Taste Treats

This was written the same year as the Grand Junction Centennial a time that saw males throughout the Grand Valley growing a beard to celebrate the occasion.  This was also written when cholesterol counts were not a big part of my life meaning I was actually, upon occasion, served fried chicken.  That is no longer true today. 

May 16, 1982 

The only reason the thought hit me was because of the beard.  Every day since I began growing forage on my face to honor our founding fathers, I’ve had to pluck leftovers from breakfast, lunch and dinner from my beard.  The exercise has proved that truly tasty foods also happen to be extremely messy. 

Spaghetti for instance. 

I have always believed there is absolutely nothing deviant about consuming spaghetti three times a day.  Still, it is also true monks, prisoners in solitary or people should only eat spaghetti alone in the privacy of their own home.  Watching others attempt a tussle with Mussolini’s revenge has been known to make even nurses queasy.  And any everyday act that will turn the stomach of a Florence Nightingale must rank high on the nausea scale. 

Some people have it down to a science.  They cut the spaghetti and spin it against a spoon into an edible bite.  But I always seem to wind up with one strand loose.  It dangles down my chin until it’s even with the Adam’s apple.  When trapped into this embarrassment at a restaurant I quickly scan the room to find out who is staring.  If other diners are indeed concentrating on my dilemma, do I know them? 

At the same time it must be decided whether to fish the errant strand out of midair, where it swings to and fro beneath my line of sight, or do I do a Don Ho and “suck it up.” 

I prefer the latter.  The speed of the pasta increases as it wends it way mouthward until disappearing with a not so silent “thpp” and sprays sauce all over the collar of my white shirt and the lapel of my dinner companion’s suit. 

Another favorite is ribs.  They’re gooey, greasy and high in cholesterol.  Ribs are the nectar of the gods, if you disregard rhubarb pie alamode with homemade ice cream.  Dining on ribs should be treated like after-school play.  Remember how your mother always laid down the law, “You aren’t doing anything at all, whatsoever, with your friends, until you change out of your school clothes.  Your father works too hard for his money to keep spending it on new clothes for you just because you’re too lazy to change after school and insist on getting them filthy in some dirt pile.” 

That’s how it is with ribs.  You should always change out of your good clothes before eating them.  And ribs are much like popcorn in that you will spend the next three days silently suctioning rib morsels from the nooks and crannies of your teeth while also attempting to avoid making embarrassing noises. 

And what is the proper manner for well-bred gentleman to devour fried chicken?  Hands or forks?  I’ve always subscribed to the hand school but really good, greasy, fried chicken invariably finds me seated beside some epicurean with a neatness fetish.  They sit and carefully slice away with knife and fork attempting, in vain, not to stare at the chin next to them that shines in the light from grease that didn’t quite make it all the way past the lips. 

Milkshakes and malts are another messy food although this problem doesn’t present itself that much anymore because real malts and shakes are on the endangered species list.  We’re not talking about the kind you get out of a refrigerated tank at fast food city but the shake they used to make at the Village Dairy in Cambridge, Illinois with dipped ice cream and real milk.  The whole operating was done right in front of your very own eyes.  All the ingredients were plunked into a metal cup, which was then affixed to a Prince Castle malt mixer. 

After a 30 second whir the cup came off and the contents were poured in a tall glass.  And then came the big difference between the malts of the ‘80’s and those of the ‘50’s.  When the glass of milkshake was delivered to the table the metal container full of the leftovers accompanied it.  And you always knew how much drink was left in the can for seconds because the outside always frosted over to the same height as the liquid inside. 

Should the Sierra Club and the Friends of the Earth ever decide to worry less about the snail darter and more about the preservation of genuine shakes and malts blended in a metal cup, the environmentalists would finally be championing a cause the majority of Americans could believe in.