Anti-silverware

   I want to begin this piece by saying cold leftover pizza is a breakfast food, no matter what anyone says. Now with my editorial commentary out of the way, I will move on to my topic of the day. When was the last time you had fun eating? Not in a social prom night/ anniversary dinner ‘that was nice, lets do that again’ kind of fun. When was the last time you had fun with the physical act of eating?

            As I look back over the past few months at the times I have either eaten at home or dined at a restaurant, I haven’t had fun eating.  I am willing to assign most of the blame on being a grown up and bothering myself with all sorts of nonsense like proper table etiquette and such. There is a real shame about coming to the table to eat and ruining the experience with all sorts of rules. Mealtime is supposed to be one of those times of the day where we get to let our hair down, take a break from work and just relax. This ideal is at odds with what we actually practice. One must; sit up straight, elbows-on or off- the table, take sensible bites, don’t reach across the table and of course use both your fork and knife.

            There it is: silverware is everything wrong with food. We do not eat anymore, we poke and prod at food like a 7th grade biology experiment. Proper eating practices have separated us from the food we eat behind 4 inches of silverware. So often I hear people talk about ‘the joy of cooking’, how fun it is and they are right. Who doesn’t enjoy kneading dough, rolling meatballs or tearing lettuce? The sensory experience of cooking is so important to why we enjoy cooking, the same as it is for eating but we limit ourselves greatly from one to the other. As we sit down in front of our meal we look at it, we lean over to smell it, roll the food around in our mouths to absorb the different sounds, flavors and textures. All that is ok but god forbid you touch your own food with your hands!

            Our hands are our utensils to interact with the world; our whole body is covered with skin, which is dedicated to the sense of touch. The human hand is designed to sense, adapt to or manipulate the things it comes in contact with. If something is too cold or too hot to hold in your hand, you may have second thoughts about brining it close to your face. Making contact with food before you eat it can save you the hassle of burnt tongues and aching sensitive teeth.

            Eating without silverware is something that is still used for countless foods all over the world but it is not given its credit as a way of eating.  Some foods simply do not lend themselves to the idea of the fork. An enormous amount of foods from potato chips to doughnuts are either impractical or perceived to be unnecessary to eat properly. Perhaps this is where the problem is: public perception. Eat a hamburger with your hands and there is no problem, try the same thing with pasta and you’re committing a cardinal sin. Maybe it has just been a while since someone has asked why. If you can eat it with a fork, you can eat it with your hands.

            The idea of “getting your hands dirty” at the table may be the cut off point for too many people just from the connotation of the term. Is there anything truly dirty or unhygienic about eating this way? For many of us the availability of clean running water, soaps and sanitizers is certainly enough to clean our dishes as well as our hands. So is it fair to say that eating with your hands is dirty?

            The most common response I hear to this idea is that it is “uncivilized and uneducated”.   I have to admit, these responses make me chuckle. Perhaps we’re a little too short sighted to recall how long civilization, culture and the educated survived before it became universally accepted to use such pretentious hardware. If we are looking at eating with friends and family, is such antiquated etiquette really necessary? Clearly we have become used to situations with all the pomp and none of the circumstance.

            Aren’t we doing ourselves an injustice by restricting our sensory experience of eating? Have we forgotten how fun it is to slurp spaghetti, break open crab legs or drink the cereal milk out of the bowl? Eating is fun (at least it used to be). Unfortunately what is done in good spirits comes off as bad taste.

            Antiquated relics like silverware have robbed us of the distinction between the pleasure of eating and the enjoyment of eating. Fun food is good food. Eating is an all-encompassing experience: sensory, socially, emotionally etc. We should be careful not to let ourselves be denied any of it.