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.
Where are my wooden clogs? Also, would someone tell these people to stop putting me on the ground and among all these ridiculous flowers?
