Wasabi's awakening

I am not my body. I am not my thoughts. I am not my emotions. I am.

In this journey, I do need my body though and it needs me. I nourish it in ways that I believe I should.

However, it tells me when it’s not happy. My relationship with food has always been a contentious one. I love food, the colors, the smells, the flavors and the sheer joy of the tastes. For me, it was always like a work of art, in many ways, it really is. It also brought a lot of emotions.

From a young age I always knew that I loved food, I wasn’t overly picky but I was also blessed with a mother who was an amazing cook. It was with the experiments, the ways to coerce me to eat that I learnt about the flavors, how each taste would touch my senses and how certain textures would just allow my tastebuds to dance and explode.

Growing up, we would have these restaurant adventures, try out different places and then we would go home and try to copy it. From that, I almost always remember what I’ve eaten and with who. I don’t always remember the dates, but I would remember the tastes, the experience and the emotions that were invoked.

When people gush about my food experiences, they don’t know the half of it, the joy it brings me, the experience and many times, the company that is shared. I want almost all my meals to be a culinary experience, even the simple ones.

I used to love the intense layers of flavors from a well made lamb stew. Or the subtle but laborious stuffed deboned duck that was marinated for days, roasted, then stuffed with sticky rice, shiitake mushrooms and chestnuts. The juicy beef roast overflowing with coriander seeds, wine, black pepper and garlic. My mouth still salivates at the memories.

Yet my tastebuds now play tricks on me.

The perfect steak with its natural juices wrapped in peppercorn and coriander, done medium rare that is mouth-watering to anyone else is tasteless to me. No flavor.

The roasted Moroccan chicken with its perfect lemon slices, turmeric and paprika, with a side of couscous, golden, gorgeous and rich in flavors, amazing to all that have tasted it, is putrid to me. The smell of chicken makes me nauseous.

Steamed pork belly with fermented mustard plant, my ultimate favorite that my mom used to make when she ran out of ideas to cook. The sweet crunchy vegetables saturated with the richness of pork belly. I can no longer keep that down and when I do, my stomach can no longer hold it in.

Yet in my new adventures of dhal, vegetarian dishes and my childhood despise of mushrooms and potatoes, they have now become my best friend. The freshness of Thai basil in my eggplant with chillies and shallots. A Korean glass noodle stir fry with a mushroom medley and cilantro.

My father would be so proud that I will finally eat cilantro, mushrooms and potatoes.

It’s not that I don’t want to eat animal products, it’s just that my body is rejecting it. I can’t handle the smell, I can’t tolerate the taste and even when I try to manipulate the flavors, my stomach rejects it almost immediately.

I feel better though, eating freshly cooked vegetables, lentils and once a week, fish. I am less lethargic, everything feels lighter and my soul, is nourished.