Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.
~ Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste, 1825
Sui Mai’s comment in my previous post made me understand why she married her boy – a durian-loving angmoh (the term used in Singapore for gweilo aka the Caucasian man) is definitely a keeper.
I mean something has to be said about an angmoh who likes durian, you know. I still don’t quite understand how a fruit can elicit such extreme reactions from people. We love it here in Southeast Asia and at the same time it is like the poison fruit of the West. It’s probably to do with some kind of mental and social conditioning. A durian-loving angmoh is likely to be someone who’s adventurous, daring, and open to new ideas and things. All very endearing qualities.
I couldn’t ever be someone who didn’t enjoy or be adventurous about food. That would be too depressing. Even better if he were a discerning eater, i.e. someone who knows what’s good and not good food. A discerning eater doesn’t need to be someone with expensive tastes. There is good food that’s cheap and there’s expensive food that’s bad; a discerning eater is one who’s able to make all these distinctions with his/her palate. I don’t profess to be an expert, but I do think I’m pretty good at making out what tastes good and what tastes bad.
I once ate with a German who thought chicken feet was disgusting. I didn’t care – I still ordered it over dimsum and ate the whole portion by myself. Another time while talking to a Singaporean Chinese guy about food, he must have thought that I was a food snob at the end of our conversation. See, every restaurant or eatery which he said was good I thought was bad. I mean places like Shokudo, Curry Favour and Waraku are really not my idea of good food. The Japanese food at Shokudo and Waraku are, at most, edible and nothing to rave about. And he said the Japanese curry at Curry Favour was good – I think it sucks and I can cook better curry using the Golden Curry brand curry paste.
When I mention some restaurants (and approximate amounts one would need to spend) which I thought were good, he goes “That’s pretty expensive.” And I go, “But it’s good!” I would pay for good food and a good experience at a nice restaurant. It’s like going to a concert or theatre performance. The chef and wait staff are the performers, the food and service all part of the act. I go there for my stomach, palate and senses to be entertained. I guess he didn’t see it this way.
His idea of being a foodie is to go only to hawker centres and kopitiams (a local neighbourhood open air coffee shop) to try different stalls. No, I have nothing against food at hawker centres or kopitiams. In fact, I eat there a lot. But if you’re really into food, surely you would like to try out other types of food in restaurants once in awhile?
So Sui Mai, does your boy have any single eligible mates who love durian as much as he does? FedEx them over to me if he does! :p