My colleagues usually bring their own lunch to work and we gather in the tea room for lunch every day. When I have lunch together with the Chinese group, we all like to peek into each other’s lunch boxes, sing praises of each other’s food and exchange a few cooking tips. But when I sit with the locals, we hardly pay attention to, let alone comment on, other people’s food (although I still carry the bad habit over from the Chinese group!) I guess that’s partly because there isn’t so much to talk about on sandwiches or the standard fare from the hospital canteen, and partly because it’s probably only kids who are so nosy about other people’s food! One of my colleagues is a mother of two and both children are attending primary school. In their school, pupils are only allowed to have lunch in classrooms under supervision so that they won’t be able to swap food and eat something wrong in so doing (especially food that triggers allergy or other undesirable reactions). With so many people cro