What One Eats

---

About a year ago, when I was volunteering one night at the Lehmann Center in Minneapolis, I noticed on the teacher's desk a stack of cards. I picked them up and looked at them. On them were pictures of different families from all over the world in their homes. Each had a pile of food in front of them. On the backs of the cards was a description of the food and how much it cost in US dollars. I looked it up online, and am posting the links here. They are originally from the book Hungry Planet, but the links are from a photo essay Time magazine did.

What the World Eats Part I
What the World Eats Part II

There were 4 things I noticed the most about these pictures;
1. Most of the world eats differently than I did growing up as a kid in the US.
2. The families with the healthiest diets smiled the biggest (excluding the Americans)
3. The poorest people smiled huge, too.
Maybe it is just because they're excited to be getting their picture taken, but they all look happy and content, seemingly not overly aware that if we were thrust into their socio-economic situation we'd be complaining. Loudly.
4. A lot of people have to BUY their water.

If you had asked me a few months ago if I could do a week's worth of grocery shopping for $17 I would have laughed at you. I eat fairly healthy, and in the States I liked my farmer's market and the grocery's natural foods section. (I like to be able to pronounce what I eat and I just think it tastes better). I tended to cook from stratch. Even though I tended to shun prepackaged foods, my average weekly food bill was at least $35-55, depending on whether I was buying olive oil or frozen pizza.
When I arrived here and realized how easy it was to eat out, and how cheap (meals for 50 cents to $6) it's hard to justify cooking. There's the time to plan the list, go to the store, select, carry it home (remember, no car!), then the washing, the prepping, the cooking, and then, my least favorite, the dishes. It hardly seems worth the effort.

Today I went grocery shopping. I had a gift card to use from my Teachers' Day Banquet at a store about 7-8 blocks away. I think I was the first white person to shop in that store, for all the looks I got. I guess foreigners tend to shop in places with foreign foods section and fancier selections. I spent Y97.40, or about $14. I did make an extra stop at Jusco for a small loaf of wheat bread and 340g of peanut butter. Total for the day Y117 or so. About $17. The peanut butter will last more than 2 weeks. Ditto for the yogurt. The dumplings were by far the most expensive, at Y30, but with 48 in the package, they'll last a few weeks, too. The chicken broth was the second most expensive at Y10. And, no, I didn't buy any meat. My eat at home schedule is so random I don't want to risk it going bad. (Ok, and my cutting board is wooden.) I also didn't buy beverages since they're heavier and I didn't want to make my bag any heavier.

I have yet to buy soy sauce. In the US, you had 4 choices: Kikkomen, Kikkomen Lite both of which are Japanese), La Choy, La Choy Lite. Not too difficult. Here, there are more choices than I care to count. I'd say.... 40-50. There's light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, soy sauce for cooking, soy sauce for eating, cheap soy sauce, expensive soy sauce. I have no idea what the difference is. I can't read the labels, and if I could ask someone, I would never understand their answer. Perhaps I should just take a dark with some extra sticky tape with me next time, close my eyes, and throw; I'll buy whatever it hits.

So tonight I took my new goodies and made soup. I realized half way in that I could just as easily put the veggies over rice. after sauteeing the veggies and garlic, I added some water (already boiled earlier) so it wouldn't burn. By the end, it was about half water and half broth. I don't want to use it all too quickly and it could get salty. They dont' sell reduced sodium here.

So now I'm excited about cooking again. I loved it in the States. It's comforting, soothing, and constructive. A really good meal always makes me feel good. I feel lucky. It's going to be a good week.

---

Photos

What Y97.40 gets you
dumplings, chips, M&Ms, tomatoes, green onions, rice, apples, snow peas, funky looking mushrooms, red and yellow bell peppers, 2 yogurts, chicken broth

a close up
Just before I added the rest of the water and broth and noodles. It made so much I have dinner for tomorrow night, as well!

Back of the carton
Not the pictures you'd see on packaging in the west!

Comments

[photoman]

nice done!
Nice done!!! There is a lot of flavor of dumplings. And this type "Wan zhai ma tou ~Ô
4" , maybe one of the best, of course it is expensive one. And, soy sauce, hehe .Really . There is various soy sauce. But usually you should know two type of it. That's ok . That is light soy sauce which labled "sheng chou ½" is used to dip and dark soy sauce which labled "lao chou
½" is used to cook. The previous one is more delicious, salty and light. The other is more heavy ,dark and ... and Brown Sauce. hehe

[sunketing]

Dumplings and soy sauce
Admittedly, I chose the dumplings because they have a picture on the bag telling me what's in them (I don't eat pork or beef) and because they were on sale during Mid-Autumn Festival. Thank you for your help with the soy sauces! I never knew there was a difference between what you use to dip and what you use to cook with. Why are there 2 kinds? And do you have any brand recommendations?