Truths of Old

Over the years I was abroad, people would always say things like "come back to Singapore!", usually immediately followed by "don't you miss the food?" and then extol the virtues of Singaporean food.

I wasn't terribly impressed since Singaporean food is actually pretty common in London, what with the propensity for Malaysians to set up shop on every other street corner - the only difference really is in the price.

Now that I'm back at home, I'm beginning to wonder if part of the reason I left home in the first place was the food.

One of the few drawbacks of coming from a medical family (although I suspect it's probably just my family) which few people will know about is that docs, or my dad anyhow, believe that sugar and salt are bad for you.

Eating my hawker-fare chicken porridge for lunch (specially bought from the shop, no salt, no soy sauce) and drinking my soya bean juice (specially bought, no added sugar) I'm reminded of my childhood, growing up on water-flavoured vegetables (if boiled, often just eaten raw) and water-flavoured chicken soup. It did give me a fine appreciation for subtler tastes, and it also meant that everything I ate always tasted quite nice to me, especially when eating out (flavour explosion). Now that I've been away for a protracted period stuffing my face on finely flavoured foreign and local delicacies (dim sum, royal china / hakkasan tottenham court road) I'm... having some trouble adjusting to all these natural flavours. I listened with horror last night while my parents Da-Paod (that means ordered home in a doggy bag) some noodles for my brother, without salt or pepper - essentially, noodle-flavoured char kway tiao. The poor sod.

Someone save me...