Ok…fine, I am not the healthiest person on Earth. These days, maybe not even the healthiest person in my household; although I can’t be sure, being that I’ve been on extended leave from the States for over four months.
I don’t know about you, but when I go to a new place, whether that place is on the other side of the world, or the town over, I like to ensure that I have sampled the local cuisine.
It’s a guilty pleasure, and I know I’m not alone.
Buddhism teaches us that forming unhealthy attachments will lead to suffering. In the Dalai Lama’s teachings, he explains that food is also one of these vices that lead to suffering. And he makes good points. Obviously, there are eating disorders, which not only include anorexia and bulimia, but obviously gorging as well (with or without the purge).
Sure, we love the way the food tastes in the beginning, but what about when we eat too much? Then we feel sick, whether immediately, or as we finish the digestive cycle. So does that make food bad?
Woah…let’s not over-react.
When we travel, what do we really want to do? Some people love to stay in a comfortable bubble. If you are a fan of traveling in luxury, you do this quite a bit. Your resort gives you a world within a new world, and your arranged tours will give you pockets of the local culture, but unless you take some serious ventures out into the wild, you are really just reliving your own life in a different pocket of this vastly diverse planet.
For others, the best parts of traveling are seeing vast landscapes that are different from where we live, see the historical sights and monuments, and if you are really a lover of traveling, you chat with the locals, behave like the locals (don’t over-do it!), and eat where the locals eat.
The phrase “When in Rome” comes to mind, not the least because I write this as I am in the middle of my duration in Rome, the incredible capital of Italy, where love is palpable, history is everywhere, and food is a language.
I have always consumed more than the average human being. At some point in my physiological development, the gag reflex that tells people to stop, went numb. There have been numerous occasions when I am drinking 3-4 different beverages at a time. Usually that beverage is tea, then water, then juice. I have gone to parties (you know, the ones where people drink a lot of alcohol) with a 2-liter bottle of Japanese green tea, which I have been reminded all too often looks like a bottle of urine. My food consumption is no different. Some of my favorite personal anecdotes are based upon practices with food, like the time when I was in China and needed a taste of home, so we went to Pizza Hut and I ate a medium pepperoni pie by myself, then took one to go for the train ride.
For quite some time, I had wondered about why I had a big chest. My waist is still a decent 32, my stomach is definitely not toned, but my chest sticks out like I am trying to pretend I am a body builder. But I’m not. At first, I thought it was a case of large lungs, which I now think is not the most accurate diagnosis, as I cough up grossness every morning. My heart is very strong, but I am no Secretariat. It’s not taking up my whole chest. And then it all made sense. My most faithful of organs (discluding the heartburn/acid reflux, of course…I have no clue why that happens), my stomach, had grown to allow me to keep it full at all hours of the day, in any situation.
No, I’m not thin. But I’m not obese either. I had one period in my life that I was vastly overweight (this is referred to as my “Fat Elvis period”, an allusion to John Lennon’s observation of his own weight in 1965), but I not only brought that back down within a span of 6 months, I dropped down to the same waist size as when I was 12 years old. Consumption quantity never changed, just the quality of the ingredients and the state of mind of the consumer. Hockey was also a significant catalyst. When I re-started my love affair with the game, I spent many hours a week on the ice, using up as many calories as my body could hold.
But now is a different story. Because of my extended travel, I haven’t been on the ice in well over 2 months, and that was only for 1 day. My only withdrawal that I have experienced on this trip is from hockey, the impetus for the original destination on this voyage.
Sure, I was in India for over 3 months, where stomach illness and bowel movements become standard conversation with tourists who were strangers just 30 minutes before. Most people inevitably lose weight, but not me. I love Indian food. I shoveled down Naan, Lassis, Butter Chicken, Samosa, Kathi Rolls, and Dosai. Oh, and a few too many gulab jamun (fried milk-powder) balls. When I finally parted ways with the Subcontinent, not only was my luggage overweight, but so was the passenger.
You would think that it would improve when I got to Germany, Munich to be exact. But it’s quite possible that the situation worsened.
Bicycles are everywhere in the streets of Munich, and it’s a beautiful city to stroll around. It seems like everyone is burning off the calories they consume, which is incredible, considering their staple foods are varieties of sausages and hot-dogs, cream soups, and beer. The beer is provided in such large doses, that I am convinced people are chewing by the time they have finished their bucket.
Chicken and mutton (goat) are the primary meats of India, so coming across beef and pork concoctions was euphoric. I used to refrain from eating pig products. By the end of my stay in Munich, I had tried so many varieties of pig that all I needed was an apple in my mouth, and someone would’ve clubbed me over the head, tied me to a pole, and roasted me over a large fire.
This pattern has continued throughout Europe. Every place I go, I not only try the local food, I consume it in heavy doses. I made a very public announcement to people as I arrived in Europe, “My plan is to OD on the local food at every town I go to, to the point that I get sick of it when I leave, and then repeat the process over again at my next destination.”
With no ounce of pride do I announce that I’ve lived up to my promise. It’s been 5 days since I arrived in Italy. In that time, I have digested (in some part) 20 servings of pizza (that’s 4/day) and 15 servings of gelato (that’s 3/day). The only quicker way to death would be an injection of heroine into my heart.
Fortunately, I walk a lot, and keep burning calories, fighting the endless battle between fit and fat. In the two days I’ve been in Rome, I’ve walked almost 20 miles (yeah, that’s 10 miles/day). Today, as I was walking while sucking in my abdomen (it’s actually a yoga practice to keep the abs engaged), I stopped off at a local pasticceria. I passed up dozens of restaurants before picking the one packed in with locals, on some random street in an old part of town.
I asked the Italians next to me what I should order, and they recommended the amatriciana, which when it arrived, I discovered was pasta in a think tomato sauce with pecorino romano & dried pork cheek (fat). I also ordered bruschetta, but was a bit confused when the pasta arrived first. Naturally, bread came with the meal.
I easily handled the pasta, with a feeling of satisfaction that I didn’t have big eyes, and the bruschetta would be perfect, whether before or after the meal. And then a new knife and fork arrived at my table, followed by bistecca 30 seconds later. If that sounds familiar in your head, it should, it means Beef Steak. And it was sitting in front of me, glazed with butter. All I could do was say “wow”, and dig in.
I didn’t want steak. I didn’t want meat all day. I had abstained from meat the previous day, as an overload in protein was definitely dragging me down. But I couldn’t refuse. Especially in such a local eatery as this. All I could do was guzzle down more water and red wine, and hope that the liquid would keep my system running in the case of a log jam in the digestive track. I felt like Homer Simpson in his steak eating contest (or similarly, his feast on a life-time supply of Krusty Burgers).
So I sit here, half defeated, half motivated. Sure, I feel gross and overweight. If someone stabs me in the stomach, there is potential that the ASPCA would also come after the attacker for animal cruelty. But I am also on vacation. I am living up to the phrase “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” I am following my passion for amazing food, and making sure that no cuising goes unsampled, and when I return home to New York, even more over the airline’s weight limit, I will ride the elliptical and stationary bike, or eat fresh arugula salad, and think back to the amazing times I had traveling around the world and gorging my face until it swelled. And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way.
