Food for Thought

I once interviewed a Chinese poet who made an interesting, probably inaccurate, but ultimately insightful claim about intercultural relationships.  Asked why the number of Chinese men who dated western women was relatively small compared to the number of Chinese women who dated western men, he replied in one word: breakfast.  Chinese men had a clear idea of what they wanted for the first meal of the day (and for every other meal as well) and were not interested in the compromise, negotiation, or god forbid change, in dietary habits that a relationship with a western woman would entail. While we in the West obsess about appearances or fret about emotional compatibility, the Chinese mind, as is its nature, focuses on a practical, earthy, and ultimately much more relevant issue. Looks fade and disagreements are inevitable; but meals are forever, a permanent part of the marriage landscape.

Like any potential area of conflict in a marriage, which cuisine a couple will consume is a decision best reached in a conscious, intentional, and the thoughtful manner.  If a Catholic and a Jewish couple were to have a child, it would only make sense to have some discussion before deciding which if any religion that child would be raised in and not just imagine the issue would simply resolve itself.  The comparison between different cuisines and different faiths seems appropriate.  As with faith, most of the world is raised on a single cuisine, and are not only passionately fond of it, but come to believe, on the basis of no rational evidence, that its own cuisine is superior to all others.  And while I have yet to learn of any wars started over this issue as have been commenced over the matter of faith, I have witnessed my share of heated arguments devoted to the topic carried out with the intensity of a religious debate (proving my observation that the passion of a discussion increases with the lack of proof available on the subject). Granted, what type of meals you and your love will be sitting down to on a regular basis is probably not on your mind as you flip through profiles. Another of the primal appetites is driving the day at this point. But somewhere between the first flashes of infatuation and saying the words “I do,” it would, I suggest, be in the interest of the long term health of your intercultural relationship to take up the topic. Indeed, unlike some areas of discrepancy in a marriage, differences in the area of cuisine cannot simply be avoided. A couple who disagree radically on politics can simply consent not to discuss politics. But an intercultural couple cannot agree just to not eat.

When it comes to the matter of cuisines, there are a triad of strategies an intercultural couple might employ: capitulation, alienation, and negotiation. Capitulation is the decision—implied or explicit—to adopt one of the cuisines as the preferred cuisine.  A couple operating in capitulation mode has the understanding that, unless a specific agreement is reached or a mention is made, this preferred cuisine will be the one prepared and consumed at all meals.  In my experience the dominant default cuisine for intercultural couples operating in this mode is Asian.  This is a combination of a Chinese woman’s attachment to her own country’s cuisine—which falls somewhere between her passion for her parents/children and her love of country—and a western man’s inherent laziness. Lenny Bruce observed that “men will f**k anything: chickens, dirt.” I would add they will eat anything, so long as it is prepared for them.

However, I suspect there are more than a few Western men who would no more consider switching cuisines than they would contemplate swapping religions, who would give up their guns before their mean and potatoes, who would fast before consuming a bowl of noodles for breakfast, and for whom rice is as unnatural an accompaniment for dinner as, well, broccoli. To these Western men who would impose their dietary preferences on their Chinese partner, I say simply: Gook luck with that.

At the other end of the spectrum, each member of the couple may opt to consume his or her own country’s cuisine.  This strikes me as a dangerous route to take.  Dinner possesses a significance that goes beyond the materiality of the food consumed.  It represents a reconnecting at the end of the day, a metaphysical function that is ill served by eating different foods and using separate cutlery.  Indeed, it is not too much to imagine a slow slide from separate meals to separate bedrooms, separate vacations, separate lives. There seems a special danger from this strategy for the Chinese woman. Just like someone who grows up in the desert will be especially impacted by a move to the Midwest, so the communal nature of the Chinese meal—where not only food but dishes and hence spittle and bacteria are shared—makes it more than likely that the Chinese member of the couple will be especially impacted by the alienation involved in this style of eating.

And then there is the middle way.  By the middle way when it comes to eating and marriage I mean any dietary strategy that attempts to combine both countries’ cuisine on a regular basis.  Living for a half-decade in China instructed me in the middle way, provided me daily with examples of its usefulness and, in the end, transformed me into one of its greatest advocates. It seemed a refreshing alternative to the polarization gripping my country – a polarization that, as anyone who has followed recent American politics can tell you, has only worsened with time.

 I would be lying, however, if I were to say that it was philosophy alone that motivated my search for a culinary path in our marriage that would include both Western and Asian foods. I lived for five years in China—a time during which I not only sampled numerous regional cuisines but also acquainted myself in depth with the food of one particular area, Sichuan. So when I declare unequivocally that I cannot exist on a diet of Chinese food, I am not expressing an irrational preference for my own country’s cuisine but proffering a piece of knowledge gained--as all true knowledge is gained--through painful experience.

I am also confessing to a secret shame.  My Peace Corps training made it a point of pride for us to integrate as completely as possible into the local culture.  We were encouraged to eat the same foods, speak the same language, live in the same apartments, and shop the same stores as the locals –and provided with the poverty level stipend specifically designed to prevent us from indulging in western conveniences.  So I tried, believe me I tried, to subsist on a purely Chinese diet.  My efforts, however, were undermined by the realization that extended exposure to Chinese food invariably resulted in extended time in Chinese bathrooms. Nor was this simply a coincidence, as the aforementioned bathroom time was significantly reduced by a WFI or western food intervention. Slowly, reluctantly, but inevitably, I was compelled to confess my inability to subsist on a purely Chinese diet. Hence not only philosophy but necessity as well drove me to the middle way of intercultural marital eating.

The main, though not the only, culprit was the infamous Sichuan peppercorn. Responsible for the sizzle in Sichuan food and its reputation as one of the spiciest in the world, this culinary speck was my undoing, wreaking havoc on my digestive tract and inducing the notorious heat hiccups.  This phenomenon, if you have not experienced it, involves obvious signs of distress (e.g., sweating), upper body convulsions, and an inability to consume more food until the situation resolves itself.  There was an upside however.  For while I found this condition obviously painful it was nevertheless a source of great amusement to countless Chinese friends, colleagues, and even random restaurant patrons. Like Napoleon with arsenic I tried to inoculate myself with small amounts of the deadly material but to no avail; I was unable to get beyond the first dose. It turned out that placing me in Sichuan was like plopping Dracula down in Arizona--the one element that could destroy me existed in abundance. The analogy is not completely accurate, since Dracula must avoid the sunlight while I could subsist for limited stretches in the world of Chinese cuisine, but only on the condition that I return, at some point in the not too distant future, to the world of Western food.

Of course to embark on a middle way in marital cuisine is to solve one problem only to encounter another.  How exactly is such a strategy to be implemented?  Does one simply alternate days of western and Chinese Food?  Or include dishes from each culture at every meal?  Is it possible to invent some fusion cuisine that can consistently combine both traditions?  We’ve actually tried all of the above as well as numerous variations on these themes. We have consumed typical Chinese dishes one night and broiled steak or salmon the next, devoured stir-fried eggplant along with blueberry pancakes at a single sitting, and eaten “dueling noodles”—one bowl ladled with tomato sauce and served with a fork, the other drenched in soy sauce and Sichuan peppers and accompanied by chopsticks.

And although I would prefer a more systematic solution, this ad hoc approach seems to be working so far. Unfortunately this does not leave me much in terms of specific advice I can provide for those journeying on a similar culinary path, except to say that the principles that guide us through this situation—compromise and mutual respect—are probably pretty good principles to apply to all areas of an intercultural relationship.

Bon appetit!