Food Faces

At dinner the other night I found a rhinoceros on my plate. He was hiding in my mashed potatoes with only his head showing, his mouth open, his horn upright and slightly curved, his ears pointed and one eye showing in his profile.

I ate him in one gulp!

Maybe it’s a blessing or maybe a curse, but as I get older—and right now I’m pretty old—more and more I am finding animals, fish, birds and even people in my food. Not the real things, of course, but miniature look-a-likes that appear in half-eaten bread, cookies, oatmeal and, most often, mashed potatoes.

It probably goes back to when I was a kid. My family lived across the street from a ballfield with woods behind and, if there was no one around to play with, I might lie on the grass or climb a tree and look at the clouds. There seemed to be more puffy clouds then than there are now, and the wind and evaporation changed their shapes all the time. But every once in a while, if you were looking just right, a shark, alligator, pig or dragon would appear and be looking off to the left or right, or back at you. Sometimes the animal morphed from one kind into another—alligators into sharks and vice versa were common—but most of the time they just dissolved in a few minutes.

So, if you find yourself to be a little bored at dinner tonight, take a closer look at your food. You may find a whole menagerie in your macaroni. If you don’t, just add a little pepper. The flakes make great eyes.