Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are

It was really cold when we took this photo. They also refused to let me airbrush it.

I was on a date at a Scandinavian-themed restaurant. I pored over every inch of the menu, thrilled that reindeer was an entrée. My dining partner, on the other hand, zeroed in immediately on his dinner.

“I’ll have the sirloin,” he told the waiter.

After the waiter took the order, he explained, “I always order the equivalent of steak and potatoes.”

I winced. The contrast between our attitudes couldn’t have been greater.

Though some might chalk it up to an isolated quirk, I’ve found that our dining choices and table manners are a little too revealing.

The unconscious seems to surface at the dinner table, somewhere between the bread basket and the main course. Sharing food with people has a way of exposing our desires, our insecurities, and our aspirations.

Food, for some, expresses a need for comfort. “I had one girlfriend who only ate at chain restaurants,” a friend of mine confided. “She liked how she always knew exactly what to expect.” Yet another girlfriend of his judged restaurants solely by how clean the bathrooms were, which pretty much ruled out cheap Asian eateries.

I remember one group vacation where one guy refused to eat anywhere except McDonald’s, Wendy’s, or IHOP. Even the most inoffensive of Chinese dim sum items—donuts dusted in sugar, egg tarts—were about as appetizing as baby seal blubber. He eventually had to excuse himself to order a burger.

For others, dining is an expression of who they’d like to be, rather than an assertion of who they are.