Sometimes, I can't put my finger on what kind of food I want, or if I want food at all. I usually do want food, especially when I don't know what to do with myself, I just eat. I eat when I'm bored, as well as when I'm depressed, or really happy. Eating entertains me, makes me happy, and maintains my happiness. Right now, I thought about it, and I decided I'm craving a small sandwich, something that you could get at McDonalds, but I'm going to go over to the conveniently-close-to-my-apartment convenience store Lawson and buy probably a cheeseburger.
Sometimes I crave onigiri - rice triangles or hexagons filled with something like okaka (fish flakes), umeboshi (pickled plum), salmon, tuna and mayonnaise, etc., and wrapped in seaweed - something I never craved before having access to an abundance of them in Japan. Sometimes I crave ramen, however, I'm very picky about my ramen: it must have garlic in it, and it must not be the curly noodles because those remind me of United States 10 cents ramen which I can't stand. Today I went to the Yokohama ramen amusement park and got to enjoy komurasaki ramen which has grilled garlic chips all over it. Similarly, I also get regular cravings for sashimi, sushi, plain white rice, and oysters.
Doughnut cravings have been a staple of my existence, and in Japan they are easier to satisfy. I don't have to go to the grocery store and wait in line to check out to buy a doughnut and then find somewhere else to eat it; I can go into Mr. Donut and have one or two doughnuts on the go. I also crave what is called shu-cream, which are really thoroughly stuffed delicious cream puffs that I don't remember eating in the United States except for one time when I was into baking as a young girl and found a cream puff recipe in The Joy of Cooking.
Is there any rhyme or reason to these cravings? Do they correlate with our moods, or our internal balance? If bodies could automatically satisfy their nutritional needs properly by having appropriate food cravings, hmm, life might be a lot easier. Unfortunately it seems we must put in a bit more effort than that. So far I'm throwing in the towel with the effort. I'm going to eat what the food craving section of my brain tells me to eat.
But then, as we've seen before with my recent Japan-specific cravings, a food has to be introduced into your body before it will produce craving signals for it.
I've used the word crave entirely too much. Crave. That makes me think about that restaurant in Atlanta called Crave, or pregnant women, or tangerines, or a big spider amusement park ride. I'd like to see a bunch of tangerines ride the spider. They'd jump out of their peels, they'd be so scared. And then I could catch them and eat them.
