The Burger

It’s January, 2009. I’ve arrived in Nashville after eating my entire box of Purdy’s hedgehog chocolates and half of the box intended for my sister (and then demanding that she share the remaining chocolates with me). Days later we were on our way to Atlanta, and during the drive I was haunted by a single thought: that I really, really wanted to eat a burger. Before this time, I don’t think I had ever actually eaten a proper burger. I had definitely just had a plain beef patty, possibly with melted cheese, but I don’t think I had ever had it inside of a bun. And so we did it. We found a burger place in the Little Five Points neighbourhood, and to this day, it remains the best burger I have ever tasted.

Here it is: the infamous Atlanta burger. The fries weren't much to look at, but goddamn was that ever a good burger.

After that first Atlanta burger, I was hooked. Six years later, I just can’t stop eating burgers. I eat them every chance I get and I eat them everywhere. I’ve eaten them all across Canada. I’ve eaten them in Spokane and, more importantly Colville.* I’ve eaten them throughout Europe (usually a pretty disappointing experience) and in various airports. I just got home from eating a burger for dinner, and all I could think about afterwards is when and where I would eat my next burger. In short, burgers are always my number one go-to choice in any restaurant. It should go without saying that I always get my burgers without any dressing: just a plain patty with cheddar cheese and the bun. Sometimes I wonder if the chef gets annoyed with my order. They probably do, but I always hope that they don't because I am never asking for weird additional items, just that most of the ingredients be left off the burger. At the end of the day I guess I don't care all that much about how the cook feels because going out to eat is all about being selfish and treating yourself, and not caring about the people who are catering to your whims.

I've been eating at Hero Burger a lot this year, mostly because it's so convenient, but also because it's
decent enough. My only complaint with Hero Burger, and the other burger chains like it (of which 5 Guys is
hands-down the best option) is that they're way too expensive for what you actually get. For the same price, you
can almost always find a much better burger, with the added bonus of better seating and service.

I was recently asked why it is I’m okay with eating burgers, but not sandwiches. After all, aren’t they the same thing? Doesn’t a burger meet the most basic requirements of being a sandwich? I guess they do, if your definition of “sandwich” is as basic and simplistic as just an item placed between two bread-objects. In that sense, sure, a burger is just a sandwich. But in that case, should it follow that just because I love spaghetti bolognese I should like fettuccine alfredo? They are both, when it comes down to it, just pasta and sauce. Does it make sense that because I like apple pie, I should necessarily also eat some gross meat pie? Don’t they meet the same basic requirements? I mean, they’re both pies. They’re both composed of some filling inside of a closed pastry.

Maybe these seem like unfair comparisons. “Pasta and sauce” isn’t really a category of food in the same way that sandwiches are, and there’s of course a marked difference between a sweet dessert pie and a disgusting savoury pie (although I would also like to note that I don’t really like very many other sweet pies, with the exception of strawberry-rhubarb, and even then, I would always go with an apple pie if the option is available to me). Another issue is that I have already voiced a strong opposition to sandwiches, but given my love for and devotion to burgers, maybe I ought to reconsider this. But should I? No. That would be ridiculous. You would have to be a mad man to consider a burger a sandwich just because its mode of delivery is a bread product.

This year in Toronto has been an especially good burger year for me, but I have yet to find a burger in this city that even comes close to that original Atlanta burger. The second best burger I've ever had was in Montreal, at Burger Ville (actually Burger de Ville), which is a weird chain restaurant in Quebec that serves truly delicious and truly affordable burgers. The only downside is that the interior is not very nice, and it's not a place where you would like to sit and truly savour your burger. There are other places in Montreal that are great, but their burgers aren't quite as good. I especially like Patati Patata, which serves mini burgers (I always get two and a basket of fries). In a lot of ways the burgers aren't actually that good. They're thin and kind of dry and there's too much of a bun-to-burger ratio (to be fair, this might be fixed with more fixings), but overall it's a great little restaurant with adequate burgers.

Here's me eating the first of two baby burgers at Patati
Patata in Montreal. This picture was taken during
my sister's visit. For some reason this was a
really ugly time for me. Not, like, emotionally trying. I
just looked really ugly that week for some reason.

There's honestly not a whole lot I have to say about burgers. In a lot of ways, they're the perfect food: they're fast, they're portable, they're delicious, and they're filling. But it should be mentioned that burger quality is never assured. I have eaten some terrible burgers in my life. As a general rule, I hate seeing anything in the burger other than plain ground beef (such as chopped onions or seasoning), even if I like additional flavours (such as chopped onions or seasoning). I don't like to see any red meat. One time I ate a treacherously undercooked burger and it was traumatizing. But when they're good, they're great.

Here are some different burgers I have eaten.

Here are more burgers that I have eaten.

*Important because as everyone should know, even though Rancho Chico’s is also in Spokane, it is generally considered by all to be the only place to eat in Colville, whereas Spokane also has The Onion, which has pretty decent burgers. So imagine my surprise when Rancho Chico’s in Colville was actually closed on Independence Day and we were forced to go to that weird … what is it? Ronnie D’s? Sandy’s? That weird drive-in fast-food place in Colville. It was great! It was so American!

A burg is enough when my hunger needs sating

And my tum has no voice but the voice of complaining
So many tastes for my tongue to discover
Ground beef, melted cheese--marinating thereunder 
Some burgers I've tasted, some still a wonder
Some were delicious, others better pass'd over
Yet my hands shall not tremble, my bite shall not falter,
My hunger shall not weary, my tastes shall not alter
Those buns and these lips of the loved and the lover.

Self-Contained Shell Lasagnas

If I know anything about Robert Burns—beyond the fact that he inexplicably has his own day—it’s that he once wrote a poem with the line “best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley”, but as neither mouse nor man, my best laid schemes almost always stay on track. Except this one time when I tried to make self-contained lasagnas in large shell pasta. It was a disaster. A delicious, terrible, ugly disaster.

Okay, but let me just give you an overview of my thought process here: I love spaghetti bolognese, and I like lasagna fair enough, but how amazing would it be if everything that I loved about these two dishes was contained in a single, large shell (I mean, obviously not a single shell; of course I ate about ten of them). Right? Like, if I cooked a bunch of large shell pastas, and then lined the interior with cheese (probably cheddar, but parmesan or mozzarella would work fine as well), and then filled the rest of the shell with bolognese sauce, and then grated more cheese on top of all the shells and then baked them. Right?! Has anything ever sounded better to anyone?

So finally, when I was in Grand Forks for reading break last year, I did it. And … it didn’t really work out the way I thought it would. First of all, I forgot the interior cheese lining, which was a huge mistake because the end product didn’t have nearly enough cheese. But it was also a lot harder and a lot messier to stuff the shells than I thought it would be. And in the end it just looked terrible. It was so disgusting. It looked like a fake organ display in a low-budget haunted house. But I ate it anyway, and they were pretty good. Maybe they weren’t as good as I was anticipating, but still a pretty solid meal.

Right? Look at how terrible this looks. Who could ever
want to eat this? But eat it I did.

I made the same dish again this summer and ate so much of it that I couldn’t move for a full twenty-four hours. This time I remembered to line the shells with cheese. It was still really messy, and the dish didn’t come out of the oven looking particularly appetizing, but yeah, I would say it was a pretty good meal. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily worth the effort, because it’s certainly not significantly better than just regular pasta topped with cheese, and in fact I’m not sure if it’s better at all. But anyway, I still have half a box of large shell pasta which have virtually no other application, so I guess I am just going to have to make this again.

The best-laid schemes o' shells an meat

So oft are destroyed

An'lea'e us nought but grief an' defeat

For want of promis'd joy!

"Dear Food Thoughtz:" Melona Madness

Dear Food Thoughtz,

Have you ever tried these delicious ice cream pops called Melona bars? They come in Melon, Mango, Banana, and Strawberry flavours. They can be found in most grocery stores, but I buy mine in a discount store called No Frills, and can sometimes get them for as cheap as $3.50 a box (they are about twice as much in other grocery stores). This is where my problem comes in. Because there are 8 bars in a pack, I see it as such an extremely good deal, and I feel like such a clever shopper I end up buying multiple boxes at a time, thinking that I will share them with my roommate and my bf, and that I will eat them casually over the course of the summer. This never seems to happen since I end up stuffing my face with them because I find them so absolutely pleasing.

I want to know if you have tried this treat in any of the different flavours, or if you will consider trying them?

If you are not into them, please tell me why so that I can hopefully learn how to see things your way and stop. I also really want to know what advice you could give to someone who just cannot behave around their favorite food....It is so very shame-making.

Thank-you very much,

Yours gratefully,

Melona Maniac

 

Please note: In the picture the box is quite torn. That is because I could not control myself from tearing it open in anticipation. You can see the problem is quite serious.

 Dear Melona Maniac,

Thank you for such an interesting query. I apologize for the lateness of my reply, but I have a good excuse: yesterday after work I went out to Dufferin Mall where I know there to be a No Frills grocery story. There is also a Gap Factory Outlet Store, but there were no good deals there yesterday. I searched high and low for these Melona ice cream pops in both No Frills and then in WalMart, but to no avail. The packaging does not look familiar to me at all, so I suspect that, like most good things, they are not available in Ontario. I was hoping to try several boxes myself to write a more informed response to your question, but unfortunately I will just have to make a bunch of unfounded assumptions. 

To quickly answer your questions (which should have already been answered by that introductory paragraph): no I have not tried them, but yes I would consider trying them—although not the banana or melon flavours because I think that’s disgusting. I like bananas, but I hate when anything is flavoured like a banana because … obviously. It’s a terrible artificial flavour. And, honestly, the natural flavour of a banana isn’t actually good enough to try and replicate artificially. I would never try the melon flavour because I hate melons and think they’re repulsive. Although I must say that I find it surprising that the Melona melon flavour, based on your attached photo, appears to be honeydew, which is strange because I always assume a company would go for watermelon flavour if they’re going to feature any melon flavour at all. Or a melon blend. The honeydew flavour doesn’t appeal to me any more than a watermelon—quite a bit less, actually—but still, just an interesting detail to note. I would like to try the strawberry and mango flavours, but again, to be honest, these aren’t really my favourite flavours for an ice treat. If anything is going to be berry-flavoured, I typically prefer for it to be a berry-burstmashup featuring the four most prominent berries (strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry, obviously). As I mentioned in my first-ever Food Thoughtz post, while I don’t like mangoes as fruits, I really do like mango flavouring, which in and of itself is enough to justify the existence of mangoes.

I’m not sure I will be able to offer you any practical advice on how to stop gorging yourself on Melonas, although from the sounds of it you have taken matters into your own hands and tried to substitute them with a ridiculous apple cream pie or something. Without the cream part, this would be a great solution. Apple pies are delicious. Anyway. Whenever I have faced a similar problem and just can’t stop eating something—even after I promise myself that I will ration it like a reasonable human being—it usually just goes away after a fairly short period of time. Earlier this year I went through a phase where I couldn’t stop eating Lucky Charms cereal. I had just discovered that they’re even better with milk, and I was going through a box every day or two. It was horrific. And then I just stopped. And now I don’t let myself buy Lucky Charms anymore. 

I know this isn’t helpful advice, but I think you’ve already taken a very important firs t step by writing in: admitting you have a problem is the best thing you can do. You have also already admitted to yourself that you don’t buy these ice cream pops in bulk with the actual intention of sharing them with friends or ingesting them slowly over the summer, which is something you need to keep in mind the next time you’re tempted to buy these. It seems to me you have three options: you could go the AA route and try to cut this cancer out of your life all together; you could go the Dutch route and try to re-program yourself to consume responsibly; or you could do what I would do, which is to stop buying them regularly, but allow yourself one day a month when you can buy a box and eat them in one sitting. Eight popsicles per months is probably fairly normal, and I can see no reason why you shouldn’t eat all eight of them in the space of 20minutes rather than dragging it out over the course of an entire month.

I’ll be honest: it’s not going to be easy. But if you are serious about getting a grip and taking control of your life, then you don’t have much of a choice. Or you could just move to Ontario where there are exactly zero good things to tempt you because this province is the absolute worst.

New Year, New Me: Cheerios with Milk

Today I tried Cheerios with my for the first time in my entire life.  I always swore that no matter how successful my past cereal and milk experience had been, Cheerios with milk was a line I was never willing to cross.  Until last night.  Verdict?  Delicious.

@foodthoughtz is trending

@foodthoughtz You'll have to see an agent in the airport for this. Love you too! /dp
— Air Canada (@AirCanada) January 8, 2014

New Year, New Me: This Green Vegetable Smoothie

Continuing the inadvertent 2014 trend of trying new things that began with a walnut, over the holidays I tried a sip of a smoothie at the Wooden Spoon Bistro.  No big deal, right?  Wrong.  This smoothie had kale and avocado in it and I even knew about the kale before I tried it.  (The taste, in case anyone was wondering, was neutralized by agave nectar).  To be fair, had I known there was also avocado in it, there's no way I would have tried it.  But things get stranger: I actually really enjoyed it.  I'm not sure if I would have wanted the entire smoothie for myself, but luckily my three year-old niece guzzled the whole thing down before anyone else had a chance.

Since trying this smoothie, my what had hitherto been an unquenchable thirst for trying new foods has kind of petered out.  But still, even if that's it for me in 2014, I've had a pretty good run.

Hungarian Cold Fruit Soup

Wow.  I don’t even know how to start this post because I still can’t get my head around this.  Cold fruit soup?  At first I thought that perhaps the name didn’t translate very well from Hungarian.  But it does.  “Leves” means soup.  And then I thought, well, okay, this is just an unfortunate instance of poor naming that doesn’t really capture the essence of the food itself.  But it kind of does.  It actually is just cold fruit soup.  My relationship with this soup has run the gamut of emotions, from total revulsion to piqued interest to disappointment, and finally to indifference.

 Although I had all the opportunities in the world to try this soup during my many sojourns in Budapest, I never did.  The reason should be fairly self-evident (it's marketed as cold fruit soup), and I long considered it amongst the most depraved of all Hungarian inventions--of which there are many, and if you ever have the pleasure of meeting a real-life Hungarian, they will undoubtedly list them all for you.  I have never considered food to be a meaningful way by which to engage with a culture, but every time I was reminded of the existence of cold fruit soup, I had to stop and wonder what kind of miseries a people must endure to bring them to this dish.  I imagined a starving family, huddled together over a small fire in the midst of a harsh winter, with nothing to eat but some left-over fruit preserves from the fall and doing what they had to to survive.  The image did not appeal to me.

Okay, well, here it is.  The blobs are chunks of cherry.  At first I was pretty excited because I thought it would be like
the chunks of cherry in Activia yogurt (JLC: if you're reading this, hi!!), but it was not like that at all.

I also could never quite understand when one is expected to eat this soup.  I get the impression that it is often served as a main course, but because it's cold and because it's made of soup, it didn't make any sense.  Shouldn't it just be a post-meal dessert or a poor substitute for ice cream?  It really should not be a meal unto itself.  I don't know how many times I will have to say this in this post, but it is quite literally cold fruit soup.

By imagining how it might first have been developed and by trying to figure out when one is supposed to eat it, cold fruit soup slowly wormed its way into my brain, and I became obsessed with trying it for myself.  This was a pretty new phenomenon for me, because even though I am often intrigued by different foods, I almost never want to try them.  I'm not sure what made this instance different.  But I did try it.  I happen to live about two minutes from one of the few remaining Hungarian eateries in town.  I went with a real Hungarian, who described the soup as being "okay."  I was less generous in my evaluation.

Whenever I take a chance on a new food and try it, I always think it warrants a long post about my experiences.  But the bottom line is that this is a cold fruit soup, and it really doesn't warrant any discussion whatsoever.  Actually, I believe it is a disservice to culinary culture to give any more attention to this food than it deserves, which is none.  To quote one of my (few) instagram followers and real-life Hungarian:

There is nothing left to say about a food that is composed of three elements, the most crucial of which being "soup," and as nagymarcipan correctly pointed out, a soup must be hot and it must be savoury.  The Hungarian cold fruit soup is, then, composed of contradictions, and the second two elements--that it is cold and that is made of fruit--seems to negate the possibility that it is even a soup to begin with.  This food might have been more successful with me if it had been marketed as something else, like a compote or a sauce.  I mean, maybe you could drizzle this over some ice cream and it might be okay, but as it stands, this is not a food I will try again.

I'll leave off on one final note.  In John Hawkes' moderate masterpiece Travesty, the narrator claims that "the greater the incongruity, the greater the truth."  Before you get excited by the prospect that Hungarian cuisine can be justified by literature, it bears mentioning that this very same narrator makes this statement while recklessly driving a sports car at top speed through the French Riviera with the end-game of murdering his daughter and his daughter's lover (who also happens to be the narrator's best friend and the narrator's wife's lover) by crashing into a metre-thick cement wall, and is guided by the life-philosophy that willed destruction is the purest form of poetic expression.  So while Hungarian cuisine cannot be justified by this text, it nevertheless is hauntingly analogous to the current state of Hungary.  Sometimes unreliable narrators are the most reliable of all.

When I married a Hungarian I was not told

That one day I would eat a fruit soup served cold.

Had I known about this in advance,

I probably would have called off the entire romance. 

New Year, New Me: Trying Walnuts

Today is New Years Day.  Today is also the day that I tried a walnut for the first time in my entire life.

I had been pretty dismissive of them in the past, but I must admit, they're not the worst thing I've ever had.

Pictured here is the walnut that I tried in my sister's palm.  Let's hope this launches her long-awaited career as a hand model.

The Future is Now

Today I learned what a gif is and how to make one.  I also learned about the lovestruck feature in PhotoBooth.  Clearly I am not very good at making gifs, but sometimes the first step towards success is failure.

Lucky Charms

I have always loved Lucky Charms cereal — presumably just like every other child always has because it’s not even cereal, just marshmallows and sugar-coated crunchy-pieces that pay lip-service to the idea of “cereal.” When I would have a bowl of Lucky Charms, I would spend twenty minutes painstakingly picking out and eating the cereal bits until I was left with a bowl of marshmallows. The appeal of eating the marshmallows on their own has always been that the marshmallows are firm in their structure, but offer no resistance when you bite into them. There has always been a bit of a thrill in biting a marshmallow and half, and then examining its cross-section. Sometimes I would put a marshmallow—usually a red balloon, because they were my favourite—in my mouth and suck on it until it disintegrated. It’s a different experience than letting chocolate or a popsicle melt in your mouth because you can actually feel individual bits of sugar coming loose from the balloon until nothing is left. These two approaches to eating the marshmallows is contingent on their dryness.

Here's a screenshot of a picture I uploaded to Instagram of the first bowl of Lucky Charms that I ate after buying the
box, including a caption lambasting all of the fools who have eaten Lucky Charms with milk.

Here's a picture of what's left after
picking out the cereal bits.

One time, I think in the summer of 2006, I spent an entire day eating all of the cereal bits so that I could make a ball of all of the marshmallows in a single box of Lucky Charms and bite into it like an apple. It once occurred to me that I should just pick out the marshmallows and throw out the rest, but I realized that one of the best parts is the delayed satisfaction of eating all of those marshmallows all at once. This method of eating Lucky Charms taught me that if you work hard for something, the payoff will be that much sweeter than if you just go straight for the reward. For the record, I have not carried this life philosophy over to any other aspect of my life.

I typically always ate cold cereal dry. Rice Krispies is probably the only cold cereal that I consistently ate with milk (always with sliced up banana and a bit of sugar), and to this day, I have never had Cheerios, Golden Grahams, or Honeycomb cereal in milk. The thought of cereal and milk never disgusted me, but I was always certain that it would take away some crucial element from the cereal. I thought of it as a practice that was widely accepted, but never closely examined. I have always thought that cereal is best when it’s crunchy and that its crunchiness was central to its very identity. While I had often entertained the idea of eating my cereal in milk, I never did because I have always been a firm believer in sticking with what you know and what you know you like. Even if something turns out to be not bad, why waste that one experience when you know for sure that it could be as good as it has always been? For the record, this is a life philosophy that I have carried over to every other aspect of my life.

You can tell this is a store brand cereal
because the flakes are a much lower
quality than I have come to expect
from the branded cereals.

Things began to change when I went to Europe—the land of self-discovery—in 2005. I bought an 8€ box of Special K Red Berries and I had it with milk. Although I had had Special K Red Berries without milk in the past and really enjoyed eating those dried strawberries, after having a bite of my friend’s cereal, I realized that the strawberries only improved when they were soaked in milk and had the opportunity to soften up a bit. It was also around this time that I made the crucial switch from skim milk to homo, and while I still prefer skim milk for drinking, homo really is the best when it comes to cereal or milk in your coffee. The next cereal I tried in milk was something like NesQuik. It went over really well because on one hand, it turns the milk into chocolate milk, and on the other hand, those chocolate balls were always too dense and too hard to really enjoy. The milk softened them up an appropriate amount.

Ever since, I have been on a bit of a cereal-with-milk tear. As I mentioned, I still eat cereals like Golden Grahams and Cheerios without milk, but I’ve introduced a lot of new and exciting cereals into my repertoire as well—all of which I eat with milk. Over the past few years, I’ve really gotten into Kashi, Vector, Raisin Bran and any cereal that has dried berries in it (Jordans Morning Crisp, Honey Bunches of Oats with Strawberries, or the store-brand take on Special K Red Berries).

Lucky Charms is something that I’ve eaten less and less of over the years. Every once in a while it will go on sale so I’ll pick up a box, but in general, it’s just not a part of my diet anymore. There are probably a few reasons for this. Part of it has to do with how expensive it is, but more importantly, having a bowl of dry cereal has always been a mindless snacking activity for me. I eat it when I am watching tv or doing school work. I don’t want to have to focus on what it is I’m eating, and Lucky Charms is a cereal that, if you’re eating it dry, you have to give it your full attention. So it came as a bit of surprise to me when I picked up a box at Metro the other day (it was on sale for $2.99, down from the usual $5.50), but I was really excited to tuck into it.

At first I ate it as I always have. I poured a bowl, painstakingly picked out and ate the cereal bits, spent some time appreciating the beauty of all the colourful marshmallows alone in the bowl, and then gobbled them up. R was in the kitchen with me at the time and mentioned that his parents would never buy him Lucky Charms, but that sometimes his grandmother would. When I said that I never eat them with milk, he said that he had always enjoyed them with milk and that he would try to eat the cereal bits first because they were best when crunchy, but that the marshmallows really improved when saturated in milk.

On the cusp of trying something new. I regret getting rid of that box
because I could really use a new toque right now.

And then something happened. I don’t know what. I wanted to try it. I poured myself another bowl, added milk, and prepared for the worst. My main concern was that I would have less control over the cereal once it was sloshing around in a bowl of milk. I wouldn’t be able to pick out the cereal bits very easily, and I knew that I would inevitably miss some. I knew, going into it, that there would be times when I would have to eat spoonfuls that contained both cereal and marshmallow, and although I wasn’t thrilled by the idea, something—some force outside myself—urged me on. It will probably come as no surprise that I liked it. I really liked it. I’m still not sure if I like it more than having it dry, but I do like it. I liked it enough to rush out and buy another box to do the whole thing over again.

Something changed in me that day. It wasn’t life altering, but more like a little sliver of doubt entering my consciousness. I was so sure about Lucky Charms. So sure. I knew how I liked it; I was so certain that it could never be better. I’m not sure that it is better, but I think it’s probably just as good. My approach to food has always been premised on a strict hierarchical system. There is a very small group of food that I like, and within that group, I have always been adamant that there is a singular best way to enjoy that food. Potatoes are best fried; pasta is best with bolognese; broccoli and cauliflower are best with cheese. There are, of course, other ways I will eat these foods. I like potatoes baked in an oven or mashed, and I like pasta with either just cheese or sometimes just butter, and I like broccoli and cauliflower steamed plain or with butter, or sometimes even raw. But there is always, always, a “best” way to enjoy these foods. What’s different about Lucky Charms is that I’m worried that I like them with milk as much as I like them plain.

What does that mean for me and my diet? What if postmodernist theory was right? What if there is no such thing as a singular truth? That it’s all a construction? That there’s more than one approach to something, and that one is not necessarily more valuable than another? It’s an exciting time in my life right now, but also frightening. Does my experience with Lucky Charms gesture towards a flattening out of my diet, a horizontal expansion that knows no bounds? And where will I go from here? How will I ever approach a box of Lucky Charms ever again? How will I know how to eat it? How can I ever be certain of what I want ever again? The future is marred by uncertainty, and I have never been more afraid in my entire life.

Ever since it happened, news has spread like wildfire throughout Toronto.

I've approached my diet with unflinching certainty:

Confidence in my taste is central to my identity.

To experiment with food was an impossibility,

And Lucky Charms with milk was an incomprehensibility.

That I liked it suggests potential dietary malleability,

And more frighteningly yet, that singular truth is a fragility. 

What if trying new things is within my capability?

Does this signal towards a new versatility?

A Long Over Overdue Potato Update (2)

In April, 2013 -- approximately one month after this blog went on summer vacation -- my ham sista came to visit me in Montréal and help move me back west.  Leading up to her arrive we talked a lot about all the potato feeding frenzies we were going to have. In the end, we only had one.

Maybe you're thinking, Wow. Only one potato feeding frenzy? That's pretty pathetic for someone who claims to really like potatoes. But you guys. They were delicious and I have no regrets about our culinary choices that week.

A more recent potato update would regrettably not exist because--would you believe it?--I've been in Toronto for three weeks now and I haven't bought potatoes once.

Brain Thoughtz: Eating Selectively is not a Disorder

According to the archives (btw, I am on my way to becoming an archivist now), I haven’t blogged about food since March 13, 2013, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been having a lot of food thoughtz in the meantime.  I spend a lot of time thoughtzing about food, whether it be a mere question of what and when to eat, or grappling with more complex issues surrounding why I won’t eat this or why I will eat that.  Lately, I have been focusing my entire mental capacity on trying to figure out what in the heck is “Selective Eating Disorder” and what it might mean for me.

From what I can tease out, “Selective Eating Disorder” (SED) is presumed to be a more mature way of saying “picky eating.”  Apparently there is a growing community of adults who, for any variety of reasons, have an extremely limited diet, which runs the gamut from eating only potato products (living the dream) to a diet more like mine, which does offer variety but is extremely restrictive in several ways.  It is perhaps incorrect to describe this community as “growing”  rather than one that is increasingly asserting itself.  As of now, SED has yet to be recognized as a legitimate mental illness/eating disorder (there is some confusion in the literature regarding how this should be classified, or else there is some confusion in my own brain about how disorders are classified), but attempts are being made to have it officially recognized as such.  Before we go any further, let me just state for the record that I take issue with the “disorder” classification.  Being selective about what food items gain access to the inside of your body is hardly a disorder; if anyone suffers from a disorder it’s those vile people who eat egg salad sandwiches.  And, since we’re on the topic of egg salad sandwiches, let me just say that once I’ve written a post on sandwiches, I plan to start work on a post dealing with egg salad sandwiches, in which all of my fear, hatred, and anxiety will culminate.

I've already posted this picture on Food Thoughtz, but I
think it's a really great illustration of my eating habits.
It's usually not too difficult to find one or two things that
I'll eat at a dinner party, but the amount of that food that
I can take is often a bit of a problem. (This is not a good
example because we had two enormous ham nugs, and
for some reason I just didn't take advantage of them.) Of
course it also illustrates how I like to keep my food
separate, but, I mean... duh.

I have gleaned from the internets that people who consider themselves to be sufferers of SED love to begin their internet posts with an anecdote about some woman named Jennifer.  For some reason it’s often “not her real name.”  I don’t know why, because even if Jennifer’s real name is Katey, it’s not as if Candace in Omaha is going to start worrying about the diet and health of some Katey she might have some fleeting acquaintance with who lives down the street.  Anyway:

“Jennifer (not her real name) is a happily married mother of two. By all accounts her life seemed perfect, but one thing plagues Jennifer’s health, happiness, and even marriage: Jennifer is one of the many adults who suffer from Selective Eating Disorder, which is currently being reviewed for official recognition as an eating disorder.”

Then the article will go on to talk about how Jennifer is not alone, and there are hundreds — if not thousands — more like her:

“Most people think that ‘picky eating’ is just a phase that kids will eventually grow out of, but for x-amount of adults, this is a very real disorder disrupting the lives of many.”

Then the article will go on to list how SED can disrupt lives: health concerns, extreme anxiety, additional stress on careers and relationships, etc.  There is always a disproportionate amount of interest given to how some people don’t even feel comfortable going out for dinner with friends (although it is never made explicit if this is because there isn’t anything on the menu or because the person inflicted with the “disorder” feels uncomfortable in social situations involving food).  But what a terrible point to stress!  I can just imagine Jennifer and her cronies knocking on the door of the American Psychiatric Association saying, “You guys! This is a real thing! I missed four dinners last month!” Please.  Stop thinking of it as a loss, and start considering it as a gain: "Jennifer" just saved herself over $150.

Here's a great example of one of my favourite dinners: mashed potatoes, ham, and a glass of Quebec cider in a wine
glass that I stole from a hotel that my mum was staying at. Although it looks like the mashed potato is touching the
ham, I can assure you it's not. It's just hovering above it.

The article will go on to say that although no one is quite sure what causes SED, many believe it to be an early childhood food-related trauma, like choking or (seriously) seeing a food tube.  Some articles claim that picky eating might be a kind of evolutionary safety precaution, because as modern science has taught us, species that have been evolutionarily successful have been those who limit themselves to a diet of baked potatoes.  Although, the self-preservation article isn’t completely outrageous.  Some argue that picky eating is a developed trait to ward off unknown foods and, therefore, potential threats.  (I would just like to add, for the record, that if this were true, it’s a pretty faulty self-preservation system.  Even rice, the dish you thought you knew so well, can poison you. Et tu, Oriza?)  If, for example, I was presented with baba ghanoush, some primal, instinctual thing would trigger in my brain telling me that I should not eat this because I cannot discern each individual ingredient, and because I cannot be certain what’s in it, I can’t be certain that it’s safe.  Frankly, I think the reason I don’t want to eat that baba ghanoush has to do with the fact that it looks like I already tried it once and it didn’t go over so well (because I threw it up. Because I think baba ghanoush looks like vomit).  But the first argument isn’t too bad either.  Because while there are a lot of foods that I have tried and don’t like — brusselsprouts, turnips & corn, that one cucumber slice I tried, vegetarian lasagna — so what, right? Everyone has foods that they’ve tried and don’t like.  What’s weird is the inability to try new foods, and the resulting anxiety attacks and burst of adrenaline when confronted with the possibility of having to try something.

This is another example of a pretty typical dinner for me, this time plain basmati rice with butter and a separate bowl of vegetables and cheddar cheese. The only thing that could improve it is perhaps some sausages or ham, of course
on a separate plate. (It's especially important to keep meats separate because they're always leaking)

This is something I noticed more and more as I filled out a Duke University Survey about picky eating (the preliminary findings are here and Duke's health page on selective eating is here), because obviously I had to fill out this survey.  Like any survey, it was pretty flawed and I don’t think the answers I gave are reflective of my deepest heart thoughtz, but nevertheless some of my answers indicated a deep desire for consistency — a character trait I’ve always known myself to possess, for for some reason have never connected to my eating habits.  I grew increasingly frustrated with a series of questions (which I’ve screen-captured below, along with my answers) that seemed too general to really speak to my specific food concerns. Luckily they provided a text box below so that you could clarify your answers.

And my clarification:

What foods are safer for you to try? Is there any pattern that you notice?

Unmixed foods are generally easier for me to try (but I just want to say right now that I don’t consider plain cheese pizza a “mixed food.” I consider cheese pizza to be one solid food that only becomes mixed when you start adding peppers or mushrooms).  I have certain requirements for certain kinds of food. It would be really difficult for me to try a food that I would associate as a "hot" food if it was served cold (e.g. a casserole; pasta).

A lot of my answers for the above questions would depend on specific situations. For example, I feel comfortable eating buns or bagels, but only if they are a specific kind, and only if they are served plain (e.g. I would not eat a ham & cheese croissant). I also feel comfortable eating pasta, but again, only under certain conditions  (that it is hot, that it is either plain, or, if it is not plain, that it is served only with an accompaniment that I have pre-approved and have already tried).

It also depends if I am expected to eat these foods in a social setting or not, and if it is a social setting, what kind is it? Is it a casual dinner with a sort of buffet table? Or is it a sit down dinner where dishes are passed around?  If it’s the former, it would be easy to avoid foods that I don’t want to eat, but if it’s the latter, then I would feel a lot of pressure to eat something.  Typically there is something at a dinner party that I don’t mind, so it’s never too much of a concern. But if it was a question of trying something really extreme that I have never had before, I think I would be more likely to try that new food if I am alone. Then again, there’s really no impetus for me to try a food on my own, unless I really wanted to for personal reasons. (e.g. once I tried a salad in this way).

Of the above listed options, I definitely feel most comfortable trying fruit, fruit juice, or beer. I think it is because with these foods or beverages, it is less likely that a third party has interacted with them or has projected their own personal food preferences onto the provided food. Of course all food is processed or handled in some way, but I guess what I am trying to say is that I imagine all foods exist in a kind of “natural state,” although this, for me, very rarely has anything to do with nature at all. Beer, for example, is in its natural state if it is in a bottle, can, or keg. I think what I am getting at is that even something like 100% fruit juice has to be processed in someway before it is bottled, but I don’t have to see that process. But if someone makes a casserole, then it is glaringly obvious that the food has been tampered with by the host. I mean, they MADE the casserole. Back to the fruit for a second: if there is a fruit platter, I will definitely have some of it if I feel like I have to (if I can get away with not eating it, then I won’t). But I don’t like the idea of fruit sitting out on a platter. For some reason, this doesn’t bother me in the same way with a vegetable platter. I would even eat a piece of cauliflower if it had been leaning up against a pepper or a radish (although I would rub it with my thumb where it touched before I put it in my mouth).

I cannot eat anything off of a bone.

Through the course of the survey I began to lose interest in what I imagine I am inflicted with and, as a result, should care about.  But I don't.  Because while the Duke health page claims that some people who suffer from SED will refrain from applying for a promotion in fear of increased company dinners, I am never going to be in a position to apply for a promotion anyway, so... This might sound especially callous even for me, but if you can't just say to people, "Look, I'm a really picky eater so I'm probably not going to eat anything off this menu. Don't worry, I ate before I came," then maybe you're not the best person for this promotion anyway.  And also, not eating 95% of the food out there doesn't really impact my life in a negative way.  Sometimes it has been a bit awkward and when I've travelled I've definitely wished for a broader culinary scope (not so I can really experience "the people," but because sometimes I want to eat something more than just salted peanuts).

Maybe I don't know what it's like because my diet is not as extreme as that British woman who only eats baked potatoes, and there probably are a few more out there who really do struggle with extremely limited diets.  But for the most part I think this is just a case of someone being a picky eater and needing some sort of substantial, medical explanation for why they don't like broccoli.  My eating habits are restrictive and they weigh on me.  But I guess they don't weigh heavily enough for me to become "a person with an eating disorder" (at least partly because eating disorders are real things, not like, just being grossed out by eggplants).  Not to sound like I try to have a positive outlook on life or anything--everyone knows I don't--but I really don't consider my selective eating a disorder.  I do, however, consider it disorderly, which I guess is the main reason that this blog exists.

And so, on that note, welcome to a new year of Food Thoughtz everyone.  Upcoming posts are likely to include chocolatey mushroom-shaped biscuits, plums, and maybe even an in-depth post on sandwiches or ham if school continues to be as boring as it has been thus far.

The Salad - pt. II

After reading the previous post, it may shock you to learn that I have actually tried a salad before, and that I did so entirely of my own volition.

It all happened in January, 2010, while I was wintering in southern France (I will never get tired of that phrase). I was staying at a beautiful and totally self-sufficient hostel, and I even had my own private room. Few people realise that when I jokingly say that I travel in order to find myself that I'm not entirely joking. I often do travel with a specific purpose in mind. I will recognize a certain obstacle in my life and go on an elaborate trip to try and remove that obstacle from my life in the privacy that anonymous travel provides. I went to Central America with the intention of learning how to dance and to read Moby Dick. (I only accomplished one of those things and it remains one of the greatest regrets of my life. I mean that completing Moby Dick is one of the biggest regrets of my life. I never learned how to dance. I guess I regret that too, but not as much.)

Before I went to Europe in late 2009, my restricted diet was really starting to weigh on me. It seemed impossible that I would ever be able to become the person I wanted to if I continued to refuse to try new foods. At the time, I foolishly wanted to be a person who could go to dinner parties and eat like a normal person. I wanted to be able to one day own cook books. I wanted to have cupboards full of ingredients and I wanted a spice rack that would hold more than just salt and pepper (adding pepper to foods is actually still pretty new to me, so at the time it would have been just salt). My time at the hostel in Nice seemed like a perfect opportunity to branch out and explore new things. I had ordered several dishes of spaghetti bolognese at the hostel before, and knowing that it came with a side of green salad, I always asked for no salad. But then one night, I didn't. I'm still not sure if I simply forgot or if I purposely forgot or if my subconscious desire for a normal life was dragging me toward that salad and forcing me to confront it. But in any case, my spaghetti arrived, and sure enough there was a green salad on the side.

This is the picture that accompanied my thoughtful expose that appeared
in a certain publication that shall not be named.

I stared at it for a long time. I considered the person I had become and questioned whether or not I wanted to continue on this path of extreme food avoidance. And then, I just stopped. I stopped thinking about what eating this salad would mean; I stopped wondering how much I would hate it once that lettuce was in my mouth; I stopped thinking about the exact amount of time it would take before the taste and all remnants of that salad would be washed away by the pasta. And I just ... took a bite of the salad. And I swallowed it. And I hated it.

But you know what trying that salad taught me? That I never ever have to try a new food ever again because if I already know that I hate it, then I hate it. It taught me to put faith in my own judgment and my ability to know myself. It taught me that I don't have to own cookbooks or cumin--or even know what cumin is--in order to live and happy and full life. And it also taught me the importance of ordering a dish without a side of salad, because I'm pretty sure you get more spaghetti that way.

Stop trying to find yourself, you'll only prove to be a fool

And the process by which you try must necessarily be cruel.

If you know you don't like something, then please don't tempt fate--

What was once cold indifference will become solidified hate.