When I joked to my boyfriend that he may be allergic to dairy, the Italian in him vehemently protested. “Life is not worth living without cheese,” he bemoaned dramatically.
It had me thinking, what would be the food I couldn’t live without?
I love food but I have 2 allergies that prevent me from eating everything under the sun.
1. Nuts, except small dosage of pistachios and pine nut. For a Southeast Asian, this is unheard of since everything uses nuts in some form.
2. Dairy. Yes, lactose intolerant but I still have pizza, scraping the cheese off most of the time or paying for consequences later
Despite these allergies, I’ve learned to love food nonetheless, mostly because New York has an abundance and variety. It’s like traveling the seven seas without actually sailing.
I always find it to be a shame when I see people shut themselves off from exploring food, especially when they have no food allergy. Blaming parents for teaching one to eat only certain food is a ridiculous excuse because my family ate only Asian food until I started to venture out and try other food. If you try with an open mind, you’ll find something you like. People with food prejudice is someone I have a hard time being friends with and one of the biggest thing I wanted in a boyfriend, someone who would food explore with me.
The list of food could go on but if I could only pick a few (aside from water), it would be:
1. When I’m sick, congee with a little bit of salt.
2. Pho is like chicken noodle soup for the Southeast Asian soul.
3. The smell of fresh scrambled eggs will always start my morning.
4. Bacon is used in so many of my dishes, especially love them with congee.
5. Shrimp. I always have a bag of shrimp in my refrigerator just because it’s my go-to-meat when I have no imagination to cook.
Just think of the people around the world who don’t have the luxury for even a grain of rice. Enjoy life and all that it offers instead of taking it for granted. Enjoy food for it may be your last. Enjoy every taste and meditate on it because we have ability to know taste for luxury and not just survival.
What are your food you can’t live without?