You know how they say “Tell me what you eat and I shall tell you who you are.” But it wasn’t so much about what we ate that night, in what was our first date, that gave me a glimpse of who you are. I wasn’t sure if we intentionally starved ourselves earlier that night but precisely because we were hungry that time, we rushed to the restaurant a friend of yours owns.
You serve food on my plate and I poured Pepsi in our glasses. You'd ask mefrom time to time if I liked my food before you’d gently brush your hand on my knee as if to tell me how satiated you were by the feast. With a big smile on my face, you continued devouring your food with much gusto, oblivious of a speck of tomato sauce lingering between your lips and right cheek. I would wipe it away in time.
Three months after and I find us pigging out almost every day in your favorite hawker near your house. And though now I’m sure that we both adore food so much, you more than me, and we more carelessly gobble up our food this time, I still find you occasionally serving food on my plate and me pouring our favorite Pepsi in my glass.
There are so much more nuances in our eating habits that I have observed over time:
1. You would always defer the commencement of our eating course to give way to my ritual of blessing the food. Once you told me to “pray to MY God” which got me mad at you for minutes.
2. Weekends-When you’re not rushing to work, you prod me to have breakfast with you. And I’m not a breakfast person.Worse, I’m not a morning person.
3. Every meal, you consume a lot of rice while I make sure that we have a variety of viands. You can finish at least two cups of rice with just one dish while I order two to three viands to go with my one cup.
4. I practically order the same food while you vary your dishes every time. But perhaps this is mostly because we always have our meals later than normal that we have to deal with the limited choices left for us.
5. Whenever available, I would always get eggs for every meal as they are my favorite. I eat the egg whites last while you do the same with the egg yolk. If there’s only one egg left to eat between the two of us, I let you have the yolk.
6. With combo meals, you consume the chicken (with rice) or pizza first before you do the pasta. I do the reverse.
7. You like complementing your food with condiments like vinegar, fish sauce, or ketchup. I like the food the way it was prepared. I don’t like “mixing” tastes.
8. You eat slowly while I chow down my food speedily. I finish way ahead of you.
9. I have the weird impulsion to dance or verbalize my delight (e.g. Hmmm!, Yum!) when I like my food. You always tell me to calm down.
10. You need a fix of coffee with your meals. I don’t drink coffee because I palpitate after. I get my Pepsi instead.
I realize that it’s not only the food that we eat that tells us about who we are individually, but also how we eat that affirms who we are, together.
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