food

[threejane]

My family was not into food at all when I was growing up. It was so predictable and so bland that even the pepper shaker never needed topping up

Comments

[sighris]

I grew up with a half-way decent food environment. Good tasting food and a decent variety (or Euro style foods), but like most Americans, meat with almost every meal, and at lunch and dinner it was the main course. When I was in my early 20s I dated a vegetarian, and that opened me up to new ways of thinking about food. Then a good friend of mine ( Jim Marcus, the lead singer of Die-Warzau to drop a name ;) introduced me to Indian food which at first I was not so excited about, but which over time I began to like more and more. These days I eat meat on a few times a year, and most of my diet is a fusion of Indian and other Asian styles cooked in my own kitchen fresh every day! So fresh ingredients, flavour, spice, colour, and texture are all really important considerations for me as I shop for food too! :)

[threejane]

Yeah, I love vegetarian food and much of what I cook tends to be Indian or Indonesian. Good stuff!

[helios137]

Wow, how mindblowing. It reminds me of the movie Pleasentville where everything in the world is in black and white until a person with emotions shakes up the town and everything starts getting very colourful very fast. I had a sort of simiilar event happen to me. I grew up eating, almost exclusively, Persian and Turkish food. Then when I was 16 and ready to enter 11th grade in Tehran, Iran, I was shipped back state-side to attend an all boys boarding school because it was to dangerous for me to stay in Iran any longer. For the first time in my life I was exposed to American cusine. I remember being amazed at the variety of all of the dishes and vegtables. I ate my first pork, ham, pork chops, corned beef, brisket, roast beef, steak, pot roast, roasted chicken, and (seemed like )a million other items which are so common to find in most US households. Almost immediately, I gained twenty pounds. Evidently, the Persian/Turkish food had a hell of a lot less calories than typical WASP food. I eventually burned it off running in the

[threejane]

I think other cuisines tend to be less fattening because they are more filling and satisfying so you don't feel a need to snack.

[helios137]

Yes, and like other asian cultures, the focuse is not as much on beef. No slabs.

[threejane]

Yech. Even the word 'slab' turns my stomach. But I kind of wonder if the really fattening part of the typical North American diet is less the meat than all the bread carbohydrates.