When it comes to the culinary arts, I often think of something a wise old woman once told me. At least, I assume she was wise—it's equally possible that she was senile and demented and incontinent, as are most geriatrics. But because I assume the best about people, let's suppose this depressing bluehair was, in fact, wise, and wasn't just muttering gibberish in a futile attempt to distract me from her reeking incontinence.
So anyway: This sagacious woman was watching me devour a plate crammed with Goldfish crackers and Chips Ahoy! cookies, my preferred meal after an aperitif of M&M Tequila (take one package Peanut M&Ms, dump into a bottle of Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville brand tequila). "That's how you eat?" she inquired, and when I responded in the affirmative—speaking as loudly and slowly as I could—she imparted the following bit of wisdom. "Some people eat because they love food," she noted, "and some people eat to survive. You, my dear boy, are one of the latter."
Wherever that crazy, half-dead shrew is now—a retirement home, Florida, dead in some filthy ditch—she was right. I care not for your foie gras or your caviar! Keep your truffles, your fresh-caught salmon, your immaculately butter-poached prawns! Food is for two things. One: Keeping yourself alive! (A steady diet of cheddar-flavored Goldfish and tequila has kept me handsome, healthy, and dangerously virile for 27 years!) Two: Killing other people! Which brings us to food fights.
Food fighting began, of course, in the brutal arenas of elementary school cafeterias, where shrieking, towheaded twits threw the lunch lady's "Pork Surprise" at each other with visible disgust, their tiny brains urging them to kill or be killed—to end the life of the shrieking, towheaded twit beside them, or have him end theirs. But while food fighting was once thought of as merely a jovial pursuit of retards, children, and retarded children, food fights are coming back in a big way, taking over local eateries by storm!
To begin a food fight, you're gonna want something that throws well, but also splatters, for this first assault informs all diners and passersby that, yes, indeed, a food fight has begun! For this I recommend a Snack Pack pudding cup, preferably chocolate in flavor. With the foil cap half removed, the Snack Pack becomes a veritable grenade.
Like the contests of the mighty Roman gladiators of olde (or those of the equally impressive American Gladiators of the early 1990s), food fighting is a challenge of improvisation. Sure, that glass of white wine might be good to throw across the table—but also consider pouring it down the shirt of that chick with the sweet rack who's sitting three tables over. See? That's improvising! Likewise: Yes, it might cause quite a stir were you to drench your waiter with the contents of that fondue pot! But instead, how about throwing a fondue stick as if it were a tiny little spear? (Do not allow your feeble conscience to argue, dear reader! All bets are off in a food fight. To enter one is to accept your fate—be it a comical pie to your face or a white-hot fondue stick embedded in your cranial cavity.)
Other good foods for throwing: Apples, pizza pies, shook-up cans of beer, half-melted ice cream, gravy boats, refried beans, baked beans, green beans, bean dip, pad thai, sharpened peanut brittle, cheese wheels, and various squashes and beets. Also, should you find yourself losing a food fight, it is advisable to locate the nearest bottle of wine, port, or Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville brand tequila. Break it on the edge of the nearest table, then brandish the shards as if you were in a knife fight in the sordid alleyways of Thailand. Oftentimes, the best food fights will turn into real fights... and only when you're covered in equal amounts of mashed potatoes and blood will you know yourself to be the true victor.
It's usually at this point that some maitre'd will come up to you and politely insist that you leave. When this happens, remember: Don't slash with the broken bottle. Stab and twist, my friends. Stab and twist.
