Picky eaters

[MercenaryChef]

I'm an only child, and I will eat just about anything once.

But what offsets the only child syndrome is that I'm Asian, and we eat all sorts of things that Americans would find weird. My mother never explained what we were eating. We ate what we ate. If there was something new she'd offer me a bite, and I'd decide if I liked it or not. If I liked it then she'd tell me.

It's come to my attention that as an only child I am a very strange only child, one without ideas of entitlement, weird food habits, notions about possession, and hangups over sharing. Oh well.

i too grew up in an asian household where we ate what was put in front of us. okay, all of that is true except for the asian part. we will change 'asian' to 'obedient' and/or 'poor.'

my father hunted and fished, it sustained our meals throughout the year. venison, wild duck, pheasant, grouse, trout, steelhead, elk, goose and quail were the dominant animal upon our table. not only were we eating the flesh of these beasts, but deer and elk heart and liver graced our meals more than a few times.

we gathered mushrooms, wild berries, grew a garden and lived a generally good and solid life of americana. what mother put upon the table you well and fucking ate. you ate it all, you did not complain, you enjoyed it, it tasted good.

i really think this is what opened me up so much to the foods i so love now; sweetbreads, raw meat and fish, the 'gross' parts of pigs and cows, mushrooms, etc. if i had not been forced to eat these things i would not have appreciated them.

as far as the theory of your hubby (hello, tony) being a fan of how mum cooks and it being the true and right path to food i have seen this time and time again. often i see it on a professional level. cooks tend to latch onto the ways that their first chef our their culinary teacher showed them and that is the true and the right. there certainly are more than one way to skin a cat (and to then confit it's flesh).

getting people to eat outside their comfort zone is hard. it takes a person really and truly wanting to give something a try that they are not comfortable with. my lovely girlfriend once went to dinner with me and a chef friend and his wife and opened her palette and mind to sweetbreads, bone marrow, escargot, steak tartare, quail and rabbit all in one meal! i knew she was keeper when she gestured at my tartare slathered in raw egg yolk and asked if she could have some more. is she eating raw liver of pygmy goat or the brains of some rare african tree snake? no. but she is more adventuresome than ever before and just the other night enjoyed some fantastic head cheese and blood pudding with me.

picky eaters are the bane of my existence as a chef. you people ruin my day at work again and again and again. so often when a server comes to the kitchen and says 'my guest is terribly intolerant, allergic or does not like (insert item here) i usually respond with 'tell them to fuck themselves and go home.' you hate onions of all kinds but you have the audacity to come out into public and truly expect a meal that has never had any onion-type item used in the preparation? i want to accommodate you as much as i can but if your tastes are so limited that the menu needs to be tailored to fit you like a pair of custom trousers stay home.

cheers,

the chef who knows best

[Eyelesbarrow]

i really think this is what opened me up so much to the foods i so love now; sweetbreads, raw meat and fish, the 'gross' parts of pigs and cows, mushrooms, etc. if i had not been forced to eat these things i would not have appreciated them. but she is more adventuresome than ever before and just the other night enjoyed some fantastic head cheese and blood pudding with me.

People should be forced to eat head cheese and blood pudding once in their lifetime. They don't know what they're missing. ;)

so often when a server comes to the kitchen and says 'my guest is terribly intolerant, allergic or does not like (insert item here) i usually respond with 'tell them to fuck themselves and go home.' you hate onions of all kinds but you have the audacity to come out into public and truly expect a meal that has never had any onion-type item used in the preparation? i want to accommodate you as much as i can but if your tastes are so limited that the menu needs to be tailored to fit you like a pair of custom trousers stay home.

Do you get a lot of this kind of customers who request adjustments in their food? I don't understand why people have to ask some dishes to be adjusted to their liking. I understand little requests like not using nuts in garnishes, but onion? It's a very basic and vital ingredients in many cuisines. Why don't they just not order it? Or learn to cook it, for god's sake.

[Datepalm]

Hurray for latchkey kids and their survival skillz. Me and my bro were latchkey kids, too. To compound the problem, my mom worked abroad for two years when I was 9 or 10, so we were on our own with a dad who doesn't know how to cook (except offals.) We eventually got tired of it and took matters to our own hands: we learned how to cook. Simple things like frying, boiling eggs, etc can lead to making your own pasta. :thumbsup:

That was my experience too - I was never a picky eater, but doing my own shopping and cooking threw out a lot of things I thought I just didn't like. Eggplant and pumpkins especially. Can't stand ginger either, but it dosne't mean I won't try a dish with ginger in it at least once. Maybe this is the one where it works well. :dunno:

I do draw the line at Cholodetz. Too obviously a food meant to get a family of 12 through a siberian winter on three potatoes and half a pig.

[Silverstar]

I'm a fairly picky eater, I guess, but I've been working hard on changing that recently. I've succeeded with tomatoes - never used to be able to stand them, and now I eat bowlfuls of cherry tomatoes as a snack all the time. I'm trying with fish at the moment. I've found a few types of fish that I can stomach, but there's a lot that I really just don't like. Still trying, though!

[brook]

I guess with pizza toppings, I could understand people not wanting stuff on that could spread and contaminate the whole pizza, but solid stuff like olives and mushrooms... why not just pick them off?

I have this argument every time we order pizza, you can pick an olive off a pizza but you can always taste where its been, if you really don't like the flavour just picking it off doesn't cut it.

Mushrooms I'd agree, I love mushrooms now but hated them when I was a kid and even then I never had any issue picking them out of dishes, they don't leave any flavour behind.

[Guest Raidne]

He's not an asshole all of the time. :)

I suppose that qualifies as one of those infamous in-jokes, but god damn you are on a roll lately. I nearly spit out my orange juice with that one.

brook, this is pretty much husband's issue, and on that one, I agree with him, actually. Pizza places are not using high-quality olives, soaked in olive oil or anything. They leave a little pool of olive-y vinegar wherever they're been. But caring about the smell is too much, IMHO, even though I will admit that your typical green olives in a jar do have a smell.

Chats - thanks for advice, and I will use the strategy of cooking something new and not caring if my kids actually eat it when I have kids, but I'm not the kind of person who would cook for myself, and I do all the household cooking, so no f*ing way am I putting an hour into making a dinner that we are all not going to eat - nay - enjoy. What I'll do is make a side dish of - say - butternut squash, before I labor over a pasta, bacon, a butternut squash casserole (which, sadly, I ultimately did not make). This is tough, because I feel like someone would have a better chance of actually liking the squash in the casserole (isn't everything better with bacon?), but, c'mon, it was a fairly time-consuming recipe and it's just the two of us.

I also feel that I should be able to have a thread about picky eating - using my husband as my main example - without long time, established boarders trying to drag my marriage through the mud, but if that is an unreasonable expectation, that I suppose I would have to agree that I should not be starting threads in this nature and will not be doing so in the future. And for anyone who has not met my husband yet who may meet him in the future, he's a pretty fucking awesome guy and I'm nearly sure that a BwBer has already used malt vinegar in his presence and he did not complain. :)

[Chaldanya]

This is not the first time I've made the case that one should not publicly talk shit about ones spouse, and probably won't be the last. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the weird one. But my wife could be Satan, and no one would ever hear it from me. And I expect the same respect in return.

I agree with this. I've never spoken about my other half on this board in any kind of fashion and would expect the same in return. Precisely because it's disrespectful and people have a habit of extrapolating wildly about the state of anything from one little OP.

Also, the talk of only children makes me laugh. According to you lot we're all selfish, pick eaters, spoiled, self entitled and have weird food habits. Hee, hee.

Re picky eaters: When I was very little I'd eat anything and then when my tastebuds changed (around 2 years old as everyone's does) the only thing I wanted to eat was sausage and tomato. Obviously things have changed since then and the only things that I tend to avoid are leafy vegetables and seafood because of either the taste or texture. There are other things that I'm not keen on but if someone has cooked them for me, I'll eat them; I don't choose to cook with them myself.

N

[IheartTesla]

So these are the wave of threads that were supposed to bring back sanity to the boards?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Stego,

I said 'chances are,' Robert E! I dint know your Civil War Re-enactors made it all the way up here!

No reinactments. I dated a woman who's aunts & uncles lived in Braintree. Her sister lived in Foxboro. She grew up in Middleboro. We were up there for more than a week.

Her father's side of her family is Sicilian. We ate very good pizza while we were in Massachusettes.

I think MA is a beautiful state. Too bad the government there wants to hold your hand while you're taking a crap.

:P

[Tsavong Lah]

There's a good chance I'm the pickiest eater on the boards. But I try not to let my picky tastes interfere with those around me. However, I do have to stand up against some things that just smell awful and I think others should be considerate of that. And, yes, vinegar of all types fall in that category. Since smell is a large component of how we perceive something to taste, if you order something with a strong aroma that you like but your dining part finds abhorrent, you are actually ruining the taste of their food. While you could make the choice to eat something else you like that doesn't have the same odious nature and still enjoy yourself, a picky eater like me will not be able to enjoy their meal because they'll be smelling/tasting that which they don't like.

I don't care if someone eats something I don't like, but it is true that people get physically ill from some smells that others don't mind. Growing up on a farm I can handle the smell of animal shit no problem while others can't, but I can't handle certain food smells (or perfume, but we've had that thread).

As for things I don't like, it is a very long list. And it really isn't just that I don't prefer it, many things I find myself physically unable to swallow because they trigger my gag reflex. Seafood of all sorts is horrible. I'm also not a real big vegetable fan as the fibrous texture is just appalling to me. Texture in general is huge to me. Aside from the aforementioned fibrous texture, I also can't handle creamy textures like pudding or even whipped cream. And while I love fruit, I hate what cooking it does to it. And also salt is disgusting. I could probably sit here all day and name off things I don't like, but I'm sure you are all thoroughly disgusted with me already.

Oh, and I also dislike any beans aside from baked beans, that's a big one.

But I do like spicy food.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TL,

You don't like salty, creamy, or fiberous foods? You don't like cooked fruits. You don't eat seaffod and can't stand vinager or smelly foods What do you eat?

Also, have you considered demanding someone not eat what you find smelly or otherwise objectionable may ruin their dining experience?

[Fenny]

I'm not bothered by the smells, but for some reason - possibly because of issues regarding my weight - I don't react well to the sounds of eating - chewing loudly, forks and knives on plates, people talking with their mouthful, smacking their lips. Especially when older people with not so many teeth are involved. Obviously, I don't mention it. The solution is that when I go out to dinner I drink plenty of alcohol, so that I can sit through the meal in a good-humoured stupor.

TL, you remind me of a friend of mine who also has strong reactions to the textures of food. She hates boiled vegetables, for reason of their gooiness. It's not fair to call her a picky eater, however - in terms of what she eats, she's probably much more adventurous than many of those people who gulp down whatever's put in front of them.

[Guest Raidne]

TL - how do you feel about tofu in a stir-fry? Is that a good texture for or disgusting? I'm actually generally really curious if there are any foods that self-proclaimed picky people have developed a taste for that surprised them.

[Gertrude]

Like I said, I was shocked as hell when I discovered that I liked sauerkraut. I'd had it before, didn't like it, and the smell kept me from trying it often. When I did finally try it again, it was awesome.

I'm slowly coming around on carrots, but I still have to have them boiled to near mush - raw carrots are a no-go.

Tofu in small chunks is fine - larger chunks make me too aware of the texture to enjoy it.

I had some pickled vegetables - cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, etc - and LOVED them. Shocked the hell out of me. Sadly, it was at a large party and I was unable to get the recipe and I have been unable to duplicate it. It saddens me a lot, because I was really excited that I was eating raw vegetables and liking them.

On the subject of pickling, I don't like pickles - mostly. I kind of like the crispy outer part, but the center is a no. This comes into play with those cream cheese and ham pinwheels - I will nibble the outer edges and throw away the center. Yes, I've tried just downing the whole thing - the soggy center kills the whole thing.

Onions have grown on me too. Again - raw onion is a firm no, sauteed onions in small doses are very good. Onion rings are excellent :)

[zollo]

Time to make dinner. I am thinking a gorgeous salmon dish. Good luck with your brown rice on toast, picky folks!! :P

:leaving:

[Tsavong Lah]

Scot,

I think there must be something that most non-picky eaters could find that they'd enjoy that wouldn't have a scent that would ruin other diners' eating experiences. I have yet to hear of someone who only enjoys odorous foods. As for what I do like, having been raised on a farm I'm a big fan of meat and potatoes, I like pastas, and most casseroles (we call them hotdishes here). Being from the midwest I have a natural affinity for cheese. For vegetables I'm fine with the ones that are normally presented as sides, such as carrots, peas, green beans, and corn. I'm not a fan of leafy vegetables, however, as they seem to be just filler with little flavor (or at least little flavor that I like).

Raidne,

I have nothing against tofu as the texture isn't so awful, it just needs to be cooked with the right things. Not a fan of stir-fry though.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TL,

Being non-picky eater I probably could pick something else. What's irritating is if you go out in a group to a place you know with someone new and are anticipating a particular dish only to have that dish objected to by the picky eater. So much for what you'd been dreaming about all day.

[Xray the Enforcer]

What do you eat?

What any self-respecting metalhead would eat: the hearts of his enemies.

MercenaryChef -- amusingly enough, my parents are also somewhat responsible for my rather varied tastes in food because my dad will eat just about anything (he used to love to gross us out with the stories of what he had to eat in Ranger school and while deployed in Vietnam) and my mom, while she was more conservative, would go along with us. I can vividly remember the time my dad passed the kimchi with delight in his eyes: "C'mon kids! Eat up! It was buried in the ground for a month!!" And we ate it because holy shit! buried in the ground! that's awesome! Another time, we drove to Drake's Bay (for birdwatching) and we made a detour to an oyster farm where my dad proceeded to buy a dozen shucked oysters and eat them while smacking his lips and saying (like Animal from the Muppets) "Ahhhhhh! Aaaaaahhhhh!!!" And my mom would just facepalm a bit with a scandalized "Gary!" while we kids marveled that dad was eating what looked like a huge collection of snot. :lol:

[Tsavong Lah]

TL,

Being non-picky eater I probably could pick something else. What's irritating is if you go out in a group to a place you know with someone new and are anticipating a particular dish only to have that dish objected to by the picky eater. So much for what you'd been dreaming about all day.

I just feel that there is a difference between one person being put in a position where they can't eat their number one choice, and the situation where the second person can't enjoy the meal at all no matter what they order. Normally I won't verbally object, as I have a bit too much of "Minnesota Nice" in me, but that's not to say that I might not take my frustration out in a passive aggressive way later on (which is really what "Minnesota Nice" is all about). I think it is a difficult situation from an etiquette perspective, as we're dealing with a situation where neither party's enjoyment can be optimized. But at this point we start venturing into an area best described by game theory, which is way beyond the point of this thread.

ETA: X-Ray wins. I'd never turn down the heart of my enemies. Hopefully that enemy is a cow though, as grilled beef heart can be quite tasty (although a little chewy).

[Tyria]

I wasn't really a picky eater when I was younger, but I used to love fish sticks until I got a goldfish. Apparently I refused to eat fish sticks after that, because I loved Fishy, and his successor Fishy 2, oh so much, and I didn't want to eat any of their family. Next time my mum made fish sticks, she told me it was pork. I happily ate them, not even realising they looked, smelled and tasted exactly like fish sticks.

I'll usually try any kind of food once, but I'm not a huge fan of really hot spicy food. I just don't get the taste of burning and trying to eat with your eyes gushing and snot running down your face.

The only foods that I can not be in the vicinity of without gagging are bananas and those *gags* Terry's chocolate *barf* oranges. Seriously, there is bile rising just thinking about the smell and taste of that last one. If the commercial comes on I have to change the channel. My mum has the same reaction to them, and we always threaten to buy each other one as an obviously cruel joke, but neither of us can even bring ourselves to look at one on the shelf without gagging let alone have the courage to hold one in our hands. I may have to puke now :stillsick:

eta: This thread reminds me of this site. I think I may have first heard about it on this board. Not sure.