Filipino food and me...

Before I say anything about this topic, let me just say in bold capital letters that, I LOVE EVERYTHING GRACE HAS EVER COOKED FOR ME.  Any food comments are totally about the smells coming from sidewalk eateries, our neighbors apartments, or the food I have tried at "authentic" restaurants.

My initial reaction is, "Why are they cooking garbage?" That's what it smells and looks like to me.  I worked for traffic court in Des Moines, Iowa the summer after I graduated from high school.  The elected Clerk of Court was a pig farmer, and liked to tell me about how cooked until sterile garbage was the best food for pigs, provided there was no citrus fruit in the batch.  The way he smelled, basically like he had just finished cooking a batch before he came to the traffic court, is how a lot of the street eateries smell to me.

Any seafood or freshwater fish dish smells like it is at least 3 days rotten.  When we went to the beach with Grace's college friends, one of them cooked milk fish over charcoal, and it looked fresh when she started, smelled good while cooking, and tasted just fine.  I don't know what other people do to it, but that is supposed to be a Filipino favorite, and I want to gag most of the time when I smell it cooking.

I'm very picky about fish because my dad fished in whatever mud puddle he could find, then we had to eat the fish. My mom and sister did a better job of choking it down and smiling than I did.  My dad thought I was a bad kid and that the only way to keep me from becoming a worthless adult was severe corporal punishment for any offense.  The only time I ever was excused from eating the latest catch was one day when I had my eyes dilated,  before they used drops to reverse the action, and could not see the bones. The rest of the time, I had to choose whether to eat the fish or get a beating and go hungry.  As a result, I generally do not eat fish.  Long John Silver's or similar cold water ocean fish that doesn't have a "fishy" taste are fine, and cold water freshwater fish like trout are fine when I catch them and they get eaten very soon after they are caught.  Otherwise I just don't eat fish. So I admit I'm prejudiced where fish are concerned.

One thing that causes problems for me is that like most Americans, I have been taught that eating fat is bad.  A lot of dishes use very fatty meat.  For example, for lunch today, Grace had Sinigang. This is a soup that has River Spinach and pork in a broth.  Grace has made it for me at home, and it tasted just fine. At the mall food court, the broth tasted spoiled, and the pork was 90% fat.  I know it makes her sad when I don't like something she thinks is a great dish, but I was much happier with my grilled pork chop from a different restaurant.  So I am very lucky that my wife is a great cook and knows how to buy better ingredients than most restaurants use.  Otherwise, I would be losing weight a lot faster.

I weighed about 235 pounds when I came to the Philippines, June 14, 2010. Last visit to the doctor I was 99 kg, which is about 217 pounds.  I am finding it easier to get in and out of  tricycles and taxis, which is a good thing.  I'm still afraid I'll fall on my face if the jeepney driver starts driving away before I've stepped off the back of the jeep, so Grace usually has me go first, hoping the driver will have more sympathy for a woman.  I have a problem with exercise.  My mother thought if you had to bend your knees to do something, it was too strenuous.  Instead of all the good lessons I probably could have learned from her, I learned that one instead.  It went right along with, "Do you want to be a ditch digger, or have a real job where you make your living with your brain?"  If I didn't hate getting sweaty so much, I would also be losing weight a lot faster.  I ran cross-country my Freshman year in college, and actually enjoyed running across the golf course on cool fall days, but when I got Mono at the end of my freshman year, I just never regained the energy to enjoy running three or four miles.  My Air Force pilot school was in Enid, Oklahoma, and started in June, so from then on, exercise was associated with drowning in sweat and feeling like I was going to die from the heat.  Wonderful experiences like having to run for time in the hottest part of the afternoon when we got 6 vaccinations, which included Yellow Fever and Black Plague, in the morning, further solidified my dislike of exercise.  I can see myself strolling around in the mountains when it is cool, or walking leisurely along a beach with cool ocean breezes keeping the heat under control, but going to a gym or running have no attraction for me.  I am a terrible example, so if you are young, learn to like exercise and find things you like to do that involve physical activity.  If you are my age, be more active and be healthier and happier.  I try, but I backslide very quickly.