The politics of men, women and food

Recently, near a lavish buffet table at a work-related event, I overheard a conversation between two of my female colleagues.

"I'm being so bad" squealed one of them with that unmistakable mixture of guilt and glee in her voice. "I just gorged on a huge plate of pesto pasta with Portobello mushrooms, but I'm sorry, I cannot resist this chocolate-peanut-butter mousse cake."

"Tell me about it," replied the other. "I've been a total piglet. I swear, tomorrow is definitely a grape-fruit-and-spring water day."

Now, try imagining two men engaging in such a conversation. Impossible, right? Because men simply eat food, they don't obsess about it. Women's relationship with food, on the other hand, is far more complex, a stormy love-hate affair. Why? I contend the difference is rooted in prehistory. While the man assumed responsibility for hunting the mastodon, his wife was left with the task of tidying up the cave and deciding how to prepare the imminent bounty: fillets or stew? With brushberry sauce or lightly blackened? Much of this culinary anguish was wasted, however, since most cave boys didn't care if their meal was still covered with fur, as long as it was there.

Today, women's food-related troubles focus on the fattening effects of overindulgence. Females monitor their bodies for signs of cellulite with the compulsion of astronomers searching for planet X. Conversely, men remain completely oblivious, even as they metamorphose into human life preservers. Women's conflicted desire for both tasty food and slim hips drives them to seek out odd, synthetic mutations on normal delicacies—something a man would never do. Even the highly body conscious among us would sooner starve than ingest the oxymoronic dessert known as Skimpy Treat.

How We Eat.

The way women consume food varies a lot, depending on who's watching them: other women, no one at all, or men. With the latter—especially if romance is a possibility—they tend toward minimalism. They order salads and nouvelle cuisiney dishes, such as "finger of radicchio," that look so bereft on the plate, you'd think the waiter had spilled the rest of the entree en route. When forced to eat a heartier meal in front of the opposite sex, they first make a horrified face and say, "I'll never be able to finish this!," then nibble with a great display of timidity. When was the last time you heard a man say, "Oh, I'll have just one rib" or "No French fries for me. I'll take a bite of yours"?

"If I'm going to dinner with a man, I'll eat beforehand or just have a salad in the restaurant," my friend Roberta confesses. "God forbid he should think I'm a pig. By the time I get home, of course, I'm so starved, I could suck on frozen TV dinners." (I wonder if Roberta applies this same logic in other areas of her life. Before club hopping, does she tire herself out by dancing around her living room? Is it her habit to end sex after foreplay because she doesn't want her lover to think she's demanding?)

Alone at the table, most women do a complete turnaround. "When I'm by myself, I tend to eat anything that isn't glued to the plate," my co-worker Dianne admits. Sarah, another friend of mine, is so reluctant to let her boyfriend, Dan, witness her solo bingeing, that soon after they started cohabiting, she encouraged Dan to take various night classes, so she could, as she puts it, "wrap my arms around a pizza" in private.

Women eating together are a totally different matter. If woman A is dieting successfully and consumes nothing but celery and seltzer, you can be sure women B, C, and D aren't chomping on cheese steaks. But if just one of them flirts with the idea of sharing a bag of peanut M &.M's, the rest will follow, and the decadence will escalate until they're all feasting on hot fudge.