MEAL-Many Experiments Are Lively

By Li Huang & Bin Xu

If you meet someone named "Men not only eat rice but also have to eat vegetables" or someone else named "Meal is God" on MSN, do not be skeptical. They are two new Chinese students from Northwestern University, Karl and Wei. Karl is from Shanghai, China, where men cook a lot. Because, apparently, he is good at cooking, he was able to say something confidently like that. But poor Wei! He had to "wash" a fried cabbage dish he cooked with water because it was way~~~~~~~ too salty. We think he will not change his nick name on MSN for a long time.

Most of the ISIers came here after their undergraduate degree or after marrying a good wife. Some of us have never touched a pan or pot in our entire lives, and some of us have to cook for everybody we know in ISI. To be either toughly independent cooks or to be humble toward those who cook is a necessity for survival.

Cooking is hard, and cooking is an art. Every ISIer knows it, especially Yan, who majored in art history. We are quite sure she can think creatively in her academic area, but to be creative in cooking seems to be much harder for her. Sandwiches and boiled eggs have become her breakfast, lunch and supper for about two weeks. The only difference between the three meals is that there is orange juice for breakfast and supper but not for lunch. Luckily, she has a good friend who came to visit her about a week ago. This nice girl cooked some fried eggs and rice for Yan. For almost a week, the delicious rice saved Yan a lot of trouble on figuring out how to cook something else besides sandwiches. But unfortunately, everything has an expiration date, including fried rice. Yan suffered from a strong stomachache from the expired rice and it was a while before she tried to be creative in the kitchen. But later, having learned a lot from the rice and stomachache, she experimented with frying eggs and steak all by herself. Although both came out inedible, they came out interestingly different. The egg was OK on one side, but heavily burnt on the other, while the steak is way too rare. She had to throw them both away.

At least Yan tried. We appreciate her tough spirit. Compared to her, the gentlemen from India and Korea gave up their home foods much earlier. Amit has already become one of the most reliable customers of D & D Finer Foods. If you go to D & D on Friday, chances are good that you will meet Amit in front of the frozen food section. From our conversation we believe that frozen food and the limited amount of noodles he brought from India will accompany him through his whole apartment hunting time. As for Sung Yong, it seems that being patient is the only things he decided to do. Wife and kid will arrive next month. This strong man for sure can bear American fast food for a month. But if it is two months, we are going to worry about Sung Yong's weight.

Another issue vital to our survival is how to buy the right stuff at the "right" price when you do grocery shopping. Language is the main barrier. The day before yesterday, Li went to buy some yogurt in D & D for her sweet tooth, but somehow, when she got back and put a spoonful of the "yogurt" into her mouth at 10 p.m., she realized it was BUTTER! Li has already gained four pounds in the last three weeks and she cried herself to sleep after the butter-taste "yogurt" or yogurt-shaped butter.

And also, there are times when you have paid enough attention to the labels and names, but just wondered if there are ways to lower the price figures a little bit. Jimmy has already bought a tiny bottle of sesame oil that's five times more expensive and some ginger that is 20 times more expensive than in his home country. We don't think he will talk about these with his mother or mother-in-law who are in Singapore. They would be astonished.

According to the "miserable" situation most Asians are facing now, our renowned "chef", Bin would like to share his recipe of "Korean BBQ Chicken Wings" with all ISIer. It is one of the most delicious dish that has almost the lowest requirement on both learners and materials.

Ingredients: Korean BBQ sauce (could be purchased in Chinatown super markets or Marketplace), green onion, sesame oil (optional), a box of chicken wings, one or two onions (optional). Process: 1. Marinate chicken wings with one or two spoons of Korean sauce, green onions, sesame oil(optional) for 30 minutes. 2. Set the oven to 400 degree, put the marinated chicken wings in theroast pan. After about 20 minutes, turn over the wings to bake the other side for 15 minutes. Then you can enjoy the delicious wings!

Compared to the Asians' situation, westerners might do better. For instance, Aurelien has already been enjoying a good time cooking here at Evanston. He would like to share a great recipe for grilled tuna or salmon. Choose the tuna or salmon steak; put it into a plastic bag together with soy sauce, garlic (or garlic powder), lemon juice; shake it for a while; take the fish out and put it on a plate close to the grill; grill each side for five minutes; then, enjoy the fish! And also, we are surprised by the way French cook vegetables--steaming. Now we know why French girls are so beautiful and slim. Just look how healthy their foods are! But Aurelien also made a “serious” mistake when he arrived in American several years ago. As most of you might have noticed, milk here is usually categorized into four kinds: fat free, 1% low fat, 2% low fat, full fat. Usually Aurelien and his wife drink fat-free milk in France. Once he went to buy milk under his wife’s order in America, he misunderstood the categorization and took four bottles of full-fat milk home. He felt guilty after he realized it, and drank the full-fat milk all by himself.

Before we interviewed Lapo, we guessed that he might be the happiest one in our group because it seems that Americans have been living on Italian food such as pasta, pizza and macaroni, for decades. Lapo confirmed our guess, but he has just a little trouble when he cooks and goes food shopping. Although there are many kinds of pasta in American supermarkets, Lapo said there are still not as many options as in Italy. He also has trouble finding tuna, but Bin has seen a lot of canned tuna in American groceries. Maybe it's not the right kind. Lapo confessed that he did not cook a lot when he was in Italy, because his parents usually prepared the meal for him. So after he came here, he chose the safest and most common way of cooking in this international students group, that is, the easiest way. Lapo is happy to share his recipe of easy but authentic Italian pasta with the rest of us: buy a box of pasta from the grocery store; follow the directions printed on the box but don't believe too much in it. You still need to taste it from time to time to make sure that the pasta is okay to eat; and, ­that's it! Another European student, Caroline, does not have a lot of trouble either. What she used to eat in Austria can be found in American groceries except for some special cheeses and dumplings. The only difficulty she has is with transportation. Because she does not have a car yet, she cannot go very far for food shopping and has to buy food in downtown groceries where she finds that food is way too expensive. That is a common problem for almost all newcomers. So we reached a conclusion that, in this country, no car, no food.

Federico, the only student from South America in this year's ISI, also has trouble with the price of food. Meat and other food, as he said, are much more expensive than in Uruguay. He also complained about the limited options of food in American grocery stores. It is pretty hard to find a South American restaurant in Chicago. But fortunately he found fish here is good. (As Chinese who are used to eating a lot of fresh fish every day in China, we don't agree.) He cooks very often and usually he cooks pasta, rice, meat (roasted and grilled), and potatoes.

Paul, the only student from Africa, has his own traditional food which is totally different from American food. We are not sure whether we understand the cooking method of "Ugali", which is the name of the food. Ugali is made of ground white corn, but, as Paul said, corn in American groceries is mainly the Mexican type which is not as good as the one he was used to. We agree with him because since we came here, we have not seen any corn as good as that sold in Chinese marketplaces. Fortunately Paul found an African restaurant in Rogers Park which is good enough.

Here are some of the "experimental exercises" ISIers have conducted in the last three weeks. Should you have any "laboratory findings" or opinions on restaurants you have visited, please share them in the comments part of our blog. We are in great need of cooking tips and good dining places!