Do you wonder why, when you sit down to eat,
you start twisting in your chair and drumming
on the table with your digits?
Because of dysphoria, which is a state of dissatisfaction,
anxiety, restlessness or the fidgets,
Which is caused by anticipation of dysphagia, or
difficulty in swallowing,
Which is caused by two hazards of dining with
friends today, namely, the following:
Hazard number one is the hostess who fancies
herself as a gourmet, or should I say
gourmette;
Hers is a table at which even between courses
you first take out and then hastily put back
your cigarette.
When does a housewife blossom into a Brillat-
Savarin? I will tell you when;
It is when she has a newspaper or magazine
clipping, a clove of garlic, and a Rock Cornish
hen
Herbs are another status symbol, so as you
work your way through the tossed epicurean
forage,
Why, you are supposed to detect and appreciate
the difference between the oregano and the
saxifrage, and the chervil and the borage.
Frankly, I don't know whether I'd less rather eat
them or guess them;
If these be Herbs, I'm willing for Herb to
repossess them.
Hazard number two is no gourmet, she is the
backbone of the economy in this land of the
free;
This hostess serves nothing that isn't displayed
wrapped in cellophane at the supermarket
exactly as advertised on her TV.
Even before by the first mouthful your palate is
mortified.
You know you will be confronted with substances
presliced, processed, tenderized, polyunsaturated,
dehydrated, or fortified.
You are in an evil humor;
If, as Sir Winston has said, the good is the enemy
of the best, so is the just-as-good the enemy of
the bemused consumer.
This truth is so evident that even the advertiser
will occasionally resort to it as a final
expedient;
Witness the less expensive spread that is promoted
as better than other less expensive
spreads because it boasts of containing some
of the more expensive spread as an ingredient.
You know your desire is foolhardy, it is the
essence of foolhardihoodness,
But you desire to eat something that tastes like
something, rather than something you are
told will zestfully stimulate your taste buds
with its mouth-watering goodness.
Which last is an eventuality not to be trifled with;
I heard of one consumer who consumed a product
so mouth-watering that his taste buds got
over-mouth-watered and grew to the size of
chrysanthemums, which he was stifled with.
This is the only exception I can give
To the paradoxical rule that the more insipid and
unappetizing our diet, the longer we seem to
live.