“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Food and Drink #11
“When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat” (Prov. 23:1-3).
One of the things Scripture tells us to do, when sitting down at a table with a ruler of our people, is to think about what is on the table in front of us. In order to be able to do this when sitting down with important people, we have to practice doing it now. There are two errors we are told to avoid in this situation. The first is to avoid shoveling it down like a glutton—it would be better to cut your own throat directly than to cut it indirectly like that (v. 2). In short, don’t eat with a snow shovel. The second warning is in the other direction—don’t be a fusser, a delicate gourmand. Don’t desire his dainties (v. 3).
A lot of the delicate eaters, of course, are posers. If the napkins are cloth napkins, and it is otherwise a swank event, the chef could slice up a Twinkie in six pieces and put a toothpick with a French flag in each one, and the company would still ooh and ahh. They do this because they are like the studio audience at a taping of some dumb show—they may not know what is going on, but they know when they are supposed to clap.
Another place where eaters like to show themselves most refined and overly delicate is also based on hearsay. Someone might ask for organic fruit with his dessert. The reason for this is that he is concerned about pesticide residues that come with conventional fruit. Now that’s a delicate palate—residues normally come in at levels like 150 parts per billion. To help you visualize this, a stack of a billion pennies would almost be a thousand miles tall. Then imagine 150 marked pennies scattered throughout that wobbly tower. So don’t be overly delicate when you eat.