Page 22 - Seniorstoday Aug 2024 Issue

Alaimentary
Fork not the Fingers
Eating with our fingers has a conducive impact on the enjoyment, digestion and
absorption of food for our overall health and happiness, writes Nagesh Ali
I love my pizza, who does not? The
sumptuous circle of a food, famed and
flamed to have its origin in Naples, Italy,
all appealing and appetising and slathered
with toppings, indeed makes for a delicious
square meal all over the globe. Take a bow,
Neapolitans, for introducing this flatbread
to us and giving us all a generous midriff.
I devour this caloric indulgence and relish
it in the company of family and friends in
the innumerable pizza outlets dotting the
Mumbai metropolis. I always ask for a
fork and knife to eat it, invariably inviting
killer looks of admonishment and derision
from my companions with a dismissive
‘how can you eat a pizza with a fork and
knife’. Quite simply, I enjoy my cuts of
pizzas with the toppings intact as I slide
them into my mouth and savour it. Trying
eating a pizza with your fingers without
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Image courtesy:TourdeFarm.in
the toppings sliding off or the cheese not
dripping over and generally having messy
remnants around your mouth or colouring
your clothes all red and yellow. Yes,
eating it with your fingers indeed makes
it that much more relishable and I would
unabashedly admit that I eat it with my
fingers when I order in.
I recall the hoary times of taking my
ingenue of a doting mother for dinner
outings at fancy restaurants. She always
used to feel uncomfortable going to these
places and used to resist these gourmand
experiences though she herself was a great
chef-at-home and knew her onions to know
what good food is. Her singular discomfort
was eating with her hands, as at home, in
the snobbish etiquette driven surroundings
where forks, knives and spoons were de
rigueur. Quite simply, she was not used