What the Very Poor Ate

Gastronomy must be the hobby of the wealthy; otherwise the question of food is not so amusing. Gastronomy is a matter of choice, and the poor have no choice. But the gastronome could wander about. He realized that the poor man’s food was monotonous, but that in itself the taste was not so bad.

There were poor, dirty, bright-eyed children, staring at him from behind the big bowls of rice; beggars, their professionally useful, painful expressions inscribed across their faces; peasants. They did not care for subtleties of texture and flavour carefully composed—rather, a big bowl of firm rice, with just soy sauce and a fried egg over the rice. The impoverished aunt, who had the chance to come to her rich relatives’ home occasionally, sat at her doorstep, wishing she had been born more fortunate. She loved the taste of luxurious foods, soft and rich and gliding (neng-tseng-tseng, in our dialect), like the transparent noodles cooked with pig’s knuckles.