When you start college, you’re told a lot of things. “Be sure to wake up early, because the showers in the dorms are shared,” “Don’t stay up too late, because Freshman classes are usually in the early morning,” “Don’t drink,” “Don’t have unprotected sex,” and, crucially, “Don’t blow all your dining dollars on smoothies and other junk, because if you run out before the end of the term, you will be miserable.” I’m usually good at listening, but very bad at doing what I’m told. This is the story of how I learned how to cook, to listen, and to heed the advice I’m given.
As the term began, things looked good. I had a dining account full of money, a little bit of extra money from my financial aid refund check, and the money I made over the summer from selling knives (which is a whole other story, told in another chapter). I decided to use the opportunity of being in a new place, starting a new chapter in my life to do some self-improvement. That meant exercising daily and eating healthy. I had been used to the exercise bit of that, as I was heavily involved in marching band in high school. As an aside, anyone who says that marching band isn’t a physical activity hasn’t spent several hours holding a heavy instrument in in front of them, in picture perfect pose, while marching in sync with a hundred other people. But I digress. My plan as a newly-minted, bright-eyed and busy-tailed Freshman was to do fencing on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Kyokushin karate on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Sunday would be my rest day. I’d eat three meals a day, and only dabble in the smoothies (because I have to get those protein supplements, amirite?). So yeah, things looked good at this stage.
As the weeks went on, I found myself getting even more physically fit than I was in high school. I was able to run a quarter mile barefoot in the snow, break boards with my bare hands, stab someone in the toe from range with an epeé, and shuffle in and out of range for quick parries and ripostés. I was strong, agile, and had so little body fat that it wouldn’t even register on a meter. I had to eat in order to fuel my body and mind (I still had classes on top of all this, you know), and I was getting my three hots with a cot to sleep in, to boot. I was getting plenty of rest, and I was drinking a few more protein shakes than I had initially anticipated. Think — two a day. I’ve never been good at arithmetic, and as the weeks droned on, my dining dollars dwindled in inverse measure to my physique.
As one might anticipate, this did not end well. By the time I had reached the end of the term, I had completely depleted my financial resources. My dining dollar account, once flush with more cash than the slush fund of a nepo baby, was now lying used, spent, and depleted, like some old pair of shoes that had been worn through and discarded. I was, indeed, miserable, as I had been warned. Newly destitute with only a few dollars to spare, and two weeks left of classes (including the dreaded finals week), I did the only thing a college kid could do once they were in this situation — I bought a 24 pack of Top Ramen, and told my microwave to get ready — it was going to be a bumpy ride.
The first few days of RamenFest 2006 didn’t go too poorly. While eating the same thing over and over was drab, it didn’t start to affect my health until around day four. At that point, I had so much sodium coursing through my blood that you could have used me as a salt-lick. As the days progressed, I became more and more dehydrated, pale, and lethargic. I stopped attending to physical activities, and my mind became clouded as Tonkatsu — even though Top Ramen would be considered Shio, at best. The fact that I was no longer ingesting any form of protein was probably partly to blame for the brain fog, as well as the lethargy, and I wished I had bought a carton of eggs before I ran out of cash. And so it continued through finals week, each day getting sicker and sicker until I was finally able to go home at the end of the term.
After that experience, I vowed never to let that happen again, and began budgeting my dining dollars more sensibly. I dropped the physical activities for other reasons (which will be explained in another chapter), so I didn’t really need the protein shakes anymore, either. I survived just fine eating the freshly-made and overpriced pastas, buffalo burgers, and sandwiches from the Student Resource Center. I’d usually have some money left over in my budget each month to swing by the buffet; a treat which I never was able to take full advantage of due to my poor appetite.
By the time I hit Senior year, the constant rotation of pasta, burger, sandwich had become a liturgy of sadness. Luckily, I had arranged to move off-campus that year, which meant no more dining dollars, and no more lame rotation of the same three meals on and on ad absurdum. Instead, I was moving into the GEEC house — the residence of seasoned members of the Gamers Enjoying Each other’s Company Club, which I had been a proud member of since the first week of my first term at Central. As an aside — they had wanted to name the club the Campus Crusade for Cthulu, but the Catholics did protest mightily, and were thus forced to rebrand. In any event, I would be living with several anthropology majors there, and was looking forward to diversifying my diet (and social routine, as this was a bit of a party house).
The fun thing about living with anthropologists is that they have a habit of pointing out things about people that you may not find interesting at first glance. My poor appetite and emaciated body, for example, was an artifact of great interest to my roommate Sydney, whom once remarked that I was so bony that I could be used as a living instructional exhibit of the skeletal structure of Homo Sapiens. The other nice thing about living with anthropologists is that they usually have a good sense of culinary taste. On one occasion, we were discussing what people wanted for dinner, and Sydney suggested Tom Kha. Thinking she was referring to the children’s toy trucks, I looked at her somewhat confusedly, to which she responded with a description of the dish.
Tom Kha is a Thai soup, comparable in some ways to an American chicken noodle soup, but without the noodles. Savory, sweet, and wholesome, it evokes the feeling of sitting by a warm hearth in the dead of winter. Its richness and complexity contrasts with the zing of fresh lime and chopped coriander. The fire of the peppers, the coolness of the Galangal, everything about the dish invites comparison and comfort. And this, I decided, would be the dish I decided to learn to cook first. Because now that I would be cooking for myself, I wanted to make good on my Freshman vow to never be famished again.
It took me a couple of months to source all of the ingredients for the dish, as the rural college town we lived in wasn’t exactly rife with Asian grocers. It was winter by the time I was ready to make it, and there were two feet of snow on the ground. I started by adding a bit of oil to a hot stock pot, and added the lemongrass, galangal, chiles, and lime leaves to release their aromatics. At this point of time in my life, I had lost most of my sense of smell (from a virus that I caught the previous winter), but from the looks on my roommates’ faces, I’d imagine the aroma was wonderful. I added the coconut milk next, and while that was simmering, I rolled and cut the limes. I sliced the chicken into small slices, cutting across the grain to make sure it would be easy to chew. After about twenty minutes, I added the chicken, and gave it another five minutes or so to cook through. It’s important not to overcook or undercook poultry; if you overcook it, it gets tough and rubbery, but undercooked is dangerous to eat. Slicing it thinly allows you to use less cooking time, and ensures a good texture. Finally, I added the juice of the limes and a few tablespoons of fish sauce.
There are few dishes I make which bring such comfort and joyous revelry as Tom Kha. My roommates loved it, and it saved us a lot of money. One thing you’ll discover as you come of age is that eating healthily is essential. As I mentioned before, if you don’t budget well and make sure to plan, you can put yourself into a grim situation. Whereas eating this meal at a restaurant would have cost $15/person (and probably much more by the time you read this), the whole meal for five people was around $25. Hopefully you’ve learned your math to work out how much money that saves. I’m sure you have, though, as you’ve always been quite bright.
I also hope that my introducing you to all the different cuisines of the world as you were growing up gave you an appreciation of all the Earth’s cultures. Every single human being on the planet has to eat. It’s essential to life. Learning what others eat gives you a window into their lives. Is their cuisine based around a particular starch? Do they practice vegetarianism? Is the food spicy (which is more common in tropical climates)? Is it sweet? Sour? Savory? Do they use a lot of spices? Do they steam their bread or bake it? The story of a place is bound up in the food they eat. What’s your favorite dish, and what does it say about you?