STORIES

The Food Experience

Before I moved to Japan I was one of the pickest eatters you would ever meet. If my hamburger had anything on it besides ketcup, I'd freak out and refuse to eat it. It had to be a cheese pizza, and I'd always peal the toppings off. If it was a pizza with any other toppings, I'd be as picky as to refuse to eat the thing even with the toppings pealed off. (I was kind of anti-cheese).

It was bad. When we went to London my parents nearly pulled their hair out since I'd refuse to eat anything that looked funny. Growing up my Mom used to be able to trick me into eating since I'd always ask her what was for dinner and if I liked it (in which the answer was always yes). However, as I got older, I got "smarter" and figured out that I didn't like eating anything.

So, in other words, my parents were pretty much expecting me to come back in a body bag once my living off of rice gave out.

My first week in Japan I probably dropped five pounds due to my picky ways. Also, you have to consider they sent me to a welcome camp and you all know how camp food is (there I started believing that I WOULD end up going back to America in a body bag).

When I got to my host families house I was really worried what Japanese cusine would be like and how long I'd survive. However, my first meal at my host families house was beef stew. Hey! It looked like something I knew! I ate it and quickly grew happy and hopeful about Japanese cusine.

I don't know how long after that but soon I realized that not everything would be beef stew. In one of my letters home to my parents, it stated, "There is an eel swimming around in our kitchen sink. Dinner does not look promising."

This might sound bad but I developed a habit to kick my nasty picky eating ways. One, I knew I could not refuse the food since it would be terribly rude. So, I basically adapted this principle of how to go about eating the food:

Don't ask and just eat it.

As bad as it sounded, I tended to not ask what I was eating until after I ate (then, I was usually like, "I just ate crocidile?!").

Japanese food is good! It's just way different then the American stuff I was used to. It was SO good that I put on twenty-pounds while over there. Near the end of the trip I got kind of back into my picky ways with my last host family ("I don't really trust this white african fish, no matter how tasty you say it is"), however, Japan helped me get over my picky ways and opened me to the whole new world of good eating.