The nature vs nurture of food: 00

 

(From googling) 

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The expression “nature vs. nurture” describes the question of how much a person’s characteristics are formed by either “nature” or “nurture.”  “Nature” means innate biological factors (namely genetics), while “nurture” can refer to upbringing or life experience more generally. 

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    Liking or disliking a particular food is, in lots of cases, nature.  Some people like/love or dislike/hate bitter or sour food (e.g., bitter gourd / karela / 苦瓜; unripe apple, or lemon/lime).  Practically everyone, especially children, likes sweet things (e.g., sweets and chocolate)

    This series about the nature vs nurture of food is my take on the nurture side:  how much one’s liking or disliking a particular food item is determined by his/her real life background and practice — the culture or family s/he was born into, e.g., 

• Sub-continental Indian and Mexican people tend to like chilli and spicy food; 

• Most (southern, if not all) Chinese people must have rice regularly or they’ll feel something is missing, whilst an Englishman who’d spent a year in China complained about his diet there: “Not rice again!!”.

 

   For this series, I’ve selected items that elicit or evoke strong feelings in people for or against those foods, (almost inevitably) because they were brought up eating them (or not).

    It’ll be interesting to see how you relate to the chosen items and whether you agree with me that they’re more  because of nurture rather than nature.

Blame the other, not the udder

I don’t just teach the language, I throw in the cultural bits too:  cultural (vs grammatical) usage of language; cultural behaviour of the people; etiquette; taboos; etc.  So here's a blog about a food item that is received differently by the Chinese and Westerners, brought on by something a student (white, British) said during her lesson.

    The student has been to China more than once to visit her son who works out there.  She said she’d tried offal there before, in the form of udder, and found it bland.  (I'm surprised that she even dared to try it at all, but then she's quite an adventurous person — she has to be, braving learning Mandarin...)

    Offal-based dishes are a common enough offering in the East, at meals eaten outside, not just cooked and consumed at home to save money.

    They taste good to the Chinese, because of the mindset:  no squeamishness, therefore no revulsion from the psychological influence that I’ve found in a lot of Westerners I’ve come across.

    Also, because of the processing: 

• Pre-cooking:  properly cleaning out items that might smell, e.g., intestines.  My family used to buy pig stomach for soup, and spend hours cleaning it out — repeatedly with flour, which removes any lingering pungent smell.

• The actual cooking:  the right condiments and sauces can greatly enhance the taste of offal that’s not particularly flavoursome, or reduce the impact of the strong innards taste.  Dark soya sauce, ginger, star anise and cloves are common ingredients for this purpose.  Chilli (sauce or fresh or dried), too, of course, as it would mask almost any other smell/taste.  The pig tripe soup we used to make at home would be cooked typically with a big handful of white peppercorn inside the stomach for the flavour to permeate through to the whole item, which would then be cut up into strips before serving.

    So, for the dish that my student had found bland in China, blame the other (element(s)), not the udder.

(Sorry, can't resist the word play...)