More Food

Yes, I'm still on food. Bet you're sick of it now right? But this is an analysis post. Serious stuff.

I've been reviewing my eating habits from back at home... and I came to a conclusion that the horrible American food here... may not be that horrible in the long run.

In NUS, I realized that I only eat from a few stalls, with very specific food configuration from each. For example, the Economical Rice stall at the Arts canteen, always has one of these configuration - Sweet & Spicy Fish, Spicy Tofu, Hotdogs, Black Pepper Chicken, Steamed Eggs. I do not eat other ingredients. So whenever I pass by, and the ingredients are not on sale, I simply choose another stall.

Thus, I hypothesize that my eating habits are what I have termed Target Specific. This means that WL can be happy eating the same stuff everyday (well not everyday, but most of the time), if he likes it. This happens sometimes, as I can eat the same configuration everyday for a few weeks or so. Hell, I eat Mee Rebus from Primary 1 to 3 for every recess period. That's a span of 3 YEARS!!! Serious, not kidding.

So, the problem with food all boils down to finding a set of compatible targets. Which is the challenge of living abroad. Take my home for example... there is no food I like in Yew Tee, which is why I never like to eat there, and I don't. I get headache whenever my mom ask me what I want to eat from Yew Tee, cause the food there are all horrible! So, in theory, if the Yew Tee stalls moved to NUS... I will be fucking miserable.

Hence, I conclude the misery of the food here, is that there is no specific food that I like. And in particular, since the food here rotates randomly everyday, WL is unhappy. You see, WL likes to eat the same stuff he likes, until he gets bored. Then, he switches to the next best thing he like, until he gets bored. And he goes round his "inner circle" of nice-to-eat food, until when you get back to the first option, he's not bored of it anymore.

The second phenomenon I have observed is Food Adoption. WL adopts new food very slowly, at a pace of 1 new food items per year. This means that my list of eatable food, expands very slowly. And usually those are expansions in "similar category" of food. What this means in an overseas context is that adoption may be even slower... and in any case 3 months is not enough back at home to adopt to new food also.

So ultimately, the question one should ask is, Can WL find a compatible set of target food in the States?

Difficult to answer. The Americans may have a Burger-and-Bread Fetish, but that's not all they sell. There are Chinese and Japanese food sold in America, and they're not horribly obscure. In fact, from my bus-trips experience, they constitute about 25% of the outlets here.

The issue now is what if there is no compatible food targets? That will then be a problem. It remains to see whether it can be solved. WL proposes using curry to help. To WL, curry improves the edibility of food by a significant amount.

Unfortunately, I can't test my hypothesis during my stay here... cause why? Meal fucking plans.