Most folks can embrace the idea that other people’s opinions on matters of taste and aesthetics are not wrong, but just different.
Up to a point.
Eventually though, most people will draw a line in the sand somewhere, and say about some thing: “That’s just wrong!” These declarations are based on feelings, biases, and prejudices rather than actual facts.
I don’t mind foods. I’m very much De gustibus non est disputandum there.
I have never been grossed out by what someone else is eating, whether it’s something I personally would like or not. However, I am seriously grossed out by the manner in which many children eat, in which the major portion of their food ends up on their faces, hands, or all over the table.
Thudlow Boink is right. The ketchup overwhelms all other tastes so that the guest might as well have had a hamburger patty as to have had a T-bone steak at $10 a pound. I never said I chastised anyone over their ketchup use, just that my lip has been known to quiver a bit when I ask if they are sure they want the ketchup. That’s all. I still invite them to my house, I just don’t serve them steaks again.
Oh, I don’t mind when kids eat that way. But when their parents do, it’s another matter.
I can count on one hand the foods that gross me out (let’s see … haggis … limburger cheese … turnips … kidneys … tripe). And I’ve never combined foods that resulted in something hideous.
I even sometimes eat hot dogs with ketchup (in addition to lots of other things).
But I do question ***why ***some people make their food choices. Like why do people eat white bread, rather than something with more flavor and nutritional value? Why on earth do people eat white rice rather than brown? (other than economic reasons, of course)
I was at a Tex Mex place for lunch with some people and one ordered lengua—tongue. She had me try a bite and it was pretty good. VERY tender. I order it sometimes now.
Butter, to excess, on buns or bread. For some reason, it just sickens me. I don’t mind a teensy scrape of butter on a really nice, fresh crusty bun or on my toast, but when someone is eating something slathered in butter, to the point that it’s more than a millimeter thick, I get nauseated. The same with watching someone put a big gob of it on pancakes or waffles. Now, it’s my issue, so I don’t say anything, and never would, but I can’t look at the food or watch them eat it.
“Butter-flavoured” microwave popcorn. Ugh. The stench of that also turns my stomach. Thank god no one does that much in our office. The smell really permeates, too.
Tang.
Astronauts drink it! I remember having it as a kid, and bought some for my kids when they were little, and was disappointed to find it disgustingly sweet and cloying. It definitely falls into that “Kid Food” category.
Mm. I just had some tripe last night in a nice bowl of pho.
This is just a rhetorical question, right? Because of course you know that the majority of people (in certain large geographic regions) who eat bread and rice actually do prefer the taste of white bread and white rice. For example, you just can’t eat most Indian food with brown rice. It just doesn’t go.
I’m not frequently grossed out by what other people are eating, but how people eat usually gets me. You know, those people that finish with food all over their faces and grease/mayo on their hands and such. I cannot eat in the presence of those people.
I don’t want to be rude, but it seems like your squeamishness about food is a little excessive. Not just based on the milk comment, but also on the fact that you frequently get physical gag reactions from just READING about food that other people are eating.
There’s a lot of food I hate too, some of it perfectly normal stuff like fish or strawberry pound cake. I have a really hard time eating next to someone with a plate of fish, especially if it smells particularly strong, but I can’t even imagine getting sick just thinking about it, or reading someone’s recipe for it.
Some people are just squeamish. My husband has to leave the house if I’m making myself a vat of liver and onions, for example. He has the same thing with milk, but he has learned to tolerate it, because I love the stuff and he’s been desensitized. He’ll stick around without making a face if I’m eating paté, or ripping a lobster apart, or eating a barely-seared steak, but I know it bothers him a little, so I try to be discreet or eat that stuff where he doesn’t have to stare at it.
I know. I have Tourette’s Syndrome, which is very closely related to OCD. I see something gross and a chain of even-more-gross vivid imagery gets triggered in my head and I have to fight very, very hard to make it stop (it isn’t always possible.) Oh, and the “triggered imagery” is full sensory, not just visual. For example if I see someone spit on the sidewalk, my brain decides to vividly imagine exactly every sensation that would occur were I to lick that loogey off the sidewalk. Taste, texture, smell, everything. And it takes 100% of my full concentration to derail my brain into thinking of something else, if I even can. I can’t explain why certain foods trigger my brain to do this. Do some reading about Tourette’s Syndrome if you want to learn about how weird and frustrating it can be
But, the point to keep in mind is that ketchup overwhelms all other tastes for you. If you agree with and accept that other people’s tastes are different from yours, how can you say what ketchup does to someone else’s taste buds? Maybe, in that person’s mouth, ketchup delightfully enhances the taste of the steak, and doesn’t overwhelm it all.
I guess I just don’t understand this idea of accepting differences in taste, but only up to a point. I don’t see how it can be quantified, so that a difference of “X” between your tastes and someone else’s is ok, but a difference of “2X” is just wrong. So that salting a steak is fine, but adding ketchup is wrong and/or an insult to the cook? Doesn’t make any sense to me.
I always wished someone would discover a fruit, name it “Poon,” and then decide to have the Tang people powder it. It would fly out of the supermarket by the truckload…
