How do you eat yours?

It was last Tuesday night and all was well as far as I could see. I was surveying my domain, table two to table ten, from behind the plants. I wasn't perving I was taking stock of were I was in the service. A good waiter has to have Total Restaurant Awareness, it's similar to a Jedi's "force" but without the robes or lightsaber. Table two were fine, just finished their mains and were contemplating the sticky sweet goodies on the dessert menu. Four were yaking more than they were eating, more chow chow and less jabber jabber please. Six were talking too but not to each other, their Crackberries were constantly chirping away. Now, I had just served eight their main courses so I paid particular attention to them.

I'll have mine in a glass please....

She was having a rare steak with salad and he was having cod with herb mash. Nice choices. But as I stood there behind the rubber plant my look of waiterly concern turned to one of horror as the chap lifted his fish and plonked it on top of his mash. No great crime I hear you shout. But what followed next was a crime.

Lifting his fork he went at the cod and mash with the ferocity of a man angry at the world. His dining partner never batted an eyelid. Clearly she had witness this childlike behaviour before. He mixed, mashed, combined, and mingled the two foods together until there was no way of telling one from the other. The two elements had become one. He then took a big gulp of Sauvignon, rolled up his sleeves and proceeded to hoover this homogenous lump into his pie hole with a vim and vigor not witnessed since the end of my 24 hour fast for Africa in '88.

It was gruesome but still I couldn't stop watching. He had the plate cleared in under five minutes. I very much doubt any of it touched the sides on the way down. It's not a respectable way for adults to eat is it? I mean seriously, would you eat like that in public? What you do in the comfort and security of your own front room is one thing. I mean I could care less if you filter your food through a a sock in your own home but not in public eh.

But people do eat their food in the most peculiar of ways. There are some, like my cousin, who save the best bits to the end preferring to get the bothersome vegetables out of the way first, following with the potato du jour and finally building up to the exciting chicken kiev or what ever it happens to be. I find it odd. Then there are those who seem to be so scared of their food they chase it round the plate until they are sure it's dead. I've never been scared of my food, my ever expanding waistline being testament to this. There are those who spend a fucking eternity chewing. Round and round and round they go, when will they swallow? Nobody knows. Their food must be baltic by the time they get to the last fork full. And like yer man there are those who give short shrift to the idea of savouring the flavours and, for want of a better expression, bate it in til them like there is no tomorrow. Savages the lot of them.

I blame the parents and Adam Sandler. Obviously.

I take a bit of each food and a dab of whatever sauce accompanies it and pop it into my gob. I chew for a moment allowing the flavours to fill my mouth and then I swallow. Easy. It's the way god intended.

Call me a fascist if you must but anything else is wrong and you know it. If yer man comes in again I'm going to offer to stick his food in a blender and serve it in a glass.

So what about you?
Are you a masher, a chaser, a keep it to the ender, or what?