Dating and Dining

Those who have perused my recent articles will know that I recently married a man who is as much a sensualist about food as I am. Those close to me are also aware that I discarded a potent and deeply considered anti-marriage stance in order to do so, and that the catalyst for my philosophical shift was an insistent desire to share food with this man for the rest of my life (coupled with a realization that weddings are not a necessary part of marriages).

However, the path to connubial cuisine was paved with a few significant others—and a slew of insignificant others — whose tastes differed from mine as much as the taste of ketchup differs from that of ripe tomato. In retrospect, although I might not have recognized it at the time, I have been able to discover something about why the relationships inevitably failed by looking at the differences between the way that I thought about food and the way that each of them did.

Seth was my high school sweetheart, and for the two years we were together I spent as much time as possible at his house, which was partially a tortured attempt to avoid my own. His parents were true American cooks, and we gorged ourselves on spaghetti and meatballs with sauce that had simmered all day, Dad’s shepherd’s pie, and gingerbread (the cake, not the cookie) with whipped cream. The food was more psychologically nourishing than it was healthy, but at that time, the love that went into making the food was what fed me.

However, going out was a different matter. Seth professed feelings of discomfort in the types of dining establishments that boasted accoutrements like multiple forks and tablecloths, so the only restaurants we frequented were Friendly’s, Ponderosa and Wendy’s. Each time we went to dinner I ached to try something romantic, to show a pretense of sophistication or try dishes with names I couldn’t pronounce, but he refused to explore the few exotic options our small town had to offer. I became deeply acquainted with buffet-style dining and also with a variety of sandwiches made with American cheese, iceberg lettuce and rubbery bacon. I believe that if we’d stayed together, I would be wrist-deep in “Shake-n-Bake” instead of writing this article.

Then there was Ryan. Ryan was the first tortured artist type that I had the pleasure of being with, and it was he who introduced me to the cinema. We spent weeks lying in his bed and watching films by Truffault, Hitchcock and Peckinpah. Ryan also introduced me to the world of severe stomach disorders — he was afflicted with bleeding ulcers, the pain of which was one of the reasons we spent so much time lying still. Nevertheless, Ryan was a trouper: The amount of smoke that blew through his body on a daily basis could have cured ten hams, and his beer intake actually impacted the price of malt and barley on the U.S. market. In addition, he tended to use food as a mere vehicle for mayonnaise-based condiments. I believe that food is supposed to be a joy, not a torture device, but Ryan seemingly felt a Dosteoevskian need to punish himself, and instead of psychological self-flagellation chose food-induced prostration. I felt sickened by the self-loathing he expressed through his food and beverage choices, and thus it didn’t last.

More recently — and even after realizing my desire to be with a partner who is a daring diner — I accidentally fell for a vegan. I was a 26-year old (non-traditional) college senior and Nathan was a young philosophy professor with blue eyes and a dashing tendency towards baldness, who had been roped into working with me on an extensive treatise about ethical eating. As a passionate defender of eco-conscious carnivory, I found it tantalizing to work with a man so dispassionate about his food that he ate plain organic black beans for lunch, gleaming and slimy, straight from the can.

One day, relaxing at home after a session of witty wrangling over whether or not fish have the ability to suffer psychological anguish, I found myself beginning to fantasize about him. This was not the kind of fantasy that involved ascending the curved, narrow staircase to his office dressed in thigh-high black leather boots and a trench coat; rather, it consisted of a complicated scenario in which I prepared roasted duck with a balsamic glaze and mesclun salad accompanied by a wedge of achingly aromatic sheep cheese drizzled with honey. He couldn’t refuse a taste, of course, and he ate shreds of meat, whimpering gently, as after years of abstinence his tongue was caressed by crisp golden duck fat. Of course it didn’t work out like that — he had a girlfriend, or maybe that was just an excuse to avoid dating a meat-eater. Unfortunately, this means that I will never be able to test out my ultra-scientific conjecture that vegans are either deficient or amazing in bed (deficient because they can stand not to eat some of the most delightful tasting things on earth, which calls into question their ability to be truly sensual, or amazing because they channel into sex all of the extra intensity that people like me put into food).

If you judged my dietary sensibilities by those of these men from my past, you would not expect me to be a food writer. But I am. And since I am, I find it fascinating to examine the role that food plays in modern Americans’ attempts to find their soul mates — and how it played out in how I found mine. Dating seems to revolve primarily around dining in either casual or fancy environments, sitting enticingly close in darkened venues that forbid conversation, or trying to decide whether it’s a good idea to act on the inevitable sexual tension. Of these three activities, I am convinced that eating together is the one that can truly provide the most persuasive evidence of a person’s essence.

Suzanne Podhaizer is a freelance food writer from Burlington, Vermont, and a columnist for The Gilded Fork.  Her favorite activities include cooking with local meat, cheese, and produce, and snapping up all of the exciting culinary texts from local used-book stores before anybody else can get their hands on them