My food is touching!

[torakris]

Hello

My name is Kristin and I am 36 years old.

I can not stand the thought of my foods touching each other on my plate.

Please tell me I am not alone....

The thought of flavors mixing together either on my plate or in my mouth just freaks me out. I can only drink water with my meals because the taste of other drinks would mix with my food....

My husband thinks I should check into a hospital for a bit....

[Gifted Gourmet]

You're not alone ... it revolves around the visual co-mingling ...

He views his plate as a grid, where each item needs to be aligned in perfect 90-degree angles and equidistant from the items that surround it. Most importantly, no item must ever touch another.  He has often expressed to me his admiration for TV dinner trays, which neatly separate the meat entrée from the vegetable, the starch and the dessert portions. On several occasions he has spoken highly about the esteemed person who invented the TV dinner

What's interesting to me is that this proves that he does not object to the blending of complementary foods in his mouth -- food which most people would agree provide less flavor and culinary satisfaction if tasted individually. Instead, it is the visual co-mingling that would disturb him. It would be interesting to explore the actual boundaries of this fetish.

USA Network: Monk program

[moosnsqrl]

And yet you seem so normal! So, let me get this straight . . . you don't drink wine with meals? Your husband may have a point

[srhcb]

Hello

My name is Kristin and I am 36 years old.

I can not stand the thought of my foods touching each other on my plate.

Please tell me I am not alone....

The thought of flavors mixing together either on my plate or in my mouth just freaks me out. I can only drink water with my meals because the taste of other drinks would mix with my food....

My husband thinks I should check into a hospital for a bit....

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Don't bento boxes solve that problem?

SB (resisted them just for that very reason)

[torakris]

Don't bento boxes solve that problem?

SB (resisted them just for that very reason)

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Yes they do! Japanese meals also tend to be served in individual dishes as well, I am starting to think this may be one of the reasons I enjoy living in Japan so much...

Judy, I don't drink wine at all...

[srhcb]

Don't bento boxes solve that problem?

SB (resisted them just for that very reason)

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Yes they do! Japanese meals also tend to be served in individual dishes as well, I am starting to think this may be one of the reasons I enjoy living in Japan so much...

I'm not fanatical about my food "touching", but I'd just as soon it didn't.

I've always admired the bento boxes, (and your beautiful pictures of them, prepared), but resisted buying them because I fear I'd become obsessed with the concept, and it's just TOO DAMN NEAT!

Judy, I don't drink wine at all...

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I don't drink anything with a meal.

[prasantrin]

But what about donburi? Things have to touch in donburi--it's a rule!

[edsel]

Kris, did you read hathor's foodblog? She talked about the Italian aversion to having "too many ingredients" on the plate. And I think there was something about not letting them touch each other.

Maybe even the Bento food-segregation regime isn't enough for the Italians, if hathor's observations are true. Separate dishes, separate courses.

[Hector]

Oh my god! You wouldn't like coming to Sweden... We mess all our food about!

Or come to even france is out of the option I guess then!

This reminds me of the sight of an japanese tourist eating in an english pub in Gibraltar, who'd had ordered a Ploughman's sandwich (brittish sandwich with cheese and pickles). The sandwich was served in the manor that you was supposed to cut your big bit of cheese yourself, add pickles and cheese to a nice newly baked small loaf bread that you had to open. Everything on your plate. But the japanese man just took the piece of bread and without opening up the loaf he begun to eat it with knife and fork until it was finished, and did the same with the cheese, and the same with the pickle! He couldn't have enjoyed that meal

[torakris]

The reason I started this thread was that just a bit ago I was looking at this picture that ChryZ posted in the doburi thread.

Now all 3 foods look wonderful to me, but the thought of them being so close together like that freaks me out. The flavors are so different that I wouldn't want the sauces to touch.

I love donburis (and things like stews/soups/etc) when there is basically one flavor used for a couple ingredients, like this donburi I made a little bit ago.

[ghostrider]

Dang, I was just searching for hathor's foodblog, & you beat me to it!

I was going to say to torakris:

Don't worry, you are not alone, you're just Italian. As am I, at least in spirit.

I am not obsessive about it when the foods seem to me to be designed to be together - e.g., meatloaf, mashed potatoes & gravy - but with that sort of meal, particularly if gravy is involved, I'll want my vegetables on a separate plate.

Mysteriously, hathor's original post seems to have vanished from the blog, biut you can find it quoted here at the top of page 3.

Re your drinking water with meals - the Italians will do you one better. A Roman friend once explained to me that, though Italians love iced drinks in the heat of the afternoon, they will not have chilled drinks with meals, because the alternating hot-cold sensations mask the full flavors of their foods.

[Chris Amirault]

But wait a sec. Aren't most foods combinations of ingredients?

[markk]

My nephew, who lived with me for many years, had a great aversion to foods touching on his plate, and we used to tease him about co-mingling.

But, what I love to do in eating is have foods in the meal whose flavors complement each other, and when I cook, my objective is to make and put as many things that go with each other on your plate. I remember one night years later having him and his wife to dinner, and I was particularly proud of myself because with my pork roast, I made about 6 side dishes, each of which I thought went brilliantly with another (or the roast) no matter how you combined them. Well, it was a happy moment when his wife said "I can't believe that no matter how you combine these things, they all go together so great!"

He, however, had to go and take a tranquilizer.

[ludja]

Kris, did you read hathor's foodblog? She talked about the Italian aversion to having "too many ingredients" on the plate. And I think there was something about not letting them touch each other. 

...

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And I also thought of this thread on the KFC Famous Bowls... (Don't look torakris, it is truly hideous).

I don't like "inappropriate" things slopped together. Appropriate is subjective, but I guess I'm not too picky. From childhood I still have a slight aversion to peas getting mixed into the mashed potatoes though... I just don't like the texture of peas in the puree.

[torakris]

I was going to say to torakris:

Don't worry, you are not alone, you're just Italian.  As am I, at least in spirit.

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So I can blame this on my heritage? My grandfather is from Bari and my grandmother is from a tiny town called Baranello in the Campobasso Province of Molise. This makes me feel a little better...

[snowangel]

The only time my food can touch is when it is curry or a stir fry on rice, or a sauce with pasta. They get a kick out of me at Thankgiving meal, because heaven forbid that the salad and the gravy and mashed potatoes should mingle (OK, so I'll give on the gravy on mashed potatoes).

I like alternating bites of things, but please, oh please, don't let them mingle!

[edsel]

Mysteriously, hathor's  original post seems to have vanished from the blog, biut you can find  it quoted here at the top of page 3.

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If you follow the trackback, it does lead to the original. The problem is that there are so many pictures on the page that it sort of convulses and scrolls to a chaming picture of one of hathor's cats. (hathor's blog has to rank as one of the all-time best *ever*)

Follow the trackback to this entry, be patient, wait for the page to scroll wildly as the pictures load. Then reload the page and you'll find a very thoughtful and amusing post about Italian eating habits.

p.s. to Kris: Dominic Cerino is in Italy now (Terra Madre delegate), and he's posting some wonderful pictures. I'll post a link in the Heartland forum.

[Chris Amirault]

Ok, let me try this again.

What if you had a plate of beans, sausage, and duck confit. Would everything have to be on its own? And -- this is the clincher for me -- what would happen if those ingredients were all found in cassoulet?

[torakris]

Ok, let me try this again.

What if you had a plate of beans, sausage, and duck confit. Would everything have to be on its own? And -- this is the clincher for me -- what would happen if those ingredients were all found in cassoulet?

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If they were all in a cassoulet it would be no problem but if the beans were seasoned with a flavor that I considered not to be complimentary to the duck and sausage and would not want them to touch.

For example a Brazilian style black bean stew and Bratwurst would never be on the same plate.

[torakris]

Susan, I am so glad I am not alone!!

This was starting to turn into Kristin is a freak thread. I never really thought of this as very odd. I have this other food thing that is 100 times worse but Steven has suggested I never speak of it in public aymore....

[srhcb]

Ok, let me try this again.

What if you had a plate of beans, sausage, and duck confit. Would everything have to be on its own? And -- this is the clincher for me -- what would happen if those ingredients were all found in cassoulet?

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As in Criminal Law, it's intent that counts.

SB

I eat my peas with honey,

I've done it all my life.

It makes the peas taste funny

but it keeps them on my knife. - unattributed

[snowangel]

Ok, let me try this again.

What if you had a plate of beans, sausage, and duck confit. Would everything have to be on its own? And -- this is the clincher for me -- what would happen if those ingredients were all found in cassoulet?

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If they were all in a cassoulet it would be no problem but if the beans were seasoned with a flavor that I considered not to be complimentary to the duck and sausage and would not want them to touch.

For example a Brazilian style black bean stew and Bratwurst would never be on the same plate.

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Bingo! (or if the uncomplimentary foods were on the same plate, it had better be a darned large plate and no juices should co-mingle).

[srhcb]

I like alternating bites of things, but please, oh please, don't let them mingle!

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My Father wasn't big on comingled foods, like "hotdish", and preferred the kind of victuals that stand alone.

He did, however, eat his dinner in alternating bites, and everything had to come out even! He had a good eye, (working as a Civil Engineer for 45 years, he was practiced at estimating quantities), but occasionally he'd need to add an extra bite of one item or another to make things turn out right.

He would actually take one more spoonful of peas rather than skip an item or double up in his rotation. If, by chance, nearing the end of a meal, anyone else wanted to finish off a dish we checked to ascertain if he might be needing any.

SB (he was a REAL good engineer!)

[helenjp]

OK, I think I get the point of this now! I think that shiitake, chicken, and mitsuba all work well with the egg in a donburi, and am quite happy to meat them in the same mouthful. I think it's sort of fun working out the separate components of the resulting taste.

However, I think Kris has a point about Japanese food not being big on blended, complex flavors. When I pack bentos with something like a sesame-dressed salad and a sweet-sour meat, I would use a piece of cucumber to separate them, or put the salad on a shiso leaf for the same reason.

I don't buy a lot of processed food such as bento side-dishes because I really dislike (extremely! it's an offense against nature!) the way everything tastes the same.

I'm curious - along with wanting the various sides well separated, do you think that you have stronger ideas about WHAT foods go together in the same meal than muddled eaters, or don't you mind as long as they are not physically touching?

No doubt some people are more sensitive to taste. One of my sons is very picky, and has strong ideas about how the whole menu should be arranged; while the other is more likely to pick the main dish and not worry much about what will accompany it.

P.S. Steve - do you think your father would have enjoyed this cooking for engineers site?

Edited October 28, 2006 by helenjp (log)

[srhcb]

P.S. Steve - do you think your father would have enjoyed this cooking for engineers site?

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As a PE, (licensed Professional Engineer), my Father was far more comfortable at a drafting table in his office than at a kitchen counter. Fortunately, he didn't have to worry because my Mother was, we joked, a PM, (Professional Mother), by virtue of her BS in Home Economics.

My Mother's meals were always balanced, color coordinated, and nutritious. They were also very good!

My Brother, also a Civil PE, likes to cook and his modus operandi is much like the depiction of engineers on the site. He is prepared, neat, methodical and concise. He's actually a pretty good cook. His specialty is wild game, since he's also a big hunter.

Although I'm neat in the kitchen, I tend to be more intuitive and adventurous. My Sister, on the other hand, is also intuitive and adventurous, but she tends to "disasterize" a kitchen in the process. She's worked in professional kitchens and restaurant management, and just started part time with a specailty foods/catering company.

SB (My Sister has a MA in Philosophy/Latin)(go figure?)