Food for thought

{Pardon pun above; danger signal goes up ahead on another silly theory of life}

Does the speed at which you eat tell us something about you? This was something that struck me today. A friend's placid pace was commented upon, at which I remembered that once I was a top-ranked player on the slow-consumption charts but these days things have gone horribly wrong.

In among a pack of exceptionally slow-eating cousins, I was the slowest. The crown kept returning home after the showpiece marriage lunches with the next pa.ngat (cycle of serving) on my row being held up on account of my cole-slow impressions. Did it (like some art filmmaker might opine) mirror an internal state of mind? These days, I am wolfing down my food like a hare-on-paranoid-steroids. In the last couple of years at the office lunch table, I was no competition to the usual bottlenecks, unless if it was some discussion or storytelling that needed a lot of contribution from me. What kind of a disrespectful gastronomical speed-fiend have I turned into?

I am stilling waiting for the magic food pill - the one that gives you all the vitamins and other stuff that MSc Nutrition courses are often telling the deaf world about, in addition to deluding your stomach into contented fullness with an optional Capital of Senegal to boot. This has been a childhood dream which provided much mental chewing gum while going about the mundane business of eating. The dream still lurks in the subconscious these days, but the attendant mental tranquillity seems to have ducked under too.

All the people I know who are lazy eaters also seem to be more relaxed in life. I used to have it and I want it back. To my friend I can only say: stay that way and wait for me - we'll munch our way while the sun sets in the yonder desserts.