“Consuming the City” is an exercise that engages the many different ways food is prepared and consumed in New York and cities around the world.
Each student will visit* an eating establishment (either a café, restaurant, food stand or cart or even a family member or friend’s home) and partake in consuming a meal or particular food item. Be adventurous – share something you really find compelling. What is your go-to place and why? What food is central to your everyday life and/or to defining who you are in this world?
This was Christmas Eve dinner at my cousin’s apartment in Gramercy Park. Growing up in a traditional Chinese household, we rarely celebrate Christmas as a family. Each year for Christmas, we hang out and get drunk with friends, even when the pandemic is at its peak in 2020 (at that time we were studying away in Shanghai.) However, the new variants of coronavirus caught us unexpectedly this Christmas. All of our friends were either tested positive or stuck at home. My cousin and I, both feeling alright and decided to celebrate the night together like a date, which turn out to be a cute homecooked dinner.
My cousin was the chef and decided the entire menu, which included pho, roasted brined chicken, roasted butternut squash with truffle butter, pan-seared asparagus with stock, and truffle grilled steak. He prepared the food at his home kitchen and the longest food to make was the chicken because he marinated it overnight and blow-dry the skin to make it crispy. 2o minutes after it went into the oven we could smell the amazing main course of the night ––the stuffed Chicken. Gradually the room was filled with the aroma of the chicken, and I couldn’t catch its scent as keenly as if the aroma had melted into every cell of my body, screaming, “I can’t wait to eat it! ” The pho, chicken, beef, and pumpkin were hot and lovely, eating them on a cold winter night felt like my stomach was covered in a warm blanket next to a fire. Yet, the chef was very considerate and made a refreshing asparagus dish to give us an interval to rest from all the “hotness.”
The food was presented on my cousin’s overpriced marble desk with his overpriced “gun-metal” tablewares. We consumed the food slowly as we enjoyed classic Cantonese songs playing in the background. Another reason we were eating at a steady pace was that we were feeling homesick and were chatting about the good old times before COVID. The sound of dinnerware hitting the plate and cutting food blended perfectly with the music in the background, making me forget the passage of time. Enjoying the meal while listening to the familiar rhythm gave me flashbacks of my childhood family dinners. At that moment I was tearing up on the inside because I genuinely perceived the true meaning of food and the significance and joy of dining with family.
