\n<\/p>\n
W<\/span>hen I was a child, I remember the grimace on my uncle\u2019s face when one of my sticky little cousins drank from his can of soda. He announced that he could no longer drink it because another person\u2019s saliva had touched it. While no one said the words \u201cgermaphobe weirdo\u201d out loud, we were all thinking it. Our shock increased as he abandoned his old can for a fresh one, because in the early 1990s wastage was serious \u2013 fizzy drinks were a treat and we had whatever the opposite was to the \u201cdon\u2019t worry if you can\u2019t finish that, darling\u201d school of parenting.<\/p>\n Fast forward 35 years, and <\/strong>I\u2019ve realised I am now that uncle. And not just drinks \u2013 this extends to food too. This may come as a surprise to some people, given that I\u2019m Indian and sharing food is a fundamental pillar of who we are. But at home, we serve our food in giant pots, family style. There\u2019s a spoon for every dish, and that kind of sharing is perfectly fine. There is no double-dipping because there are unspoken rules of engagement. What is not perfectly fine, however, is when <\/strong>different cultures come together, and someone thinks it is OK to put the spoon that was in their gob into the main pot, or use it to scoop something from another person\u2019s plate.<\/p>\n The other week, I went to a chic restaurant; the kind of place that only has five things on the menu and dainty glassware. Since quitting alcohol a year ago, I\u2019ve upped my desserts game and because I\u2019m in the wonderfully belligerent \u201cI\u2019ll do whatever I damn well please\u201d stage of perimenopause, I ordered a creme brulee as a starter. The waitress, in what I perceive to be an act of violence, said: \u201cTwo spoons?\u201d despite me giving no indication whatsoever that I was looking to share.<\/p>\n I was with new friends, and so I did the British thing and said yes, even though I wanted to say no. But when the two spoons arrived, I couldn\u2019t continue with this farce any longer. As my new friend held her spoon aloft, I told her that she had<\/em> to have the first bite. \u201cOh, but then you won\u2019t get to crack the top of the brulee!\u201d she said. I had to patiently explain that as a 45-year-old, I would be OK not doing that. When I could see her about to protest again, I had to be direct and say: \u201cI really don\u2019t want to double-dip because I\u2019m conscious about catching germs.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the awkward silence that followed, I regret nothing.<\/p>\n The pandemic undoubtedly radicalised me, given how many people I knew who seemed to have caught Covid after sharing food off each other\u2019s plates. But it was also noticing how I tended to fall ill after sharing drinks with friends who would insist I take a sip, and ask to try mine. These viruses often knocked me out for two weeks, and now I refuse point-blank. I don\u2019t care if it has been made with the cordial of a flower that only blooms every 20 years. If it\u2019s touched your mouth and you aren\u2019t my lover or partner, it isn\u2019t touching mine.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019m fine,\u201d a friend protested when I refused to try the braised cauliflower on her plate, muttering that I was being precious. When she messaged me about coming down with a cold two days later, I replied: \u201cVindication!\u201d She didn\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was a child, I remember the grimace on my uncle\u2019s face when one of my sticky little cousins drank from his can of soda. He announced that he could no longer drink it because another person\u2019s saliva had touched it. While no one said the words \u201cgermaphobe weirdo\u201d out loud, we were all<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[12636,7142,3351,24809,8407,3222,24810,666],"class_list":{"0":"post-50493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-bell","9":"tag-die","10":"tag-engagement","11":"tag-foodsharing","12":"tag-gross","13":"tag-hill","14":"tag-poorna","15":"tag-rules"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}