Eddie’s Food Pet Peeves: Licking Your Plate in Company
Adeline loves food, a lot and often, both at home and out. Usually that goes well, but sometimes it doesn’t. In the series Eddie’s Food Pet Peeves, she shares her observations. This week, we need to talk about licking your plate in company.
During lockdown (after lockdown after lockdown after lockdown), I ate in the safe privacy of my own home. Only my boyfriend witnessed the ritual I developed when I found something particularly delicious. It was the same ritual I was allowed to perform as a little girl only at my grandparents’ house (and really only there!) when I found something very tasty. I’m talking about licking my plate.
And not running my tongue over the porcelain to slurp up every drop, although I certainly did that at my grandparents’ house, but neatly using a finger to finish off the last remnants. In my eyes, the ultimate proof that someone enjoyed something. In the eyes of many others, a dubious, somewhat filthy habit.
I still haven’t decided who is right.
Freedom in restrictions
When a chef decides that a sauce needs some tarragon (I love you for that), there’s a 100 percent chance that I want to take in absolutely everything. First I look around suspiciously, like a six-year-old about to steal sweets at Jamin, and then I make a circular motion over my plate with my index finger. I look around once more, because imagine someone suddenly saw me mopping my plate with a finger and then I more or less kiss it off my index finger.
I could say eating or slurping here, but then it would become gross. To avoid confusion: the annoyance here isn’t licking plates, but the fact that I suddenly have to start doing it secretly again. To me, there really was a strange kind of freedom in the restrictions.
A general failure
The complicated thing is that I could do this unseen, lockdown after lockdown after lockdown. Only my better half, who is by now used to quite a lot from me, and my inner circle know about this quirk (and you do now too, I realize). But in most restaurants, people still stare at me somewhat bewilderedly. Even though it’s actually the fault of the fork, knife, and spoon. I’d gladly call them ‘cutlery’ here, but then all the rascals with a student-like past would start protesting.
If this equipment were even remotely adequate, I’d simply be able to scrape every last drop of divine tarragon mayonnaise from my plate. So this isn’t a quirk of mine at all, but a general failure of cutlery (ha!).
And I haven’t even mentioned those awful, ridged plates that have suddenly become fashionable, because then it’s completely impossible. God, I hate that texture, by the way. More on that next week, probably. If you happen to see someone secretly licking a plate this weekend, just give them an encouraging nod and take it as a compliment to the chef.
Because that’s simply what it is.
Read also:
- Eddie’s Food Pet Peeves: That Arrogant Waiter at the Table
- Eddie’s Food Pet Peeves: Wet Tea Bags Lying Around
- Dishes That (Star) Chefs Never Put on the Menu
