Developing Tastes

Bich eats a lot of Vietnamese and Mexican food, obviously because she and most of her family are Vietnamese and she eats Mexican because her step mom and sister are Mexican. She likes it but what she really wants to eat is what everyone else eats. While reading this I figured out that as a kid she struggles with not fitting in. She doesn't look like everyone else, have a name like everyone else, basically she wasn't a middle class Dutch person.  She thinks that if she eats what everyone else eats she will fit in. Anyways, because of this she ends up spending most of her time daydreaming about American food, mainly of the preprocessed persuasion. She wanted the food that the other kids had: Bundt cakes and casseroles, Cheetos and Doritos. "My secret dream was to bite off just the tip of every slice of pizza in the two-for-one deal we got at Little Ceasar's." She also memorized the menu at Dairy Cone, the sugary options in the cereal aisle at Meijer's, and every inch of the candy display at Gas City. In short she was obsessed with unhealthy American food. She knew almost every kind of candy, including: Bubble Yum, Bubbbalicous, Hubba Bubba, Chewels, Tidal Wave, Big League Chew and gum shaped like hot dogs and hamburgers. She knew more than gum though, there was Reese's peanut butter cups, Twix, Heath Crunch, Baby Ruth, Bar Non, Oh Henry!, Mounda and Almond Joy, Watchamacallit, Chunky, Charleston Chew, and Dolly Madison. Plus WAY more the list goes on for an entire page! Some of the stuff she memorized and liked I've never even heard of. Such as Watchamacallit, apparently it's "peanut flavor crisp".

Reading an interview on Bich's website I realized that my observation was correct. She did think that eating the food everyone else had would make her a middle class Dutch. As an adult Bich acknowledged that, and doesn't find some of the foods as appealing anymore. She has developed a taste for the finer chocolates and handmade sweets.


To read the rest of the interview with Bich visit:
http://www.bichminhnguyen.com/q-a/