If I see any more pictures of meals, I’ll SNAP!
PROOF – if proof was needed – that new technology has cut me adrift from society exists in the form of popular Facebook site Rate My Plate.
Less then 20 years ago, if I had, during a social soiree, whipped-out a photo album of past dinners, I would’ve been looked on as a little strange. Social services may have got involved.
Not once did even the most boring colleague whisper: “Made a great Spanish omelette last night. Want to see the pictures?”
Holiday snaps are bad enough. Images of a half-chewed ham hock are well beyond the pale.
Yet thousands are enjoying the delights of Rate My Plate, a mere gallery of meals. Thousands are commenting on the fare.
Tanya R’s disgusting close-up of “spag bol” elicited a staggering 5,000 responses, including: “That reminds me, I must deworm the cat”, “how long did it take you to bring that back up?” and “the spaghetti needs to go on holiday?”
“Shepherd’s Pie and Veg” – a stark still-life by Celina T – was similarly panned. “Has that just come out of the shepherd?” asked Xavier Hunter. Mel Gaffney dismissed the culinary calamity as “a manifesto of distress” and “lacking form”.
Hayley Price described the dog’s dinner as “vomit with a side-order of broccoli.
I cannot even bring myself to gaze on the harrowing photo of macaroni cheese: it brings back too many painful memories of a stomach ailment in Egypt.
New technology has cut me adrift from society. Mentally, I am wired differently from the herd.
Why Adam W felt the need to capture “Yesterday’s Dinner” – an untidy, congealed and stagnant Sunday slurp of mash, beef, cauliflower and gravy – is beyond me.
The accompanying sidedish of stacked fish fingers says a lot about Adam W. I see a man who would swamp Beluga caviar in Daddy’s sauce.
As one online critic put it: “Please return all your puddings to Yorkshire immediately. We’re concerned for their safety.”
For me, the snap unleashed a feeling of dijon vu: I knew I’d experienced that mustard before. Stavros, the owner of my local chippie, has one of his battered saveloys featured on Rate My Plate. He was delighted despite the comment: “Hope you pick up after your dog.”
“It’s all publicity, innit?” he argues.
In an age where individuals are prepared to put their dignity on the backburner for fleeting seconds of fame, sadly it is. My own wife has joined the madness. Last night I begged her not to share a moody image of fish cakes. The United Nations may think we’re stockpiling chemical and biological weaponry. The clotted parsley sauce would constitute the chemical element, whatever turned the breadcrumbs green, the biological peril.
“Lighten-up!” she protested. “It’s just a bit of fun.”
It is not. As a recipient of my wife’s cooking, I know it’s a matter of life and death. No one smiles their way through salmonella. The staggering success of Rate My Plate has provided Yours Truly with a lightbulb moment. I intend to launch Vote My Vomit, a compilation of illness in public places. Anyone who snaps sick in Downing Street will get a free mousemat.
Judging by some photos on Rate My Plate, my business plan is shared by others. Yes, I’m talking to you, Lynn W, whose entry, “cooked my first pizza”, looks like stomach churning evidence of the pandemic.
It stirred Kaye Boyle to type: “At first glance, I legit thought this was a bean bag with a black cat in it and pizza toppings thrown over it.”
But the greatest put-down was provided by Michael Goodliffe: “I have exactly the same problem with my phone and predictive text.
“Whenever I write ‘ **** ed’ it comes back ‘cooked.’”
Perhaps the Facebook site’s success is evidence that society’s slant on food has changed. It is no longer mere sustenance, but something almost spiritual. A case of lettuce pray. But those responsible for the ghastly fare featured on Rate My Plate should heed one pictorial golden rule. Everything improves with age. Unless you’re a banana.