Have You Eaten (Rice) Yet?

“A few years ago, I asked some children, ‘What is the purpose of eating breakfast?’ One boy replied, ‘To get energy for the day.’ Another said, ‘The purpose of eating breakfast is to eat breakfast.’ I think the second child is more correct.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, How to Eat

There’s a common greeting in Asian cultures, used as a way to say hello. In Chinese, it’s “Chi fan le mei you?,” or “Have you eaten (rice) yet?” In Vietnamese, you might hear, “ăn cơm chưa?,” meaning, “Did you eat?”

Both suggest a comfort and an obsession with food, something that is a lot more awkward here in the U.S., where we tend to greet each other by asking, “How are you?, a question which is both more generic and general, while also actually being a bit more prying.

We Americans have a complicated relationship with food: We love it, we hate it, we need it, we distance ourselves from it, we sometimes even loathe it, this nourishing, life-giving thing. Is it because it is so plentiful, we take it for granted? How freeing would it be to experience food for the nourishing thing it is, to enjoy it, rather than overload it with all these other things? How joyful might it be to greet each other with a hearty, “Have you eaten yet?” and see the purpose of food as food, breakfast simply as breakfast, not anything more.