Eat! Eat! Eat! When I was a kid, I often heard my mom asking her friends she met on the road, “le ciak pa boe?” meaning “have you eaten”. Instead of asking “how are you”, “have you eaten” is a common greeting used by the Chinese in Tanjungpinang. It shows that “eating well” is much more important than well-being. After the short conversation, my mom would say, “ai cao lho” meaning “gotta run”, her way of expressing “got to go”. She stopped to care and ask about “food” and she had to hurriedly leave afterwards. In the past when varieties of food are not as much as today, most families would eat at home. Home cook food was highly value and most housewives would cook for the family. They would went to the wet market in the morning, prepared dishes for the day, having an afternoon nap, going out to visit some friends or relatives, warming food for dinner, washing dishes and end of the day. Those were the activities of my mom when I was at about five of age. No facebook, no twitter, no movies and no ipad games.
Time has changed! McDonalds and KFC are well known and favored by most kids. Indomie and Padang rice are loved by almost all Indonesians. Food comes in brands - A&W, Breadtalk, J.Co, Pizza Hut, Godiva, Gadeno, Coffee Town, Starbuck, Solaria, Excelso, Baskin Robins, Blackcanyon Coffee, Cobain and Angkringan Dutamas. With large varieties of food, consumers are often confused of what to eat. When I ask someone, “What would you like to eat?” and very often the answer would be “ching cai” or “anything”. It will be much easier if there is “anything restaurant” that provide “anything dishes” in town. The act of eating is no longer to satisfy hunger but also to satisfy taste. Do you agree if I say the like of food has to do with memory? We long to eat certain food because we remember the delicious taste. The taste is well kept in our memory so that we can recall it. People who love to eat many kinds of food certainly have large files of food taste in their brain library. Thus, it may be good to be forgetful in terms of taste of food so that you will not keep on desiring to eat this and that.
Our food culture is tempting many to keep on eating and gain much weight. In some cases, those who love eating but fear of gaining weight suffer from bulimia nervosa – an eating disorder characterized by consuming a large amount of food in a short amount of time, followed by an attempt to rid oneself of the food consumed usually by purging (vomiting) or by excessive exercise. Well, “man does not live on bread alone.” We can definitely enjoy delicious food however we should know our limit. We should have the word “enough” in our consumption dictionary. Or else we will be eating too much and have to find ways to go on diet. Excessive gluttony is a new contemporary problem as it leads to excessive eating and probably excessive diet as well. We may need to exercise self-control regarding excessive eating.
