or: Portion Sizes Are Surprisingly Large

I’ve been flicking through the photos I’ve taken over the past week in an effort to find inspiration for today’s post.

I have found various diving photos and that an overwhelming majority of photos relate to food.

Since I’ve written quite a bit about diving lately, I’m going with the food option.

Portion sizes here are huge.

America tends to have large plates and then everything put on the plate is then also supersized. In Mauritus, the plates are the standard dinner plate size which are then lucky to not break underneath the weight of all the food that is piled on top.

It can be rice and curries with some vegetables in a mound alongside; a whole fish with rice and vegetables or salad or chips or all of this; a fried rice or noodle mountain, etc. I ask for less and I am told “you must eat”. It doesn’t matter if I’m eating with friends or at a cafe or restaurant, the pile of food will be enough for two.

In a takeaway container, it is difficult to close it.

I eat so much at lunch that fitting in dinner is difficult yet the sizes are the same if not bigger.

I eat so much that at times I feel like I may exploded like that guy in Monty Python and Austin Powers. I always felt a little bit sick watching those scenes and thinking that’s an incredible waste of food.

My stomach has been expanding though apparently I’m the only one that notices.

Mauritian people also seem to be very polite.

At one of my favourite lunch places, affectionately dubberd “Le Canteen” by a few of us, now serves me less food. They call it a half portion. It’s more than half of the usual mountain yet it is more my size. I can at least see over the top of it and if the person sitting opposite me ordered the same size, I may also be able to see their face.

According to one of the women that works there, this portion size is the same as what she gives her three year old grandchild. Big appetite on children here I guess.

In this sized serving, I can still have boiled rice, chop suey chicken, vegetables, salads, lentils and chilli. Everything has to have chilli. It is the law in Mauritius.

Soon I’ll be returning to HK and I’d like to think it is back to smaller portion sizes though I know if I eat at a local restaurant, I am likely to encounter the same problem.

Lucky I’ve been in training.

* Thanks to Bad Religion for the title to this post.