The last?

Sometimes I feel sad to realise that I might be the last few (or even, the last) generation to enjoy great traditional food. Or even, maybe I am the last generation who likes these traditional food. My mum cooked preserved vegetable with pork tonight and it is one of my favourite food. Eating a bowl of rice with it using chopsticks is like one of the best things in life.

Although I often wonder, will such food still exist in the future? How many people in my generation actually knows how to cook it? And how many people in my generation actually enjoy eating these food? Come to think of it, we're so-called the "buyer generation". Most of us buy things instead of make them. And this is especially true to food. How many of us actually still bother to cook dinner instead of just buying some take-away? How many of us enjoy cooking traditional food?

Perhaps it's time for me to jot down all these recipes in a book so that I can cook them in the future. And when people of my generation miss these food next time, I can help them relive their nostalgia. Which brings me to my next point, where I am interested to open a restaurant in the hometown where we sell traditional food! I think the concept will work because as we go along the way, we'll miss these food more and more. But then again I think to myself, how many of us like such food?

As an Asian, and Indonesian, food is really something important in life. Food is not just about getting yourself fed and making you feel full. I think being Asian, food is something that holds our identity and culture together. It will be a nightmare for me if in the future, we eat nothing but normal food with no sense and touch of traditionalism there. Maybe in the future all we ever cook is stir-fry dishes, deep-fried meats and more processed food. Gone were the days of preserved vegetables, stewed meat in spices and food wrapped in banana leaves and so on. How sad.

Perhaps it's time for us to give more appreciation to the food that our parents/grandparents/other family members cook. Because these are the people that grow up, still expected to uphold traditions and the culture. I'm not saying that our generation is not expected to, but because of the changing and progressing of time, we are not -that- interested to do these "traditional" things. Well let's bug our mums, aunties and grandmas to ask them to teach how to make all these great food!