blog post #3 revised

The Preconditions to Become a Foodie


"Food to human is like water to fish." Ancient Chinese people said that. True, food is necessary to human being, however, to really appreciate what is needed, one needs to have certain preconditions. As moving one's teeth to chew, using one's tone to taste, through one's mind to have the satisfied or happy feeling and so on, one's mental and physical condition must be upper certain level to enjoy all kinds of cuisines. Since everything cost in this modern society, one must have enough money to be grateful of food and affording everything else he needs to live. For either cooking, buying food, going to restaurants or reading cook book or restaurants reviews takes time; time has become an avoidable issue to deal with to get comforts from eatables. Consequently, nevertheless it sounds easy to become a foodie, who has a particular interest in food; a gourmet, having certain health, time and money level is very necessary.


Eating food is obviously a physical activity in which case that one needs to have certain physical condition to manipulate it. To be grateful of food, one needs to have his mental health to actually cook and eat. In Bitter Sweet, a book tells a story of Mat who was grown up in a sweet family, how things changed around him as his mother started to have mental problems and stop cooking and having fun with them. Mat's memory of the wonderful times when he was with his family eating dinner and appreciating the food was the time that when his mom was in good health condition. The madness, sadness and the addiction to alcohol made her even lose the sense of having fun in her life and being happy, and the disease that was going through Mat's mom definitely destroyed her ability of making and enjoying good food in most ways too. For instance, a person who has psychological problems usually has a lack of the ability to be grateful or happy with anything, which includes food for sure as a result. In addition to be a foodie, one also has to have a certain physical condition. For those who are allergic to certain food, they surely cannot enjoy the type that they are "mean to miss", which not seems to be a big deal as they can still enjoy food "carefully". However, I have a friend who is allergic to not only to peanut and coconut but also to beef, pork, lamb, seafood, tomato and basically everything that is tasty. Also, there are people with taste buds illness who are not able to even taste any flavor; people with dental issues who cannot chew or swallow certain types of eatables; people with digestive system diseases who cannot eat solid or indigestible food and so on. These physical problem facts seriously limit the bound of the cuisine types those ill people can actually have, which sadly sets up a line that is impossible to cross to become a foodie. As a result, both certain psychological and physical condition are necessary for one to be a foodie.


In New York Times, there is an article about a man who is trying to please his foodie grandmother who has two titanium knees and a hearing aid. In this case, one with certain physical problem can sometimes still be a foodie, while enough money is provided: due to her sickness, her grandson can just take her to where there’s no wait, no crazy scene, comfortable chairs, low music and with good food. For sure, neither fast food restaurants nor cheap street snack store would please this old and experienced foodie, and only to be able to afford the expensive lavish restaurants will it acceptable and enjoyable for her as being a foodie. As it is also mentioned in Garlic and Sapphire, a book written by famous restaurant reviewer Ruth Reichl about how she has been reviewing restaurants in New York City under disguise. Her reviews about those Asian restaurants which are not too fancy already get questioned even defended because of the "quality" of the chosen places are not "good enough". What does that mean? Basically it means that the chosen places are not as fancy and lavish as those French or Italian restaurants which are distinguished as the places where the general readers of the paper would go. It is unarguable that the Asian type of restaurants are more affordable and more acceptable in general, however, it is still just for those people who really read restaurant reviews: those who appreciate food and have money to actually go to one of the reviewed ones in the paper. So how about those who cannot even afford the magazine? There are always a lot of people out there at the bottom of the society that we cannot neglect: those of who are paid the lowest wage while have to take care of their family? What about those who are jobless or even homeless. Will they actually be foodies and read the magazine? The crucial reality already said a big "NO" before they have not even open their mouth. Thus, the currently social system requires certain amount of money for one to become a foodie as it focuses on the central task of economic construction.


The limited amount of money is surely a very important issue for those at the bottom of the society, but moreover, there are people who though have good pay, need to work all the time while still have take care of his family. The problem of time is very unavoidable for them too. My own mother actually sets up a very typical example. She is a nurse. Being a nurse in Chin is quite different from being one in the States: it has very low pay while one needs to work more than 8 hours a day and even on weekends. My dad is an extreme foodie who would pay 40 dollars to buy a tiny box of Foie gras and always wants good food. Unfortunately, my mom just has less than three hours for break every noon to make food and take a nap, and always even too tired to walk after coming back from work in the evening. Consequently, what happens is that my dad can still be a foodie as he buys his own stuff and enjoys them as long as he does not have to work and has a lot of free time while my mom just eat a little left over or quick microwave food for lunch, and I will cook some easy and light cuisines for dinner. In this way, way to being a foodie for my mom is totally blocked from her time limit due to busy work and exhausted body. Similarly, for some college students (especially those are in Georgia Tech), being a foodie is a hard course: not even enough time finish one's own homework while there are still a lot of fun activities out there in campus. Who can still be reckless and save time to be a foodie while the others are trying not to fail their tests? The statistic shows that, as the modern life develops, people are spending less and less time on food: from around 97 minutes in the 90s century to less than 57 minutes per day per person after 20s century. The quick pace of life nowadays is pushing people to get closer to fast food as their time are mostly spent on working and so on. Thus, the "too busy to cook", "no time to eat well" or "more work to do" problem occurs which leads to a result that there is no time to actually buy ingredients, cook, clean, go to fancy restaurants and become a real foodie.


It is already hard to be a foodie if one doesn't have a good health condition, enough money or time. Moreover, what if one does not have any of these preconditions? Min is was old lady with a lame leg who lived in a small village in China by herself. She had to pick branches as firewood and income too in mountains everyday to survive. Though there were branches everywhere in those mountains, she could hardly pick any up, every time she tried to stand up, it seems that she was using the last strength of her life. Living in a condition like this, she had literally no good health condition to cook, nearly no money to buy anything and no time for things other than picking branches and resting, all she had been eating was hogwash and she died because of hunger early this year... Being a foodie probably was just a fantasy or fairy tale for her or has she ever "dared" to think about it? Living in a hard condition like this, one's basic needs is just surviving, besides anything he could get to fill his stomach, what else could he expect?


The reality is just too harsh and cold for every dream to survive sometimes nevertheless being a foodie is absolutely nice and enjoyable. If one really loves to eat, and is willing to put effort in cooking and eating food, on the base of being healthy enough to do so, he also needs to get a work which can get good paid while not taking too much time. Consequently, health, money and time are very important and needed preconditions on one's way to becoming a foodie.

References:


Books:

1. Bitter Sweet by Matt McAllester


2. Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl


Webs:

1. The Concierge | Feeding Foodie Grandmother By Christine Muhlke

http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/the-concierge-feeding-foodie-grandmother/?scp=1&sq=foodie&st=cse


2. The Process of How an Old Lady Died

http://bbs.uschinalawonline.org/showtopic-5351.aspx


3. How Much Time Do Americans Spend On Eating?

http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/June08/DataFeature/