Feeding Habits

It's blowing a massive hoolie outside, which has made my sleep a rather restless one this night. This would explain why I'm sat wrapped in my duvet with a hot cup of tea writing a blog entry at 4a.m. I'm sure I'll catch some sleep when the troposphere decides to end its tantrum.

I was thinking about eating etiquette & children's imaginations. Though they may seem unrelated topics, it brought me to this fantastic ability kids have to create new "tasty" foods. I'm not sure if it's spurred on by curiosity as their tastebuds develop, or whether it's to be ascribed solely to that wicked satisfaction kids get from being adverse, but somehow we all develop weird feeding rituals when little & become convinced they are the best, if not ONLY, way to eat.

When my brother was very little, he religiously mixed ketchup & mayo on his plate into what he called his "special sauce". When he was offered coctail sauce (a mixture of ketchup, mayo and a dash of cognac) in replacement, he refused it on the grounds that is was missing his special secret tasty ingredient.

It made me think back to all the weird little quirky feeding habits I had as a child, which mum always used to accompany with a wagging-finger warning: "it's ok to do this in our home, but if I ever catch you doing this in public...!". I was convinced that the ONLY way to eat a watermelon was to turn it into a pirate ship (long story). Or that sandwiches with Dairylea spread HAD to be dipped in coca cola before reaching your mouth. Much to my parent's horror, I had a habit of cutting everything on my plate into the tiniest of pieces, adding a few dollops of mayonaise and mixing it all into a great big mash before feeding it to myself with a spoon. I insisted on putting chocolate spread on my edam cheese, and would put Speculoos (cinnemon cookies) in my sandwich before dipping it in a glass of milk. I will spare you a long list of my more "gruesome" eating behaviors.


I started to wonder whether I did this because it really tasted better, or because it used to disgust and annoy people around me. Maybe the annoyance of others made it taste all the better. And if so, did I abandon those habits because of social etiquette, or because I simply stopped pretending they really tasted so much better?

I've reason to suspect it was mainly because of social etiquette. Even within the confines of homes set up with previous girlfriends, I've refrained from taking up the old patterns. I guess I wanted to keep said girlfriends. But being back at my mum's for my thesis write up has serrupticiously reintroduced some of the old habits. Just the other day I was confronted with mum's horrorstruck face as I had subconciously turned into "mashing" her carefully prepared meal with dollops of mayonaise again.

I figured then it was best to surrender to the relapse entirely and actually went out to make myself a bunch of the old favorites. And guess what? They DO taste better. Let this be a warning to whomever out there ends up being my next live-in girlfriend. The habits WILL be taken up within the confines of a loving new home. Take it or leave it ;-)