I Love Food.

I love food.

Who am I kidding? I am obsessed with food. I am crazy about it. I would marry it and fornicate with it if I could! (Now now, get that dirty thought out of your mind. That was a figure of speech!)

I moved from reading food porn such as the aptly named foodpornographer to kitchen porn such as the pioneer woman cooks. I pore over equipment catalogues, go nuts at supermarkets and once in a blue moon, go bankrupt at wet markets. I am amazed at the complexity of food - how it manages to invoke familiar feelings and unexpected excitment; how it can bring tears to someone's eyes (a food writer once told me that he wept over the rabbit dish in Oswaldo); how it can cause distain just as quickly. One sure thing that I've realised is that most great dishes are created after a multitude of failed dishes - something my partner will agree since he is the one having to eat most of them!

I almost never dump food - no matter how bad they are. I believe food is to be respected, and armed with the right skills and technique, almost every "bad" dish can be saved. A dry roast can be carved and served with a simple green salad. Undercooked pasta can be combined into broth to make a hearty soup. A can of tomatoes can save a dish, almost any dish. Lemons, cream (though I say this reluctantly), butter and eggs can uplift and even transform dishes.

That's of course, what we call, in the broadest of terms "Western" food. Now, Asian food is totally another ball game. Raised on the mtv and hollywood culture of sitcoms, dramas and food television, much Asian cooking we experience through entertainment is usually "yankeed". I learnt how to do bibimbap (a koren rice dish) from a American Born Korean hosted on Bobby Fay's show on Food Network. Yet the food we eat everyday in this country is usually Asian. I think we tend to understate great Asian dishes!

My family usually eats Chinese food. (note I said food, not cuisine - a simple word has such a big difference!) my mum has never grown to like Malay or Indian dishes, an amazing fact since she grew up in Malaysia and formed her family in Singapore! The most "Indian" food I grew up eating was Roti Prata and Kumbing Sop (by Indian Muslims, not the Malay style). When I grew into adulthood, I accientally discovered cooking - the first dish I seriously made was pasta with a jar of ready made cream sauce.

So many factors influence what we perceive of food and the culture behind it. I, for one, tend to make a lot of pasta because, well, it's easy. You can throw almost anything into it. I am encouraged by my friends to discover pot roasts, baked chicken, and now my friend makes chinese soup! The day I dare to serve homecooked chinese food to my partner's mum is the day I say my cooking is good... Which might not happen in my lifetime!

Before this grows into a thesis, I just want to say... What have you eaten today, and do you know what it stands for?!