DST: Eating food in my daily life

Eating food in my daily life

 I need to say that I am a gourmet who like Chinese food very much!  Actually, China has many different series of food in different areas, the most historical food series is my hometown’s food: Jingdong dishes. It had been tributes for the emperors, because it represents the Chinese old proverb of having favorable climatic, geographical position and support of the people. My hometown Tangshan is located at a plain with beautiful and pleasant climate in the northeast part of China. It has the suitable location with Yan Mountain in the North, which provide us with native products, and with Bohai Bay in the south, which produce all kinds of seafood including clams, crabs, mantis shrimps and hairtails. Because it has always been close to the capital, emperors came here for vacations and became very interested in Jingdong dishes. Besides long history, Jingdong dishes also have interesting cooking methods. One of the fascinating way to cook cabbages is to cut the carefully planted cabbages with a huge knife and marinate them with the finest spices. Then, after a series of complicated processes of steaming and frying, the dish is finally done. It represents the Chinese culinary culture. After I got my driving license, I drove my car with my friends and found every good restaurant that has good special dishes. My hometown has a lot of delicious food that you can’t ignore its attractiveness. One of the popular dishes is HongYan pork elbow. I usually eat at HongYan restaurant, which is one reason why I am a gourmet. Furthermore, people in my hometown have a good concept of eating food. We treat eating food as a very enjoyable thing. Usually, we need to spend a long time of careful preparation before we eat together. Of course the most important part is that family members or friends stay together, share the feelings or opinions about the things happened these days. For me, I usually relax myself while I eating food. I think that having a good meal will give me a vigorous brain and make me focus on my study.

On the other hand, I found every food is new and I haven’t tried before. I had no choice but to eat American food. After a few days’ life on campus, I nearly have tried all kinds of American food once. Eating fast food at high street or having dinner in dining hall, I really want to say: Why do they all taste so oily and sweet? Why is all the food mixed with cheese? I can’t imagine that there is so many differences between Chinese and American food. Other than the weird flavors of America food, I noticed that Americans usually get and enjoy food by easy ways. For example, if you go to the dining hall to get your meal, you will get food easily because the food such as bread, meatloaf, French fries has been processed and put into larger packaging. The only thing you need to do is just to heat it up. You don’t need to spend any time on cooking it. Most of the American food is made for convenience and I noticed that Americans like to eat fast and quietly. Unlike us talking or share food in the same dish, Americans like to get their food in their own dishes.

So after 2 weeks, the food gradually affects my study. I can’t concentrate on my homework or studying courses. I even started to feel home sick. I miss my hometown cooking. Some of my friends told me that they also feel the same way. In order to make ourselves feel better, we got an idea to go to Chinese restaurants. Unfortunately, the Chinese restaurants serve much worse Chinese food than my hometown! Can you imagine that weird Chinese food makes you feel more home sick?

But I still want to change it. Nothing can stop me from eating delicious Chinese food! I began to learn how to cook. First, I got the recipes from Amazon. I bought a pot and a pan. I also bought some Chinese cookbooks. I took the No.2 bus to buy pork and vegetables. I even stole some seasoning from the dining hall! I started to make some food that I used to eat in China. The cooking process reminds me of the taste of my mom’s cooking. After all the hard work I had done, I finally made a dish in my hometown flavor successfully.