# Eating Habits - Listening Habits?



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

On a music thread a week or two back - http://www.talkclassical.com/37430-listening-same-thing-2.html?highlight=#post853916 - the topic was raised that if you're a person who mashes all the food together on your plate, it might reflect on the way that you listen to music. Maybe you don't mind a cd full of disparate pieces.

Or are you a person who eats each item separately, saving the best till last? And does that reflect on your approach to life or music? Do you prefer solo sonatas to full orchestral pieces, for example, and would take a small dinner party over a Big Do hosting a score of guests?

I honestly don't know - except that it does seem to have more relevance in my own case.
Of which more anon.

This is a fun thread, that will hopefully also raise a few thoughtful points. The poll is just to get opinions rolling.
Thanks in advance for any replies. :tiphat:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I eat food items singly, starting with my favourite.
This is because I really like to savour the flavour of an item, and mixing it together, I feel I lose something. Maybe I just can't cope with distinguishing the different flavours when they're mixed together.
I start with my favourite because I'm impatient, and if I started with my least-liked, I'd not be enjoying that item, wanting to get on to my darling.
But I usually like everything on my plate, so if I eat in order, best-liked to least-liked, I can relax and relish each unique flavour as it comes.

Does this relate to my listening preferences? Yes, it does. I like melody, and I don't like two many melodies mixed in together. I prefer solo works or musics for small ensembles to vast orchestral affairs. I like 'nuggets' too that don't require too much time or concentration. 
Oh, and I am not a gourmet. I eat the same simple foods day by day, week by week, and enjoy them. I have favourite recipes that are a bit more complex, and return to them again and again. This relates to my love for folk tunes, baroque and early music - I'll sample music from any era, but find myself circling back to my favourite genres all the time.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

For me it always depends on the meal and the context of the dining situation!

And yes, there are similarities with my listening habits, there are staples but I often try to be adventurous in trying new things!

/ptr


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

ptr said:


> For me it always depends on the meal and the context of the dining situation!
> 
> /ptr


You are probably a more pragmatic and experimental listener too?


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> You are probably a more pragmatic and experimental listener too?


Indeed, see my amended reply! I have or see no absolutes!

/ptr


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

I like combinations and mixtures - nice stew or mince and stovies all mixed in together. If I'm eating a salad or similar I'll mix beetroot and meat or peppers and hummus. I think the combinations complement each other and by bringing out the differences emphasise the individual flavours. I do like to keep the best till last - a little treat at the end of a meal.

I like simple foods and tend to stick to a fairly limited repertoire of things that I know well and like. This also relates to my musical tastes. Although I like mixtures, I like basic mixtures . In music I don't want great lush orchestral mush where you have difficulty separating things out. I prefer Baroque and earlier where you have a few simple melodies outlined by limited resources so that they stand out against each other. Polychoral stuff turns me off - it's interesting, it's something to be admired but too rich for my tastes. A nice Bach fugue or invention on the piano or harpsichord is much better. Folk has the same quality where you have different voices or voice plus instrument. The combinations enhance the enjoyment.


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## Guest (Apr 8, 2015)

I admit I never eat olives if I'm listening to Baroque music. Unless they're stuffed.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I don't mix my food together in the same bite. But I also don't do what Ingelou does, which sounds like finishing all of one item before starting on the next (is that right?). I eat one bite of meat, then of salad, then rice, etc. 

With music, I finish listening to one work entirely before starting with the next.


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## Guest (Apr 8, 2015)

I voted for Beethoven! But I hasten to add that Beethoven's favourite food was (apparently) macaroni cheese which of course has to be mixed in together, so at least we know _he_ would have chosen Option 2 above.


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## pianississimo (Nov 24, 2014)

The British are known in France for having no class when it comes to food. 
I like to think of myself as fairly sophisticated but not so much that I'm prepared to forgo licking the plate clean when alone or in understanding company. 
I was in Paris some years ago with a group of fellow British rugby fans. We dined at the hotel after the match and the lads on the next table to me ordered Steak tartare. The waiter, being French, tried to explain in his broken English that these rough English types obviously didn't understand what that was. They insisted and he brought it anyway, with an expression on his face that suggested he expected them to demand it sent back to the kitchen and cooked properly. 

They didn't of course they wolfed it down with every sign of enjoyment. One of them, possibly in the bricklaying trade, mashed his raw egg into the raw steak together with some of the greens and French fries. He made a big pile of the mush and then preceded to section it off fork by fork, eating each forkful one by one and then cleaning the plate with the remaining fries

His meal finished, he presented his complements to the kitchen ordered dessert. 
The waiter has probably got over the shock by now. 

I like to taste everything on my plate individually then have the rest in different combinations. If there's something on the plate I don't care much for - green beans for example - I eat all of them first so I can get that over with and enjoy the rest without them looming over the meal and spoiling it

I'm not the same with music. I listen to what I like and if I hear something new that I don't like then it's unlikely that I'll listen again.


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2015)

Coming back to Beethoven (and still on-thread regarding eating/listening habits), I just read in my recently obtained Swafford biography that a favourite autumn dish of our hero was *Krammetsvögel* (thrushes fattened on juniper berries). That piece of info gives me an entirely new take on the _Pastoral_ symphony.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Oh, *you*......!  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2015)

_*Moi*_? [Who? Me?]


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

"Other", but I will not give details. It's one of the few secrets I have left.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

It depends on the meal. When I am eating fried chicken with chips, I can enjoy that together. When I am eating a meal with broccoli, I eat the broccoli first (not my favorite vegetable).


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