Fucking the way you eat

Men fuck the way we eat!

No, I didn’t read this in any research journal; my partner and I thought of it over the kitchen table, eating.

One of my staunch New Year resolutions is not to stop eating. I grew up around simmering cazuelas, oregano, the sting of cumin, the fragrance of cilantro and dollops of gossip, a world before CTV’s Dr Rhonda Low pronounced anything edible a drug. It was a world layered thick with the estrogen butter of women now imitated by the Nigellas, Marthas, and Rachel Rays in the current HD harem of foodies.

My New Year resolution is about manners; it is to watch the way I eat with others and watch how they eat with me.

I mean, some men are simply disgusting: they chew loudly, swaying their thick lips to and fro and sideways, barely holding the juices in their hooves, their pupils dilated, their teeth slowly sinking into blue rare flesh with no remorse — these men are hot!

My favourite troglodytes chew on the drive, open-legged, in their Dickies, in between shifts at the construction site, the garbage pickups, after putting out fires or while closing a dubious deal with the tip of their index like a firing pin.

And horror! Once they are done, they light up.

Think about it. Men fuck they way we eat.

I see them on the Drive with their prissy belts and orderly jackets — tight, everything tight — chewing anxiously on the corner of an energy bar, sipping herbal decaf like señoritas — shudder!

I’ve seen men self-consciously gnawing on things suspiciously similar to what their accessory pets eat (or is it their pet they are nibbling!). I see other men slithering a thick tongue into a shawarma as if it was a live organ leaking savory tahini and amba.

Which man do you prefer? Which way do you eat?

Do you like the Szechuan restaurant at 12th and Commercial where the food is spicy and a bit slimy and the companions at a table are careful but slightly ravenous? Or are you more into the greasy joints around Commercial and Broadway where First Nations’ kids have sloppy fun with their transfat in cardboard cones, not overly concerned about tomorrow?

Around the grocery stores, I like to savour the inexpensive foreplay to the cooking and eating. At Super Valu, Donald’s Market, or El Sureño one can get a whiff of what will be cooking, and how he will eat it; simply check out their baskets on the line out.

The real action is on tables horizontally in eateries like Clove — where the sweet Joshua will ply any palate with a ginger martini — and Koko’s where you can catch something raw between your prosthetic chopsticks and deep throat it without a gasp.

At Sebs, Ch’i, Havana, or Timbre a number of patrons are of the metrosexual mid to late twenties persuasion, James Blunt sexy, limber and lanky but somewhat preoccupied with offending and with early onset prudishness about eating things they are not prepared to kill; those make for finicky eaters.

Recently, while dining at Me & Julio, we saw a starving young boy’s eyes follow languidly his boyfriend’s handling his piece of meat as if it would break if he held it too firmly.

I have little patience for affected eating habits. I grew up in a generation where licking one’s fingers was seduction, a prelude to trouble — not a reason to break up over unsanitary habits.

One bitter tongue would say that I learned the five second rule in a bathhouse. I say, el cuerpo pide salsa!

Watch out for those who treat their food as if they are surgeons, priests, or detectives. If they look at it with detachment; take it apart like one dismantles a gadget, or ritualize every neck-craning from the plate to their tight lips as if it was a sacred wafer (not the warm oily spring roll you like), you might get some wholesome feeding but no seduction.

If he insists on washing his hands between courses, flossing, and never burps his contentment, you might be in for impeccable manners and little satisfaction. Certainly, such men will never suffer Montezuma’s Revenge, or get any infections, but lo comido y lo bailado no me lo quita nadie, Latinos say — what one drinks and eats one never forgets.

Call me a brute, but there is something about men who eat with some abandon and ferocity that I find edgy and arousing. See them devouring MSG at the On Lok and our slightly irked policemen swallowing cliché donuts at some Tim Horton’s. The action gets into full swing in those locales where you have to take your meal with your hands like the Red Burrito and the fabulous Harambe.

How do I eat?

In private I have no manners; I learned to eat in the kitchen — sneaky, fast, rapacious, and slightly predatory.

Like many in Latin countries, and amongst the working class, I see nothing wrong with talking while chewing a handful of something dark and fattening, something gooey and a bit tart that sticks to the buds. Whatever table manners I have, whatever acquired tastes for exotic edibles, those were imparted to me during adolescence by older gay gourmandise — silly old Chilean notions of upper class manners just to pass as chaste in public. I recall them in job interviews that require sharing a meal with prospective employers. When left to my own devices, I am a survivor, an equal opportunity eater; I will catch anything with a pulse and devour it.

Is this thinking too shallow for you? Well, you let me know the next time you date a hot man who wants to have a garlic breath make out after. You’ll recoil in shock?

What is your preference, manners or sustenance?

Someone eating crazy like Hedley (make me a cannibal!), orderly like constable chief Jim Chu (whom I suspect harbours a tang) or someone like Gordon Campbell who never delivers the entrée because he is stuck on the cocktails?