Eating: America's Second Favorite Pastime By George Burns (in Memory of)
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Everyone in America is on a diet. Dieting has become a more popular sport than baseball, and it's played all year round. There are high protein / low fat diets; there are high fat / low protein diets; then there are low carbohydrate / moderate fat high protein diets; and high carbohydrate / moderate protein / low fat diets. And if that's not good enough for you, there are all-protein diets; all carbohydrate diets; all water diets; all starvation diets; and even all you can eat diets. That one's for fat people who want to stay fat.
Some diets are better than others, but you have to go to the right dinner parties and speak to the right overweight people to know which is which. There are diets named after the people who invented them, popularized them, used them, and died from them.
One of the most popular diets is the Drinking Man's Diet. It's hard to know how many people use that one, because a lot of them don't know they're on it.
(The nice thing about that joke is you can tell it five or six different ways and not get a laugh.) Look, I'm not sure exactly how the Drinking Man's Diet works. Dean Martin's the authority on that one. Now, Dean has the reputation for being the biggest drinker in show business. I do a little drinking myself; I've had a few drinks with Dean.
I've also had a few drinks with Phil Harris. But I'm not going to say which one drinks more, because if I did, the other one would never talk to me again.
That is - if he remembers me. This reminds me of a story. I've heard it before, but if I can listen to it again, so can you. Well, here it is. This is a story about Mr. & Mrs. Phillips. Her brother Joe had been living with them for seven years, and they were sick of him. So Mr. Phillips said, "Tonight at dinner I'll say the soup is hot, and you'll say it's cold. And if your brother agrees with me, You'll throw him out. And if he agrees with you, I'll throw him out." She said, "Good." So at dinner they got into an argument about the soup. They said to Joe, "Is the soup hot or cold?" And Joe said, 'Tm not answering; I'm staying seven more years.
And that's how I feel about Dean Martin and Phil Harris. As far as I'm concerned they can both be the biggest drinkers.
You know, for a subject I know nothing about, I'm filling up a lot of pages.
Here's another thought for you. Everybody keeps talking about the overpopulation in our country. It's not an overpopulation problem, it's an overeating problem. If everyone in the country would lose ten pounds, we'd have enough room to build another state.
There are many theories why people overeat.
Some experts say they do it because they have unhappy sex lives; that it's a form of substitution. But Elizabeth Taylor has a great appetite, so that theory is down the drain.
Personally, overeating was never a problem with me. As I told you, we were a family of seven sisters and five brothers, so there was no such thing as a-oh, by the way, we also had parents-anyway, when I was a kid, in our family there was no such thing as a diet. We didn't have enough food to cut down from. But my mother made the best gravy in the world.
There was always a big pot of that marvelous gravy simmering on the stove. And whatever any of us brought home we' d throw into the pot: bread, bananas, garlic, onions, bread, string beans, fishheads, cheese, soup bones, turkey necks... and if we had a guest for dinner, my mother would add more bread. Those ingredients weren't bad, but it was the gravy that made it. Once my Uncle Frank was missing, and we even looked into the pot-everything went into that pot.
That's what we ate. I enjoyed it and that's all I knew. Later, when I was 14, I was doing an act with another fellow, called "Brown & Williams, Singers, Dancers and Rollerskaters." We were playing Albany, and I went into a restaurant and ordered my first full dinner. I had vegetable soup, a steak, lyonnaise potatoes, sliced tomatoes, apple pie, and coffee. I was sick for two days. I would have been sick longer, but I was booked.
In those days Brown and I were very rarely booked. Eating was a problem; for Brown, not for me. I had a little trick. I'd go into a restaurant, the waiter would come up, put a basket of bread on the table, and I'd say, ''I'll order when my partner gets here." I'd eat all the bread, and then say, 'I'm sorry, my partner didn't show up," and I'd leave.
The third time I went into this restaurant the waiter brought over an empty basket. I said, "Where's the bread?" and he said, "Your partner was here ahead of you."
I had another little trick. But I had to be careful not to do it more than once in the same restaurant. For instance, I'd go into Child's and sit next to a very well dressed man. I'd order pancakes, eggs, toast, and coffee. Then I'd say to the man, "Would you do me a favor? I'm trying to date the cashier, so when I pay my check I'll wave to you. And will you please wave back, because I want her to think I know nice people." He'd say, "Sure," and when I got to the cashier, I'd say, "That gentleman is going to pay my check." She'd say, "Who?", so I'd wave to the man.
He'd wave back and I'd leave.
Just about the time I was running out of tricks, I fortunately met Gracie and didn't need them anymore. But all those years of doing bad acts and skipping meals left its mark. To this day my stomach still thinks I'm not doing well.
Actually, food is not important to me. For instance, steaks and chops-I don't touch them. Not that they can't be delicious, but you've got to cut them and chew them, and cut them and chew them, and chew them and cut them-if I have to work that hard, I want to get paid for eating. Personally, I don't even like red meat. I like Red Buttons, I like Red Skelton, and I like Redd Foxx, but I don't like red meat. I like Steve Allen, but it doesn't fit here. I wish he'd change his name to Red Allen so I could give him a plug.
Well, you've waited long enough. Here it is:
Source: How to Live to be 100
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