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Earth> Menu Disorder
Menu
Disorder
The Idea of
the Dining Cabin
By Shawn Lomax
Published March 2002
My first night as a flat-dweller in Barcelona,
and I end up in an Eastern European Falafel
house on the Ramblas. Just me and
five small pats of fried chick pea, a salad
that I will let convince me I’m doing
myself a favor, and pita bread over which
a fly has made some progress. This
the result of a food faff of historic proportions.
That I hadn’t been ready to face up
to postal-Hostal existence was one thing,
and perhaps understandable. After
all these things take time, and someone
else’s frying pan is the dark side
of a non-stick moon, at least until you
get to know him better. But the near
panic that had led me past one restaurant
after another, wild-eyed and fearful was
more difficult to explain.
I just didn’t want to belong in this
over lit world of obvious tourists, girls
too young to go out and livid with makeup,
or the more respectable type of drug addict.
Such identity trauma had taken me past various
Pizza houses, a Sub Way and a Pans &
Co., without even pausing for a glance in
the window of McDonald’s. A little
like wife swapping when you’re not
even contemplating marriage, the giant M
is for the out there, irredeemable and past
it. Even in the full incontinence
of indecision, and hungry to boot, I wasn’t
ready to eat in one.
Financial considerations aside, I knew
of the sushi side of the city’s culinary
life from its prettified arrangements in
Sunday supplements. What it had to
do with me, however, I still don’t
see; particularly when it comes to something
that will shortly work its way through my
bowels. Freshly sun fried swordfish
with dappling of Savannah splendor, and
crowned with a single star fruit, meet single
bloke really too lazy to cook who wants
to stuff his face for a few minutes.
And have you met svelte thirty-something
P.R. executive? No? How strange.
What I was looking for was the total anonymity
of the solitary masticator. Protecting myself
from observation of my inability to eat
alone without spilling, in that half crouch
that single men develop over Formica tables,
shielding the food as we shovel it into
our mouths, speeding though the process
of graceless self-nutrition, perhaps you
have seen us reading Caf World – a
magazine for men who would never buy it.
This week featuring the top five best-smelling
industrial detergents and what their aromas
add to the sprint eating experience, as
well as a special article on why mustard
has never been successfully mixed with tomato
ketchup.
Of course that’s what the sports newspaper
was invented for, as well as why its success
is guaranteed. As a gender we aren’t
stupid enough to be concerned with Madrid’s
or Barca’s bi-monthly crisis, but it
is an accepted social fact that men read
the sports paper in bars, and while doing
so we may liberally distribute our meals
over ourselves and a wide surface area.
And therein lies its real value.
Back in the Falafel house, I have been
over liberal in my treatment of the spicy
sauce, and can feel a horrid blush coming
on. I’ve already burnt the roof of
my mouth, incapable of waiting for the mush
to cool, and there will be blood in the
toothpaste tomorrow. The fryer of
chick peas is wearing a chef’s hat
by way of loose association with the culinary
arts, and the volcano of a waiter / manager
shouts at the cash register operator, who
is probably his daughter, to get me a drink,
in what I assume to be Russian. When
she is less deeply occupied with a suitably
dangerous character in Vaselined leather
and his arm in a sling, who may well be
her boyfriend, she brings me a glass of
wine, which I pretend to enjoy.
And there the idea occurs to me –
the gap in the market that I represent.
Ladies and Gentlemen, but particularly single
gentlemen; I present you with – the
dining cabin. A combination of partition
and bar with optional newspaper within the
reach of those for whom function has become
a necessity, this development in western
civilization is guaranteed to improve the
quality of life of the sad bastard, and
may even preserve what remains of his table
manners.
The food will be ordinary; the cutlery
uncomplicated, and each cabin will be equipped
with rear-view mirrors enabling the occupant
to watch girls passing on the street.
Although such comfort isn’t likely
to facilitate communication, sociability
or ultimately the survival of the species,
I think it will prove to be a step forward,
in the same way that the internet gave man
uncomplicated access to pornography, and
football gave us something to talk about.
And if any large multinational company is
interested in developing the idea, I’m
open to offers.
Shawn Lomax is
a writer of sketch pieces and reviews. He
lives and works in Barcelona, Spain.
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