Bento in paradise

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Date: Thu, Apr 27, 1995 1:25 AM EST
From: HTO2
Subj: Re: Eccentric Dining Habits
To: -- email to family -- Andrew, heres one more for your collection of strange eating habits. The encounter took place in Singapore.

------------Bento in Paradise----------------

Blue-grey uniforms and straight black hair packed in like a ski-lift line. Slow progress towards the far end of the huge cafeteria. It's lunch time. I pass table after table of spicy food and excited language in a smorgasbord of Chinese, Indian and Malay. No surprise. This is Singapore: the factory where your American-brand air conditioner is made.

We inch forward. An assembly of Indians strut by with their trays in low British English (they will offer lessons to any stray Americans they meet...). A few inches closer to the serving counters: Chinese to the left, Malay in the middle, Indian to the right. I plan to hit all three. I'm gaining weight with every breath. Heaven may not have these sounds, but I pray it has this aroma.

The line progresses, but there is a momentary lull in the flavors. This area is quieter. I can hear a low murmur of the language spoken at headquarters. I look to the left. Ah, here's a different bunch. A table of blue suits hunched over 6x8x2-inch cardboard boxes. No flavor can my nose detect. I recognize the members of my recently concluded seminar. How did they get their meals so quickly, I wonder? I did not see them pass me in line. I file the question and slide forward.

Tray full and steaming, I return to my murmuring meeting mates. "Well, Mr. T., what's for lunch?"

Mr. T's focus rises from the 6x8x2 container of food and he states, "Box lunch."

"Oh...nice. How did you get it so quickly?" I am curious--was there another line, a back door to the kitchen, a food replicator?

"Shipped from home. Arrived yesterday." Mr. T. informs me.

"Oh...that's...interesting." "Ah, what's in it?" I ask.

"Rice, fish, bean."

Yes, I can see." A standard issue "bento" or box lunch. Fifty million sold everyday at train stations in Mr. T.'s home country. Looks like cold white rice in block form; stiff, chunk of over-cooked fish, again cold; some kind of sweet bean in brown sticky syrup; molded fish paste in pastel colors stamped out with a cookie cutter; one finger-sized wiener.

"Gee, why didn't I get that? So...you don't go in for the local menu, right?"

"Foreign food, too much taste. Need rice from home"

"Yeah, ...right. So, how long have you been having your meals shipped over?"

"Since come from home, 3 years."

"Well, thanks for the culinary advice, Mr. T. Think I'll ditch this ethnic stuff and go find me a MacDonalds. See you folks back in the seminar."