Content note: I talk about food (but not weight, restrictions, or dieting) in this post.
Have you ever heard the term “same food”? I hadn’t until about a year ago, and it was eye-opening for me. Autistics often have one or more “same foods” – things they eat over and over. There’s a lot of reasons for this:
- sensory sensitivities can mean that many foods are inedible, so it makes sense to eat a lot of the things you enjoy
- being hypersensitive to taste / texture / smell means the slightest change to a dish can render it inedible
- autistics generally dislike change and need to work harder to transition
- interoception (sensing and understanding what is going on in your body) can make it difficult to know what you want to eat, so sticking to same foods is an easy workaround
- making a decision in public (for example in a restaurant) can be difficult, so ordering the same thing each time removes that stress
As soon as I heard what it was, I realised it was a big part of my life, and always had been. As a child I was an extremely picky eater, able to eat only about 3 rather bland, carb-based meals for a long time.
As an adult I’m far more adventurous, something of a foodie, and hold some “brave” foods at the top of my list of favourites. But I absolutely still have same foods that I turn to when my decision-making isn’t at its best and I need the predictable comfort of knowing what I’m going to eat is going to be okay.
One of those same foods, which is a holdover from childhood, is pain au chocolat for breakfast. Buttery pastry and a pair of chocolatey sticks – YUM. I’m quite particular about which ones I eat – they must be fresh, moist, soft – and so I tend to have a bag of frozen ones handy at all times. Sometimes I buy the ones that come in a can – you know, where you press it open, pull out the roll of dough, and find the packet of little sticks at the bottom – and make those.
That, bizarrely, is where this cowl came from. I was pulling the dough apart one day, watching how the perforations stretched before breaking apart, and it reminded me of eyelets.
A quick sketch-and-swatch later, and a little gauge maths, and I had a pattern ready to knit.
I dove into my stash and came out with two beautiful hanks of merino singles from Giddy Aunt Yarns. Singles are one of my favourite yarns to work with; the intensity with which they soak up colour is just so decadent. These two were in a one-off oddball colourway. I remember buying them; it was at the start of lockdown and I’d given myself permission to buy a bunch of random yarn as a little pick-me-up. Of course I went to my favourite dyers and picked a few things that caught my eye. I saw these listed without a photo; they were described as “blood red”. I trusted Jan & Claire and bought them unseen, and I am SO glad I did. They’re my perfect deep, moody, tonal red.
I put aside my WIP (so fickle, I know) and cast on. A few days later I’d finished it and blocked it, just in time for the weekend when I took a bunch of photos.
Ahhh, the satisfaction of a finished object!
PERFORATE
Knitting • DK • £5
Perforate is a simple cowl knitted with 2 hanks of merino singles held double. Its 6-stitch pattern is easy to remember but gives a graphic, textured result that’s suitable for simple or busy yarns – whatever you’ve got in your stash. Why not hold two different colourways double to make something truly unique?
