Are You... What You Eat?

Do you prefer meats or vegetables? Elaborate dishes or simple ones? Whatever your taste in food, recent studies have proved that the kind of food you choose reveals, to a great degree, your true personality...

The wife of a certain employee spent most of her night awake, thinking about what she would serve to the head of the department in which her husband works, who was invited to dinner at their home the following evening. Her ingenuity yielded several appetizing varieties of assorted dishes, but she noticed that her guest left the table hungry, and her husband likewise — for she had served unusual dishes, and it had never crossed her mind that her guest was afraid to eat what was unfamiliar to him. As for her, her pain was great at the utter failure she met with, even though she is a skilled cook with long experience in preparing all kinds of appetizing dishes.

The months passed while our friend pondered how to make up for her failure and prove to her husband's chief that she was capable of pleasing her guests... So she ventured to invite him to dinner a second time, and this time she served him cutlets with potatoes and fruit pie — and her success was dazzling...

Our individual personality has a great influence on our habits in the foods we take; and these habits, in turn, reveal to a large extent the truth of that personality...

The Social Survey Committee for the study of eating habits in America carried out a broad study of many members of the public, of the foods they like and dislike, and was astonished at the great disparity of taste among members of a single people. Its study proved that the kind of food a person likes reveals his true personality to a large degree: is he a person who loves formalities, or simplicity; is he easygoing of nature, or complicated; conceited and withdrawn into himself, or helpful and loving toward others; is he ambitious, and what are his aims?!

The committee found that people who do strenuous work, such as mountain climbers, like to eat meat, while reformers incline toward eating vegetables; the nervous of temperament prefer light foods, while the emotional resort to sweets or alcohol; as for warm-hearted housewives, they devote themselves to feeding their guests more than they need.

Place your order!! Let us suppose, by way of amusement, that you entered a restaurant and found on the menu the six meals below, all at one price. Which of them would you order? And what is the second choice you would prefer?? Your taste discloses some of the influences in your personality. Turn to page (50), which explains the meaning of your order.

The Menu

1 - Assorted appetizers
Mutton stew
A cake with liqueur inside

2 - Pea soup
Roast veal with string beans
Potatoes, then chocolate ice cream

3 - Fish
Cutlet with fried potatoes
Apple pie

4 - Tomato juice
A plate of vegetables with eggs
Fruit compote

5 - Eggs à la russe
Kofta on skewers
Fruit

6 - Cream of vegetable soup
Chicken cooked in cream
Custard

Among the people the committee studied were a married couple who prefer to eat "impromptu," as the wife says. The man is a professor at one of the universities, odd in character and eccentric in his habits; his clothes most often show that they have not been sent to the presser's for a long while. The wife, by contrast, is a cheerful woman, of a certain intelligence, who spends her time writing books for children; her house appeared neglected, its things scattered here and there... She declared that she and her husband take their meals beside the fireplace, to the strains of music...

As for the one who prefers to have roast with baked potatoes, vegetables, and a lettuce-and-tomato salad, it shows that he is a conservative person, fond of formalities and of an orderly life.

Among the signs of conservatism in some people: one of them once sat down at a table and ordered roast with potatoes and peas. He ate the whole piece of meat before taking anything of the potatoes, then devoured all the potatoes before touching the peas...

The person who always boasts that he eats everything is a person wholly turned toward others, a lover of society and ready to serve it. He is the one who lingers at the table to talk; he is that individual who is always asking for someone to go with him and share his food, or a glass of beer, or a cup of coffee.

As for the one who eats little, there is no doubt that he is nervous of temperament — his stomach cannot hold a large quantity of food — and he is, moreover, a man of much work and little patience in the course of his daily life.

And just as the inclination to food differs among individuals, it differs also between males and females... The restaurants that ladies frequent are rather like tea rooms, while the men's restaurants are like grand salons...

A woman most often prefers chicken with some vegetables, and the foods that keep her from stoutness, while men prefer the hefty dishes of meat.

Eating habits differ even among girls themselves. The working girl who labors by day while waiting for a suitable chance to marry prefers foods containing some spices and avoids heavy dishes... while the one who wants to cut her own path through life prefers the heavy foods.

As for why the girl about to be married prefers foods made mostly of milk — it is because in milk there is a symbol: the home, that safe place where she finds rest and care.

In most cases our taste in food changes as our ambitions change. There was a student at one of the schools who was given to the habit of taking light foods; when he moved on to the life of toil, he trained himself to take heavy dishes with some alcohol, so as to keep pace with his friends at work and not be a stranger to their ways.

A customer enters some restaurant and, after looking over the menu, orders what is not on it, or asks the waiter in what year the wine was aged, and wears his hat on the back of his head... About such a person no two people disagree: he is a lover of show and of attracting notice.

And there are certain personalities, dry of temperament, who use food to express their drawing nearer to others, as did Jacob Malik, Russia's delegate at the United Nations, when he invited the members of the organization to a generous banquet after having been cold to them for a whole month; and the banquet was sumptuous to a degree that astonished the guests...

Among the difficult matters that face a newly married couple is the problem of food, for each of them may have grown accustomed to kinds of food different from what the other likes. The wife's self-sacrifice and her love of pleasing her husband drive her to train herself to like what he likes, and to master its cooking...

If the couple are happy in their marriage, we find them quickly agreeing on what each of them likes and dislikes, and coming to an understanding on this question; and if the matter is the reverse, they make food a cause for stirring up troubles and misunderstanding...

And the mistress of the house, who is responsible for the kind of food served to the family, must not exploit her responsibility in order to dominate her family and rule over it; rather, it is wise for her to return to the old dishes she knows her husband prefers above others, while serving alongside them a small quantity of a new dish by way of trial. The husband is then assured that his wife is truly working to please him... for among the signs of estrangement between husband and wife are the husband's distaste for what the wife serves, and his constant criticism of her way of cooking...

It is said that stout men like to encourage the saying that the fat of body are cheerful, placid folk whom nothing in the affairs of life troubles. Science has lately discovered that the person who eats more than he needs — as most stout people do — reveals by this act to others that he is unhappy within. The eminent scholar Dr. Lawrence Brown of Oberlin University described heavy eaters as follows:

"Those who are given to great gluttony are the failures in their married lives, the ones weary of life, the failures in their work, and those with an inferiority complex... By this they are searching for a way to satisfy themselves and to cover up their deficiency — and this is the easiest of ways! As for those who are always at peace with themselves, they rarely eat more than they can manage."

An individual may change his mind about many new foods and grow accustomed to taking them, if he is one of those who travel and roam a great deal; but however a man's taste in food may shift, he returns again and again to the foods he has grown used to, which he prefers above all others, and which are a great means of expressing his personality.

Our personality is reflected in everything we do, to a great degree. And taking food constitutes a large and pleasant part of our daily life; therefore our personality is reflected in it more than in anything else!!!

1 - Shows that the person does not love formalities; that he is cheerful, easygoing of nature, and made for unconcern.

2 - Shows that the person is cautious and conservative, with simplicity of taste and an inclination to formalities in his relations with others; he loves order in his work and the finishing of each task separately.

3 - Shows the bodily strength of the one who orders it, and his love of strenuous activity such as mountain climbing and walking... and that the person knows his food must be nourishing...

4 - It is chosen by life's reformers... those who incline to the easier sort of tasks.

5 - Indicates persons who love show...

6 - Those who love the home and remember the days of childhood incline to choose it...