We were a few weeks in, and Hanh definitely had a favourite meal. And lots of unfavourites.
At first he hadn’t been willing to express any criticism at all – whatever I produced was met with a big grin, and double thumbs up, and no eye contact at all. That didn’t last very long… Next we swung to the opposite, with eye rolling and faces of disgust. He was really good at those. And he kept this up for much, much longer.
After a few weeks, he was still refusing to make any positive comments, and questions about food that I asked through our translator were met with a shrug, as if he was resigned to the rubbish I was churning out and there wasn’t much point talking about it. (There are times when fostering really makes you feel good about yourself…!) But gradually I caught glimmers of what he seemed to enjoy, and he asked for – OK, ordered, there wasn’t any requesting involved! – some dishes more often, and occasionally he gave himself away with a bit of a smile.
There were two issues with the meal he actually liked.
Firstly it was the most complex of all the dishes I tried. It needed rice-flour+coconutmilk+turmeric crêpes and pork and prawns and beansprouts and a salad and a dipping sauce. It had to be made one crêpe at a time – building it up in three stages in the pan. It was a real faff.
Secondly, he insisted on making his own dipping sauce with it, because mine was no good. And he used the grey sludge jar.
I don’t know what it actually was. My best guess is fermented shrimp. It was a grey grainy paste and it stank. I mean, stank. I kept it screwed shut as tight as I could manage, inside a bag, inside a plastic box. And you could still smell it whenever that cupboard was opened.
To be fair, if this is what food was meant to taste like, then what I served him really was awful. It certainly didn’t taste anything like that stuff.
I was repulsed by it and he thought that was hilarious. He’d grin really broadly, and pick some up in his chopsticks and wave it at me, and try to get me to try the sauce, and embark on a whole pantomime of sniffing and sighing in delight. And he’d laugh at me the whole time.
And I loved it. Yes, the food was a pain to cook. And yes, it made the kitchen stink. But I knew he liked it – and he didn’t often let me see that.
So his response when the faffing was done and the dish was ready – at last! – really baffled me.
He just left it.
He’d be gaming, as always. And I’d finally complete the multi-stage assembly, and look at it with some pride, and slide it across the table towards his laptop, and smile, and say, “Enjoy it!”.
And he’d occasionally grunt. But usually, not even that. He didn’t look at it. He didn’t pick it up. He totally ignored it.
Some time in the next hour or so, he’d casually pause, and poke it – by now it was cold, a bit limp and slightly congealed – and scoff it. There was no lingering, no enjoyment, no relishing. (I did catch a hint of a smile at times, but only when he thought I couldn’t see him). It would be bolted; and he’d go back to the game.
I said it baffled me. Let’s be honest. It annoyed me too. A lot.
I put in time and effort, and my kitchen stank, and he couldn’t even be bothered to pause his mindless gaming and eat it while it was hot?!
To add insult to injury, the cookery book stated that ‘everything must be prepped in advance so the crêpes can be eaten as soon as they are done’. Uyen Luu, the author*, would have been most upset. So was I.
And more fundamentally, I didn’t know why.
I had some theories…
Maybe his story about growing up the streets was true, or at least partly true. If he’d scavenged a lot of his food from bins and scraps, he would be used to it being cold and limp and congealed. Maybe this was just more familiar to him.
Maybe his traumatized brain just needed to get away from the real world – and so he really was immersed in his game. Beyond the dopamine hits that keep all teenagers glued to the screen – maybe this was the one option open for him to escape. And hot food back in the real world was less appealing than staying away from the truth for a bit longer.
Maybe his traffickers had taught him to show disregard. Maybe this was a way to push me away, to make me feel bad – because there’s nothing like rejection when you’re trying really hard, to make you put up your own walls of self protection, and push him away too. And anything that damaged our relationship was good for them.
Maybe it went deeper than that. Maybe the traffickers also understood how important food is for bonding, and how vital it was for him not to experience the simple joys of eating together within his placement. If he ignored what he was given and waited until it was cold, he’d be able to stay away from the family dining table, from chatting and laughter and sharing life together. He’d stay isolated and lonely. And they’d be more likely to get him back.
I had plenty of time to mull over these dark thoughts, as the rising steam slowly dissipated and the once crispy surface sagged.
Usually in these posts it’s about now that I say, ‘and aren’t we all like the kids?’
But not this time. I love eating! I don’t ever leave my food sitting there.
And yet…
‘Taste and see that the Lord is good,’ exhorts David in Psalm 34. ‘Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.’
There are three stages in that simple instruction, and I reckon we can go astray in any of them.
First – taste. The Bible is full of sensory language. It may be a book, but it’s not encouraging a bookish, academic, theoretical approach to religion. Quite the opposite… in its pages we find God dazzling us with flame and thunder and unapproachable light; getting us to take off our sandals, to kneel, to dance, to sing, to shout. His people eat his words; have their lips purified with burning coals; rely on ravens as prototype JustEat drivers; walk through parted seas; wrestle until they are injured; eat meals with strangers who turn out to be God; build altars; wait through fire and storm for a still small voice; and eat manna in the wilderness for forty years. So much sensory stuff – and among it all, a whole lot of eating! What is it about food? Jesus performed his first sign at a wedding feast, producing gallons of fine wine; he feeds thousands in the wilderness; he reserves some of his deepest teaching for the Last Supper; he eats fish to prove he’s not a ghost; and cooks breakfast on a beach fire when he wants to reinstate Peter. He declares he is the bread of life.
There’s lots that could be said about all that, but let’s just notice that God wants to be experienced. He wants us to live and breathe and eat him – not just to pray or study or sing. He’s part of Monday afternoon and Friday night as well as Sunday morning.
Hanh resisted tasting for as long as he could, until the food was well past its best. But we can choose otherwise.
Second – see. We’re meant to dive into all these experiences, but not to stop there. Taste is not for its own sake. Sure, the God who bothered to make five different taste receptors and to arrange them on the tongue to maximise the sensations of eating – who created the bitterness of coffee and the sourness of lemons and the sweetness of chocolate, and who made a world containing salt – I think it’s safe to say he’s more gourmand than spartan. But all the delights of human experience are there for a reason, which is that we should see. See the God who gives such good gifts (whether we thank him for them or not). See the creativity and abundance and generosity of his heart. See his desire for us to explore and enjoy, to be individuals with our own preferences, to co-create, to find not just fulfilment for our needs but delight for our senses.
God wants the wonder of the world he’s created to lead us back to him. For us to step out into experiences, and then to look up and see his face. For wonder to lead to worship. For a great meal, or stirring music, or a glorious sunset, or a passionate kiss to lead us to thanks and praise; to enjoy what we enjoy with him, and with him enjoying it too.
Hanh didn’t look up from his game until I wasn’t hovering any more. And he ate without raising his eyes. He was determined not to see anything beyond the (cold) crêpe. But we can choose otherwise.
Third – that God is good. God himself is good. It’s not just his gifts; the ultimate goodness is found in the giver. So we taste and exclaim how good it is; and we lift our eyes to say ‘wow!’ to God; and we linger there, recognising that whatever we are admiring in the gift, the giver himself is better. God creates bread that sustains us – but he himself is the source of life, of energy; it’s his faithfulness that holds our world together, he writes our stories and he carries us to the end. He created that amazing smell as we open a new bag of coffee, and he also provides the very breath in our lungs that lets us smell it, he breathed life into us at the beginning and he calls us to spread the aroma of life, of Christ, as we journey with him. God creates the music that lifts our souls – and he himself is the source of emotion, we are sustained by his joy, he sings over us, he is the only one who truly satisfies long after the last chord has ebbed away. God creates family and friends and eye contact and hugs – but he is the only perfect father and husband and master, it is his love that designed us and made us and redeemed us and calls us home, and only he knows every wrinkle of our souls and fills each dent, each crack, each hollow with his absolute and unfailing grace.
He is greater than any of his gifts. And he wants us to continue that upward gaze – from the gift, to the giver, realising afresh that he is better than everything we ever prayed for or longed for or pleaded for; better than anything we dreamed of. And he himself is available to us. That’s why he’s so determined to pull us away from our idols. Because he is better, always better.
Hanh couldn’t consider the giver. He worked hard to minimise the gift. But we can choose otherwise.
And after the instruction to taste and see that God is good, comes the statement, “Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” It’s not a non-sequitur. If we do taste, and let the goodness of life lead us to see, and let the provision and gifts of God lead us to worship the giver – then it starts to make sense that we would take refuge in this same God when the gifts are burnt and the night is dark. When the taste is bitter and we can’t see a thing, and worship is the last thing we want to do. If we’ve tasted, and seen, and know that God has been good – then we can trust that he is still good, even now, even when the goodness seems to have drained away. Then we can face what is tough, and not lose heart. Then we can hear the lies of the world, of the devil, of our own wandering hearts, and choose not to listen. Then we can let him fight our battles, let him take the hits, let him author our stories, let him hold us and shield us. We can take refuge. We can wait. We can endure. We can hope. Not because there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, or a silver lining in the cloud, or because we whistle a happy tune. Not because there’s a reason for optimism or once things start to turn around. While it’s still dark, we can take refuge in him – trusting purely in the goodness of the God who never changes.
If we taste, and see, and know that God us good… then we can also take refuge in him.
And then we are truly blessed.
Hanh got the best bánh xèo that I could make. But he didn’t see, and so he didn’t know I was good, and so he couldn’t take refuge. And so he wasn’t blessed.
We can choose otherwise.
Hanh’s story is with God, who is almighty and can do more than cook a decent-ish bánh xèo. I continue to pray that one day he will taste, and see, and know, and take refuge. If you pray, I’d love you to join me. Thank you.
* The recipe for Hanh’s bánh xèo thįt heo tôm came from ‘My Vietnamese Kitchen’, Uyen Luu, published by Ryland Peters & Small, 2nd edition (2019)
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