The
Old Coot audits the zoo!
By
Merlin Lessler
Feeding
time at the zoo! That’s my topic this week. But it’s a zoo without bars – it’s
a restaurant – it’s a snack bar – a deli – our kitchens and dining rooms. The
attractions in this zoo are people; it’s you; it’s me; it’s everybody! We all
have unique feeding habits. They change over time. Some for the better, some
for the worse. Andy Hayfer got me going on this – starting it off with two
feeding styles that he’d recently noticed. He calls them the food-to-face
style and the face-to-food style. People who hold a Whopper, for
example, just above the plate and lean in to take huge bites without moving
their hands are demonstrating the face-to-food style. You see this a lot
with hungry teenagers, a time in life when you get so hungry it hurts (hunger
pains). It’s the reason the word “famished” was created. Old guys like me do
this too, to minimize the spillage onto our clothes, the stains that we’re
famous for – shirts splattered with ketchup, mustard, coffee dribbles,
spaghetti sauce and the like.
It
takes skill and patience to handle the opposite feeding style, food to face.
Eating soup without leaning in is an art form, one that is well beyond my
present state of dexterity. I’m so close to the soup bowl that the steam makes
my hair frizzle. Spaghetti is another item that is hard to transport from the
plate to your mouth. It requires a partial face-to-food style. The
average person employs both food styles, though one style usually dominates
their feeding habits. Sometimes, it depends on where they are, at home or in
public.
Of
course, feeding time at the zoo reveals more varied eating habits than food-to-face
and face-to-food. There are the endless chewers, on par with a cow
chewing its cud – the gulp it down wolfers - the wash it down with drink,
skipping the chewing function. Then, there are the people who eat with their
eyes closed or their mouth’s open. You see the latter on many of the morning TV
shows, where a chef is on the set, cooking up an exotic dish. The TV
personalities sample the results, digging in like starved teenagers and talking
as they chew with their mouths full of food.
People
who cut up all the food at once use another feeding style. The opposite style
is seen with people who cut a bite’s worth at a time, swapping their knife and
fork from one hand to the other, unless they employ the European style of
eating and never switch the utensils. It’s a style I’ve tried to master but
never succeeded. There are people who eat one item one their plate, finish it,
and move to the next one. Most of us mix it up, moving around the plate in a
random fashion. Picky eaters are yet another style on display in the human
eating zoo; they leave large, untouched portions on their plates. A kid thing?
Sure. But adults do it too.
How
about dessert eating styles? Do you save the best for last? Or dig into the
best part first, eating the fudge off a hot fudge sundae for example. I
confess; I do the opposite; I save the best for last. When presented with a
slice of cake I finish off the cake part first and then go for the frosting. I
haven’t been able to break the habit which I developed when I was a boy and my
mother let me “lick the beaters” after she finished making the frosting in her
Mixmaster. I’m a frosting addict. So, what style eater are you? If you dare, you can find out by eating in
front of a mirror. You may get a big surprise. You may never feel comfortable
eating in public again. I tried it. Now I limit my public food consumption to
hot dogs, in spite of the mustard stains that invariably decorate my clothes.
My feeding style is called “Old Coot Stain Master.
Comments;
complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com
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