Finger Lickin' Good

According to me the best way to enjoy food is to eat with your hands. I have grown up enjoying my rice with dal with my hands. There are a lot of reasons why people like or do not like eating with her hands, these are mine:

Temperature: This is such an important reason! You can test the temperature of the food if you gently poke or touch the food before stuffing it in your mouth and burning your tongue as a result. When we eat rice, we put the rice in a small mound on our plate and take the rice from the sides to check the temperature. Rice cools from the sides and this I know because I have been eating with my hands.

Texture: Don't we all love to have a meal that has a variety of textures? We want a bit of crisp, a dash of crunch, a pinch of softness and a dollop of smoothness. We look for that on a plate when doing a presentation. When eating with your hands you can feel the texture of the food. The graininess or the lightness of that food. Specially with foods like rice, when eating with your hands you can feel the separate grains of rice with your fingers. The delicate grain sticks to your finger as it leaves the rest of the rice behind on your plate.

Taste: May be this part is controversial but I believe that a meal tastes much better when enjoyed with your hands. Obviously I don't expect one to eat spaghetti with your hands but I am talking about all rice based dishes. The moment when you touch the rice with your hands you have made a connection. It is like a bond with that rice on your plate, your fingers and your taste buds. They are all connected together the minute you lay your hands on the fluffy white pearly grains. After the meal, we lick the remnants of our finger, pondering the food we just devoured. It's like you want to eat again. That simple act of licking the last drops of food off your finger calms you. It is pure satisfaction and bliss. This orgasmic feeling could not have been enjoyed with a fork or a spoon.