Food Rules Revisited (a Thanksgiving reminder)

As Thanksgiving approaches, I feel that my food touching rules should be revisited. I have revised some of them a tad, but for the most part I have left them alone because they are like classics. They don't change over time. Keeping your food in nice tasty little spaces is a good idea. It doesn't offend anyone to see a neat plate, but it can make all the difference to myself and others like me to see a messy touchy plate. I think a national ad campaign is in order. Remember the owl from the 70's that said “give a hoot, don't pollute”? My next technical writing feat is to create an ad that will raise people's awareness to this truly important issue!
1. Gravy is for Potatoes, it can touch meat, and also be poured over stuffing. That is it. Gravy is not for salad, rolls, or vegetables. Gravy should also not be allowed to roam freely over your plate. Make a well in the center of your potatoes and use potatoes as a wall to protect the rest of your plate.
2. Cold food and warm food should not touch. I prefer to enforce this rule by using a separate plate for salads. Baked beans touching potato salad is just plain gross. As a matter of fact, I'll go out on a limb here and say that baked beans should be eaten from a bowl where they are kept self-contained.
3. Milk should only be allowed to touch cereal that can stay crunchy long enough to eat it. This means LIFE cereal will always be eaten dry. LIFE tends to get soggy in the box sitting next to the carton of milk...so keep it away. Granola is good.
4. Jello is a food that can NEVER touch other foods. Jello deserves its own plate. Some jello can touch other jello, but not all jello can touch. Jello must be kept away from potatoes and rolls especially! Pink potatoes=bad
5. Saucy food should be kept separate from other foods (see gravy and baked beans rules) Barbeque sauce, runny saucy stuff etc. can touch accompanying side dish where appropriate (rice for example) but again, is not meant to roam freely over the contents of your plate.
6. A casserole is an appropriate example of food mixing, but don't let the casserole concept fool you into mixing things that just don't go together. It is NOT okay to put all your thanksgiving leftovers into a casserole dish, pour gravy over the top, bake it, and call it dinner.
7. Pasta salads can "lightly" touch each other as long as they have similar dressings on them. Ranch or mayo based dressings can lightly touch each other, but not italian dressing based salads.
8. When eating at a buffet, especially at a restaurant, make multiple trips. Do not make one pass through and put everything on one plate. They actually pay people to clean dishes, so lets keep these people employed by using lots of dishes. They also keep lots of little salad dishes around so that you can keep your salads separate.
9. I am always environmentally friendly, but even mother nature wants me to use 2 paper plates at a barbeque. One plate for warm food and one for cold food (keep jello alone though, even if it means taking a 3rd plate).
10. Bread, chips and crispy crunchies, should not be used to sop up excess runny food on your plate. I like to keep my roll off my plate as it wants to absorb any liquid nearby.
11. Dessert deserves it's own plate, or a napkin by the side of your dinner plate. Don't rush your dessert experience by putting your dessert on your dinner plate. It just makes your dinner feel less important, and risks dinner retaliation. Your dinner could actually jump out and smother your dessert!
12. Do not EVER pour milk in a glass that has had juice or punch in it, or the other way around. Wash out your glass before switching drinks. Don't put ice in milk either, that is icky (true, I don't drink milk, but the concept seems wrong)
13. Syrup should adhere to the same rules as gravy and sauce. It is meant to go over pancakes, waffles, and french toast. It should never be allowed to touch eggs or breakfast potato type foods.
14. Tossed green salad should be eaten cold. I know that isn't necessarily a touching rule, but if your green salad is close enough to your warm food that it absorbs some of that heat and becomes warm, that is a problem.
15. Section plates were an inspired invention. I love sectioned plates and use them wherever possible. The caution with sectioned plates is that you should make sure food doesn't spill over the sections and mix together. Ooh, and one more rant on this topic. Don't buy TV dinners that have a dessert in one of their sections, it is virtually impossible to keep the dessert separate when heating and eating the rest of the dinner. (see dessert separate rule)
16. Encapsulated snack foods can touch but should not be placed in your mouth at the same time. An example of this would be skittles and M & M's, they can touch, but don't eat them together. An exception to this would be trail mix, a delicious food touching adventure. If a snack could possibly melt or otherwise become un-encapsulated, then you should not risk allowing it to touch other snack foods. (peanut butter cups, candy bars etc) Oh, and don't put jelly beans in popcorn or potato chips, or trail mix. Jelly beans could possibly be the jello of snack foods, allowed to touch other jelly beans but eaten separate from other snacks.
17. A chocolate fountain does not give you license to dip anything within reach. Do NOT dip pickles, potato chips, or other obvious poor choices. I don't understand the dipping mentality...keep your wits about you people!
18. Same goes for tempura batter and deep frying. A bowl of tempura and a vat of oil doesn't mean it's okay to fry just anything.
19. Another area where seemingly sensible people lose their minds is an ice cream sundae bar. Don't put all sorts of non-mixy foods together in an ice cream sundae and then pour chocolate fudge over all. Try where possible to keep ice cream saucy toppings separate. A little leeway can be given here, but not much. Use some caution.
20. Crackers can be eaten with soup, but I think it is unacceptable to crunch a whole package of crackers into your soup at once and then let them sit in your soup until they are just a mass of soggy ick. Crunch a cracker or two over your soup, eat that and then crunch some more. Cereal type rules apply here, crackers should be able to stay crunchy until they are eaten.
21. Don't put cinnamon in Chocolate, even a little, it's icky. Cinnamon is not the universal seasoning. It should not be used like salt.
22. Don't put chocolate in Chili, or any other savory dinner fare. Chocolate should never be "hidden" in your food. If you want to hide something in your food, make it spinach, or zucchini, something that needs to be hidden for your children (or yourself) to eat it. If you have to hide chocolate in order to eat it, seek help immediately!
23. Don't mix peanut butter and cheese (even if it's fake cheese, and possibly fake peanut butter (as in those unnaturally orange cheese and peanut butter crackers). If you want to combine crunchy and peanut butter, eat a nutter butter or a butterfinger. I'm trying to be reasonable here, so if you must mix cheese with sweet stuff, make it cream cheese.
24. On the "hiding" side of things, don't put things that clearly don't go together into a blender and call it a smoothie. Most fruits can be used in a smoothie, but don't go crazy and start adding peanut butter, or nuts of any sort. Don't hide veggies in your fruit smoothie. V-8 has successfully done this, but they are professionals with years of experience. You are a beginner, don't do it.
25. This one should go without saying, but apparently I need to spell everything out for some. If you have mixed your sodas together (very naughty, childish and bad idea) and the resulting color is gray, don't drink it. Don't eat gray food, this is a sign that something in the preparation has gone horribly wrong. Rainbow sherbet isn't my favorite and there is a reason why: when the sherbet all melts together, the resulting color is...wait for it...wait for it...GRAY!
There you have it, 25 simple rules to better eating. Be kind, rewind. If you have made poor food touching choices in the past, it isn't too late to make a change. It may even extend your life (OK, a little dramatic, but you never know!).