Bathtub food, also known as nourriture de baignoire for those with a nose for French, has become the latest fad in haute cuisine. Don’t worry if you have not heard of this most recent edition to the world of food fashion, because this particular fad is still hyper-local and has yet to permeate the surrounding culture. To visit the home of the cutting edge in comestible chic, you must head directly to the locale in question: my bathtub.
Please be ignoring the soap scum and sexual innuendo now.
Bathtub food is more a style of eating rather than a grand difference in the style of cooking. As its projenitor, my invention of bathtub food was less a constructed plan based on well-schooled ideas and more a spontaneous consummation of two of my great passions — food and bathing — during a mid-winter evening when I was experiencing both a chill and peckishness.
It was a cold night, and our radiators weren’t kicking out enough heat to combat it, so I ran a hot bath. While the tub filled, I rooted about in the kitchen, looking for food that I could eat while I soaked the chill out of my bones. A boiled egg seemed perfect, and I lay back in the bathtub, salting my egg and feeling quite decadent.
I noticed that it didn’t seem to matter when some of the salt fell into my bathwater, and I realized that my bath was already part of the post-meal clean-up! From there I extrapolated that I could effectively double my bathing time by allowing myself to stretch it through my evening meal, and nourriture de baignoire was born.
I began to dream of bathtub food. Toast was too crumbly, but moist cakes or a soft bagel might do. Fruit was an obvious choice, more so if it did not need to be peeled or cored. If not too hot, a bowl of soup would make a nice addition to the palette, as long as it did not have long noodles in need of swirling or heavier chunks that could splash if dropped in the bowl. The list of menu items has since grown to an appreciable size, and the diners polled, although presently limited to a number of one, have expressed a lot of enthusiasm for the diversity of flavor and sense of decadence that bathtub food inspires.
I do realize that eating food in a bathtub is not an entirely new concept. People have been known to consume wine or champagne while eating sweet finger foods in the bath before, but that has been largely limited to soft-focus, romantic television and movie soft-core in which no one has to consider who exactly will be picking those damn wilted rose petals out of the drain when it’s all said and done.
What nourriture de baignoire does that soft-core does not is legitimate a sustainable level of simple cuisine and domestic luxury. It says “Yes I can!” where our less-reasoned sense of propriety might say “No you can’t”. Bathtub food embraces the celebration of self. It allows for an intimacy with our relationship to food and solitude that our usual experiences with cuisine, largely considered to be a more social affair, affords. Bathtub food represents a revolution for both bathers and gourmands alike, so indulge, and spread the gospel of not only eating well but eating with pleasure.
I am going to celebrate my discovery of nourriture de baignoire with a breakfast of a lightly salted boiled egg followed by a hand-held pancake dipped in a mixture of syrup and melted butter while soaking in a lavender oil scented bath.
Viva la bathtub food!
About Schmutzie
I shall join you! Well, not in YOUR bathtub, but in my own…so more in spirit, I guess. But still! We’ll be a club! YAY for CLUBS! A foodie club! YAY MORE!
Bathtub Foodie Club has a nice ring to it :)
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I haven’t had a bath in so long.
Like years and years.
I’m probably going to try this out when I get home.
It sounds so nice.
And it IS nice. Set up Netflix on a laptop while your in there, and there’s no reason to ever NOT be having a bath.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
You are, as ever, a genius. I don’t know that I have ever pushed the culinary boundaries past a strawberry or piece of chocolate here or there, but this is very inspiring. Maybe I’ve doubted myself because I have had long-drawn battles about this issue with a friend who believes that it is an affront to decency and health or coffee (or even to make hotel coffee) in the presence of a toilet, and that bathtub eating can only be the province of those with modern segregated bathrooms the size of small apartments. I say power to the people! I will send my biased friend here immediately with the hopes that she might come to understand the lovlieness of your hyperlocal practice.
Twitter Name: debontherocks
It’s not like we’re eating while sitting on the toilet. This is the bathtub, a place of cleanliness. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
Mango. Sublime in the bath.
I like the taste of mango but never eat it because of the mess. The bath is the perfect place to eat it!
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I fully support your new dining experiment, and suggest that you employ a floating tray to make it that much more relaxing and efficient. With the tray, virtually no aquatic meal would be out of your reach, so to speak.
As for myself, I haven’t enjoyed a long soak since I was about twelve. It just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. What I do love, though, is a nice cold beer or two in the shower. It’s perfect after a day of manual labor or as a post-workout recovery.
The floating tray idea is BRILLIANT. You know that I’m going to try this out, right? I think I’ve got an inflatable neck pillow around here somewhere.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
Having flashbacks to the Seinfeld episode when Kramer installed a garbage disposal in his shower so he can prepare food and eat. You may be on to something!
I love that episode! I remember him serving shower salad to people. Somehow, it just doesn’t seem all that appetizing when the bathtub food is served to other people elsewhere.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I can see the egg. I can see the moist cake, the cookie, etc. The soup?You lost me kiddo :)
Admittedly, I was pushing it with the hot soup. Maybe a cold gazpacho?
Twitter Name: schmutzie
The beauty of this is the multi-purposeness. Banana, as you probably know, makes a nourishing hair conditioner. Porridge oats (with or without honey) are a soothing skin paste. Many is the time I’ve had a bath with a cup of chamomile tea, and transferred the cooled teabags to my eyelids.
And for those of us with small children, this might revolutionize our lives! I’m in!
I hadn’t even thought of the crossover. Wow. This revolution might be more far-reaching than I thought!
Twitter Name: schmutzie
Like many revolutions, ONE SPARK IS ALL IT TAKES!
Haha, awesome. I love baths. I can (and regularly do) spend hours in the tub, soaking. Naturally adding meals to my bath-time routine is the next step!
See? I knew I was on to something.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
Given my OCD and host of phobias there’s something about this that terrifies me.
I will say though that you do make it look very chic.
Twitter Name: Ronald Mattocks
This kind of cuisine is not for the feint of heart, that is true. Rest assured, though, no one has become ill or died yet. Yet.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
When I saw the little blurb I was like–well, that some kind of brilliant fad.
But when I find that you INVENTED this brilliant fad. Wow. There are no words.
Did Ozma just call me brilliant? Suh-weet.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
May I add baked potato, not too hot, to the repertoire?
This reminds me that I always used to take a strange pleasure chewing gum in the shower.
I vote for some ice cream … I like food activities that involve two extremes of temperature: putting cold milk on hot oatmeal, pouring hot fudge on cold ice cream, drinking hot chocolate on a cold winter day. I think flavors are enhanced by opposing heat levels.
Twitter Name: noelrozny
That is a fantastic idea. I like the temperature extremes in food, too. I’m on it.
Twitter Name: schmutzie