It sounds very food-snobby but sometimes I get grossed out by hearing what other people eat. In real life and online. For example, sometimes the various food and/or recipe threads here at the SDMB have me cringing and thinking “holy crap–you eat that?!”
Does this make me a bad person or do other people have the same reaction sometimes?
Sometimes I swear what I hear people talking about (or worse–talking about what their parents cooked when they were kids) makes me think about those websites like the Gallery of Regrettable Food.
I have no idea what those things are. I’m talking about the concoctions people discuss that involve things like white bread and tomato sauce and cheez whiz, for example. Or even more “gourmet” sounding foods that still just sound nasty. I’m not talking about “exotic” foreign foods, if that’s what you mean. Go to the Gallery of Regrettable Food site to see the kind of thing I mean.
I fully realize that everyone’s taste is different and that there are plenty of things I think are tasty that would gag other people, and there is nothing wrong with other people for liking foods that don’t appeal to me. It’s just amusing to witness the differences, sometimes.
It’s probably not helped by the fact that I’m more than a little squeamish in general. I was reading a thread here today that I actually had to skip several posts in because reading them was triggering my gag reflex. I have had to change the channel on the tv during cooking shows for the same reason before.
I thought this thread was going to more about stuff that people eat in close proximity to you that makes you want to ralph because the smell is overpowering. My mom is fond of dousing her salads with ranch dressing, and I literally have to leave the room while she eats these things. I like a little bit of ranch dressing to dip my celery stick in or whatever, but the smell of an entire half-bottle glopped all at once onto poor unsuspecting lettuce leaves…it just makes me want to hurl.
Not quite what the OP was talking about, I know. Although, just to provide some backup for you there, I try to be relatively “live and let live” about other people’s food choices, but I’m sorry, I simply cannot be tolerant about the casserole an ex-housemate used to make. It involved frozen tater tots, canned green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and some crunchy stuff of unknown provenance. Just… gak.
MsWhatsit: that is acceptable as well! I have moved tables in a restaurant before because nearby customers ordered food so odoriferous I couldn’t eat my own. I also had a downstairs neighbor once who would cook the most revolting smelling foods, which would waft up into our apartment and choke us for hours. D:
But the casserole you describe is more like what I’m thinking of. It generally comes up when people discuss their “comfort foods” which tend to be icky, bland, overcooked glop that their parents cooked for them in the 1950s and reminds them of home.
My son eats peanut butter and mayo sandwiches which kind of gross me out, but that’s mainly because I have a mouth-feel issue with bananas.
But people who pull out Spaghetti-O’s (or even worse, serve them over something else to make them more “gourmet” or whatever) just get me as well.
But don’t you see, that’s why the so called bland “comfort foods” that you refer to are the most inoffensive to the American Palate and popular. It is unadventourous and cultural…insular, even. You seem to forget that these so called “revolting smells” are maybe ambrosiac, delicious, or exotic to others. Seasoning is not a sin.
I assume you have an American Brahmin East Coast sense of taste.
I am frequetly grossed out by what other people eat. In fact, I’ve been grossed out by what my own family will eat. Sometimes I think I[m a changeling – I’m not all that fond of a lot of Polish food. I probably would’ve starved to death in the Old Country.
Even before I got to OpalCat’s second post, I thought of James Lilek’s “Gallery of Regrettable Food” – but his book, not the website. The thought of aspics and many of those weird 1950s food concoctions makes me glad I don’t live then.
Another example I came across from a 1940s Nero Wolfe story – Inspector Cramer was eating pixckles and pastrami, washed down with buttermilk.
I saw a guy at the salad bar at my work cafeteria who was dumping approximately a cup (based on a visual estimate) of ranch dressing on his salad. I wanted to vomit on his shoes.
I’ve told my kids that they can only eat ketchup when I’m not looking. Also canned ravioli. Would that I could extend this law to the rest of the world!
Also, red, blue, green, or purple food coloring. If I so much as acknowledge its existence, I get queasy.
Yes. The polite thing on this board is not to be a bitch about it, because you don’t have to smell or see it actually eaten. You just move on and internally comment blech, unless somebody asks for your opinion on it. I think most food thread contain something everybody thinks is gross to varying degrees.
The thing that will make me sick is to be eating by somebody with meat that is red and puddles red juice on the plate. My meal is done at that point and I eat bread outside while they are eating. I have about a minute to get away, before the gag reflex can’t be controlled.
Sure; I just don’t say so. My BIL and SIL have this bizarre hatred for yams. Well, I like yams, and I would appreciate being able to eat them without anyone constantly commenting on how horrifyingly disgusting yams are. I presume that others would like the same thing.
(Except my husband, of course; sometimes we tease each other with comments on our respective preferences. But not to excess.)
Lately my stomach has been turning a little if I see those ads on TV for something like the Ultimate BBQ Chili Smokehouse Burger at TGI Fridays or Chilis or whatever.
I see this overly huge hamburger loaded with crap and I get the feeling it would be like eating a lard, mayo, and BBQ sauce sandwich on Wonder bread. Yuck.
I agree, why in the world would someone feel they constantly have to comment how awful your food choices are? I was in a study group with a woman who did not allow others to have mayonnaise on their sandwiches, among other weird food issues she had. One study group session with that level of bossiness and control was all I could take.
I have food dislikes, too, but I try to just say “I don’t care for shrimp” (if asked)instead of “how can you eat that awful stuff?” unless I’m teasing a family member. As a cook, I have been known to try to gently dissuade people from putting ketchup on my lovingly grilled steaks, but if they must, they must. Next time they get hamburgers.