This might sound insensitive to the sensibilities of the people around here—disrespect towards their alterity and so on and so forth—but I find it very difficult to get used to hawker food, especially non-Chinese cuisine. I do not say this pejoratively. It’s just like other people saying they are not too crazy about balut (which, by the way, costs S$4.00 a pop here. Obscene!) or Peachy and my brother disliking mayonnaise with passion. Or Val getting all itchy around seafood. (Ay, eng-eng, allergic nga pala siya! Hahaha!)Which is not to say I’ve been too wimpy to try out different things. As a matter of fact, for the sake of widening my horizon, I did try what locals refer to as Muslim food during my first few days here. I didn’t think a simple dish of fried rice and fried chicken would have a funky taste and give a dizzying effect on me, but apparently it could. With my mouth full I excused myself from my housemates and ran to the back of the hawker, and barfed my dinner like hell. I wound up having coffee and cake from Breadtalk that night.
And then, once, a colleague cajoled us to try Indian cuisine in a restaurant called Banana Leaf. Again, my taste faculties were not very receptive to the food. Even Yvonne, who was also pretty unhappy with the meal, could tell from my eyes how dissatisfied I was, and how I was merely going through the motions of biting, chewing, swallowing and trying not to vomit.
When I was a kid, every time my parents coerced me to eat something I didn’t like such as fish or bitter gourd or pumpkin or bagoong ng Pangasinan, I’d conjure up images of food I actually liked (cheeseburger, Chocolait, Cote d’Or, corned beef sandwich, etc.) just to get through the ordeal of ingesting mandatory food. For instance, whenever I had to eat daing na bangus, I would imagine that I’m actually eating Kentucky Fried Chicken and somehow I always succeeded at distracting myself from the fact that I was eating a scaly animal. Sometimes I wonder if I can still do this as an adult.
What food do I like? Meatballs from IKEA! Ah, yes, for breakfast, lunch and dinner! And Hainanese Chicken Rice, too (shown in the photo which I actually just nicked from Google.)
*Joy Guerrero writes amusing stuff about Sweden and the Swedish way of life in her blog, Home and Away (http://swedecheese.blogspot.com). She talks about Vikings, packaging of dairy products, feast days devoted to particular pastries, trips to rock formations, and, most importantly, food. On top of that, she's always backed up by facts. I thought it might be a funny idea to talk about food like in Home and Away, but it seems like I ended up focusing on things I don’t like. Again. :)
