Reflections of a Foodie – Part I – Classification of Consumption Styles – A producer / consumer Model

I belong to the minority of people who live to eat. Sometimes I do wander aimlessly at what is the purpose of life and preach shamelessly on everything under the sun without an iota of practice, but good food awakens my senses, gets me back to my normal self and I return to my gluttonous self. I am a complete rice consumer. Morning, afternoon and night I can eat rice. This practice is questioned by people who seem to care about my wellness more than my own self, but as I grow older I have started listening to them not because I want to listen, but I have typically trained myself to follow the path of least conflict. I got so much involved in eating and I started to draw some interesting classifications and also about relationships in general. I would be sharing the below observations

·         Classification of consumption styles

·         Inferential Classification of relationship by consumption of Mixed Rice, particularly Curd Rice

If you are the type who dabble rice with a fork, spoon or associated accessory I seriously suggest that you back off now, as some of what follows may shock you or disgust you. If you do not mind being a little adventurous you can feel free to continue.

If you have never had a banana leaf meal, your chance to retreat from reading is now.

However, If you are the type who are not scared to get your hands dirty, despite what the corporate programs have thought you about how to eat rice in banana leaf, then you will have some fun and intended pun going through this.

For the context of the discussion, there are two roles. One is the ‘Producer’ which could be very well you or the person who is creating the food and the other is the ‘Consumer’. Producer takes on the additional role of serving the food as well. Also you may need to rewind back a good 10 to 20 years depending on the age group you are in to

The Hungry consumer

These folks belong to the school of thought, “Quantity is Quality”. They do not care to associate cause and effect, they will not be able to distinguish, differentiate or appreciate the nuances behind rice being hot and rasam being hot when eating rasam rice. All that matters to them is giving a look of ‘Give me more. I am done with this round’. The only key performance indicator behind this category is that their rate of consumption will be better than the rate at which you are able to serve them and they will take care to ensure that they have done justice to the food served. They generally wipe things clean and are contended till their next hunger pangs sets in. The sophisticated ones among these take care to complement and will care to say ‘sambar’ was good even though you would have silently reheated the additional sambar you got from your favourite joint like A2B or equivalent as part of your ordered morning breakfast, micro-waved it for the umpteenth time and served them. The poor things neither know nor care. Looking back, at some stages in life I go back to this category and it especially happens when I come deprived of rice from some extended overseas jaunts.

The Detached consumer

These folks belong to the school of thought,”There is a higher purpose in life that eating’ and generally scatter around the rice without a morsel getting into their mouth. They kind of draw patterns with the rice, their hand and test your patience. Well, the words are ‘Scratching the Surface’. They keep you guessing perennially and make you wonder if and when they will get through their courses of meal. They will dwell on every possible subject under planet earth, and kind of lose the immediate sense of purpose for which they are there. They neither have the speed nor the self awareness to get to speed. In this particular context they get into the quadrant of ‘I do not know that I do not know’ in the Johari Window. They may give you the impression that they are connoisseurs of food, because of their sound knowledge of theory, but it is only a matter of time before you figure them out. They will tend to taste everything, without getting the taste behind anything. No hard feelings, but this category of people simply belong to uplifting society and not bother about these smaller pleasures in life. Also they typically compliment the meal and the only trouble you really will have is figuring out the nature of the compliment they gave you. You can sense that internal feeling where you emit a deep sigh of relief, once these folks complete their courses of meal. These people get branded as ‘Poor consumers’ over a period of time.

The Conscious consumer

These folks belong to the school of thought, “Metrics driven eating” and unfortunately these are metrics not necessarily coming from their own selves. They are perpetually concerned about what others will say about their eating. Their rule sets of eating come from their various influencers, day of the week, time of the day, spouse, dietician, nutritionists, health indicators, what time they had their previous meals, and zillion other parameters. It really is a Big Data issue and they can fox any analytical model that you bring to them. For any alternative that you offer, they will come up with a counter offer that will baffle you. It is not they do not want to eat nor they cannot appreciate taste, but the reasoning they offer to you on when something is being served will make you wonder if law is their first profession.  You cannot but help feeling sorry for these folks, as they waste their potential in endless self-denial. At the end of the meal, their compliments are generally genuine, but inside they feel ‘Oh, shit I should taken more of that’! If you want to validate that you can try this question ‘Shall I pack and give’? Their first response will be ‘Yes’.

The Actualized consumer

These folks are the ‘real artists’. You could be wondering how gluttony can be classified as art, but if you have seen these folks in action, their immersion in eating is equivalent to any other performance, be it a singer at their best or any other professional when they are experiencing their moments of optimal experience. In my view, these people are the ‘Rahul Dravid’s’ of eating. If you have enjoyed the style, substance, speed and subtlety of the cover drive that Rahul Dravid so effortlessly managed time and again, you will fall in love with these kinds of consumers. Truth be told, great cooks need great consumers and every great cook recognizes a great consumer and vice versa. A kind of relationship begins to evolve between them and those memories stay. This category of people can simply smell out what is right and what is wrong with the food that is served. The way they consume indicates the quality of the food and continuous instantaneous feedback goes back to the producer. They can accurately predict when the food would have been prepared, what possible ingredients would have gone in, if it was steam cooked or micro-waved, if you were liberal or conservative in your mix of ingredients and... You may think that I have gone nuts, but next time around just venture out with this kind of person to a place where food is served(not ‘self-served’) and you will simply get the energy these individual radiate while eating or just watch this kind of person eating. It is unadulterated joy. The way in which this person eats a particular dish will give you the message that it is their favorite dish. Typically they do not give any explicit compliments nor complain, but somehow you would have got the telepathic feedback. If you are a great producer, these are the people whom you want to create for, experiment with and these are the people whom you wish come back time and again, and taste your creation.

May be there are more, but for me these are the classification.

If you want empirical proof of what I have shared, talk to someone whom you know as a great cook.

Looking back, this might look like a post out of time, as our seemingly busy lives consume us and we somehow are increasingly focused on what ‘Not to eat’ rather than the carefree style that we used to have in our earlier days. We seem to have the Hobson’s choice of ‘Eat what you like and get on the dreaded treadmill’ or ‘Exercise restrain over what you like’ so that you can avoid the feeling of getting on to the dreaded treadmill, as for me life seems to be on that dreaded treadmill and getting every morning onto that dreaded treadmill is the worst form of punishment one can inflict on one’s self. Well on the other hand self-discipline is about doing things that you do not like but you got to do anyway! So pick your choice.

To conclude this part, I would like you to reflect and take a small self-quiz and reflect upon

·         Can you identify with these classes of consumers or you have more variety of consumers?

·         If you are a producer, can you recognize your actualized consumers?

·         If you are a consumer, can you recognize your best producer?

·         Have you experienced those connected moments as a producer or consumer?

When I re-read this piece, it did seem to me like lot of absolute baloney, but I have managed to get away with baloney so far and I am sure this too shall pass.

If this sounded boring, my apologies but I promise to make amends with my upcoming piece of

Inferential Classification of relationship by consumption of Mixed Rice, particularly Curd Rice

I can guarantee that post will be more confusing and controversial than this J

Stay Tuned

Have fun