Wednesday, January 25, 2012

A Meal Equally Satisfying to the Eyes, Nose, Tongue, and Body

I enjoyed this beautiful meal at P. F. Chang's over winter break before returning to college. The broccoli forests, the Great Wall of tofu, the rice grains of sand--a small masterpiece, for me.
One of my general heuristics for eating reads as follows:
1) The more colors, the more variation.
2) Barring artificiality, the more variation, the more nutrients.
3) The more nutrients, the more healthy.
Meals can truly be fulfilling experiences (they are supposed to fill you anyway, after all). The spicy, garlicky tofu and eggplant combined with the salty noodles and tempered by the rice and broccoli was tremendously satisfying. No knives were necessary (apparently this is the philosophical point of chopsticks), and everything was easy and delicious to eat. This meal in particular was also mentally pleasing, because I ate everything in the order it would probably disappear--the forest and plains first, followed by the cliffs and wall, until nothing was left but a desert of sand. OK, fine, I am easily entertained. But really, there is something special about a meal that you enjoy every part of, at the end of which you just have to sit back with a sleepy smile and a hand on your stomach. :)

2 comments:

  1. Contrary to popular belief, our panel of researchers was surprised to discover that the burp is not actually an essential part of the experience but rather a side effect! :O

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