Can we talk about people who don’t eat half of their dish?

Adeline loves food, lots of it and often, both at home and out. Usually that goes well, but sometimes it doesn’t. In the Sunday Roast series, she shares her observations. This time: those people who only eat half of a dish.

Once again risking the chance that no one will ever go out to eat with me again (whenever that’s even possible…), because I’m such an incredibly annoying person, but I need to get something off my chest. About people you go to a restaurant with and who have already decided beforehand not to eat the whole dish. The meals arrive, you (me, that is) enthusiastically put knife and fork into the delicious food and, when you take your eyes off tha food, you see that the person opposite you has begun preparing for an operation with military precision. Fuck, fuck, fuck, I should have gone alone.

Of the devil

You can bet your bottom dollar that this mainly happens with a dish served with bread, such as the hamburger (!) bun. Let that sink in for a moment: someone orders a hamburger, after which the bun must be separated from the burger like a real surgeon. If you’re unlucky, the chef has also put a pickle on it (isn’t that just the devil) and, God forbid, some sauce. You may even run the risk of your dining companion starting to scrape it off. In this case, you have two choices: quietly lower yourself under the table or simply get up and leave. After the scraping, there’s nothing rude about it anymore.

On the bread pile

Back to the operation. The top half of the bun is positioned somewhat precariously on the edge of the plate, after which the burger leaves its safe carbohydrate nest and the bottom half also ends up on the fire—uh, bread pile. Pickle gone, tomato gone, sauce scraped off, doubts about the cheese, which is ultimately allowed to stay. The eating can begin. Well, nom nom nom, what a delicacy.

Cooled-off meal

Meanwhile, I’m almost done eating, because that’s a side effect of the dissection. It completely disrupts the synergy of eating out together. Normally, one person may eat a little more slowly to restore the balance of who got to which bite during the meal, but now you’re starting off on completely the wrong foot. If you wait until the operation is complete, your meal will have gone cold. If you start eating, you’re eating alone.

Mind your own plate, you may be thinking now, but of course I don’t do that because it’s pure wastefulness. Instead, you can also say: hey dude/hey darling, I don’t eat bread, so just leave it off. Problem solved. See how simple that was?

Also read:

• I completely lose it when a vegan comes over to eat
• The best-before date makes me paranoid
• The grossest dining scene in a restaurant ever