nutrition and nostalgia

Sitting down to dinner in a cafeteria on the PKU campus, it struck me as odd that the food had me thinking of Michigan and Florida.

The smell of food and the taste of food has the power to teleport one to another land. The feel and texture of food itself is enough to lose yourself in the moment, in the land of another time - as if it were right here and right now.

Something so simple, yet so powerful.

A bowlful of steamed•rice and a scoop of scrambled•egg•tofu•cabbage, washed down with a cup of instant coffee and a juicy tangerine.

The coffee does not remind me of the West. It reminds me of 8 years ago when I lived in Beijing... and would often [attempt to] appease my longing for that something more familiar. That year, I could find only starbuckers coffee (at American prices) and similarly priced (!) instant coffee at local cafés. And so, I turned to the instant 1+2 coffee (+ cream + sugar) that had the added convenience of *brewing* in my own studio. Not exactly coffee, but as close to a cup of the familiar brew as I could hope. Tonight's frothy cup left me with ¥1.5 less on my meal card.

In the States, perhaps this type of tofu would only be found in an Asian grocery store. The outside skin is a soft brown soy color, its surface dimpled from the pressing of the soybean milk. The inside is firm yet tender, perhaps not unlike the tofu back home. The 1/2 cm thick *meat* is julienned and tossed with the scrambled eggs and crunchy chopped cabbage. Accompanied by the trusty helping of rice and all for a price of ¥3.5.

It was the tangerine at the end of the meal that had my thinking back in the West. The Keweenaw Co-op [in Hancock, MI] sells Satsuma tangerines that are not only an easy peel, but are also incredibly juicy and tangy. Wow! Tonight's tangerine of unknown origin was full of juice and wrapped in a soft, supple peel, at a cost of ¥0.5 (now in season, a kilo sells for ¥2 on the street.)

Next came a flood of memories at Grandma & Grandpa's house in Florida. Many a winter I would (and still look forward to!) find myself in a citrified heaven, with sour grapefruits, plump oranges, tangy tangerines, and even the enjoyable, if bitter, kumquat. Hard-earned and freshly-squeezed juice for breakfast [and lunch and dinner and...] I can picture my Grandma in mid-operation - newspapers covered with piles of oranges in wait and the resulting exhausted peels and golden drink.

Time and nostalgia, nutrition and taste. The existential and the extraneous alike are kindled by dining - an act that is a repetitive necessity of daily life, but also is one from which we derive great pleasure. It is not merely an act of matching nutrition to hunger. Or surrendering pleasure to desire.

The power of food is enough to bring the there to the here. The partaking of food is both to revive the past and enliven the present.