morsla | Random musings about food

I love food. I've grown up in restaurant kitchens and marketplaces, and I love preparing it, cooking for other people, eating it myself... but lately, I seem to have lost a lot of enthusiasm. I've been thinking back over how and what I eat, and wondering if I've ever really had a "normal" system of eating.

Eating and exercise
I've been very active over the past few years, especially while I was at uni. Training several nights a week combined with long hours in classes and labs meant that there were unusual windows open for eating - and I ate in all of them. I'd usually have a bag of apples and a bag of cookies in my backpack - I'd eat constantly in lectures, and then eat "proper" meals afterwards. I haven't found anyone that I can't out-eat, when I'm exercising... some all-you-can-eat restaurants may still quake in fear when I look towards their doorways. When my metabolism kicks in, I burn a lot of fuel.

Eating and mood
My mood has had plenty of influence on what and how I eat, over the years. I've ranged to both extremes - binge eating on particular foods (those raisin biscuit things spring to mind...) when upset, and stopping eating altogether when I've been badly depressed. In the latter case, I think it's a bit of unconscious masochism - eating involves looking after yourself, and that's not on the agenda. Depression has often been tied to injury, so it happens when I suddenly stop exercising. My metabolism shuts down, I only remember to eat when I'm hungry, and I only get hungry once a day at most. As a result, I'll end up eating practically nothing, which starts a whole new cycle downwards.

Variety
If I'm only cooking for myself, I rapidly fall into subsistence cooking - I'll rarely take much time preparing food, almost never experiment, and fall back on food that's technically enough nutrition to survive on, but it's rarely anything fancy. Variety drops out of my diet, and I lose inspiration to cook. By contrast, if I'm preparing food for other people, I'll try almost anything. I go out looking for new ingredients, try new cooking styles, and learn more tricks that I ought to use for myself later on... This is part of the reason why I like cooking for other people. I'd happily cook for a living.

Food types
I'm a mostly-vegetarian, although it's more to do with taste than ethics. I've learned a huge amount about cooking since I stopped cooking with meat, as it takes a lot more work to build flavours in the food. I eat lots of carbohydrates - rice, grains, noodles, polenta, pasta and potatoes are the base of most meals. I'll generally cook with at least half a dozen fresh vegetables in any given dish, and lots of spices. I occasionally cook with fish or shellfish, and very rarely with red meat or chicken. I'm not fussy, though - if I'm in someone else's house, I'll happily eat whatever is offered. Roughly half of what I cook would be considered vegan - not a conscious decision, but something I realised much later on.

Since getting sick, I've slipped back into subsistence cooking. I'm also not training for a few weeks, so those "hungry" signals don't reach my brain. Most days in the last week, I've either slept in too late for breakfast, or I've eaten breakfast and not been hungry for lunch. On a few days, I've skipped both... although at least that makes sure that I'm hungry by the time I get back home. I generally eat large amounts, when I've remembered to eat. It seems that the "remembering" part is what I'm lacking.