The Zero Deterrent Approach to Eating

There’s nothing hard and crunchy about rice, avocado and fried cucumbers, which means my tooth just found something foreign. I spit it on to my finger and identify: legs, head, a wing. It’s a beetle. I flick it aside and keep eating. This automatic reaction reminded me of a broader theme – Peace Corps Volunteers’ zero deterrent approach to eating.

Urged by insistent parents at a young age, I’ve been a plate finisher for many years. But I cleaned plate out of obligation and fear of reprimand. Now, after nine months in the Peace Corps, finishing food is mechanical, mandatory – a rhetorical question. Fly in the soup? Slurp. Seven boiled plantains and nothing else? No problem. Severed human head? … Ok that hasn’t happened yet but I’d probably eat it.

It begins with host families. If you don’t finish a meal you at least offend them and (perhaps more importantly) you’ve just abandoned your only chance at eating. So you shovel it in. If you’re a real pro, you may smile too. Many volunteers bring hot sauce to each meal (discretely, I usually had a bottle in my pocket) to add flavor. All become experts a dishing food to the dogs. Whatever the method, after host families, we are trained and will dutifully eat boiled woodchips if necessary.

I thought the habit would disappear when I moved in by myself but now I think about the beetle and everything I’ve eaten off the ground and all the boring boiled food I routinely and voluntarily prepare. It’s hard to explain, beyond saying that choosing not to clean the plate is like choosing not to urinate – it’s not an option. You can, like when peeing, put it off or save it for later or stir fry it, but eventually, it’s gotta go.

So we bite a beetle, flick it aside and keep eating. We’re handed a large bowl of rice with nothing else and we pick up the spoon. Sometimes, I notice a dull mental alarm trying to alert my mouth – “Unpleasant! Do not eat that! You just dropped that on the ground! Twice!” The alarm hasn’t stopped me in months. Hopefully it’s louder when I’m presented with boiled head.