Food is our foremost need. We have food more often than we have sex (daily average throughout our lifetime, though I'm not really sure whether the comparison applies to sex workers). There are only two preoccupations of animal in life: hunting for food and trying not be hunted as a food for stronger creature in the food chain. The strongest of course is us, human. Or more precisely Chinese. There is a saying, Chinese eats everything with for legs, except table. Do you know why Adam and Eve are not Chinese? Because if they were Chinese, they would eat the snake, instead of the apple.

For centuries, food is almost everything for Chinese. It's a prestige, friendship symbolism, business deals, or any other human relationship with or without vested interest. If you want the cheapest food in the world's big cities, go to dirty and dirt cheap Chinese place. If you want the most expensive one, go to Chinese restaurant for exotic delicasy like shark's fin, bird's nest, snakes, turtle's soup.

What makes us different from animal is that we have culinary skills. We mix different ingredients into a holistic composition, we decorate it and name it. We design it in such a way that, in a predicatable way, it affects all of our peripherial senses: visual, taste, texture, smell and abstract concepts mentioned by notable chefs.

Apparently some of the culinary skills enable food not end up in the stomach but sometimes somewhere else close to our heart. Food, as some grandmas used to say, is a way to men's heart. But now (or after post-feminist era), it's a way to woman's heart, regardless, whether you get it swanky upper class fine dining restaurant or you lovingly cook it in her kitchen.