Although I spend probably more money than I ought to on eating out, there is a way to try new foods for free and a particular skill of mine; ‘the free sample supermarket sweep’. I can sniff out a free sample within moments of crossing the supermarket threshold and as one’s experience develops, certain stores, times and aisles prove to have a higher success rate than others. Of course to gain access to such knowledge you have to spend a lot of time in supermarkets and that’s fine by me; if I have the money and the time, food shopping can be the highlight of my day. Now, this is the point in my writing where I suddenly realise just how mundane my day-to-day existence can be and seriously consider the pros and cons of exposing this to others. Because if this seemingly obsessive relationship with food costs me my social life, then it will really be my only friend and I’ll be that woman, that woman attached to the crane being pulled out of the front window of a living room, off her face on brie. And in a similar vein, sample sweeping also has its social pitfalls. Within the greatly student populated New Cross the local Sainsbury’s can be a high-risk area. It is quite probable that you bump into someone you used to fancy quite a lot whilst fondling a free miniature hotdog in one hand and a miniscule sample of summer fresh pea risotto in the other, whist trying to pick up a block of cheddar with the nook of your elbow.
In fact, eating in public (planned or not) comes with so many rules and regulations it’s a wonder we all do it so often. For instance, eating on dates. How to deal with this circumstance is entirely down to the individual and although I much bemoan it, the experience can be very different for girls than boys. On first dates many girls will want to give the impression of being a ‘lady’ (pronounced with the Little Britain accent) and as such will order something small and healthy or pick delicately at their meal, feigning fullness after half a salmon fillet whilst internally fighting the urge to grab their partners steak and ram it square in their own mouths. This, however stereotypical it may sound, I am sure will have been experienced by the majority of women. However it is a damn sight better than not eating at all on a date, drinking far too much to mask any sense of nervous awkwardness and thus showing the ‘fun’ side of yourself all too quickly. It is also possible to inadvertently not eat a lot on a date; perhaps the conversation is so involving and exciting that you lose interest in anything else than the other opposite you. Or it may be that you are pretending to be this engaged in your date but what is actually preoccupying all of your thought is the black matter that could potentially be stuck in your teeth. What should happen (and I am sure is the case with many) is that we order exactly what we fancy, eat as much of it as we like and enjoy ourselves. Because if your date cared at all about the level of your appetite or the speck of basil at the top of your front tooth, quite frankly, they don’t deserve to be having dinner with you anyway. They don’t understand you and they never will.
And at this point I realise that to many this could seem like a man bashing rant from a woman possessed and I should clarify that this is not the case, far from it. Men, and particularly young men, have stepped up to the plate (no pun intended) in terms of the culinary arts and from a recent graduate perspective, the sudden surge of interest in food from young male students has only been a great thing. Let the boys cook! As long as we get to eat it. And as long as the cocksure toss of whatever’s in the pan lives up to what they make it out to be.
