Food diaries(sample)

Wednesday, 7 December 2011

Elder couplefood diaries

Mr and Mrs Ye, 74 and 70, come from Fujian province and they have been living in Shanghai for five years now. They have moved from Xiamen to look after their grandchildren, two little girls of 6 and 8 (one-child policy is not a problem for wealthy people. Their dad works in Honk Kong and comes home for the weekend, he owns a pharmaceutical company; their mother is often away since she runs a real estate company).In China it is quite common for grandparents to move from the country or smaller towns to reach their families in order to manage the housekeeping and look after grandchildren.It is sonsʼ duty to take care of their parents, and if theyʼre wealthy comfort is granted, like in this case. I meet the Yes in a luxury compound, in Pudong district.As they welcome me thereʼs some packed tea and fresh fruit on the table, which is offered to me at once, as good manners dictate. The housekeeper is cooking, under Mrs Yeʼs supervision.There are drawings and sketches on the wall, made by the little girls.Mrs ye does the talking.

Our ayi (housekeeper)everyday cooks for us, we have followed her and taught her how to cook Fujianese food. Itʼs a very simple kind of cooking, it just has not all that soya sauce Shanghai people use.We donʼt like eating eastern food, but our grandchildren love pizza, KFC, and all these kinds of foreign food. They usually order home delivery food, once in a while we used to take them on Sunday to KFC, but their dad wasnʼt happy about it, so we stopped.

You see these pickled vegetables, usually we eat them for breakfast, not at lunch, but these were left over from this morning so we put them on the table for lunch. In the morning we eat congee, pickled vegetables, maybe some uncooked carrots, as they usually do in Fujian. The children prefer drinking milk and eat soybeans paste steam buns, or sometimes soy milk. Our generation is more used to having breakfast with congee and some fresh vegetables.

We always have meals at home, but sometimes, when the kidsʼ parents come home, they take us to the restaurant. At our age we never go by ourselves, moreover we wouldnʼt know how to order, we canʼt understand the menu and donʼt know what could be good to eat. When we go out though, we like southern cuisine, cantonese o Macao for example; sometimes our son takes us to Tang (see PLACES picture), itʼs a nice place and the food is good. Cantonese food is more familiar to our taste, and, as everybody from the South, we prefer rice to noodles.Your things, pizza, KFC, we really canʼt stand them.We prefer eating vegetables, even if thereʼs always some meat in it, most of all pork and chicken. Weʼre old, we have a very regular diet.

We have breakfast at 7 a.m., lunch at noon, and in the evening, after the kids have come home, have supper around 6 p.m. We are very strict about hours, we never have anything between meals, except for some fruit, after dinner. Itʼs not healthy for elder people to eat fruit with an empty stomach. Our daughter in law only eats fruit and yogurt, she always watches her weight (sheʼs 28).Sometimes the children buy a veggie roll on the way home, or once in a while theyʼre allowed to have a KFC snack, but weʼre trying to cut this habit down to size.In the evening I always prepare them a soup, usually with spare ribs, and we have it too, itʼs healthy and whets the appetite. They arrive home always hungry, because the food they served at school is not very good, so they donʼy eat that much. Afterwards, in front of the tv, we give them some watermelon, dragonfruit, grape and sometimes even durian, but then it stinks out the fridge. But everything is imported, even the look is better, chinese fruit is not attractive: think about japanese apples, New Zealand kiwis, or Taiwan bananas and pineapples...

We do our shopping in little stores here in the compound, in the supermarkets fruits and vegetables are not good. You canʼt find anything fresh in supermarkets and the vegetables are all thrown randomly on the shelves. In Xiamen (Fujian) instead, there you can find good and convenient vegetables.

Wednesday, 7 December 2011

food diaries

We donʼt like uncooked vegetables, like they eat here in Shanghai, theyʼre not good for your stomach and at our age we canʼt eat cold food.

We donʼt like soft drinks, thereʼs always soup during meals and during that day we drink at least a tonic herbs tea. We donʼt drink tea, itʼs not good for sleeping, itʼs a stimulant. The kids drink cold Coca Cola. Nowadays everybody drinks cold stuff, but itʼs not good for us. We donʼt like giving them Coca Cola, it contains caffeine, but sometimes thereʼs nothing to do, we just give them. When their dad comes home they donʼt dare drinking Coca Cola, nor eating KFC, they know he would get mad. Anyway, we take them too to KFC, just once a week, and when their father is not around. This one time he came back home unexpected, grandpa had bought some food at KFC and was coming back home with the kids -they didnʼt know dad had come home. The second they arrived home and saw their dad, they ran hiding on the terrace. Their dad was wondering why they werenʼt coming to say hello to him. And I explained to him that they were afraid since they were at KFC! Their dad is the most strict at home. He owns a pharmaceutical company and is very nutrition.conscious. And if dad is home, Coca Cola is forbidden. Itʼs full of additives and itʼs useless to children growth, as any other soft drink.When weʼre at KFC, we joke about that and tell them: “You see all those fat foreigners? Well they donʼt eat anything except KFC!”

Once we were at friends in Shaanxi province, in the countryside, where they raise chickens and pigs by themselves, the kids woke up before everyone else and told me they were up to take a walk around. They went to a little friend of them to have breakfast with milk and cookies; on the way home, with the cookies pack still in their hands, they met their father: “Where these cookies come from?” The little girls stared at him without saying anything. Then the smaller one, once they arrived home told their mom:”I couldnʼt open my mouth!” Mom answered:”you did good, you didnʼt tell on your friend, since she did give you the cookies”. The little girl, after thinking about it a bit, said:”Well, anyway I wonʼt talk....and I wonʼt eat these cookies!”.

And we too, if our son is around for breakfast, we donʼt take out the pickled vegetables. He told us that, for scientific reasons, salt is unhealthy, especially at our age...but weʼre used to it, so when heʼs not home we keep eating them! The oven canʼt be used, roasted, deep-fried, grilled food is unhealthy. We pan-fry everything. For our son the oven, the microwave and monosodium glutamate are evil!We tell him that eventually when we go to the restaurant we just eat not very healthy food. But heʼs right:”You eat everyday at home, but only once a week at the restaurant”:Once we used to prepare soup with everything in it: salt, cube, vegetables. Then he lectured us that the salt must be added only after cooking is complete, otherwise itʼs unhealthy. We trust him, our son owns a pharmaceutical company and knows many doctors and professors. He is an expert in health and nutrition...but still, when heʼs not around we use the microwave! Even if we know that ___________Now our son gave us a washing-fruit device. I was watching it making bubbles, glu glu glu, and wondering “how can it wash fruit!?” . This stuff is for lazy people, lazybones, people who donʼt like to roll up their sleeves. Itʼs better to stick with traditional ways, some things are too advanced for us.

We always buy branded food, the oil, the soy sauce. Our son reminds us all the time to buy only big brand products, theyʼre more safe. We donʼt buy any cheap fruit. In summer we eat watermelon and...and loquats, theyʼre very good for your throat. Thereʼs a natural syrup, called pipagao, and itʼs used to cure sore throat.

Nutrition has changed, nowadays people are more careful. But we ask ourselves why in the past, people in the country could eat anything they could find, and lived a long life....Maybe itʼs because in the past there werenʼt pesticides and intensive stock farming, and the animals could eat just grass. Our chicken is no longer the same as it used to be, itʼs tasteless. Why now people go to the country to eat a good chicken?And on the other hand there are people obsessed with nutrition. Eventually people get sick anyway, go often to the hospital, even with all those vitamins....

Elder couple

Wednesday, 7 December 2011