Mixing It Up

Okay, let's have a show of hands from everyone who's been missing Audience Participation Days!

It is entirely possible that none of you put your hands up. But since I can't actually see you, I will pretend that there is a sea of desperately waving hands out there, imploring me to introduce yet another scintillating and thought-provoking topic for Internet discussion. I am, as ever, happy to oblige.

Onto today's topic. Food: Separate or Co-Mingle?

Lemme 'splain.

Last night for dinner I made Italian sausage, stewed tomatoes, peas, and mashed potatoes. Each food was cooked separately, but when I dished up my plate, I first put on the potatoes, then the cut-up sausage, then the peas, then the tomatoes over it all, stirred it around, and ate my unappetizing-looking but delicious mess. A. and the MiL did not do this. They are not Mixers, generally speaking. When I make beans and rice, they tend to put them in separate piles on their plates, whereas I just glop it all together.

My happiest leftovers are the ones that can all be combined in a bowl, like pot roast, potatoes, peas, and gravy. All swimming happily together in one bowl, preferably able to be eaten with a spoon. I inherited this tendency, I think, from my mother (hi Mom!). She always takes a small bit of everything on her plate onto her fork for each bite. She even goes so far as to take a tiny second portion of anything that runs out on the plate before the rest of the food, just so she can have balanced bites until the very end.

Now, as a general rule, only children and people with a form of OCD refuse to eat food that touches on the plate. But it seems that some vestiges of this childhood proclivity may linger into adulthood, manifesting in a tendency to at least serve the food on the plate separately*.

Which brings us to The Question: Do you mix food or keep it separate? (Edited to add: I should, perhaps, clarify that I really mean do you EAT food separately or together, not necessarily do you smush it all together on a plate. Of course, I do that, but only with certain meals, and almost always only when I'm eating alone.)

* Did that sound science-y and serious enough? I like to pretend sometimes that I discuss topics of importance and merit here.