Fights you've had over food.

The BBQ Pit
1

Mr. Ujest and I cannot have a civil discussion about two subjects.

Not abortion & gun control.

Not about politics or the war.

Not Money or Britney Spears.

But Bacon & Bratwurst.

Both of these food items brings on the Conversational A-Bomb for us.
Being that I am the Gatherer, I every slab of bacon I’ve brought home from the store did not meet his stringent culinary expectations. I’m not rightly sure what these expectations are other than the bacon isn’t clogging up his arteries fast enough or making his blood pressure rise satisfactorily with the sodium content, but I did not buy bacon for years because I tired of his Quest for Perfect Bacon, which isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds, but it starts with, “Why did you buy this bacon?”

Trying hard not to sigh.“It was on sale.”

“It’s not good. Don’t buy the bacon on sale anymore.” Oh, yes, we just have money to toss away on the better fed piggies out there.

“I’m not buying the $7.95 a slab stuff as you consume an entire side of pig at one sitting.”

" You eat it too." He counters reasonably, " But it tastes better." As if that settles the whole problem. If he likes it, then so it must be.

" If I go with the more expensive stuff, then I have to cut back somewhere else, like toilet paper, peanut butter…" This is just how my brain works, no deviations allowed.

“Don’t get the cheap peanut butter, it’s gross.”

" Then eat cheaper bacon."

“Why would you buy it if I don’t like it.”

Pointing the bacon flipper pincher thingies at him, " You just ate 3/4 of the package! It must have been hell to choke down something you don’t like."

Realizing he is boxed in he tries a diversionary tactic, “You’re being sarcastic.”

" I am? Oh, Pardon me, your Highness."

And the subject drops until the next time we eat bacon. Which is about once a year because of these moments and I refuse to buy the higher priced bacon for this experience just out of spite. Dammit.
Bratwurst is a whole other Bomb Waiting To Asplode for us.

Being that he is of the Superior German Race ( hazel eyes, bald, 40# over weight, non-engineer)he knows Bratwurst. I defer to his bratwurst knowledge. Being that I am not of the superior race in any way shape or form ( except in sarcasm, which he says is a sign of a deficiency.), my tastes towards bratwurst are more utalitarian: quick and easy to cook.

According to my husband, whom I refer to in moments like this as Colonel Von Trapp, it must be Johnsonville Stadium Brats. Not cheesy brats. Not Regular Brats. Definately not Italian brats. But, Stadium brats.

We eat brats about two nights a week, so I do try to stock up. Kids can’t get enough of them, thankfully. Once in awhile, the old gal gets hankering for a different brat and I have blashphemed against all humanity by bringing home a wide variety of Hillshire Farms, Ekridge Farms, and some unholy Organic kind of brats, according to the Colonel. Which were pretty good, but stuffed with chicken and some kind of fruit, which was bad, bad, bad and wrong,wrong, wrong if I listened to my petulant husband. Apparently, eating a chicken/fruit brat would be healthy. Eating it when everything is organic will somehow affect the petro-chemical industries and allow free range chickens to run willy nilly. Then there would be chicken poop and unemployed petro-chemical employees and old fashioned farmers everywhere. That’s bad.

The same kind of tense discussion we have over bacon ensues if the wrong brats make it in our doorway.

We recently had a birthday party for family and friends in celebration of our son’s sixth birthday. For the kids they got hot dogs. Not Ballpark franks. Not Hebrew National Hot Dogs. Not Oscar Meyer Weiners. But buy in the bulk hot dogs. That was ok. Giving our children and their friends three kinds of mixed animal parts with loads of sodium is acceptable.

I went to get the Johnsonville Stadium Brats and just blow the wad of party money on them and buns, but the meat case was empty of them. In a near panic I found the butcher and told him I had a food crisis. He apologized and said there would be more in later in the week. Fat lottagood that did me when the party was the next day. I bit the bullet and picked regular Johnsonville Brats and prayed my husband would not notice at all.

I was unloading the car and bringing the groceries in when I was met on that fateful Saturday morning by Colonel Von Trapp. He had had a vasectomy the morning before and was, shall we say, a little crabby as can be expected of a man when his scrotum has been attacked by sharp implements while under painkillers.

There I was, standing with four packages of non-stadium brats in my hand and Mr. My-Testicles-Hurt snipped at me.
( You have to know that was the first time he’s ever done that. 15 years. What’s next a wife beater? That’s the last time I get him fix, I tell you. ) " Why didn’t you get Stadium brats?"

I wasn’t even in the house yet. I was standing in the garage, " They were all out at Costco. I swear to God." What does he have, Xray vision to see through my hands?

" You don’t believe in God." He countered crabbily.

“No. I don’t believe in the Bible. Look, I got eight packages of the regular bra…”

" I like stadium brats." If he were three years old, he would have been directed towards his bedroom with a blanket for some quiet time. One cannot do that with a 38 year old man who outweighs you by 100 pounds.

" They didn’t have any. No one will know."

“My family will know.”

" Yeah, they probably will pipe up and say, “Geez, vhat did you do, buy zee on-sale brats for zis party? " and then the other would say, " Vell, it’s not like zhey buying the cheep bacon to eat, ja?”

His eyes narrow. " You are making fun of my family."

“Errrrrrr! No, I am making fun of you. They won’t say a thing. No one criticizes free food. And most certainly won’t criticize it when it is from the house of everyone’s Handy Dandy Repair Man. They aren’t that dense.”

“Go to another store and buy Stadium brats.Please.”

I heave a sigh that borders on near tears, " I just blew $200 in groceries already. My feet are killing me and it’s only 11am. If I go somewhere else, I won’t walk out of the that store with anything else but your precious stadium brats. Besides, you gotta eat the regular brats anyway, can’t let them go to waste." HA! I boxed him nicely.

" You and the kids can eat the crappy brats. I want Johnsonville Brats." Shit, out manuevered.

You want Johnsonville Stadium Brats, Colonel Von Trapp, you can have them. " Fine, unload the groceries for me, continue watching the kids and I will rush out right now to get the brats for you." Mr. My Scrotum hurts and needs a nap. I’ll teach you.
By the time I got back home with the aboveforementioned brats, he was about to pass out from exhaustion. So I sent him to bed for a nap, where he hid for the rest of the afternoon.

I guess 38 year old husbands are directable.

2

I would like to add, that Johnsonville Bratwurst is a double phallic name.

And if **Peter O’Toole ** were holding Johnsonville Bratwurse it would be Mucho Phallic.

Thank you and carry on.

3

M (In tones of shock and dismay):“Baby, what are you eating?”
6 (somewhat abashed) “Um. Well, nothing, really, just …”
“you’re eating cocktail weenies???!!! Out of the flippin CAN?? For dinner?”
“NO! Nononono. I’m eating Vienna Sausages. They’re different than cocktail weenies, honey.”
“That. Is just. Nasty. Where do you get these eating habits? My god. I thought it was bad when you were eating SPAM cold…”
“Honey, I have to use a dish if I heat it up, and you get upset if I make too many dirty dishes.” Smiles innocently.
“You know I hate that stuff. After five years in the Navy, I never want to see SPAM again, much less taste it. Am I not a good cook?”
“You’re a great cook. Wonderful. I just like SPAM. And Vienna Sausages. I’m sorry, Mo, I was a bachelor for way too long to change my ways on this.”

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

4

Shall I come over and convert him to Islam?
Solves all the problems with porc-related discussions (and possibly some others).

Salaam. A

5

LOl,

Had an exboyfriend like that. Would only eat one kind of bacon, one kind of peanut butter, one kind of breakfast sugary cereal bits. So I did what I felt like. I recycled the packaging…

I always keep bacon in the freezer. We had a large freezer on the porch that locked and i had the only key. I also got up first :stuck_out_tongue: I kept half a package of his bacon in the kitchen fridge. I kept regular cheap bacon in the big freezer. I would take my key and get the cheap crap out of the freezer and cook it up for him [not really into bacon for breakfast, just funny that way] And he would happily eat it. I would buy the cheap ass peanut butter and slop it into his precious peterpan peanut butter jar and bury the empty cheap crap one at the bottom of the garbage. he happily used it like it was going out of style. I would keep the sugar frosted deathflakes box and get the cheap clone in plastic bags and refill his precious cereal box with it…again, like a pig in a trough of fresh slop… :wally

I would have told mrAru to take his snipped little balls and schlep them into the car and to go get them himself. Fortunately it would never happen, I have a brat recipe and don’t like the storebought ones…would rather make my own brats and weisswurst than get the american crap=\

6

Cocktail weenies come in a can. I did not know this.

That sounds so dirty. :slight_smile:

Hot spam. Now, that sounds definately disgusting. It’s suppose to be eaten cold.

7

The Brat problem is easily solved. Start making snide underbreath comments about how anybody who really knows brats makes their own rather than buying whorish sausage made by a machine. Impugn his German brathood. Eventually he will be shamed into making his own, which will taste much better, and be cheaper.

With the money you save, you can afford the good bacon, cause nobody should have to eat crappy bacon.

8

Eh, years ago I gave Mrs. Mercotan the cold shoulder because she’d bought medium cheddar instead of aged cheddar. Then I realized how spitefully retarded that behavior was, and decided that I really didn’t want to be that sort of person. So I got over it, and stopped acting that way, for the most part.

She really should remember to get the aged cheddar though. But if she doesn’t, I can do it. I have that skill!

As for your guy, he’s right in that Johnsonville is one of the best. Miesfeld’s is pretty damn good too. But a true connoisseur attends to his/her own food needs.

9

Great story, Shirley, and very well told. Here’s how I learned my lesson about things like that:

Once upon a time long ago all the world was bright and shiny and new and my missus was a blushing young bride. (Ok, drop the blushing part)

She: “Tom and Deb are coming over tomorrow night. I’m thinking of making quiche. What do you think?
Me: “Quiche. Quiche???. I’ve never had that. I don’t know anybody that eats quiche. Besides, I’ve heard that Real Men don’t eat quiche.”
She: Ok then, you wanna’ grill hamburgers?”
Me: “That’s fine. Hamburgers are good and Tom and I can drink beer out on the porch while the burgers are cookin’.”

Allow a week to pass…………………

Me, coming home from work and sticking my nose into the kitchen: “Whatcha’ cookin? Smells good.”
She: “Ham, egg, and cheese pie. I think you’ll like it.”
Me: “That’s something new, but it sounds good and sure does smell good.”

An hour later, after dinner…

She: “Did you like your dinner?”
Me: “That stuff was great. You can fix it any time.”
She: “That was quiche.”
Me: “Oh. [sub]Quiche.[/sub]”

She: “It’s part of a scientific experiment.” She starts unbuttoning her blouse, gets it off and trails it behind her as she slinks toward bedroom She pauses at the bedroom door and says: “I want to see if you’re still a Real Man, after eating quiche.”
Me: “There are ahem certain indications that I am.”

I never again questioned her judgement her in matters culinary.

10

I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this part.

11

Me too. My brain is shrieking about cholesterol and lipids and whatnot. Brats are ground pork sausage, right?

In any case, Qadgop nailed it:

As does someone so picky as to demand not just a specific brand, but a specific, not readily available subset of said specific brand, of an item. If it’s so important to you to have that very particular item, then take your sweet caboose down to the store and lay in your own supply.

12

Cheesy brats are gross. But I like cheap bacon.

13

Turns out that spanking is not good enough for the Ujests. They gotta go all cannibal on their kids.

14

Many years ago, early in our relationship, I had to encourage my beloved CrazyCatLady to abandon a particularly annoying habit–loudly and vocally denouncing food that she did not like. It was not enough to just not come over when I was making chili; it was “I can’t believe anyone would even consider eating such vile, disgusting crap.” (She felt this way about chili in general, not mine specifically.)

Fortunately for me, she gave it up, but now she leans to the other extreme. After many bottles of red wine that I’ve opened and poured for both of us–which she drank–she let me know that she hates red wine. All of it. Thinks it’s horrible. This just came out in random conversation one day. It was in a thread here that I learned she finds asparagus disgusting, after I’ve cooked it for us several times. Never a word.

Someday we’ll find a happy medium, I guess. I can’t say much–she doesn’t bat an eyelash anymore when she wakes up early on Saturday afternoon to find me grilling whole eggplants for no readily discernible reason, and she doesn’t give me that much crap about my uncanny ability to use every dish and utensil in the kitchen in the process of making a ham sandwich.

15

One day I walked into the kitchen to find my husband standing there holding a pack of bologna.

“Where do you keep the frying pan?” he asked.
“What do you need it for?”

He waved the bologna at me.

“You’re going to fry the bologna?” I said.
“Yes,” he said patiently. “Where’s the pan?”
“You don’t fry bologna! You’re supposed to eat it cold, with Miracle Whip!”
“No, my love. You fry it and use ketchup. Where’s the pan?”

I gazed in horror at the man I had so recently sworn to love and cherish. My God, I thought. I’m sharing my life with a creature that thinks you should cook bologna and put ketchup on it. I attempted again to make him see reason.

“Ketchup is for french fries and burgers.” I explained patiently. “You don’t put it on bologna.”
“It’s good! And I like Miracle Whip on my burgers.”
Ignoring this last statement as the ravings of a deranged mind, I continued. “And you damn sure don’t fry bologna!”
“Are you going to tell me where the pan is?”
“I refuse to have anything to do with this! It’s morally wrong to fry bologna!”

He looked at me for a moment as if I was the crazy one in the room and began rummaging through cupboards. It was like watching a train wreck; I couldn’t look away as he put the pan on the stove and slapped the bologna into it. The stench was indescribable; the edges blackened and curled; the middle humped itself up and began heaving rhythmically as if the ghosts of all the slaughtered quadrupeds whose leftover parts made up the slice were protesting the abomination my husband was committing. I watched in disgusted fascination as my husband slapped this charred slice of meat on a piece of bread, smeared on some ketchup, and ate it. He ate it! So help me God, he actually ate it.

I have never been able to correct this aberrant behavior of his. Periodically, he will fry up some bologna, making our house smell like someone’s been using a flamethrower to toast fresh pig manure in the kitchen. I love him, I truly do. But since I’ve found out what he’s capable of re: cold cuts (COLD cuts, people. C-O-L-D. COLD.), I’ve never quite been able to look at him in the same way.

16

My elementary school cafeteria served us fried bologna all the time, only they called it “flying saucers”.

I blame them for hooking me on fatty foods.
I love fried spam.

17

Both spam and bologna are delicious when fried and served on toast!

18

I always knew this board was full of deviants.

19

Mmmmm… Fried spam…

:: drool ::

20

Spam is somewhat more edible after it’s fried. In the case of Spam, though, edibility is really a relative term. When we were first married, my husband surprised me by frying his bologna, too. I tasted it once. IMO, frying does not improve bologna enough that I’ll eat it. However, if you or a loved one MUST fry it, make four slashes from the edge to about halfway to the center, and it will stay flatter, thus it will make a neater looking sandwich.

I have to admit that I’m damned picky about my food brands, too. And I don’t want any of that lowfat, low sodium, sugarfree shit unless I specifically ask for it. In most cases, the “light” version of a food is so nasty that I’d rather just not eat the food if I can’t afford to take in that much sodium, sugar, or calories. For instance, I won’t drink diet soda, only water. Diet soda is just plain nasty. Iced tea is all right with artificial sweetener, IF it’s got a tiny bit of real sugar in it too.

I’ve had people give me light versions of food, and I’ve always known it. My mother is always trying new light versions of food, and she doesn’t keep the real versions in her house, so I pretty much expect it from her. I don’t SAY anything to her when I’m visiting her, but that’s one of the reasons why I won’t visit up there for long…I can only take a few days’ worth of light food. I buy groceries while I’m up there, but if I buy the stuff I prefer, she lays the guilt trip on me. So I buy stuff like lean meat and veggies and staples, which we can all agree on.

Now, I don’t mind eating stuff like lean meat (in fact I prefer it) and veggies. Just don’t give me fat free mayo and insist that it tastes nearlly as good as regular. It doesn’t. Give me food that is honestly low fat, and I’ll eat it. Heck, that’s my regular diet anyway, I just eat tiny bits of real fat now and then. I’d rather have one piece of Godiva chocolate than a whole box of cheap sugarfree chocolate, the Godiva is more satisfying. I’d rather have just one teaspoon of real sour cream than a half a cup of that nonfat sour cream (and how can it be sour CREAM if it’s nonfat, anyway? The butterfat is what makes it CREAM!).