unfoodie

by aaron david

I am not a food person. I do not think about food other than when hungry. I know that I am an outsider because of this and while it makes me a little sad that I cannot join in this love, it is like trying to worship god when one is an atheist. As I read these posts for the symposium, my general reaction is, why? So, in that vein, here are the thoughts and feeling that I do have regarding food and eating.

• My wife often jokes that if I could just have a pill that provided all nutrition, I would be perfectly happy.
• I break food up into 4 categories: food, subfood, nonfood, unfood.
• My father was a professor of Pomology. Hence I rarely eat fruit or nuts.
• From personal experience, McDonalds is better than Chez Panisse. The food is just as tasty, and the service is miles better.
• It’s not that I can’t cook, I was a cook at a decent little Italian restaurant when in college, I just have no interest in it.
• A subfood is something that can be made into food, as long as I don’t have to taste the original flavor.
• I am not a picky eater. If you ask me to try something, I will try it, tell you whether I like it or not and move on. As long as it is not an unfood.
• My wife is very much a foodie. Sometimes this creates difficulties.
• Unfood means that not only is it not edible, it cannot be removed from dishes. It ruins the whole dish.
• I don’t drink wine or tea, as I don’t like how they feel on my teeth. The tannins, you know.
• Tomatoes are a subfood. Can be made into sauce, but the taste by themselves? Nasty.
• I do like salads, because they are easy to make and I can get lots of vegetables into me. I usually crack open a can of tuna on the top for some protein, plenty of dressing and away we go.
• Nonfoods are things that must be picked out. They won’t ruin the dish by themselves, but you don’t want to eat them.
• I am a fairly small man, but I prefer quantity over quality. There is nothing worse that leaving a restaurant hungry.
• Umami is a false god.
• Walnuts are a nonfood. In salads, pasta, whatever, I politely put it onto my fork and leave it on the side of my plate.
• Alton Brown has deepened all of these feelings. He has even made me look at my motorcycle funny.
• I like really dark coffee, but Folgers will do. I won’t drink instant though, as I do have standards. Well, unless there is nothing else around.
• How many cookbooks does this world need? I am all for free speech, but think of the trees.
• I do like beer. I like tasty beer even, but when I go to a bar I usually just ask for a Bud. I know that they will have it, I know what it will taste like and I am pretty sure that I will enjoy it. Also, I won’t get full from just one beer, as that is kinda sad.
• Eggplant is an unfood. Ruins everything it touches. Doesn’t even look healthy. Bleech.
• I do much of the cooking for my wife and I, as my schedule allows it better than hers does.. My food is usually edible as I do know how to cook. However, the kitchen is her space, and I have very little say in what is where, especially spices. My wife grows many of the herbs, knows them by smell and rarely labels the containers. Or they have an old label on them. This adds hilarity.
• Potatoes are a vegetable. Sorting starches out does not amuse me.
• I have never really had a sweet tooth. Instead, a meat tooth.
• Of course I can grill, but the microwave works just as well.
• As my wife is a foodie, we often go to nice restaurants with interesting foods and sometimes to shacks with interesting foods. I tend to like the shacks, as no one seems to be trying to impress me with food fascism.
• Why would anyone want to eat things that are crunchy? Seems either overcooked (toast) or it makes a mess.
• One of the things that mystifies me is the concept of not being able to eat a lot of a dish because it is too “rich.”
• Did I mention that Alton Brown is the devil?
• Seriously, a whole store devoted to spices? There is a rack of them down at the grocery store, why do you need a whole store?
• I positively refuse to go to any restaurant where I am going to have to cook. Korean BBQ? Fondue? No. I go to restaurants to eat, not so they can laugh at silly Americans who will pay to cook.
• Along the same lines, super fussy food, that I need to do this and that and order a thousand things and you need 4 diff… No. Just stop, eat your food, and move on. This isn’t kindergarten.
• Mac and Cheese is an unfood. Seriously, yech!
• There is no restaurant so good that I would wait more than 15 minutes for a table. Waiting for a reservation is one thing, but at a place that doesn’t take reservations I am not waiting. Period.
• My general response when asked if I am hungry is to say “no, I just ate.” Whether I ate or not.
• When I was a child, my parents took me to a BBQ at a friend’s house. These people made the burgers with raisons in them. When I bit into what had been a trusted food source and found this anomaly, I spit it out, and started crying. My trust in other people’s favorite foods is no longer in existence. Generally at this point I will be polite and eat what is put in front of me, but this is not something I look forward to.

I could probably go on for hours, but you probably get the gist of what I am saying. Or, you don’t, and you are one of the normal people, who enjoy this part of life.