I’m not talking about eating outre ingredients (necessarily) or anything illegal or dangerous. Just some habit that would probably strike most people as a little . . . strange. My immediate relations have a load of them.
For example: one of my brothers never let different meal items touch on his plate. I mean, stew? He’d eat that happily. But if the meal included steak and roast potatoes and peas? Had to have moats keeping each from accidentally touching the others. Why? Ghod knows.
My father ‘sorted’ his potato chips. Like, if a handful was served to him along with a burger, he’d carefully put the larger, ‘unbroken’ ones – you know, the ones that looked like a complete slice through a potato? – to one side, and those that had clearly been broken or snapped apart during processing or shipping or whatever into a separate pile. Then he’d eat all the broken ones first, before finally savoring the whole ones. Again, no reason ever offered for why. He ate them all eventually, maybe he was putting the damaged ones out of their misery first?
I’m less picky about arrangement or that kind of thing, but I do (or did) like some less than ordinary sandwich combos. My favorite was creamy peanut butter tiled with banana slices and then slices of crisp bacon. Peanuts/sweet/salt, yummy!
So, how about y’all? Do you drizzle maple syrup on top of cantaloupe chunks? That was my freshman year roommate.
This one, in my social sphere, is unexpectedly common. At least 1/3 of the people of my acquaintance don’t do foods touching on a plate, including my wife. I bet a bunch of people will post in this thread to say “Me too!”
My slightly unusual one is that I can and will use plain old canned tuna fish as a substitute for lots of other proteins in unexpected dishes. Usually to stretch leftovers and only for the plate of food I myself am eating — I don’t cook actual meals with tuna.
For instance: Got some brown gravy and rice left over, but no more pot roast? Empty a can of Starkist over some rice, top with gravy, and serve (to myself!). Someone picked all the big chunks out of the bolognese, leaving it as red sauce? Pasta, tuna, and red sauce in a shallow bowl — toss lightly and serve. Made some nice buttery grits and wanted to pair it with breakfast sausage, but found out you were out of Jimmy Dean? Dump some tuna into those grits—don’t knock it until you try it.
If dinner is steak, baked potato and green beans I will eat all of my green beans first, not touching the steak and potato, then I’ll eat the potato, not touching the steak, then I’ll eat the steak. I rarely eat a little of this and then a little of that, then back to this.
For whatever reason this bugs some people. WTH do they care?
My grandson will eat all of one item before any others on his plate. I can’t complain, tho - the kid loves fruits and veggies. He also loves ketchup on broccoli…
In my youth, I would group my M&Ms by color and eat whatever was necessary so there were equal numbers of each. Then they had to be consumed in a strict color order, starting with brown and finishing with red. Nowadays, I just cram random handsful into my face.
My kids went thru various food silliness as youths.
Color, size and of course, the no touchy thing.
Strangest one(it has trickled down to the grandkids) is sauce on the side. Never on the food til the person does their own at the table. Can’t even mix the spaghetti in the sauce to make service easier.
Eh, maybe it ain’t so strange. Seems I’m the same way.
I would have thought eating one food item at a time would be very common indeed. Looking at the twenty somethings at the work lunch table (10-15 of us eat together) this is how most of them eat.
Most kids I’ve encountered in the last 25 years have had some version of the different foods cannot touch each other ick.
If you take a peeled banana and poke a finger into the end of it, it seperates into three longitudinal sections. I like to seperate bananas before eating them.
With colored candies such as Reese’s Pieces I like to seperate out the colors then eat them in sets (one orange, one brown, one yellow in the RP case).
I have a friend who won’t eat mixtures. If it’s a food he started eating before he realized it was a mixture (like bread) he’ll still eat it. But stew? No way. Succotash (mixed lima beans and corn)? He’ll carefully separate the two components. Or just skip it. Pasta with sauce? Oh hell no, he won’t eat pasta sauce.
I also have a friend who basically only eats …you know, I don’t know what he eats. I know if he goes out to a restaurant with a group he will have french fries (no ketchup) and a coke.
I sometimes do this. I like to save the best for last.
I have a friend who will eat meat, bread and fruit. No cheese. No sauces. Only one veg (not counting french fries), and that is one version of one brand of green beans. He orders his burgers plain- nothing on them but meat (and never less than medium). Popcorn, yes. No pizza, etc. His peanut butter sandwiches have no jelly, or anything else- on plain bread.
My Father loved cinnamon rolls. You know, the ones where the dough was rolled up. But he hated raisins, so he’d unroll the roll and pick out the offending objects. Then roll it back up for consumption.
Clearly I’m not as “weird” as I thought, since mine have already been mentioned; foods not touching (though I have relaxed on this now in my forties…) and eating one thing at a time (I still do this, and can’t imagine why I would do it another way). The only other thing isn’t likely weird, just rarer than normal; I like “burnt” things. Like, growing up, when my grandmother made cookies, she would burn one batch for me…
I tend to segregate my food items on the plate too. Also tend to eat things like pizza in layers (toppings, cheese, crust).
I tend this way too.
I do this (same with similar objects like Gummi bears). Then I eat them starting with the color with the fewest and work my way up, usually eating them in 4s.
I have a thing about even numbers of bites when possible.
I didn’t know bananas did that. Must try it.
I pretty much do that. Meat, cheese, bun. MUST be well-done (less than well-done ground meat has a texture that tends to trip my gag reflex). I intensely dislike soggy bread, and fast-food sandwich assemblers get a bit heavy-handed with condiments IMO.
I do that too. I never even realized I was doing it until I was in high school and we were in a restaurant. The waitress asked if there was a problem with my omelet, and I said, “No, I just haven’t gotten to it yet.” I was still eating the pancakes. I don’t think my parents had even noticed it themselves, but what did they care anyway, as long as I ate what was on my plate?
When I was a kid I did the different foods don’t touch thing, and in fact, I needed to have a separate fork for each item. But I’ve relented on that. However I still eat each item separately, in order of least preferred to most preferred. My wife and son gently mocked me about that for years. Then when my son was an adult I learned about HIS weird eating habit – when he eats cereal, he has to finish the bowl by making the last spoonful have exactly two pieces in it.
It was first pointed out to me by a minister at a pot luck luncheon.
“You should eat a little bit of everything instead of one thing at a time”
I was about 16 and goddamned sick of that church and I fired back “It’s bad enough you tell me what I can and can’t eat” (it was a 7th Day Adventist like church and we had to keep kosher) you’re darn well not going to tell me how to eat it, too"
Holy Kripes did I get the screaming lecture on the way home.
When I was in high school, a friend of mine that I ate lunch with often pointed out that I would eat about two fries, then eat half my cheeseburger, then eat half of the fries, then eat the remaining burger, then finish of my fries. She was right, and I still do it today. I have no idea why. Substitute onion rings where applicable.
When it comes to foods touching on a plate, I’d actually be sad if some of the chili from my cheese enchiladas wasn’t encroaching on the beans and rice. But I will still eat the crunchy taco before all of the other items on my plate, because I’m not waiting around for the juicy picadillo to make the bottom of the taco soggy. After that, I’m going to defeat the other items in detail, eating away at them bit by bit.
I’ve eaten a lot of instant food (ramen noodle soup, etc.) I have this little habit of sampling some of the soup mix (or other mix) or eating some noodles when cooked but without the sauce put on during the process of putting everything together. So I’d pinch some mix and put it in my mouth before I pour the water over it, etc.
I had a co-worker who put mustard, and only mustard, on his French Fries. Ordinary American guy, not someone from another culture. I’ve never seen anyone do that.
My only personal food thing (that I’m aware of) is I don’t mix sweet and not-sweet.
IOW, don’t mop up the last of the beef gravy with my dessert cake. Uggh!
About the only place it shows up routinely is a breakfast that includes pancakes, waffles, etc. That stuff with syrup on it goes on a separate plate from the eggs, bacon, toast, potatoes, whatever.