Food for thought that recently came up at the dinner table: what makes a meal special?

Specialness is a tricky idea, heavily influenced by individual perception. A meal is never categorically special – you and I perceive, experience, and subsequently feel differently. This process is wrapped in the context of our previous experiences. Without a shared understanding, we’re apt to notice and value completely unrelated aspects.

I claim that “specialness” of a meal lies entirely in its perceived rarity. The meal experience encompasses all aspects from creation to consumption to consequences. We pick out aspects that are personally meaningful to us and evaluate the rarity along that dimension: You might appreciate the specialness of raw ingredients; I might appreciate the labor and time that it took; yet another person might appreciate a meal’s nostalgia factor. Albeit simple, “we’re humans and we’re different” explains away many contradictions when talking about a shared meal experience. When in vehement disagreement, arriving at a mutual understanding is a more enriching experience than merely convincing your partner.

Could you claim semantics? Perhaps. Was this an elaborate attempt to intellectualize a list of meals I’ve made? Most definitely yes. Here we go:

• Chicken wontons – more practice needed.
• Potato leek soup – slightly disappointed by restaurant puree soups now that I know how easy they are.
• Pizza – the dough is the hardest part.
• Red braised pork belly – any Chinese mom would scoff at this being special, but high nostalgia.
• Sous-vide T-bone steak – I’ve yet to be convinced sous-vide is worth the hassle.
• Salt and pepper shrimp – This is my dad’s fancy party dish. I should have just asked for his recipe. Poorly ground peppercorn is an easy way to ruin tempura shrimp.
• Seared scallops – Specialness only comes from ingredients. Really hard to mess up.
• Salmon steak – Same as scallops.
• Chocolate chip cookies – Cooking magic dictates that the cookie dough needs to refrigerate for an entire day. Also, the KitchenAid makes life so much easier.
• Mango lassi – Here’s a fun opportunity to use the KitchenAid ice cream attachment.
• Trader Joe’s mandarin chicken – Despite being begrudgingly impressed by the quality of this frozen product, I’m not proud of this making the list.
• Braised short rib – Fancy Schmancy. The browning step will smoke up the entire apartment.
• Ramen eggs – Very high reward/effort ratio. I used to think restaurant ramen eggs were magic. Now, I’ll find it hard to justify the $2 egg.
• Baba ganoush – Use lots of eggplants, else it’s not worth the effort.