The Old Coot audits the zoo

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 Hafer 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 wolvers – 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.