It seems as I am getting older my tolerance for junk food is rapidly decreasing. There is a show on cable TV entitled Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives where Guy Fieri goes around the country reviewing restaurants as indicated in the title. Many of them are famous for some pretty outrageous food. Some stack pancakes a foot high and smother them with mucho butter between each layer followed by a pint of syrup and lined high with pounds of sausages, bacon, and such around the edges.
In my younger days these types of things made me salivate but not any more. We accidentally happened into one of these places in Pittsburgh recently. One of our vacation strategies is to stay four to five days in a downtown hotel in a major city. We then tour the sites, preferably on foot. When we were in Pittsburgh we asked the hotel receptionist where was a good place to eat nearby. She mentioned that there was a burger place about a half mile away that was pretty famous. We had a pretty big meal the night before so a burger sounded about right for that evening.
We walked through an old warehouse district and found the place. It was called Primanti Brothers. The restaurant blended in with the area in that it had a warehouse atmosphere. One of our rules is when in doubt order the signature dish so we both ordered the signature burger. When it came it proved to be something almost inedible at least as my tastes now go. It consisted of two pieces of thick bread soaked in hamburger grease with a half pound hamburger, about two inches of french fries, a pile of cole slaw and several other unidentified very juicy ingredients.
I am usually a guy that “goes with the flow” so I took a big bite; but then quickly spit it out. But it was too late as much of the greasy juices ended up on the front of my shirt. It was just too much for me. I do like most of the ingredients, at least the ones I could identify, but putting them together between two pieces of grease soaked bread just didn’t hack it for me. I looked around and saw several other customers nose deep in similar sandwiches and seemingly enjoying themselves. I wondered if I had come here ten or twenty years before whether I too would enjoy this sandwich?
Maybe as we get older our bodies give us more warning about these types of totally unhealthy dishes? Maybe they are telling us “enough is enough”. By the way I couldn’t find a picture of the hamburger I had one bite of but I did find a similar sandwich to show you here from them. I didn’t eat much of the hamburger but the beer was pretty good….
RJ's Corner 
Such a man! “We had a pretty big meal the night before so a burger sounded about right for that evening.” :Most women I know would consider a burger a massive meal, meaning we’d be restricted to salad for days afterward. 🙂
I think we always know when we are abusing our bodies with food, whether it be quantity or quality. Perhaps the wisdom in our later years is that we are actually willing to listen!
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Tamara is so right, the old mantra of “listen to your body” is never more relevant than in our older years. Personally, I find it hard to remember that I don’t need the size of portion that I used to eat and consequently end of stuffed and uncomfortable. Thanksgiving was a perfect example…found myself taking seconds and pouring on the gravy to boot. I was miserable afterward. I should have remembered to take half of what my brain tells me to and I would have been fine. When eating out it’s the same problem…if possible I take home half the sandwich but if not I usually eat it all so as not to waste it. Bad idea.
And yes, our tastes change too, don’t they? Some things don’t taste as good as they used to…like rich sauces or rich desserts (or giant greasy burgers). Simple fare is more appealing to me now.
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A burger is a massive meal? You are right, it must be a man thing. As Jane says I now need much less than I used to and fortunately my caloric input has naturally dropped so that weight control is not too much of a problem for me. That is if I stay away from the after dinner snacking. I used to be a pretty big meat eater but it seems that I eat less and less meat as the years go by. Soup usually suffices now.
I don’t know how all this happened?? In my mind I am just not that old… 🙂
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