Posted on 01/13/2008 1:33:14 PM PST by Graybeard58
A few weeks ago, I shared my dirtiest picky-eating secrets and listed the foods I refuse to try — from grapefruit to beans.
I asked readers to tell me about their finicky ways. It turns out I'm not the only one out there. Read what they said.
Mushrooms? No way.
Kevin McDermott, Waterbury
I wouldn't eat a banana on a dare. In the late '60s, one of our neighbors had visitors from Delaware and they introduced all the kids to baked bananas. Yum! You cannot even imagine the smell of oozing nanner guts in the oven. I can actually get sick thinking about it.
I didn't try gravy until I was in my 20s and still only use it sparingly. Mushrooms? Forget about 'em. Especially canned ones. The smell of the brine permeates everything. To this day I will only eat a hot dog or hamburger at a picnic. "Other" people's food freaks me out and I imagine all types of horrors going on in unforeseen kitchens. Some day perhaps I'll try so and so's beans but for now, I will have to live without the implied wonderfulness.
The best gift Santa ever gave us was a sandwich grill. It was like today's Panini grill. Mom would buy Velveeta and Wonder bread and we were able to make our own sandwiches any time, day or night. She felt that this combo was more nutritious than most of the other foods hitting our stomachs.
My lovely wife is an adventurous cook, blending all sorts of things together for dinner. Just recently I was informed via cell phone that dinner was to be a chicken tortellini dish.
I was actually excited about it until I came home and found that I would need to fish out the spinach and mushrooms before I could eat it. I have come a long way though. Not too very long ago I wouldn't have even considered fishing, I probably would have just made a grilled cheese instead.
If I live to be 100, I will never figure out why I decided to try something called mahi mahi at Outback Steakhouse. My wife chastised me for ordering flipper and I spent some very good money on a doggie bag.
Now that you think I am a food freak I will let you in on this little tidbit. I will eat tuna salad just about anywhere. From diners to Subway to delis to home I will try the tuna. I could eat it every day and sometimes do.
My personal lunchbox mainstay sandwich is Majesty ham, Land 'O Lakes American cheese, Hellmann's mayo and Gulden's mustard on any variety of bread. It has to be made in a specific order though. I would be embarrassed to admit how often I eat these.
@Copy of Briefhead:It's in the family genes
Megan Plourde, Watertown
I am a picky eater. My parents are picky eaters. My sister and four brothers are all picky eaters. All of our friends and other family members get so annoyed by our eating habits.
I, also, do not eat condiments. No ketchup, mustard, mayo, salad dressing, cheese, tomatoes, etc.
The meat I eat has to be cooked well done. I don't drink milk. I eat my cereal dry. I do not like pasta sauce, so I eat my pasta dry. But I do love cheese pizza. I do love salt. My family members are saltaholics. I would love to sit down and eat a lobster, but I just know I won't like it (never tried).
This list could go on and on, but it must be hereditary since my family is all the same.
@Copy of Briefhead:Picky eaters choose to be picky
Carolyn A. McDonough, Canaan
This is an interesting subject at this time of year when families are gathering together and suddenly learning that "Suzy" is now a vegetarian and "Little Billy" won't eat anything but Cheese Puffs.
Picky eaters are made, not born. I think it is an attention getter. It works for a while until everyone is just bored with it.
Once no one comments, the problem seems to go away. I don't like raw onions (except red or Vidalia onions), but love them cooked in any way. I prefer not to eat organ meats, but love liver pate! I ate an oyster once and that was enough, but love snails!
I will try almost any food. A taste doesn't mean you have to eat the whole thing!
I think people miss out on a lot of pleasure and enjoyment by obsessing about food!
@Copy of Briefhead:Hold the pickle
Stephanie Sims, Cheshire
I am 26 years old and have always had a thing with many types of food. Well actually, I should say condiments mostly. I was told by my parents that I would grow out of it.
But here I am years later and staying strong. I just like what I like. I don't like pickles, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, hot sauce, relish, coleslaw, tartar sauce, etc.
Being in the same room with someone eating it can even make me nauseous from the smell. In fact, most times I go out to eat, I order something that won't have the option of a pickle being on the plate. I can't just eat around it.
The juice has seeped into the food and ruined it. I usually just tell the waiter I'm allergic to pickles. And most times that works.
Otherwise, they aren't too sympathetic to someone who just doesn't like pickles.
I figure it's not really lying because if a pickle does show up on my plate I WILL have a reaction.
Nice to hear there's other people out there who are considered abnormal.
All beef or all pork hot dogs and bologna are just fine, the regular kind have chicken in them.
My wife eats it but no kisses from husband until those teeth are brushed.
I’ll eat just about any thing thats set down in front of me but there are some foods I tend to avoid due to the hassel factor.
Corn on the cob and chicken top the list.
I’m one of those freaks who happily scarf down whole fried soft-shelled crabs, snails, squid, octopus, even sea lice but weird stuff from the land: chicken gizzards and organs, beef liver, veal in any form, ‘sweetbreads’ (whatever that is), tripe, even venison cause me to nearly faint just thinking about them.
I don’t like any kind of fruit. Too sweet, too sticky and weird textures. Not to mention I’m allergic to bananas and I think I subconciously lump all fruits into that awful reaction.
I’m not as bad as a lot of people. Including my “I don’t like fruit” wife. ;-)
I don’t like much of any seafood aside perhaps from basic fried fish. I’m not good with leftovers...lots of foods that are leftover I have to almost force myself to eat, they just don’t taste the same to me. I have gotten better about it though, especially as I’ve been trying to save money on food and lose weight. Not a big fan of spinach by itself either.
Do you like turkey, Graybeard? And you can eat bologna, which is made from stuff we don’t want to know about, but not chicken?
Come the crunch, picky eaters will die
I’m a Picky eater too. Sadly I haven’t had a good Picky
in years, I think they must be endangered.
(I don’t eat the gouuuushy parts though, ugh!)
By the way, there are some nutso people in this world with regards to food!
Organ meats and weird British foods like blood sausage and blood pudding...ugh, no, sorry, no sale.
While I have followed her directive pretty much I would rater not eat chitterlings, rutabagas, durian or kidney.
Hey! I do like bananas though, especially when they turn brown and all that starch is truned to sugur.
ABSOLUTELY NO, NO, NO, BANANAs on my BOAT!!!
That will get you turned to jetsom in a heartbeat.
ARRRRRRGGH, chuck the scurvy tar over the side!!!
I’ve always hated chicken, too. In fact, it always gave me the hiccups for some reason (too dry, I think).
The main reason I hate it, though, is because it’s such a total waste of an eating opportunity. It tastes like “nothing.”
Now, in middle age, I’m forced to eat chicken for many meals because it’s protein, it’s cheap and it’s plentiful - but I have to dress it up in a lot of disguises to get it down.
I did read one time that chicken meat has larger molecules than other protein, which makes it indigestible to a lot of people (and here I was thinking it was practically hypoallergenic as ubiquitous as it is) - so I think that might be the cause of others’ hatred of it and my hiccups.
Nope, it's a first cousin to the disgusting chicken.
Picky eaters must have had sheltered and cosseted childhoods. When I was a kid, you ate what was put in front of you, as fast as you could, because if you didn’t a big sister or brother would finish it for you. You just didn’t waste good food. Going to bed hungry a few times (and not because you are dieting) will do a world of good for reforming any picky eater.
American kids grow up with some traditional dislikes — I still don’t care much for liver and would probably never order it at a restaurant — but if it was put in front of me I’d probably eat it. I do like liverwurst, however. Hard as it is to find in Tokyo (and expensive when you find it.)
Living in Japan and other places in Asia, I have occasionally run into food items I wouldn’t touch, but those are generally so far outside the western concept of edible products that 99.99% of other Americans wouldn’t try them either.
My grandmother tells me they used to eat BRAINS with their scrambled eggs! And calf testicles!
This was in the depression, though.
How funny - I too love all the foods you mentioned in your first line - especially soft-shelled crabs, yum! - but also love your most hateds.
Exceptions: octopus (In MX, my standing instructions to waiters: no pulpo!) and tripe. And menudo.
But, I will kill for lamb fries, or calf fries, if lamb aren’t available!
My ex wife was a picky eater and I noticed that her sons didn’t like the exact same foods as their mother. Me being me, I bought some ice cream and convinced my wife to proclaim it “Nasty tasting”. You should have seen the look of confusion on those kids faces. LOL
Same here and that included chicken. I ate my last piece about 1955 or so when I was about 10 years old. If we had chicken I was no longer made to eat it but nothing else got substituted for it.
I’m fine eating boneless chicken. I just don’t like the mess of gnawing it off the bone.
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