Digital Paper: Fast Food

Fast Food

©Churl Han, 2008

“What are you giving up for Lent?” I asked my seven-year-old nephew.

“I’m giving up candy.”

“And you?” I turned to my 11-year-old nephew.

“I’ve decided to be kind,” he replied. “I want to control my anger and not let myself get upset.”

“That’s very mature.”

He directed himself at me, “And you are eating only two meals a day?”

“How did you know?”

“Because you do that every year.”

I was bested by my 11-year-old nephew who is on to conquering the mountain of self-control, while I was still at something so ordinary as food.

For Christians, Lent is the 40 day penitential season before Easter. It represents the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert where he was tempted by the devil. The purpose is to prepare the faithful—by prayer, fasting and almsgiving– to fully celebrate the annual commemoration of the Pascal Mystery, the death and resurrection of Christ. It is meant to be a season of self-denial, “pruning” as it were, in order to have self-mastery, in order to regain balance and reorient oneself.

And during this season I have chosen to fast—that is, I give up one meal a day. It is not much. But I enjoy food. People who know me well know how well I eat at all meals. My parents always made sure we grew up on three full meals a day—a practice that continues with me. Throughout the day, I nosh on snacks, some healthy, some not so healthy. And since I have been living in the Bay Area for the last 18 years, it has opened my eyes to culinary delights unknown to me. I’m charged by trying some unknown food or some unfamiliar national cuisine. I savor eating out at a good restaurant—nothing too fancy, but one which serves sensible food. I also delight in eating at someone’s home—it is as if they have opened up their heart with aliment and affection. I fear that I am an aspiring foodie, but my financial considerations keep me from Zagat starred restaurants. But a fast before a meal creates anticipation that makes the meal more delicious.

Food is so linked with people and relationships. The first nourishment we get in utero is through the umbilical cord from our mother. And soon after we are born, a mother nurses her child from milk produced by her body creating a link so necessary for human development. One of the reasons children cry is for food, so the parent provides it. Celebrations and gatherings are opportunities to share a meal and feed each other with conversation and interaction. So it is no great insight to link the food I relish with people I cherish.

My first recollection of cooking was when I was in third grade making scrambled eggs for breakfast before I was off to school. It was a manifestation of the self-sufficiency I was to develop in independence. The kitchen was not to be a foreign place to me and I found how to navigate in it.

As I got older, my culinary abilities and interest produced my little red cook book, when I was maybe a teenager. It was a simple binder in which I typed up recipes on hole-punched 5 x 7 index cards. I experienced cooking or baking as fun and developed into a creative outlet and as a way of demonstrating affection to the ones I loved by producing tasty food.

If you paged cookbook binder you would see recipes of desserts. This was probably because my mother infrequently made desserts like cakes and cookies. So I decide to fill the void. Here is one of my first recipes:

Cream Puffs
1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 cup whipping cream
2 tbsp powdered sugar + more

Heat oven to 400∞. Heat water and butter to rolling boil. Stir in flour & baking powder. Stir vigorously over low heat 1 min or until mixture forms a ball. Remove from heat. Beat in eggs, all at one time; continue beating until smooth. Dough should be sticky. Drop by scant 1/4 cupfuls 3 inches apart onto grease baking sheet. Bake for 35-40 minutes until puffed and golden brown. Cool away from draft.
Beat whipping cream with powdered sugar (add tsp of vanilla, if desired). Cut off tops to baked puffs. Pull out filaments of soft dough. Carefully fill puffs with whipped cream. Replace tops. Dust with powdered sugar.

My love of food could be an unresolved oral fixation as my brother came two years after I was born. It could be the unending quest to try different flavors and textures on my palate. My gusto for food may be a way to calm my nervous, anxious state that reveals itself in a vibrating leg or a high metabolism. It could be compensation for my roaming, restless, and taxing workaholic tendencies that demand fuel for the fire. Or it could be a that my solitary state in life replaces food for a stable companion and relationship. It could be simple gluttony. The reasons for my neuroses are many.

Fasting as the right denial of aliment seems just right for me. When meal time comes around (usually lunchtime) my stomach feels hunger pangs. However, I suffer them for a brief time and within an hour, they are gone—until they strike again before dinner time. Sometimes my stomach growls come back to embarrass me in the company of others. Excuse me, as I press my crossed arms to my abdomen. In time, however, my body becomes accustomed to the reduced nutrient intake and I usually feel lighter and function efficiently.

My mother discouraged me from cooking or baking, not because it was a gender-specific activity or was considered effeminate but because of the mess I created in the kitchen and the inadequate cleaning I attempted. I now see it in the cleaning my nephews do at home or the students do at school and have sympathy for my mother and the ambivalence she felt in allowing me use of the kitchen. Children’s efforts at cleaning cannot mirror that of an adult, so I credit my mother for her tolerance. Here is a recipe my mother gave me:

Frijoles Charros
Soak beans (2 cups) over night.
Put beans in pot with lid and cover with water. Bring to a boil and spoon off foam. Turn heat down to very low to simmer. Cover with lid.
Cook with 2 (pickled, not fresh) jalapeños pricked with fork
1 diced onion
2 garlic cloves
6 slices bacon (cooked & cut into pieces.)
Add a rounded teaspoon of salt when beans are tender. Cook some 10 minutes more.
After beans are cooked add:
1 fresh tomato, diced
some cilantro
Eat with cotija cheese and tortillas.

“Fasting reminds me of how I am hungry for God,” my seminary roommate mentioned.

That was when I first decided to fast for Lent. I decided that I would try giving up one meal a day and I was very strict about not eating any food other than what was prepared for breakfast or dinner. My ability to hold myself to a strict fast gave me a sense of self-mastery. I used my lunchtime for some quiet time and if there was time, to exercise. I was not only not getting calories; I was expending what I had by running the perimeter of the school.

By the time Holy Week arrived, I had reduced my intake to one full meal a day. Since I had come to master eating only two meals a day, stretching myself to eat only one or one and a half meals a day seemed feasible. If there were spiritual benefits to eating only two meals a day, there might be more to eating even less.

I did this successfully until Holy Saturday (the day before Easter), which ends Lent. I was visiting my parents and went to visit my grandparents’ after Mass. My grandmother had prepared a banquet of food: capirotada (bread budding) and torreznos (French toast-like dessert), tomato nopales with torrejas (fried shrimp-powder cakes), chicken and rice, and a host of baked goods. Since I had been so disciplined to adhere to my fast for forty days, it was time to celebrate by partaking of the feast before me. While I didn’t eat a great amount, I did have a little of everything.

The result was that that following morning I woke up with a painful stomach ache. Every year, my family to celebrates Easter Sunday by having a barbeque at Bass Lake near Yosemite, but I was in no condition to go. I stayed in bed regretting the gorging I did after having fasted stringently. A grown man should have known better. I spent the day in bed sipping water and chicken stock. I seemed ironic that I had spent 40 days demonstrating self-mastery only to demonstrate complete lack of control on one evening. I paid for the consequences the following day.

I had never eaten an artichoke until I came to the Bay Area as an adult. While I had viewed artichokes as some prehistoric fruit with scales, they were not a staple my parents ate much less knew how to prepare. But when I first tasted my first artichoke, I couldn’t believe I had missed out on this fabulous food. It ranks up there with asparagus as one of my favorite vegetables. Here is a wonderful dish I got from my friend Michelle Q.:

Artichoke Dip
2-3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 cp Parmesan cheese
1 cup mayonaisse
1 can non-marinated artichokes, chopped coarsely

Mix together. Put in an 8 x 8 pan to bake for 350∞ for 20 minutes. Serve hot with pieces of bread.

Different traditions and religions employ fasting. Catholics are asked to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The Orthodox are called to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year, as well as during Lent and period before the Nativity. Muslims fast during the month of Ramadan by abstaining from food or drink during the day. Jews are called to fast during Yom Kippur in atonement for offenses committed through the year. Fasting is commonly practiced in Hinduism. In the Bahá'í Faith, during the month of Ala, fasting is exercised from sunrise to sunset. Fasting is used as a means of protest or to draw attention to a cause. Hunger strikes are done by political prisoners to lend credence to their banner. Gandhi fasted to gain India’s independence from Britain. Cesar Chavez fasted for the cause of farm workers. And fasting is also employed medical reasons for blood tests and before a surgery.

Studies have shown that fasts can improve health. It is thought that fasting can help address conditions as heart disease, arthritis, asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, psoriasis, and other autoimmune disorders. Fasting is known to detoxify the body by cleansing it of toxins and allowing the gastro-intestinal system a rest. Studies in laboratory animals have shown that some caloric restriction actually has the benefit of longer life spans. It reduces the incidence of diseases associated with inflammation, stress, and aging.

The following dessert is one my former housemate, Yoriko, got from her former boyfriend’s stepmother. It is easy comfort food.

Alison’s Dessert
1/4 butter
1 cp flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 cp milk
1 bag frozen berries
3 large apples, pared & sliced
Whipped cream (optional)

Heat oven to 350∞. Heat 9 x 9 deep dish pan and melt butter. In bowl, mix flour, most of sugar, baking powder, and milk until it forms a lumpy batter. Pour batter into buttered pan. Place fruit on top. Sprinkle with rest of the sugar. Bake for 40 min. Serve warm. Dopple with whipped cream.

The great draw back to fasting is that I begin to lose weight, an unintended consequence for an ectomorphic frame and high metabolism. While some might envy that ability, I find it a little frustrating as it makes my skinny limbs even thinner, but not my paunch. This is especially evident towards the end of Lent when I may have lost 15-20 lbs. A few years ago, my friend Desiree mentioned that I looked gaunt and emaciated, which concerned me, after confirming it myself in the mirror. I slowly ended my fast after that.

It is not that I don’t eat well. In fact sometimes I eat a bit heartier when I do eat to make up for the meal I miss. I recall listing what I ate for breakfast one day. Desiree rattled off everything she had eaten through the day. She made a keen observation: “You ate more for breakfast than I ate in the entire day. And you are fasting and I am not. But what gets me is that I am gaining weight and you are losing it. I don’t get it.” Sometimes I don’t either.

My family’s Chinese culture was stamped out by the xenophobia against Asians that raged in Mexico in the 1930s. Mexicans and the Mexican government saw the economic prosperity of the Chinese in Mexico as a threat. They were seen as taking away the jobs and economic opportunities from Mexicans. This sounds familiar. The government and racist mobs forced many ethnic Chinese (many of whom where Mexican citizens) to go to China. My grandfather as a child went to China with his family where they faced much hardship in China as they were poor, had limited economic opportunities and were viewed as foreigners.

Under a different administration, the Mexican government realized its error in exiling Chinese-Mexicans, making an announcement to welcome them back. My grandfather (Felipe), his siblings and their mother who were Mexican citizens returned to Mexico. But his father, who was Chinese, remained in China. Governmental policies broke up the family. The little Chinese culture that remained exists in the home-style Chinese food my family makes. Below is my grandfather’s recipe for spareribs which is a family favorite. I provide it (in Spanish) in his honor:

Costillitas de Papá Felipe
1-1 1/2 lbs de costillas cortadas en tercias
2 clavos de ajo
sal
salsa soya
azucar

Cocina las costillas con los ajos y sal en un sartén que tenga un poco de agua. Tápalo hasta que hierva el agua. Destápalo y mueve las costillas para que se cocinen parejas. Tapa de nuevo por cinco minutos. Baja el fuego a mediano y destapa hasta que se evapore el agua. Mueve las costillas para que se doren. Saca las costillas para que se destillen. Quita la grasa al sartén menos una cucharada de grasa.

En una taza pon 1/3 taza de azucar añadale salsa soya un dedo más que el azucar. Disuélvelo con un tenedor. Regresa las costillas al sartén y añada la salsa soya a las costillas. Revuélvelas para que agarre el azucar. Cocina hasta que las salsa se espece. Servir con arroz.

Jesus admonished his followers to pray in secret, to put on a good face when fast, and to do good works announcing it to the world, but here I have just failed to do so. Maybe one day I will mature by giving up something more spiritual than abstaining from food. Perhaps the money I save from fasting can be given to a worthy organization, perhaps I can choose not to get caught in the rat race in order to spend more quality time with friends and loved ones, perhaps I can volunteer to a needy cause, or as my nephew has chosen to do, work on a personal challenge. I would attempt at persisting than refraining. Perhaps.

©Hector Lee, 2008

Hector Viveros Lee, 1998BAWP, has been teaching in public schools for the last 20 years and is currently an Instructional Reform Facilitator in San Francisco. He's currently involved in the deBAWP series for teachers, a collaborative effort between the deYoung Museum and BAWP.
He is a sometime children's book writer/illustrator http://www.leeandlow.com/home/index.html and a too infrequent blogger: http://www.bayareawritingproject.org/hectorL/ .

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