What’s weird or childish about eating one item at a time? You eat your appetizer before your entree, don’t you? You don’t, like, save some of the soup for when you’re half-way through your chicken parm, do you?
I don’t understand why people switch back and forth. Why would you shock your palate like that? If I eat a piece of broccoli, I’m not going to spoil that taste with the beef, just to spoil that taste with another piece of broccoli.
My brother is a food surgeon, so when we do steaks I just make sure when we buy his meat we make sure it is pretty much pure muscle mass so he doesn’t need to commit surgery, and we cook him boneless skinless chicken breasts that we have made sure are free of fat, skin, tendons and whatever. Not that big a deal, we cook for him once a month when we go up to Rochester to visit.
I am sort of an eat one item at a time, nibble around the burger/sandwich type. I like tasting my food, so I tend to prefer to eat one thing at a time instead of mixing stuff up, though gravy/sauce is part of the food it is supposed to be eaten with. The edge nibble thing is because I happen to like crusts and edges. I hated it when I would go somewhere for lunch as a kid and they would automatically cut off the crusts 
And if the only thing to drink seems to be beer or soda, I opt for ice water.
Well some of us would find it really odd that the taste of broccoli “spoils” the taste of beef, etc. It doesn’t, though YMMV, I guess.
More childish to me is not allowing foods to touch, even to the point of being repulsed by the idea. I simply must conclude that people like that have attitudes about food that are fundamentally different from mine, so different, in fact, that there is no way I cannot think it weird.
To address the OP – the one item at a time eater I would think a bit odd, but not off-putting. The surgeon would be difficult to enjoy a meal with.
One of my daughter’s friends is a nontouchitarian. I don’t get it, but I’m sure I have habits that seem odd to others.
I was a nontouchitarian as a child, but grew out of it. Maybe that’s why all of the eating habits in this thread strike me as childish.
The woman I’m dating has an odd way of eating, but not one that arose when we first began going out. She has an overbite severe enough that biting into foods like sandwiches is difficult. Never noticed it at the beginning, since we started out at places where she could get food that she could eat with utensils. For Subway, on the other hand, she has to tear off pieces of the sandwich.
I still forget about this from time to time, and felt bad when I asked her to try the artichoke I’d ordered as my appetizer.
My husband is a one food at a time eater - it doesn’t bug me at all (in fact, I’ve started doing it to some degree, as well). I’m more of a “like to finish all the foods at the same time” eater, but I’m not too serious about that, either. So, to answer the question of the OP, no, I don’t mind how other people eat as long as they’re not chewing with their mouths open or something mannerless like that.
Funny, I wasn’t like this as a child. I think it developed when I learned to enjoy the unique tastes of particular foods. I don’t want the flavor of a good roast beef to be adulterated with lime gelatin salad, so I don’t allow them to commingle on my plate. It seems to be a logical solution and not childish at all.
Huh, I’ve always done the “one thing at a time” eating. I never thought there was anything strange about it.
And what the hell difference does it make? I’m also another “food surgeon” in that I try and trim all the fat off of my meat. I HATE the fat. It’s like biting into a blister.
My husband loves his food all piled together, with a dollop of hot sauce on top. It bugs me, especially if I’ve taken some care to season each item carefully and thoughtfully. However, I’m used to it after over 45 years and in the grand scheme of things it’s a minor issue.
His mother, on the other hand, did the same thing but she chewed with her mouth open and talking. Yukkkkkky.
I’ve a friend who cannot have food items touching each other on her plate, but we do call her “Sheldon” so maybe she knows something about food that we don’t…?
Personally I don’t notice what other people do when they’re eating, I’m too busy shoving my own food down my throat to pay any attention, but I have noticed people ‘apologising’ for a supposedly strange way of eating - “oh I have to eat all my chips before I eat the burger!” blushes furiously I’m too busy eating my own chips before I eat the burger to bother what they’re doing.
I didn’t even realise that a co-worker many years ago apparently eats with her mouth open.
At one time in my life I became so paranoid that other people were observing me eating that I stopped eating in cafés, restaurants etc.
As long as you don’t scrape your plate, I don’t care. Really. Cut it up into little shapes, make a voodoo doll and exorcise it. Just don’t scrape your plate and we’ll get along fine.
Littlebro finally got a gf! HOORAY!
Oh. No?
Damnit.
He’s not as bad now, but he used to eat like that. Then again, this is the same guy who at age 3 saw the first dish of paella being brought to the table (no choices, it was the hotel’s daily menu - and the bloody place had the same daily menu every single day of a two-weeks stay!) and told the waiter “mine without the crap”. He did indeed get a dish of white rice with tomato sauce.
If we were close enough for it, I might offer a pair of reading glasses “so you won’t hurt your back”. I know a few people like that.
It doesn’t really hurt anybody, any more than my taking the wide chunks of fat off jamón serrano (which some people claim is a sin upon pigs).
I do it like that about half the time. Why? Cos I can!
The non-intrustive way to do that is to remove the fat as you cut each piece before eating. Taking several minutes to operate on the entire piece of meat all at once at the beginning of the meal is weird and off-putting. It implies first of all that you’ve been given food that is not fit for consumption. And it also creates a spectacle.
And what’s childish is being so picky about your food that you engage in noticeably unusual behaviors.
The whole eating one thing at time, it’s pretty common. I used to always eat that way, and I’d start from what I liked least, usually the vegetables, and work my way toward the things I like more. I don’t do it very much anymore, but that’s probably because I don’t often eat meals with a whole lot of different stuff very much either.
Another similar and equally interesting pattern that I’ve also noticed is eating things in all equal amounts. Food is usually organized so it’s roughly in lines in one direction and the eater will work in progressive lines across all of them. It can also manifest in single item dishes like pasta. I’ll eat like this if I more or less like everything equally so there’s no incentive to eat the things I don’t like as much first.
But personally, I don’t really care how people eat their food, as long as they can chew with their mouth closed, that’s about the only thing that would bother me, other than maybe making a huge mess, but those are both things adults should have long since outgrown.
Another one-thing-at-one-time eater. I’ve always eaten like that, don’t know why.
The surgery thing would drive me nuts. Eat it, already.
I don’t pay any attention to the way other people eat, and I don’t care. I don’t like to watch people eat, and particularly when they can’t keep their mouth shut or can’t stop smacking or making food noises. I pretty much pay attention to what I’m doing and don’t watch everybody else except to look at them occasionally during conversation.
Personally, I’m kind of an “eat one thing at a time” type but not strictly so. And I definitely eat my hamburgers outside-in to save the best part for last.
I have one friend (fortunately not one I see in person much anymore) who’s a big open-mouth chewer. I got to where I couldn’t eat with her anymore because the occasional glance up at her always netted me a good long look at her food swirling around in her mouth and nearly made me gag. No excuse for that. Everything else is fair game (even the smacking, which I personally find repugnant but I understand that other people/other cultures don’t.)
My youngest son couldn’t stand it if Mr. Meat touched Mr. Broccoli (or any two disparate foods touching one another, for that matter). So I’d use a camping plate for his food. Then he wanted a different fork for each different food. Thankfully, he out grew that need.
My step-daughter is a “food inspector”, which is similar to the surgeon. With her nose less than an inch from her food, she carefully inspects each morsel as she paintstakingly cuts it into teensy cubes. I’m twice as annoyed because she’s about two hundred pounds overweight and I feel as if I’m watching food porn. I could only ever admit my annoyance with that here.
That’s the first time I’ve ever spotted a free-range conversational usage of the word “serviette”. I’m American, though.
I usually eat my food one item at a time. I always have. As a kid I ate carb, then meat, then veg. As an adult who is always battling her weight, I now eat veg, then protein, then carb.
I hope nobody notices.
That’s basically it. The order they eat or how they cut up their food is none of my business and I’m a little astounded that anyone cares that much about the perfectly polite eating habits of others. It’s not like they’re cracking their boiled eggs on the big end or anything.