Emma’s food pet peeves: shared dining
I eat often, a lot and with great pleasure, and then I quite regularly notice things. Often they’re positive things, but it also frequently happens that something annoys me immensely. Whether that’s justified or not, sometimes I just need to vent. Hence this feature: Emma’s food pet peeves, this time focusing on the concept of shared dining.
Here in the editorial office, we receive press releases about the newest restaurants one after another. Every time, I click on the email curiously, hoping there’ll be something in it I’d like to visit. What could it be? A fish restaurant, a good pizza place or Korean barbecue?
Ugh! Shared dining
Nope, nine times out of ten it’s shared dining. My least favorite thing—I really don’t want to share!
Playing food quartets
The idea is to fill the entire table with tasty bites to share with your fellow diners. Because what could be more convivial than passing bowls of food back and forth with the people you love? A sort of quartet, but with food. Some people must absolutely love it, otherwise the shared-dining-restaurants wouldn’t be springing up like mushrooms, but as soon as I hear those two words, I run away very fast.
Not having to think
When I go out to eat, I want to think as little as possible. If I want to think, I’ll make a complicated meal myself. My problem with shared dining? It’s all about having to think! It starts with ordering. One person doesn’t really like garlic, another would rather not eat anything from the sea. ‘No, you guys just order that fish, but there do need to be at least five vegetable dishes. I’m trying to be a little healthy.’ Aaaaahhhh!
Greedy
When the food finally arrives, you might think you’re done thinking for a moment. Nothing could be further from the truth. All that food now has to be divided up. I’m not greedy or stingy at all, and I never think I’ll go without enough. Except with shared dining. Then I suddenly become very aware of all the dishes on the table, and that I want enough of everything. I act very cool and pretend to be extremely generous, but I keep an eye on every dish from the corner of my eye.
They’re also never large dishes of food like the ones I put on the table at home; in that case, I have no problem sharing at all. No, they’re always small plates, and the number of prawns, meatballs or whatever is never equal to the number of people. And every group of friends has someone who eats very quickly and a lot. They put not one but two fried potatoes on their fork and spread half a wheel of Brie on their Melba toast. A true shared dining nightmare.
Generally, I’m not a fast eater, because yes, there’s also chatting to do in between. But what if all the fries are suddenly gone after a long story? And why are those bao buns on the other side of the table? I haven’t had any of those yet!
Half
When you have your own dish in a restaurant, you can eat as quickly or slowly as you like; everything on that plate is yours. Of course, I’ll give someone a bite to taste, or sometimes order something to share when there are two of us. Gladly, in fact. Because then it’s very clear: you each get half. No stress, no restlessness, and you can tell stories that last so long your food is almost cold by the time you finish.
Also read:
- Nine snack names you should know
- How to make a frikandel yourself
- Snackspert’s week: “Better than a French kiss from your favorite Dutch celebrity”
Image: Sagardi (very delicious meat you don’t want to share)
