My food is touching!

[Pat Churchill]

I don't mind food touching on the plate, but I don't like loading a fork with a bit of everything. I prefer the distinct tastes of individual vegetables, etc.

One of my fetishes, though, is leaving the best bits (like the crispy cheese topping on mac cheese) till last.

[Kent D]

Not only does my wife freak when anything touches on her plate, she's a sequence eater, also. She'll eat her vegetable, then her potato, then the main course.

I prefer culinary chaos -- I love putting a dab of 12 different things on my Thanksgiving plate, and combining taste and texture -- turkey gravy and cheese grits, cranberry relish and sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole and turkey, and then mop the plate with my roll. I wonder if that's why they still make me sit at the kid's table...

[Domestic Goddess]

One of my fetishes, though, is leaving the best bits (like the crispy cheese topping on mac cheese) till last.

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I hear you Pat. I would save the best bits (for me the crispy skin of fried chicken or pork belly) for last and savor every crunch.

[maggiethecat]

OK. I know that I should have the grace, the sense and the common good manners to avoid saying this, but I can't:

You people are crazy.

While I prefer my salad on a separate plate from the sauce, I believe that food should touch and cuddle. Grillades and grits? Bacon and eggs? Chili on rice? Why would you segregate these gastronomical lovebirds?

And I so disagree about Thanksgiving leftovers, and Thanksgiving dinner. The all-ingredient sandwich on Friday (yes, including the cranberry sauce and stuffing) is a wondrous melding of flavors and textures. And the gravy slipping over the cranberry relish, turkey, and mashed potaoes is the homey flavor of The Day.

As to eating every dish in order and succession: um, anal? Not that I have a medical degree.

Carry on

[CKatCook]

When I saw this thread I thought.....my soul mate!!! I never, ever, ever have my food touching. The very thought of this grosses me out! I am American with American parents and we ate typical American fare at home. My mother would fill my plate and I would be phyically ill at the sight of everything touching. Somethings can be together. Spagetti and meatballs, curry and rice. But to have canned green beans on the same plate at the meat NO WAY!

I have to have one of those Mr. Bentos...do you know where to buy one?

[armchairchef]

OK, I'm 42 and I have issues with my food touching too. It's been a thing for me all my life. I am getting used to mixing SOME foods together though--like at Thanksgiving dinner. Otherwise, I can't stand it. When I eat dinner, I take a bit from each food and eat it in a certain order, so as not to run out of one food before I run out of the other. Also I like some breakfast foods to touch each other but not all of them.

My DH found a book once called "I Am Three". One of the lines was "I don't want THIS food to touch THAT food." LOL

P.S. to Maggiethecat, yes I know I am weird. I am a bit OC, definitely.

[wawairis]

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....

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Torakris,

Do you eat in sequence too? I have to eat in food sequence. For instance a standard turkey dinner - a bite of turkey, a smidge of mashed potatoes, a bit of cranberry, topped off by a nugget of stuffing. Repeat until all the food is gone.

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Oh my God! Isn't that how everyone eats???

Is there a different way?

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I've know people to eat all the meat first, starch second, and vegetable third, or any such combination. I really don't like to actually look upon this type of eating since I makes me shudder. A friend of mine used to finish the meal by eating all the coleslaw. Makes me swoon just thinking about it.

[wawairis]

When I eat dinner, I take a bit from each food and eat it in a certain order, so as not to run out of one food before I run out of the other.

EXACTLY!!! All the food groups run out at the same time! Otherwise you have to dib and dab to make it even! Finally people that understand!

[laurenkusa]

I am a bit of a hybrid I think. I do not like unrelated foods to blend together on the plate, but if it happens I still eat it. To use the thanksgiving example: I like the turkey with gravy or cranberry sauce, but not both at one time. I eat the stuffing separately, put gravy on the mashed potatoes, prefer the rest of my dinner separate.

I am mostly a serial eater, eat the turkey with cranberry first, then eat the potato, some cranberry sauce all by itself, then the stuffing, then a baked sweet potato and so on. Occasionaly, I take a risk and mix 2 things together on the fork, like turkey and a green bean.

I will drink wine with dinner. If food is server with other food on top or below I will try them together. If it is a side dish, I usually eat it separately. At times I will eat a portion of one part of the meal, eat a portion of another part and so on and then go back to the first part again.

I think salad dressing does not enhance other sauces and vice versa.

My serial eating habit bothered one boyfriend in my teen years so much that he insisted I eat 2 foods at once. I obliged and then went back to my usual way of eating. So people can feel very strongly about all this.

I noticed that my father is a serial eater and my mother is not.

Lauren

[Miriam Kresh]

Oh, man...it must be a burden to be so sensitive towards food touching. I'm comfortable with that myself, as long as the meal is planned so that the foods are compatible. Like, not sturdy feijoada next to some delicate Chinese or Persian concoction.

In Jewish culture, some foods are set apart from others, and this I accept as natural, since I grew up with these restrictions. I don't refer to the prohibited foods: pork, shellfish, or mixtures of meat and dairy, but to customs some hold by, of not mixing fish and dairy, or fish and meat. Religious Sephardim, and Chassidim, have very definite opinions about those combinations. Morrocan housewives won't cook onions and garlic together in the same dish. I've been told that these mixtures are considered damaging to the health, although they are not treif like pork. Myself, I find mixing fish and meat as one dish distasteful, but fish and dairy can be very good. So cultural influences run through our preferences. Once, as a child, I asked my mother to serve my Latin beans separately from my rice, which upset my older brother. He told me, "What's this American business?! You eat your beans on top of your rice, like everyone else here!" Boy was I intimidated.

Miriam

Edited October 31, 2006 by Miriam Kresh (log)

[cmling]

What I cannot stand is a dessert consisting of a hot thing and a frozen thing on the same plate. This causes the frozen thing to melt too soon. This makes me angry.

Charley

[wawairis]

What I cannot stand is a dessert consisting of a hot thing and a frozen thing on the same plate.  This causes the frozen thing to melt too soon.  This makes me angry.

Charley

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Rightly so! And what's up with giving me a fork when I have pie ala mode? You can't eat ice cream with a fork!

[Kouign Aman]

"One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesnt belong.." excerpted from a children's song

Im not too worried about my food touching tho some things are annoying (syrup on eggs, salad dressing on most things, etc). But I compose what my SIL calls "perfect bites" on my fork. At thanksgiving, the fork will have a bit of turkey, dressing or potato, relish or gravy. If a dish has multiple components (salads, stews etc), the forkful will contain a portion of each component. I didnt realize I did this, nor that it wasnt universal, til she shouted it out, and then started copying me.

[torakris]

What I cannot stand is a dessert consisting of a hot thing and a frozen thing on the same plate.  This causes the frozen thing to melt too soon.  This makes me angry.

Charley

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Oh I hate this!!

I don't mind cake and ice cream on the same dish but the cake CAN NOT be warm and even then I will have to devour the plate in less than 60 seconds. Any slower than that and the melting ice cram will move on to the cake and make it soggy.

[racheld]

I have to eat in food sequence.  For instance a standard turkey dinner - a bite of turkey, a smidge of mashed potatoes, a bit of cranberry, topped off by a nugget of stuffing. 

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In the beautiful little book created for the funeral of a dear, too-soon-gone friend several years ago, her daughters included pictures, travels, little quotes, favourite poems, etc. One that struck me as particularly poignant, since I had catered the family's parties and special dinners for years, was a picture of her smiling happily at her laden Thanksgiving table, with the tiny quote: "A little bite of cranberry with every bite of turkey."

Funny the things we remember fondly.

[maggiethecat]

What I cannot stand is a dessert consisting of a hot thing and a frozen thing on the same plate.  This causes the frozen thing to melt too soon.  This makes me angry.

Charley

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You see, I love this! The cold hard sauce melting next to the plum pudding, the ice cream puddling next to the peach pie, the fresh ginger granita pooling around the gingerbread... But then, I don't take a long, ladylike approach to an excellent dessert -- I engulf it.

[Pat Churchill]

Great topic! And we wonder how come our kids were picky eaters?

I love cold ice cream on hot dessert. Trouble is you need a double dose of ice cream to last the whole dessert. Maybe there's a niche market for a two-tier or two compartment dessert plate?