Must have been how you were raised

My wife finds the way I eat hilarious. When eating at home (or when my guard is down) I will usually pick apart all layered foods (sandwiches, lasagna, etc) and eat about half of it as individual ingredients and the other half as one unit (after putting it back together). This would drive my father crazy when I was a kid. Perhaps that's why I still feel compelled to do it.

Although I have not witnessed this, my mother in law swears that my father in law spins his plate as he eats. Bite of meat, spin to the corn, bite of the corn, spin to the bread, bite of bread, etc. So often does this happen that she is afraid he’ll wear a groove in their wooden dining table.

My wife has cheese issues. She will not eat eggs and cheese together, chicken and cheese together, fish and cheese together. She likes cheese, fish, chicken, and eggs individually. On a sandwich, mayonnaise can touch the cheese, the cheese can touch the meat, but the mustard has to be on the meat side – well away from cheese.

A coworker who shall remain nameless (Lilly Pasta) has a brother who refuses to eat the place on a sandwich where his fingers rest. He will leave these little fingertip sized portions of sandwich on his plate when he is finished. He refers to these as “sandwich handles.”

My late uncle Charlie would mix all of his food together on the plate before eating it, citing that it would all end up in the same place anyway.

My wife’s father will leave one bite of food on his plate after a meal as if he’s leaving a gift for the Food Faerie. Never two, never zero, always one.