“Let’s share the almond cake,” said my wife at the cafeteria of a do-it-yourself furniture store and I nodded, ‘OK’, though I wanted the whole slice for myself.
I tried to finish my healthy grilled chicken lunch as fast as I could, but my wife wolfed down her Beef Wellington and had started digging into the cake with an extra large tablespoon even before I could finish my boiled vegetables.
My wife and I have never shared food before; we are connoisseurs of the culinary art and enjoy all types of cuisine — but sharing is something of a new experience for us.
The cake slice was gone in a jiffy and we looked a little sadly at the brown crumbs on the white plate and wondered what to do next and then remembered we had come to shop for lamps and a sofa chair. All these restaurants, eateries and coffee shops in malls tend to distract you from your weekend shopping.
Incidentally, if you love food, you should have Bone-China white plates at home as the white background brings out the full colour of the food on the plate; the green and yellow of the vegetables, the rich, brown colour of the meats and the amazing red of the tomato ketchup.
That’s why you get white plates at restaurants to give you a visual experience of your food even before it tickles your palate.
Studies have shown that we eat and drink with our eyes. The colour green is perceived as healthy, while nobody really loves blue food. Maybe that’s why blue cupcakes look so unappetising. It is said that people are also wary of orange food, because the colour denotes anger.
I suppose that’s why my stomach feels angry every time I come out of a curry house after devouring lamb mutton squares soaked in a vibrant, mouth-watering turmeric-yellow sauce.
Anyway, like I said before, my wife and I never shared food before and I think this dangerous new habit is because of a ridiculous trend that has taken over the town recently. This trend is so new that sociologists have not yet found a term to describe it.
I overheard this exchange between two women in the line of a food kiosk at a mall food court. “I love to try that, but I don’t want the whole thing. Will you share it with me?”
Later, I saw two women gazing at the goodies through the glass in a cheesecake shop: “I love blueberry, but I don’t want the whole thing. Will you share it with me?”
You will never hear this exchange between two men: “I so very much want fried chicken and fries, but I don’t want the whole box. Will you share it with me?”
The only time I ever shared food and drink was during my university days when I was so poor that we had to share a cup of tea. We would order a cup of tea (‘khada chamach’, meaning, tea with oodles of sugar) and ask for an extra saucer and slurp our tea slowly.
All this sharing is I am sure not some sort of a new cultural thing, but has to do something with weight loss. You so want to indulge, but guilt holds you back. So you try to pass the extra calories to a foolish friend who has not caught on what’s happening.
There’s another type of sharing also going on and that is in the world of social media. As soon as your order comes to the table, you whip out your smartphone, take a picture of your food and send it to your followers. The picture whets the appetite of someone weak-willed, who then orders a take-away and that is how food today has become the new enemy.
