, chicken strips…she’s 32. oy), because maybe other foods would make her sick, and somehow her body understands that and steers her to…boring. BUT, there’s nutriloaf, that weird “contains all the elements necessary to sustain life” that gets fed to prisoners in solitary (or so i have read)…surely prison is some people’s equivalent of ‘studying abroad,’ but no death row prisoners choose nutriloaf for their last meal.
in other news: we do that same thing, re: halloween candy! we always get one bag (usually junior mints, because they contain no dairy, which my husband can’t have)…nobody comes (because we live in an apartment building)…and i take the bag to work the next day.
also, today’s my husband’s birthday, and i made him a fanTAStic breakfast, including blood orange mimosas, black forest bacon, and BATTER BLASTER pancakes which a) i got because they’re ridiculously entertaining, and i saw ’em here first, and b) contain no dairy! wooo! thanks, roots and grubs! :)
Japanese, hands down.
Oh, Mexican, for sure. Although I told Wendy the other day that I thought I was more Asian than English. Maybe I’m actually more Spanish? (no, people, I am not mixing up Mexican and Spanish. My ancestry happens to be a mixture of English, Filipino, and Spanish, among other things. And there is a Spanish influence on Mexican food, yes?)
Yes. Does anyone actually choose the food they grew up with? These answers seem to make an argument for the position “There is no American cuisine.”
italian for sure, but what i mean to say is italian-american, which is what i was raised with. nowhere in italy can you find the penne vodka or the pizza which i crave from new jersey.
I guess Indian or Italian,
though “Indian” as I’ve experienced
it may have nothing to do with
what’s eaten in India or parts thereof.
Is it cheating to say just Chinese?
Sounds good to me.