I dont’t think I’d notice, or care if I did notice.
But people do notice all kinds of odd dining things. I had it mentioned 3 or 4 ties that I cut up my pancakes strangely – I slice them into wedges like pie or pizza. Apparently most people chop them up into little rectangles. Who’d a thunk?
BTW, does you friend chug down the syrup before or after the pancakes? I suggest before, so the mouth coating may still have an effect on the taste of the pancakes.
I eat a half-dollar sized circle out of the center of the stack of pancakes and then fill the resulting pit with syrup. I don’t like to have the syrup running all over. I cut and dip each bite in the middle as I eat.
I was a “one at a timer” before I got married, but that was because I usually was reading during meals. Easier just to eat all the fries, then move on to the burger rather than pick one up, put it down, pick something else up, etc. Too much time with eyes off of book.
I haven’t done the circle in the middle, but I do sometimes pour some extra syrup into the intersection of cuts through the center, and cram some butter in there too.
Brynda - As long as the plate is facing the right direction…
My father and one of my nieces were nontoucherians. My father didn’t even like to eat stews, Chinese food or vegetable soup because they were all mixed together. I’m a picky eater but I don’t mind that. The food surgeon would bother me a bit - I sometimes go out to eat with a friend who’s a food surgeon, but really only with steak. It drove me crazy one time when he spent much of our lunch carefully dissecting his steak. The fat is the most flavourful part!
StG
It’s an incorrect, impolite manner of conducting oneself. It also signifies a disturbed mind.
Jesus Christ, he’s your goddam fiancé, why don’t you just stop him from eating like a pig?
I typically eat the veg first, then move on to the protein, then the side. But I may mix in a few bites of the side with the protein, if they go well together. When it comes to foods I eat with my hands- burgers, ribs, corn-on-the-cob- I generally pick it up once, eat it until it’s gone, then clean off my hands when I’m completely done with it. I don’t like taking a bite, cleaning off my hands, picking up my fork, stabbing some forked-food, putting that down, picking up the corn again, taking another bite, cleaning off my hands again… ugh. I don’t like my hands getting messy in the first place, so I quickly eat the thing, clean up once and final, and then move on to the utensil foods.
I had a friend who often ate in layers, from the top down. Most famously top of the hamburger bun first, then the meat, then the bottom. He would do similar ( if less spectacularly odd ) things with other foods as well.
I found it less off-putting than amusing :).
This sounds admirably efficient to me. You eat the food closest to you, and you might even get filled up before you have to reach for food farther away.
Pretty much what Athena says.
As a kid, I was a one-thing-at-a-time eater, until one day when I was a teenager and eating dinner at a friend’s house, and her older brother – a cute boy! a cute boy that I liked! – remarked on it. He wasn’t even being mean about it, he was simply mentioning that he noticed it as a somewhat unusual thing. From that day on, I became aware that it’s generally considered a childish way to eat, and took pains to not eat like that.
Man, now that makes me wish that my other bad habits had been pointed out by cute boys when I was a teenage girl, there’s probably no better motivator for behavior change.
That sounds like me too. Mostly because I usually dislike mixing tastes.
I don’t do that; but I will do something similar to pick all the seeds off a sesame seed bun. Or just rip the surface of the bun off; I really hate eating buns with seeds.
Eh, unless they chew with their mouth open or make loud noises while they eat, I follow a policy of ignoring how other people eat, and hoping they ignore how I eat in return.
As for it being a “childish” style of eating, the C.S. Lewis quote comes to mind; “When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” I’m not going to eat in a way that degrades my appreciation of a meal just to satisfy some extremely arbitrary definition of how I am “supposed” to eat.
I pretty carefully cut off fat and gristle from my meat, but I don’t think it rises to the level of surgery! Perhaps the OP can rule on that 
as she has seen me eat a steak numerous times. I only do it because excess fat or gristle gags me and I suspect all y’all would rather see me cut my steak carefully that listen to or see me gagging:).
To avoid this problem, I often order chicken tenders or suchlike that are unlikely to have great amounts of fat or gristle.
I wouldn’t notice and definitely wouldn’t care.
Me too.
Can somebody please explain how it’s childish to eat one thing at a time?
Ascenray, that syrup well sounds great, and I’m going to try it. But what do you do about butter, if you do anything?
My son ate one foodstuff at a time (meat, then potatoes, then veg) but he outgrew it.
Yes, both notice and mind. I spent nine years sentenced to a partner with increasingly intense OCD which included monitoring his and my every step, bite, and breath. After I finally broke free of his Tyranny of Minutiae, I retained a prejudice against any sign of OCD. I don’t notice food preferences, but once I observe someone excessively picking at or segregating food, I tend to keep the friendship casual and avoid meals with that person.
Why is eating one item at a time perceived as childish? Many of us ate that way as children, but then outgrew it, which probably contributes to that perception, as does the fact that few adults eat that way.
I guess I’m really childish, because not only do I eat one thing at a time (going from least favorite to favorite), but I prefer to eat a lot of things with a spoon. Obviously it doesn’t work with everything, like meat or spaghetti. If it doesn’t have to be cut or stabbed I’d rather use a spoon.
When I was growing up I had a friend whose father made then take one bite of each food working their way around the plate. Now that is weird.
Not if you eat that way, but that you are so controlling that you dictate the way your kids should eat.
For one-at-a-time eaters: That’s dumb, Archie Bunker says so. Fun scene to recall.
Personally, I’d be more toward the some-of-each-in-every-bite, but I doubt I’d ever notice this. (Unless serving a guest, then I might notice all of one item being gone as a reason to offer more.
I don’t much care about how it looks when others eat. But how it soundsp/u] can really bother me! Noisy eaters, people who talk (unintelligibly) with their mouth full, etc. – those drive me crazy.