THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 29, 1995 TAG: 9505290046
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
An endearing trait most women share is an impulse, when eating, to want to have everybody taste what everybody else is eating.
This compulsion traces to the mother of all mothers, who wasn't satisfied until Adam - who much preferred grapes - tried the apple.
``Just a teensy, eensy bit,'' Eve teased; next thing he knew they were thrown out of the place.
Ah well, life with Eve was more daring than in preordained Eden.
Men, methodical, can't fathom women's tentative approach to the menu. A fellow ponders, as if investing in stock, what to order for dessert only to hear his superior other say, ``I'll just take a taste of yours.''
There is a sense of sociability to their readiness to share.
She waves a forkful near his face, a mother bird cramming food in a fledgling, urging, ``Try this!''
A young colleague says women shun a dish they really want; and shrink sometimes from appearing, as she put it, piggy.
She agreed that often they aim to spare the strain on a partner's purse, which is noble. But some, she said, are glad to relent.
A local headmaster, given to analysis, theorized that over the eons women have become genetically programmed to self-denial of food for sake of the family.
Their sacrifice burdens men who don't feel like eating if someone else isn't or is holding back out of some consideration or other.
Ordering lunch for an interview, I spied on the menu cream pepper biscuits with peanut-fed ham. But the interviewee said, Oh, no, she couldn't possibly eat that much.
So I ordered four extra - for later, I said - and nudged them within her reach; to my relief, she ate them.
For dessert, there was lemon chess pie, a favorite; but she was stuffed, she said. At my signal, the waitress brought two slices.
After taking ``just one bite,'' she said, ``Oh well,'' and finished it. Much nicer than lunching with a martyr.
Men who are chefs at home can be overbearing eating out. One took charge of a recent table for eight in a fine Chinese restaurant.
When I asked for vegetable chow mein, the others jeered at me and made mad forays on the menu.
The food arrived freighted on a cart. A waiter placed it before us. When he left, our chef redistributed the layout, seizing plates here and there, saying, ``You've got to try this and you must have that!'' - until the place filled with flying saucers as I clung for my life to chow mein.
The pace slowed. Relaxing, I was lifting a forkful when the diner to my right, exclaiming ``Here, don't be a spoilsport!,'' grabbed my plate, and slapped a gob on it.
He handed it to the next in line who complied. Around the table, all were off-loading on my plate whatever they disdained. When it returned home, everything was on it except vegetable chow mein.
``Try it,'' said our chef as I gazed at the melange, ``you'll like it!'' ILLUSTRATION: Drawing
by CNB