One thing that I do want to remember from my elementary school experiences was how I treated food. Like in my previous entry, I had a great dislike of Chinese foods because of the huge amount I had to consume all the time yet at the same time adored the McDonald's that my parents fed me twice a day along with the cakes and doughnuts I got for breakfast and snacks. It truly is some kind of miracle that I didn't develop Type II Diabetes but as a result, I do have much bigger problems with digestion and going to the bathroom more than anyone else in my family does, along with other digestive tract problems I won't disclose here.
One of the most magical things I discovered when I was young was gum. I treated gum differently then than I do now. This was because yesterday, I bought a pack of gum that I hadn't tried in the longest time and this was the first brand of gum I ever tried (and swallowed).
After this past year of going through countless packets of the endless flavors of Stride, 5, Dentyne, and Eclipse, the moment I popped a piece of Wrigley's in my mouth, the soft creamy sensation sent me straight back to 2nd grade when I cycled around the driveways of the town houses in San Jose as my super old grandparents stood outside and yelled at their friends in Chinese to stay for a few more hours. It was one of the most nostalgic feelings I had in the longest time and it made me miss a lot of the traditions I had in my childhood, which is totally a whole different entry. So this moment solidified that I will not be satisfied with any other gum unless if it's the cheap 25 cent gum from Wrigley's and it will actually stay in my mouth for more thatn 5 minutes.
The second childhood comfort food that I had was one thing that my mom often made then but doesn't make much of anymore. It was the combination of having Bovril and porridge. Since the whole Mad Cow Disease fiasco in Europe, Bovril had to change the composition of its extract from yeast instead of bovine. The extract would be added to the porridge and I would drink bowls of this at a time like it was water. It was the one Chinese dish I liked as a child, and the repeated exposure to Bovril made it that to this day, I cannot have rice or porridge unless it's been overdosed with condiments.
The next thing on the list was sugar doughnuts and Chinese pastries that my mom often brought back from work because the someone at work always brought too many in, and because my parents really struggled with finances when we first came to the States, all of these sorts of foods were inexpensive and made it easy for us to fill our stomachs up quickly before we could manage to eat out all the time like we do now.
Despite all of the different flavors of doughnuts that I encountered during high school and even the Krispy Kreme phase, my absolute favorite is still the sugar doughnut, followed by the cheap glazed kind. Not the kind that Krispy Kreme kind where the layers were perfect, but the kind where the glaze fell off the doughnut when you picked it up and the layer was barely noticeable on the piece itself.
Then, came the Chinese pastries that my mom often ordered every time we went to Ranch 99 Supermarket. The Swiss roll came in many different flavors like vanilla and strawberry. I was always arguing with my mom at ends about which one to pick because my mom preferred vanilla, while I preferred strawberry. She usually ended up having her way because it was her money.
There are two other ones I signficantly remember: flavored bread and this one cake where one side was chocolate, the other side was white, and was sealed in the middle by a thin layer of vanilla cream. I remember always eating the chocolate side first (or not eating it at all) and then save the vanilla part as the best for last. I never liked the flavored bread that much as a kid so I never ended up snacking on it like my mom hoped I would.
An honorable mention to this list of childhood comfort foods I had was the white pomfret that my mom often ordered grilled from the Chinese supermarket. This is still probably my favorite fish because of the influences I had from my childhood. Chinese dinner would be the best in the entire world when the white pomfret was involved and it was something I always requested from my parents whenever I could.
Lastly, was the classic McDonald's Happy Meal that never let me down. I always had to get the toy that came with the package and the cheery M signs never ceased to make my day. It was the standard: hamburger/cheeseburger, fries, and a small drink that I had for lunch AND after school. I would also go to McDonald's or Burger King for breakfast (although BK was more of a breakfast tradition) and try to collect as many of the Monopoly pieces as I possibly could hoping one day to win something greater than a medium-sized soft drink. That never happened. However, I remember there being this one McDonald's in Sunnyvale that I would go to all the time as a child and everyone in there remembered me by name and had my order ready before my dad could pull the car up to the drive-thru window.
I remember also arguing with my parents every time I ever decided to get the 6-piece chicken nuggets. My parents would only get me Sweet-and-Sour sauce, which I was accustomed to until my friends in elementary school introduced to me BBQ sauce. For some reason, my parents didn't like that and again, they usually ended up having it their way where I ended up dipping all my food in Sweet-and-Sour sauce but when they're not around, the BBQ sauce returns. Another quirk I had as a child was also removing the pickle in the center of the hamburger whenever I could. I never liked vegetables in my sandwiches for some reason, and having a pickle in there disrupted the balance.
McDonald's breakfast was also a slice of heaven especially since I every time I went there, I would have my predictable combination of 1 Apple Pie and 2 hashbrowns or just as many hashbrowns as I could handle. I loved both Burger King's and McDonald's and often couldn't decide between the two, but I was never sold on the pancakes and the Egg McMuffin's. I felt sick when I ate them as a child so my options were pretty limited then and it frustrated my parents seeing that I preferred just a pile of hashbrowns rather than a sandwich, the same way that I preferred a pile of French fries over a hamburger (even though I enjoyed both just as much).
In addition, the French Toast sticks at Burger King was also another comfort food, and those are something I'm sorely missing today, which is why I probably compensate every time I go to Denny's. I always end up ordering French toast no matter how bad it was for me. And I always ran out of syrup.
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