Unvegetableland
THE INTRO
I realized something yesterday. It's something I've noticed a lot in Chinese food, but yesterday really brought it home to me, when we went into a restaurant and had:
- 土豆并 (potato pancakes)
- 泡菜并 (kimchi pancakes)
- Korean "sushi"
- 酱茄子 (sauce-cooked eggplant)
- and fish
Two flat-out starches. A mostly-starch with a bit of color. A protein. And a veg, but a veg which had the shit cooked out of it. And a bowl of rice.
THE ISSUE, WITH CONCURRENT EXAMPLES
Granted, this is particularly egregious, but I've noticed this in a lot of other Chinese foods, too: the preponderance of the bottom of the food pyramid. Lots of rice, obviously, but when not rice, then protein in sauces, and veg just as an afterthought.
EG: my favorite street food, 冷面: a big square noodle with an egg on, with sauces, and with a sprinkling of onion/cilantro.
EG: a favorite from the Chinese Muslim restaurant in Beijing: noodles with dices meat in sauce, with diced veg in.
EG: typical lunch dishes at the cafeteria: fish or meat in sauce, tofu in sauce, all over rice. Or mixed-noodles, a dish with five different kinds of noodles, and a little bit of cucumber grated in. Also cilantro. And tofu.
Don't get me wrong, I do understand why this is. Rice/noodles are filling, easy to acquire, easy to store, cheap. Cheaper than fresh veg, certainly.
On the other hand, meat is more expensive than veg, and there's more meat dishes about than veg ones. Hell, you can go to any chuar place on the street and buy lamb kabobs, or any sit-down chuar place and be offered a menu of fifteen different kinds of internal organs. They'll have lamb, beef, chicken, seafoods, chicken hearts, various kidneys, intestines, ribs, necks, etc, etc, three types of tofu, roast bread, etc etc etc. They may even have potato slices or sweet potato slices.
But veg? No. No tomatoes-on-a-skewer. No chunks-of-onion, no slices of pepper, no gourds to roat, no egglant chunks. (Well, eggplant sometimes.) Cucumber is the only really common veg at chuar places, and that's because it balances out the saltiness of the meat.
And again. I love chuar.
But I need vegetables. I felt tired a lot during the semester. Lack of greenstuff? Possibly. My weight is up 2 and a half kilo (5lb) from when I arrived; it's staying at that and will not lower, no matter I work out and run or not. Lack of veggies? Could be. I woke up this morning and felt like fuckit I'm going back to sleep ugh, and even walking around the market felt listless and ergh. Lack of greenery? I blame it.
I look at what I'm eating and it's starch, starch, starch, saucey meat.
The obvious solution is to change this. "Pico, change it now. Why don't you eat more vegetables?" Well, I tell you, it is really hard to walk into a restaurant or a cafeteria and find a dish that is not composed of meat or sauce; when you find veggies, they have the figurative shit cooked out of them. They are dark-green and squishy from cookedness. And they are mixed in with meat, or egg, or sauce.
And again, the sauce is tasty! These dishes are all very good! I like eating them! I like the sauce, I like the meats, I like the variety, I like the flavours.
But I am not getting nearly enough vegetables. I've tried to substitute with fruit - they go in for fruit here - but I think there's something in the green stuff that's just not in fruit. I type that, and it sounds obvious, but it's true.
I need me greens.
THE SOLUTION
"So, Pico, you have done all this bitching and whinging, why don't you offer a solution so we can all get on with our lives?"
Well, thank you, little sulky rhetorical voice, that is what I intend to do.
Solution: Buy more veggies and eat them.
Duh, but it takes thinking about. Veggies go bad surprisingly quickly, here. I mean surprisingly so - I use some carrots, put the rest in my cupboard, three weeks later they are moldy, slimy, and clinging to each other by the roots. All my potatoes have eyes and pods; one has little babies growing out. I buy cherries and two days later they are fuzzy; I buy waxberries and the next day they are fermenting.
So I guess buy them and then eat them. Or cook them and freeze immediately, so that I can eat them at my leisure.
Backup solution: Buy some daily vitamins.
I saw some at the store a few days ago and I've been thinking about it since: easy solution? It gets me my nutrients.
And they have gummy vitamins. For kids. In the shapes of animals.
Don't think I'm not tempted by this.
CONCLUSION
tl;dr: dang, yo, I need my veg-fix. Lookit all this starch and sauce. I'mna make some vegstuff and freeze it so I can get my fix even if I got no veg in the house.
I realized something yesterday. It's something I've noticed a lot in Chinese food, but yesterday really brought it home to me, when we went into a restaurant and had:
- 土豆并 (potato pancakes)
- 泡菜并 (kimchi pancakes)
- Korean "sushi"
- 酱茄子 (sauce-cooked eggplant)
- and fish
Two flat-out starches. A mostly-starch with a bit of color. A protein. And a veg, but a veg which had the shit cooked out of it. And a bowl of rice.
THE ISSUE, WITH CONCURRENT EXAMPLES
Granted, this is particularly egregious, but I've noticed this in a lot of other Chinese foods, too: the preponderance of the bottom of the food pyramid. Lots of rice, obviously, but when not rice, then protein in sauces, and veg just as an afterthought.
EG: my favorite street food, 冷面: a big square noodle with an egg on, with sauces, and with a sprinkling of onion/cilantro.
EG: a favorite from the Chinese Muslim restaurant in Beijing: noodles with dices meat in sauce, with diced veg in.
EG: typical lunch dishes at the cafeteria: fish or meat in sauce, tofu in sauce, all over rice. Or mixed-noodles, a dish with five different kinds of noodles, and a little bit of cucumber grated in. Also cilantro. And tofu.
Don't get me wrong, I do understand why this is. Rice/noodles are filling, easy to acquire, easy to store, cheap. Cheaper than fresh veg, certainly.
On the other hand, meat is more expensive than veg, and there's more meat dishes about than veg ones. Hell, you can go to any chuar place on the street and buy lamb kabobs, or any sit-down chuar place and be offered a menu of fifteen different kinds of internal organs. They'll have lamb, beef, chicken, seafoods, chicken hearts, various kidneys, intestines, ribs, necks, etc, etc, three types of tofu, roast bread, etc etc etc. They may even have potato slices or sweet potato slices.
But veg? No. No tomatoes-on-a-skewer. No chunks-of-onion, no slices of pepper, no gourds to roat, no egglant chunks. (Well, eggplant sometimes.) Cucumber is the only really common veg at chuar places, and that's because it balances out the saltiness of the meat.
And again. I love chuar.
But I need vegetables. I felt tired a lot during the semester. Lack of greenstuff? Possibly. My weight is up 2 and a half kilo (5lb) from when I arrived; it's staying at that and will not lower, no matter I work out and run or not. Lack of veggies? Could be. I woke up this morning and felt like fuckit I'm going back to sleep ugh, and even walking around the market felt listless and ergh. Lack of greenery? I blame it.
I look at what I'm eating and it's starch, starch, starch, saucey meat.
The obvious solution is to change this. "Pico, change it now. Why don't you eat more vegetables?" Well, I tell you, it is really hard to walk into a restaurant or a cafeteria and find a dish that is not composed of meat or sauce; when you find veggies, they have the figurative shit cooked out of them. They are dark-green and squishy from cookedness. And they are mixed in with meat, or egg, or sauce.
And again, the sauce is tasty! These dishes are all very good! I like eating them! I like the sauce, I like the meats, I like the variety, I like the flavours.
But I am not getting nearly enough vegetables. I've tried to substitute with fruit - they go in for fruit here - but I think there's something in the green stuff that's just not in fruit. I type that, and it sounds obvious, but it's true.
I need me greens.
THE SOLUTION
"So, Pico, you have done all this bitching and whinging, why don't you offer a solution so we can all get on with our lives?"
Well, thank you, little sulky rhetorical voice, that is what I intend to do.
Solution: Buy more veggies and eat them.
Duh, but it takes thinking about. Veggies go bad surprisingly quickly, here. I mean surprisingly so - I use some carrots, put the rest in my cupboard, three weeks later they are moldy, slimy, and clinging to each other by the roots. All my potatoes have eyes and pods; one has little babies growing out. I buy cherries and two days later they are fuzzy; I buy waxberries and the next day they are fermenting.
So I guess buy them and then eat them. Or cook them and freeze immediately, so that I can eat them at my leisure.
Backup solution: Buy some daily vitamins.
I saw some at the store a few days ago and I've been thinking about it since: easy solution? It gets me my nutrients.
And they have gummy vitamins. For kids. In the shapes of animals.
Don't think I'm not tempted by this.
CONCLUSION
tl;dr: dang, yo, I need my veg-fix. Lookit all this starch and sauce. I'mna make some vegstuff and freeze it so I can get my fix even if I got no veg in the house.