I once asked my wife how she learned to eat chicken feet, something I have never developed a taste for. She said, “When I was growing up, we had three generations living in our home and, in my country, the oldest people eat first and the youngest people eat last. If we had chicken for dinner, my grandmother took the pieces she wanted first, then my parents took the pieces they wanted, and the kids ate whatever was left. So we learned to eat every part of the chicken and, unlike here, we didn’t just buy chicken pieces. We bought and cooked the whole chicken. From the head to the feet with everything in between, nothing went to waste. I learned to eat everything because I had to. It’s all we had.” 

Hearing this was not only enlightening, but also humbling. It made me realize how easy I truly had it growing up. Not only did we generally get to eat food that we liked, albeit within reason, but we also had such an absurd surplus of food that we never really felt the burden of having to eat anything we didn’t like out of necessity or threat of going hungry. We could afford to be picky and, with junk foods, snack foods, and frozen foods abound, our cupboards reflected this fact. 

My wife, on the other hand, having grown up in post-genocide Cambodia, had way fewer options. Her family shopped, cooked, and ate, first and foremost, for survival. One chicken had to make multiple dishes, feed multiple generations, and had to last across multiple meals. They cooked and ate every part, perhaps grilling the legs and wings, making a stir-fry with the diced up breast meat, and making soup with the thighs, feet, neck, head, and the carcass. Even the organs and the blood were cooked and eaten. 

The more I thought about this, the more spoiled and insulated I began to feel. It wasn’t a sense of guilt or even shame, as I knew that I did not choose to grow up where I did, how I did, with the family I had, and the luxury to choose my food from day to day and meal to meal. We were each born into the worlds we were born into and we only knew what we knew. Rather, she helped me to understand just how little I knew about the world outside of my own culture and upbringing. 

Now, whenever I see someone eating something I don’t eat or wasn’t exposed to growing up, instead of judging or criticizing it, I take a moment to think about what my wife said when I asked her how she learned to eat chicken feet. Even though my mom encouraged us to try different things, I think about how there are entire cultures and customs that I simply don’t understand because of how I was brought up. But most of all, I am reminded, as my daughter says, “Not to ‘yuck’ someone else’s ‘yum,'” because you have no idea what life circumstances led them to develop the tastes and preferences they now have.

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox.