Can You Handle Some Reindeer?

“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” —Brillat-Savarin

I was on a date at a Scandinavian-themed restaurant. I pored over every inch of the menu, thrilled that reindeer was an entrée. My dining partner, on the other hand, zeroed in immediately on his dinner.

“I’ll have the sirloin,” he told the waiter.

After the waiter took the order, he explained, “I always order the equivalent of steak and potatoes.”

I winced. The contrast between our attitudes couldn’t have been greater.

Though some might chalk it up to an isolated quirk, I’ve found that our dining choices and table manners are a little too revealing.

The unconscious seems to surface at the dinner table, somewhere between the bread basket and the main course. Sharing food with people has a way of exposing our desires, our insecurities, and our aspirations.

Food, for some, expresses a need for comfort. “I had one girlfriend who only ate at chain restaurants,” a friend of mine confided. “She liked how she always knew exactly what to expect.” Yet another girlfriend of his judged restaurants solely by how clean the bathrooms were, which pretty much ruled out cheap Asian eateries.

I remember one group vacation where one guy refused to eat anywhere except McDonald’s, Wendy’s, or IHOP. Even the most inoffensive of Chinese dim sum items—donuts dusted in sugar, egg tarts—were about as appetizing as baby seal blubber. He eventually had to excuse himself to order a burger.

For others, dining is an expression of who they’d like to be, rather than an assertion of who they are.

I find this particularly true of friends who talk constantly about trying new things. If you can drag them away from their homework and to the dinner table, the story’s a bit different.

When placed into an unfamiliar situation or faced with unfamiliar food, some will renege on their supposed thirst for adventure. One dining companion, when confronted with a real menu rather than an abstract idea, suddenly had a litany of food dislikes, phobias, and only seemed to trust things with chicken in them.

Others use eating exotic food more as a way to bolster their self-image rather than as a mode of pleasure. I remember a lunch where my friend seemed indifferent to the Thai dishes he was sampling. “I love trying new things,” he kept saying, as if stuck on repeat. Whether the food tasted good seemed irrelevant.

Then there’s the question of sharing. You can glean a lot about someone’s generosity and sense of ownership from their table conduct. I was raised in a Chinese family, which means family-style dining and free range to grab food off of someone’s plate or to drop a morsel onto theirs.

I’ve become wary of the idea of “family style” with some people. I somehow always end up eating the less delicious entrée. One time, I’d ordered an offbeat choice of pickled fish. She’d chosen lobster and codfish. “We’ll just split so we can try both,” she proposed. I agreed.

My order came, looking gray, smelly, and slug-like. Hers, bathed in a rosy cream sauce, smelled delicious. I got to try a forkful of it, but “splitting” might have been a generous verb to use.

Fine dining can be the most suggestive of psychological minefields. Dining at a high-end restaurant is to pretend, despite our misgivings, that we belong there.

I had one forgettable date at an elegant Mexican venue that, in addition to an impressive taco bar, featured a pumpkin and goat cheese chili relleno with a pomegranate reduction .

He didn’t seem to enjoy the food so much as the feeling of privilege it gave him. Dinner conversation consisted entirely of how much money he’d made, the bankers he wanted to impress, and the models he’d dated. My company felt entirely superfluous. For him, ordering a lavish meal at a fancy restaurant was a gloss for insecurity, a way to feel important for a few hours.

Maybe my view is too dark. Everyone likes to eat—in their own way. But watch your dining companions closely; you might learn a few things.