💬 I mix my biryani, my brother eats it layer by layer

My brother and I fight about biryani every time a plate lands on the table. It's been 15 years. I mix everything first. Rice, meat, masala, all of it, until the colour is even. Then I eat. He digs down the side with his spoon and eats 1 layer at a time. Top rice, then meat, then bottom. He calls my way a crime. I say he eats like he's reading a book, 1 page at a time. Last Eid at my uncle's place there was 1 big pot for 9 of us. We were told to share. I started mixing. My brother put his hand on my spoon and said, stop, that's not how it works. I said, it's my biryani too. He said, you're ruining the bottom. Our cousins just kept eating and watching. My uncle said, same mother, same house, and 2 completely different ways of eating rice. Here's my side. The meat at the bottom is the best part and it's never the same as the top. Mixing means everyone gets a bit of it. He says I'm spreading the good masala so thin nobody tastes it. I think he just likes keeping the best bite for himself at the end. He's always been like that. When we were kids he saved the last piece of everything. I used to steal it. Now we sit at opposite ends of the plate to keep our work apart. That helps a bit. His daughter, who's 6, eats the raita first and the rice last. Neither of us knows where she got that. My mother just takes a small plate and eats quietly in the kitchen. She wins every argument that way. He asked me yesterday if I was coming Friday. I said yes. He said, bring your own plate.

I am on your side. Biryani is meant to be mixed, and anyone who eats it by layers is slowing down for no reason. At weddings in the Old City there is no time for structure anyway, with 10 hands on one plate. My cousin eats his layer by layer and then complains the last bite is cold. I tell him that is his own doing.