Eddie’s Food Grievances: when you run out of sauce halfway through a portion of bitterballen

Adeline (nickname: Eddie) loves food—lots of it and often, both at home and out. Usually, that goes well, but sometimes it doesn’t. In the series Eddie’s food grievances , you can read about the latter. This time: when everything on your plate is out of proportion.

Adeline in the sun on a terrace. That was the situation this week. By the way, I made the most of the terrace. I sat down at 12:00 and settled the bill at 17:55. I considered it quite an exceptional achievement, especially when you consider that the last time I did this was in September.

It goes wrong (again)

I still have it in me. This time it was a liquid lunch accompanied by a snack platter, followed by another portion of bitterballen to finish things off. And when I saw those small, quaint little bowls of sauce, I suddenly remembered what can go so terribly wrong: portioning.

Plenty of sauce

There were ten bitterballen and one tub of sauce on the table, with enough sauce for all of them. I didn’t have ten bitterballen all to myself, just to be clear. But I practically thanked the proprietor on my bare knees that the ratio of bitterballen to sauce was right, because my absence from the hospitality industry is still recent and I want to stretch my gratitude out for as long as possible. With bitterbal number ten, I could still firmly dip the bitterbal into the mustard mayo (what a brilliant idea) and smear it generously with sauce.

As the last one, you’re also the lucky one, because then a double dip is allowed. Otherwise, double dipping is disgusting, but more on that later. Even with that final double dip, I still had plenty of sauce left. Nothing is more irritating than the proportions in your food being all wrong.

Just plain gross

Lettuce where you have to search for the dressing between the leaves (ugh). A little bride of herb butter, with the herb butter running out halfway through (stupid). I was once served a buttered sandwich with chicken curry salad, on which there was literally just one piece of chicken and one piece of pineapple to be found (absurd). Strands of spaghetti floating in the sauce, because the other way around—being out of proportion—is also absolutely disgusting. Apple pie with an enormous mountain of whipped cream, so that you can no longer see the apple pie.

People, why do you do this?

It’s a very, very fine balance

Of course, you eat a lot or a little. Which is fine, because you should decide that for yourself. But wanting a lot of something doesn’t mean you can simply disregard the balance between the components of a dish. It’s a fine balance. If one person laughs a lot during a conversation and the other hardly at all, that’s strange too. Or if you hug a lot and the other person doesn’t hug you back at all, then you’re like a plate of plain spaghetti without enough sauce (or looking for a criminal record).

That’s all I’m saying: you really need to be careful with the proportions between things. You have been warned.

Read also:

• Eddie’s Food Grievances: eating food from the microwave
• Eddie’s food grievances: can we please stop sharing food for a minute?!
• Eddie’s food grievances: eating a boiled egg in public