Nah. You want the flavor-fillings to be lightly included at the start, allowing you to carefully appreciate the base ingredient and the nuances of the seasonings. By the time you’ve moved to finishing off the dish, you’ll want a bite heavy with seasonings, giving you a final burst of flavor. The gradation in flavor keeps the meal interesting, start to finish.
Mr. Bulbmin
It truly depends on the food in question. Anything with a defined, desired filling/topping that cannot be considered its own meal- from a sandwich (especially grilled cheese), to a chocolate chip cookie, to pizza- you want that distribution as even as humanly possible, to avoid sad bites with none of that filling/topping. If it’s basically two blended meals (see also meatballs re: spaghetti), then nuance is definitely appreciated.
walterw
dan pashman of the sporkful podcast explains it as the conflict between “bite consistency” and “bite variety”, i.e., “how finely will i chop up this salad?”
Given that she separates/separated tacos into their component pieces, and would have the sausage deliberately picked off her sausage pizza and placed on the side…I’m guessing not.
But she still eats the pizza with the cheese on it, so maybe she’d eat it with the cheese IN it?
Deanatay
Joyce would first cut the ends off her pizza. Then, after eating the rest of it, she would surgically cut the crusts open, and eat the cheese out of them.
Then, if she were REALLY hungry, she might…
Get another slice, and do the same with that one.
Eating the crusts is for suckers.
N0083rp00F
That is what you have dipping sauces for.
Okay, it is really just salad dressing in single serve pancake syrup packs but it is an option.
Hm…does Joyce eat the crust of pizza to begin with? Would it being stuffed crust make that more or less likely? Why do I feel so sad at the thought that this comic strip character might not have enjoyed stuff crust pizza?
I don’t have Joyce’s … issues… but I don’t bother with stuffed crust, as I never eat the pizza ‘bones’, anyway.
Stella
wait, wait, what are the bones of a pizza? Like, just the crust? Or…like crust and toppings?
Yumi
When I’ve heard it used, the crust is what is meant.
Deanatay
Yes, but the whole point of stuffed crust is to make the ‘bones’ more appetizing, give it some flavor, instead of just being (often burnt,) flavorless bread.
begbert2
If your pizza crusts aren’t tasty in their own right, you’re buying bad pizza.
The only time I don’t eat the crusts is when I overcook a frozen pizza.
Marduk
I _do_ have Joyce’s exact food issues. Stuffed crust pizza doesn’t count because I can’t see the cheese inside the crust. By the time I taste it, it’s too late to worry about it. That might not totally make sense but we’re talking about a purely psychological phenomenon.
Admittedly, I find tacos okay as long as all toppings are on the side. The meat and shell count as one item, for some reason, and can be eaten together.
Gesc
Do the issues have a name? Honestly curious here.
Terry
Not as such. But it would fall under obsessive-compulsive disorder or obsessive-compulsive tendencies depending on how much of an inconvenience it causes. Diagnosis of the disorder requires some degree of distress or an impairment in the ability to perform normal daily living: in this case, does the need to have food deconstructed turn a meal into a chore that keeps you occupied way beyond the amount of time that a meal should or do you go hungry rather than eat food that isn’t perfectly managed.
Gesc
Well, we haven’t had a lot of information about how long does it take for Joyce to eat, and I don’t remember her being this particular about other stuff other than the showers.
Now I’m wondering how the rest of her family eat.
thejeff
They tease her about her habits, so I assume they’re less fussy.
Nah, regular cheese pizza is pretty easy to take apart. Sometimes it even spontaneously disassembles itself if you manhandle it or don’t bite all the way through!
The liquid is not depicted as clear. it could be one of those drawing conventions for readers to be able to see it. Otherwise I might think she’s already drank her entire glass, perhaps.
You do know the Persian word for rice is pilaf, so using “rice Pilaf” is actually saying “rice Rice” (baby).
Danni
vanilla rice
Not a Reptilian
But in english you use the word pilaf to specify a certain kind of rice, making it a bastardization of the original word (an adjective instead of a noun in this case) and thus not redundant in “rice pilaf”.
The morale of this story is there is always someone ready to out-pedantic-response you in the internet.
Not a Reptilian
I love how I got Mary’s avatar for my little “insuferable prick” moment.
Br44n5m
The most wellknownsontg by Vanilla Rice
PlainMarie
Actually, “rice” in Farsi is a “polo.”
If you had a Tex-Mex-Persian chicken and rice dish, you could call it Pollo Polo.
PlainMarie
Or if you made a noodle and rice dish, you could call it a Marco Polo. ^,^
PlainMarie
Or maybe if you were trying to find a pilaf in the dark, that would also be a Marco Polo.
Separate foods should be next to each other, not on top of each other. Because it’s easier to control the foods and regulate the ratio of Food#1 to Food#2 that way.
I just realized I’m like Joyce more than I thought.
Jason
I don’t think that’s like Joyce’s issues, personally? That’s saying that you have a preference for the amounts of different foods mixed together- for example, I like mash and peas, but too much mash and there’s not enough pea-joy, but too little mash and your peas fall off the fork and you run out of peas too quickly. That’s just having a preference, surely.
Pl0x
Frick, this is late, but I feel the need to reply. I don’t mean that I literally have the same issues with food that Joyce does. But like you said, I do have certain preferences or ‘rules’. Same as Joyce. Her rules are just much more strict.
When I was little and used to eat both meat and SpaghettiOs, I would always get the kind with meatballs and then purposely save them to the end so I would get to finish by just enjoying around 16-18 little meatballs.
So, I guess me, to answer your question.
On second thought, I shoulda said that it’s a fine preference yet with no clearly thought-out strategy on Joyce’s part. But saving the good part, or not caring, are fine too.
It just means so much to her now, but I never thought of it until she said it. And I remember being a kid and it took convincing for me to have my meat on my noodles or rice, for a few years.
Split the spare meatballs in half with your fork, and you can use them to wipe up any leftover sauce. (Whether that’s worth it when the “sauce” is just butter is debatable.)
I’ve never done the separate-food-into-its-component pieces thing*, but the distribute-each-bite-properly-so-it-has-the-right-amount-of-all-the-components thing, that is very me.
Also panel 4 Joyce, you liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie
*except with pizza, because I like the ghost of pepperoni on my cheese pizza but not the pepperonis themselves
287 thoughts on “Account”
Ana Chronistic
only as brave as that first bite when there’s still a chance of it not being bad
Ana Chronistic
(unevenly distributed is bad!)
Pablo360
Ever since I came to college, all my food has been fairly evenly distributed. Specifically, in line with Student’s t-distribution.
UniqueSnowflake2
All my freshly-brewed hot drinks followed the student’s tea distribution.
Pablo360
fb
Reltzik
t-distribution? …. okay, that’s pretty close to normal.
HeySo
“(unevenly distributed is bad!)”
Nah. You want the flavor-fillings to be lightly included at the start, allowing you to carefully appreciate the base ingredient and the nuances of the seasonings. By the time you’ve moved to finishing off the dish, you’ll want a bite heavy with seasonings, giving you a final burst of flavor. The gradation in flavor keeps the meal interesting, start to finish.
Mr. Bulbmin
It truly depends on the food in question. Anything with a defined, desired filling/topping that cannot be considered its own meal- from a sandwich (especially grilled cheese), to a chocolate chip cookie, to pizza- you want that distribution as even as humanly possible, to avoid sad bites with none of that filling/topping. If it’s basically two blended meals (see also meatballs re: spaghetti), then nuance is definitely appreciated.
walterw
dan pashman of the sporkful podcast explains it as the conflict between “bite consistency” and “bite variety”, i.e., “how finely will i chop up this salad?”
AnvilPro
Would old-Joyce eat stuffed crust pizza?
King Daniel
Given that she separates/separated tacos into their component pieces, and would have the sausage deliberately picked off her sausage pizza and placed on the side…I’m guessing not.
Reltzik
But she still eats the pizza with the cheese on it, so maybe she’d eat it with the cheese IN it?
Deanatay
Joyce would first cut the ends off her pizza. Then, after eating the rest of it, she would surgically cut the crusts open, and eat the cheese out of them.
Then, if she were REALLY hungry, she might…
Get another slice, and do the same with that one.
Eating the crusts is for suckers.
N0083rp00F
That is what you have dipping sauces for.
Okay, it is really just salad dressing in single serve pancake syrup packs but it is an option.
Yumi
Hm…does Joyce eat the crust of pizza to begin with? Would it being stuffed crust make that more or less likely? Why do I feel so sad at the thought that this comic strip character might not have enjoyed stuff crust pizza?
merbrat
I don’t have Joyce’s … issues… but I don’t bother with stuffed crust, as I never eat the pizza ‘bones’, anyway.
Stella
wait, wait, what are the bones of a pizza? Like, just the crust? Or…like crust and toppings?
Yumi
When I’ve heard it used, the crust is what is meant.
Deanatay
Yes, but the whole point of stuffed crust is to make the ‘bones’ more appetizing, give it some flavor, instead of just being (often burnt,) flavorless bread.
begbert2
If your pizza crusts aren’t tasty in their own right, you’re buying bad pizza.
Kryss LaBryn
Hear, hear!
Kamino Neko
What they said!
The only time I don’t eat the crusts is when I overcook a frozen pizza.
Marduk
I _do_ have Joyce’s exact food issues. Stuffed crust pizza doesn’t count because I can’t see the cheese inside the crust. By the time I taste it, it’s too late to worry about it. That might not totally make sense but we’re talking about a purely psychological phenomenon.
Admittedly, I find tacos okay as long as all toppings are on the side. The meat and shell count as one item, for some reason, and can be eaten together.
Gesc
Do the issues have a name? Honestly curious here.
Terry
Not as such. But it would fall under obsessive-compulsive disorder or obsessive-compulsive tendencies depending on how much of an inconvenience it causes. Diagnosis of the disorder requires some degree of distress or an impairment in the ability to perform normal daily living: in this case, does the need to have food deconstructed turn a meal into a chore that keeps you occupied way beyond the amount of time that a meal should or do you go hungry rather than eat food that isn’t perfectly managed.
Gesc
Well, we haven’t had a lot of information about how long does it take for Joyce to eat, and I don’t remember her being this particular about other stuff other than the showers.
Now I’m wondering how the rest of her family eat.
thejeff
They tease her about her habits, so I assume they’re less fussy.
Emily
Given that the cheese and sauce and bottom of the crust are all together I’m surprised she eats pizza at all
Needfuldoer
Nah, regular cheese pizza is pretty easy to take apart. Sometimes it even spontaneously disassembles itself if you manhandle it or don’t bite all the way through!
Andy
She talks like someone who was just “inception”-ed.
And check out the color coded drink
Shiro
Iirc Joyce’s drink is Sprite. Wonder if she got a flavor in it or no? With old Joyce I’d say no, but this new food-on-food-eating Joyce, who knows?
Doctor_Who
Wonder how Joyce would react to a Coke Remix machine.
Yumi
I mean, presumably she just encountered one.
Ana Chronistic
and didn’t taste the fact that all the sodas come out of the same spigot??
Yumi
Ohhh, that makes sense. At first all I could see it as being was milk, but milk at Noodles and Company comes in little boxes, so that wasn’t it.
Jay Eff
She’d only take one sip, though
Dean
No-one tell her it’s actually Sierra Mist.
Shiro
If memory serves, she can taste the difference, so no one has to
ValdVin
The liquid is not depicted as clear. it could be one of those drawing conventions for readers to be able to see it. Otherwise I might think she’s already drank her entire glass, perhaps.
Pablo360
Um, you mean Jacob’s coke(?) and Joyce’s sprite(?)
Danni
sometimes i still prefer food when its in separate piles.
Doctor_Who
Joyce would not enjoy gourmet food.
Shiro
…is that salmon with cole slaw on the side? Mashed potatoes with stuff in? I am slightly unsettled.
Doctor_Who
I assume it’s rice with other vegetables in it. Maybe Rice Pilaf.
Opus the Poet
You do know the Persian word for rice is pilaf, so using “rice Pilaf” is actually saying “rice Rice” (baby).
Danni
vanilla rice
Not a Reptilian
But in english you use the word pilaf to specify a certain kind of rice, making it a bastardization of the original word (an adjective instead of a noun in this case) and thus not redundant in “rice pilaf”.
The morale of this story is there is always someone ready to out-pedantic-response you in the internet.
Not a Reptilian
I love how I got Mary’s avatar for my little “insuferable prick” moment.
Br44n5m
The most wellknownsontg by Vanilla Rice
PlainMarie
Actually, “rice” in Farsi is a “polo.”
If you had a Tex-Mex-Persian chicken and rice dish, you could call it Pollo Polo.
PlainMarie
Or if you made a noodle and rice dish, you could call it a Marco Polo. ^,^
PlainMarie
Or maybe if you were trying to find a pilaf in the dark, that would also be a Marco Polo.
Valdrax
Google “deconstructed” food sometime. I think Joyce would be all over that hipster trend. Unless the fact that it was different was more important.
ValdVin
That’s the word I use when, say, the roast vegetables aren’t ready but my wife and I are hungry for the meat and starch now.
My plating and presentation skills lead to a lot of the word “rustic”, as well.
tim gueguen
Honestly that whole “new plating” idea of piling up food like that makes me think of something a little kid would do.
Pl0x
Separate foods should be next to each other, not on top of each other. Because it’s easier to control the foods and regulate the ratio of Food#1 to Food#2 that way.
I just realized I’m like Joyce more than I thought.
Jason
I don’t think that’s like Joyce’s issues, personally? That’s saying that you have a preference for the amounts of different foods mixed together- for example, I like mash and peas, but too much mash and there’s not enough pea-joy, but too little mash and your peas fall off the fork and you run out of peas too quickly. That’s just having a preference, surely.
Pl0x
Frick, this is late, but I feel the need to reply. I don’t mean that I literally have the same issues with food that Joyce does. But like you said, I do have certain preferences or ‘rules’. Same as Joyce. Her rules are just much more strict.
Remmington Steele
I wonder what Joyce would do when confronted by a pie or a pasty?
CJ
Like this: https://goo.gl/images/sHzDP0 ?
ValdVin
Okay that last panel is not really a problem. Who really wants to finish all of the meatballs or noodles and have a pile of the other left?
Pablo360
I mean, it depends on whether or not one part of the meal is exceptional, or at least noticeably better than the rest.
Yumi
When I was little and used to eat both meat and SpaghettiOs, I would always get the kind with meatballs and then purposely save them to the end so I would get to finish by just enjoying around 16-18 little meatballs.
So, I guess me, to answer your question.
Rukdug
*awkwardly raises hand*
ValdVin
On second thought, I shoulda said that it’s a fine preference yet with no clearly thought-out strategy on Joyce’s part. But saving the good part, or not caring, are fine too.
It just means so much to her now, but I never thought of it until she said it. And I remember being a kid and it took convincing for me to have my meat on my noodles or rice, for a few years.
Needfuldoer
Split the spare meatballs in half with your fork, and you can use them to wipe up any leftover sauce. (Whether that’s worth it when the “sauce” is just butter is debatable.)
ValdVin
You are the friend Joyce needed to plan this contingency with.
Shiro
I’ve never done the separate-food-into-its-component pieces thing*, but the distribute-each-bite-properly-so-it-has-the-right-amount-of-all-the-components thing, that is very me.
Also panel 4 Joyce, you liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie
*except with pizza, because I like the ghost of pepperoni on my cheese pizza but not the pepperonis themselves
Emperor Norton II
When I eat a burger, I am very upset if the burger/bread ratio is out of hand. Or the patty is not shaped just like the bun.
And yes, I will rip off surplus areas of bun and cover surplus areas of patty, thank you very much!
Shiro
Hot dogs are a Problem for that reason–the bun is always bigger than the hot dog! Must remove excess bread for optimal meat/bread ratio!
Emperor Norton II
You get me!
Let’s be best friends forever now!
Emperor Norton II
Frankly, the best solution to this (for when making hot dogs at home) is to just buy some pretty big buns and then put two hot dogs in each bun.