Living Out Loud volume 3: You are what you eat
It’s three weeks from the 1st of the month, so it’s time to announce the third Living Out Loud Project!
The theme this month is food. A lot of folks are giving up things for Lent and many times it’s some sort of food. Food itself can have such an emotional aspect that it’s no wonder many people can’t resist certain temptations. I myself have an entire bookcase dedicated to cookbooks that I just like to open on a Sunday afternoon and shuffle through, with no intention of ever preparing the majority of the dishes but drooling over the photos and combinations of flavors.
It’s way down there in the foundation layer of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and yet having a good relationship with the things we eat regularly seems to kick our ass. Hell, I had a burger yesterday and it reduced me to tears.
So for this Living Out Loud Project, I’d like you to talk about your own personal relationship with food. Are you a picky eater? Are there certain foods you love or hate? How have your tastes changed over your life (or are you still limited to the same three foods you would eat when you could fit in Underoos)?
The second part of this project (again with the two-part assignments!) is to try something you never have before. You can cook a dish you’ve never tried before or try a nationality of food or specific meal you’ve never dared try before. Maybe you’ve been scared of sushi but have never actually tried it. Maybe you aren’t sure how to use an oven and if you lost the Pizza Guy’s number, you’d starve. Maybe you’re not sure if your own stomach can handle tripe. Maybe you’d like to try eating gluten-free for a day just to see what it’s like for others. Just try something new to expand your relationship with food. And then write about it.
Since April 1 is a “school night” and not a Sunday like our previous projects, we’ll push the deadline back to 9pm eastern time. Email me a link to your blog entry at genie [at] inabottle [dot] org (or write the entry itself in the email and I’ll post it here if you don’t have a blog). I’ll compile them after the 1st and announce a winner! There’s even a prize! I’m excited to see what you all have to say!
Are you a picky eater? Absolutely not. Never was.
Are there certain foods you love or hate? Yes
On the plus side: shrimp, scallops, lobster, lamb (unless it’s dry) and charcoal-broiled steak.
On the minus side: Prune juice (Like the fruit, hate the juice, and there’s a specific reason for that), tomato juice, liver, Brussels sprouts, and eggplant. And oysters. About the only shellfish I don’t like, though I’m not over-fond of clams. I’ll eat ‘em, but I’ll pass on oysters.
Pretty much anything else I at least don’t dislike. There are some foods that I’ll eat if that’s what’s there but wouldn’t order in a restaurant.
How have your tastes changed over your life? I got my first exposure to what might be considered exotic food in Denmark at age 15. I had reindeer at one meal (traditional there on Christmas eve) and eel at another.
Ever since my college years, I’ve been fond of ethnic cuisine. Spanish, French, German, Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Afghan, Irish, Scottish, Indonesian, and Indian are the ones I can just rattle off that I’ve had.
But I’m also fond of what you might call “comfort food” or “man food.” Steak, baked, roasted, hash-brown or home-fried potatoes, meat loaf, pot roast, peas, green beans, that sorta thing.
My fondness for seafood was nurtured by my parents, who were also seafood lovers. And I hold it very much to their credit that they never forced me to eat anything I didn’t like. It was good, of course, that the list of such things was short, but if I tasted something and said I didn’t like it (note that introductory clause), they wouldn’t demand I eat it. There were some things I didn’t like for a while as a child, but I cannot remember what they were.
Of course, for much of my life I was on the proverbial “see food diet.” Anytime I’d see food, I’d eat it. And until I hit my 40s, my metabolism was such that I could get away with that.
(or are you still limited to the same three foods you would eat when you could fit in Underoos)? Heh, when I was THAT age, Underoos hadn’t been invented!
I’ve eaten trippa alla Romana in a Florentine restaurant, but passed on the lampredotto sandwiches being sold on the street corners. I didn’t care for the texture, but I ate almost all of my meal.
[...] post was written for the Living Out Loud project hosted by Genie at [...]
I posted my lame-a** entry unlocked on LJ. Feel free to link our whatever:)
OR whatever
[...] been able to come up with good enough subject matter for the last few Living Out Loud Projects – food & body images weren’t things that I could get into. Well, that and things have been so [...]