Food writing and I didn't cross paths much. Instead of reading foor critiques, I grew up on parodies of food writing, hyperbolically describing Inside-Out Reese's and other mass-produced foods: "There are your sweet circles, nestled in their corrugated-wax-paper diapers, but they're light brown instead of dark brown, as though the colors of the world have not been adjusted properly, or you're looking through a visor as you explore an alien landscape. Already, you have been thrust into a new way of viewing the universe, and you haven't even taken a bite." I was never really good with serious approaches at food writing, worried that my senses would somehow be wrong, nowhere near worthy or applicable to others as a good review. This, coupled with the hesitations to write anything that could be judged made the idea of serious critique absolutely terrifying. Because of this, I ended up writing a review of the KFC Double Down. In it, the unholy concoction induced hallucinations and a Lovecraftian turn.
Food at the moment has become a hassle, which is terrible considering the survival perks of eating. A few times a week I make sure to prepare and eat a fantastic meal. Usually salads or grilled chicken breast based. Beyond that, I eat food as it comes to me from my surroundings. I'm at the mercy of my mom worried about my paper-like thinness and my friends' suggestions to grab some fast food. It gets to the point where I eat just so I have something in my stomach, and padding is by no ways a means of enjoyment. It all sounds complex but it's pretty simple: I'll eat what's there.
As a kid I was always an adventurous eater, if not just to show up my brother's penchant for pizza or anything with ketchup (no tomatoes.) Once I had to make my own meals, I lost said adventure. I had to analyze how hungry I was with the dangerousness of the adventure, if I even had time for such analysis and didn't nuke some sort of Lean Cuisine.* My food habits went along with my stress levels, and I remember the supreme satisfaction I would get by making a meal. Even spaghetti was an adventure once I figured how to microwave the vodka sauce and chicken in a coffee mug and then mix it with just-strained spaghetti. I understand the allure, the enigma of the perfect recipe, yet most of my good experience with cooking came from trying to make anything work out of the miscellaneous foods that were days away from expiring.
The aforementioned scavenge for fresh food tells much about my own identity, not having the foresight to have ingredients for old stand-bys, but also not having the money to live surrounded with possible recipes. The choice of food defines comfort. The dish that's made by the family the first day back from college is a loaded plate, most likely picked out for its understanding as the supreme comfort food. That said comfort food is defined by the socio-economical status of the family, their region, religion, countless factors that all manifest into a plate. It also comes down to the person at that moment, if what they're eating is something they went out of their way for, or is it something like the McDonalds dollar menu shame burger, bought out of convenience for stomach padding's sake.**
One of the biggest comfort foods is pizza, just for it's sheer prominence, simplicity, and taste, but like a friend who always has an extra cigarette for you even though you've said you're trying to quit, the ease of access becomes terrifying when it goes unchecked. After my dad died and the community food supply had started running low, the scrounging of pizza coupons started, as even the simplest recipes miffed us in our shellshock. We started picking up pizza setups from a local Italian deli and food store, something we use to do when I was a kid, and a burst of creativity happened over the next few days. The relatively basic barbecue chicken pizza had suddenly needed caramelized onions and a mix of barbecue sauces with some of our own seasonings. In three weeks, we found out how to grill using pizza stones, and our communal attention to taste meant fine-tuning how my mom's caprese salad could make the leap onto flattened dough. We got it down to a point where we could have people over and cook 10 pizzas over the course of an hour and a half, a night of too many pizzas, ending with S'more. It filled up a hole in hearts of the family members, though not a pizza shaped hole, lest our hearts looked like Pac-Men. If I were to break this down, I'm sure most of it has to deal with the agency of pizza to rebuild emotional and social autonomy, personal strength through mastery and the like.
Conversely, I had an argument over guacamole. Not that I hate guacamole, as tried I explained to the offended friend of a friend who made the dip, but I usually only eat it when it comes with as part of a meal. Liquor played a factor in his response. What should have been nothing escalated into the supposed vendetta I had over a man's guacamole. Sides were taken. I thought people were joking. I think I was the only person that remembered it the next day.
*Nuke should only be used when describing microwavable dinners. It describes the cooking and the body trying to process it.
** I will not lie, after the first class I had the dollar shame burger and the dollar shame chicken. I always save the shame chicken for last, and I've met other people who do the same. It's my auxiliary goal of the class to figure out why.
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