These days, if you ask me what I'm thinking about at any given time, it's normally food. I like eating food. I like reading about food. I like looking at pictures of food. And I love watching people eat food that makes them happy. Forget corny romance movies or over-rehearsed sex scenes. My favourite kind of voyeurism involves those intimate moments of people expressing the unadulterated pleasure of eating something that brings them comfort and joy.
I will also do a writeup on the best food experiences I've had in Wellington. But for this piece, I want to do a roundup of some of the books and Netflix shows that have influenced my thinking about food. And in the process, taught me new things about international trade and culture and history and economics and mindfulness and nutrition and food production processes and marketing and the diversity of personal experience.
Trigger warning: some of these books and tv shows will make you want to travel and will make you feel sad when you remember you can't just book a flight and start fantasising about your next trip.
1) I'll start with this Atlantic piece by economist Tyler Cowen on the Six Rules for Dining Out (I was not lying when I said this blog would pretty much be a Tyler Cowen fangirl site). Cowen confirms what I had already suspected: there are very few aspects of life that economic reasoning cannot enhance. The approach maximises two things I care about: discovering excellent food and feeling like I'm getting value for money. Here's the opening excerpt:
A bad or mediocre meal is more than just an unpleasant taste, it is an unnecessary negation of one of life’s pleasures—a wasted chance to refine our palates, learn about the world, and share a rewarding experience. Virtually every locale offers some good meals at a good price. But too often, amidst the clutter of our days, we don’t find them—at least not consistently.
I would only add one caveat which is that sometimes I spend too much effort thinking about what would be the optimal food experience for me at any given time. That gets stressful. Don't be like me and overthink it. If you like the general approach in the Atlantic piece, Cowen's book An Economist Goes to Lunch is also full of gems.
2) Netflix's Ugly Delicious with David Chang is an aesthetic delight, and manages to cover some decent social ground. It's part of the food travel genre, and gives some good insights into the history and culture behind food traditions. My must-see episodes include the Fried Chicken episode for its discussion of African American history; the Kids Menu episode for explaining how our early food experiences shape us (and for any econ nerds out there, Emily Oster makes a celebrity appearance); and the Don't Call it Curry episode for covering the absolute scandal that Indian food is not recognised by the West for its sophistication and skill (yeah, I'm not at all biased).
3) Also on Netflix is High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America. I did not expect to get emotional watching this, but damn, this series moved me. I almost don't want to ruin it by writing about it because my words can't do it justice. I learnt a lot, I thought a lot, and it is a great example of the rich and complex histories that accompany the foods we take for granted every day.
4) Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors by Lizzie Collingham is, as the name suggests, a book about 'curry' (which, in case you didn't know, is a word with a colonial history of its own). Among other things, this is a story about international trade. Not just the movement of spices and other exotic ingredients, but the movement of traditions and people across India and across continents. I've read mixed reviews of Collingham's account of history, but food was an excellent pathway to pique my interest in the different accounts of the impacts of colonisation on India.
5) Staying with the Indian theme, Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes by Shoba Narayan is as homely and comforting as the foods it describes. Where the aforementioned curry book talks about the big historical movements, Monsoon Diary is all about the personal. I particularly like how much food is treated as an occasion, and how it can shape our memories and identities.
6) Cooked by Michael Pollan can be consumed as either a book or on Netflix, and both are great. This book enhanced my understanding of nutrition, biology, food mass production practices, and (my favourite) anthropology. Here's the sales pitch:
Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.
It's no secret that I'm not interested in living a long and healthy life just for the sake of it. I would rather live a happy life. But I am absolutely sold on the pitch that eating food that works well for your body is the way to go, and that there are some foods out there that taste good but make your body feel horrible. I'm also totally sold on the idea that creating something with your own hands, and tapping into your creativity, sensory experiences and intuition is a fulfilling endeavour.
7) I read Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China by Fuchsia Dunlop recently and I'm still letting it sink in. There's a lot in there and if I'd paid more attention to the title, I wouldn't have been so surprised by the sweet-sour tone. The book filled me with hope and excitement that there is good food and good people in this world that I will have to go on an adventure to discover. I learned about dishes that I can't even imagine as they are so different from my own flavour vocabulary.
But then the other shoe dropped. The book was a reminder about the fraught politics of China. The book was published in 2009 and includes travels to Xinjiang and interactions with the Uyghur community, where tensions and discrimination were already obvious. In 2021, it makes me very sad knowing what we know now about what is going on there. Most importantly, the book acknowledges that the China of the 90s is not the same as the China of 2000s, and thanks to rapid economic growth, it is different again in 2021. The book reflects on environmental impacts, animal welfare and food waste in a time of great inequality. It raises the question: what does it mean to travel and eat with a good conscience? As I said, there's a lot there. The book is excellent. It is both delicious and sad.
8) Finally, I'll end with this Spinoff essay by Sharon Lam on What it means to miss Hong Kong which hits a similar note to the above. Here's an except:
There is still good food and there are still cool, intimidating fishmongers in Hong Kong, and perhaps there always will be. But how long can people go about enjoying everyday rituals as their rights continue to diminish, and with them their identity?... The truth is, you don’t need to leave Hong Kong to miss it. The people of Hong Kong in Hong Kong already do.
Hong Kong has fantastic food and when I visited I was treated with much generosity and kindness. I would love to go back but that was becoming a distant possibility even before the pandemic.
We should absolutely celebrate and partake in the goodness and diversity of different cultures. But equally, we need to sit up and take notice when their rights and freedoms are abused. There is so much to lose.