By Lee Dong-il

``Why not go to Grandmother's Noodle House?" So said my wife the other day in response to my complaint that when seasons change I tend to lose my appetite.

My wife's culinary expertise is well known among my family and has often been commended at family gatherings. One of her best dishes is roasted eel, which she seasons with various condiments and spices whose names elude me except for the slightly parched sesame she sprinkles upon it.

I feel a little ashamed to not be more familiar with the essential ingredients of this culinary marvel; in view of her talents, it is the least I could do to know the names of the materials from which the heavenly taste stems. Besides this dish, she has other wonderful recipes in her repertoire, which, when friends and relatives have the chance to savor them, they rightly claim that I married well.

But her innate talent for tickling the palate need not be fully exercised at home, as in general I am not particular with food. I often joke that my keen appetite renders her cooking gift virtually useless and add that to have met a man with an appetite as acute as mine is a matter of regret. Then my wife does not lose time in responding that my indiscriminate consumption (my wife's greatest concern is that I am willing to eat anything) is a bad habit

Regardless of the taste of some food, my palate never refuses it, which once in a while leads me to get a check-up because of my clinical knowledge that too great an appetite may be a symptom of the dreadful adult disease ― diabetes.

My worrying moves me to get a check-up where the simplest procedure of drawing a dash of blood from the arm is performed to detect an abnormally high concentration of sugar in the blood. The time for the test to be processed is brief, usually two days, during which time I lose my appetite for fear that diabetes or some other disease might be found.

While waiting, my tastebuds seem to lose their proper function, so my usual incessant desire for food virtually vanishes, leaving only a bitter taste from all food, including the roasted eel. My wife, with tender consideration, prepares it for me, judging that its high protein will compensate for the blood I ``donated" in a thumb-sized vial at the clinic.

When the test results finally arrive, proclaiming that I have a clean bill of health, it sharpens my momentarily reserved appetite all the more. As soon as such a heart-shivering test assures us that everything is okay with our body, our hidden, briefly restrained habits such as chain-smoking for a heavy smoker, unlimited guzzling for a tippler, and eternal-gorging for a glutton like me, resurface unshackled.

Prominent nutritionists and medical experts in the relationship between food and health claim that the less one eats the longer one lives, citing an experiment using guinea pigs in which the stuffed rodents were more short-lived than the adequately hungry ones. Hearing the shocking news I lost some of my appetite but this did not go beyond one meal.

At school there was a teacher whose regular meal composed of a lump of rice, roughly the size of an adult's fist, mixed with various grains, such as barley, brown rice, beans and red beans, and copious amounts of vegetables.

Once when he was nibbling vegetables leaves and gnawing some root vegetables, one witty teacher, upon seeing the unusual scene, quipped, ``He looks like a rabbit eating feed." Some of the older and more decent educators who were within earshot of the words gently reproached him for the impoliteness of his word choice, though the remark hit the bull's eye.

I once was his faithful disciple. I unsuccessfully attempted to change my habits to match the lifestyle that came so naturally to him. It has been more than 15 years since he retired from teaching, and two years ago I had a chance to pay him a visit for some health advice. In his late 70s, his complexion was healthier and his movement was more agile and alert than mine at age 59, to both my admiration and envy.

And he has authored and translated more than 17 books on health and diet, demonstrating that his intellectual power is stronger than a man of my age. The secret of his perennial youth and health could be found in the meager amount of rice and large amount of vegetables, I had to admit.

No other testimony was more eloquently obvious than his youthful ruddy figure, vindicating the validity of his practice and theory about the beauty of little food (his peculiar diet was learned from a Japanese monk or something, I heard).

Some teachers used to point out the extremes of his dietary habit, and justify their own insatiability for food, saying that they would rather go early from this world after feasting on delicious food in plentiful amount than live longer in hunger.

Maybe it is a matter of opinion on the subject of life quality. I certainly can assert that the gluttonous teachers look more advanced in age, compared with the long retired quasi-vegetarian, as I am witness to both.

In conclusion I am an incurable gourmand, so instead of trying to be what cannot be, I made up my mind that I should be a filled swine rather than a hungry Socrates. Although the great thinker Socrates was famously able to put up with hunger, I am not able to resist my appetite and my capacity as a thinker and scholar is sure to remain within the realm of the ordinary, as more than half a century of my life attests, so I might as well succumb to my wife's brilliant cooking

Writing this piece itself whets my appetite, particularly as my wife is busy in the kitchen cooking the ambrosia that is roasted eel, the sizzling sound stirring my stomach.

The writer is an English teacher at Pusan Commercial Girls' High School. He can be reached at donilone@hanmail.net.