Hey, calm down. I wasn’t getting pissed at you, I was just using it as an example. Compare it with every other post I’ve written in this thread if you want to figure out the difference.
I like mac and cheese, too. That still doesn’t mean Velveeta. Liking simple food does not equal liking children’s food, which was the point I was trying to make. And, again, I know you meant it tongue-in-cheek, which is why I was using your post to make that point, because you weren’t being an asshole about it. Sorry if my post came off the wrong way.
What, you mean you’ve actually been reading what other people have been saying? Godammit, man, you can’t do that in this thread! If you’d been paying attention to what’s going on, you’d have stopped paying attention to what’s going on just like everyone else!
I just covered a related topic for a class. It seems that hunter/gatherers had a pretty limited diet until the Mesolithic Period. (That’s the time period between the glaciers receeding and the advent of agriculture.) Our Paleolithic ancestors didn’t eat a large variety of different foods, but then the “wide spectrum” diet came in during the Mesolithic. There isn’t much evidence of humans eating things like shellfish before this time. Then all of a sudden they were being consumed in mass quantities!
The change seems to have been because the climate changes and extinction of large land animals made it more difficult to get by with just the foods humans had been eating through the Paleolithic. They had to begin hunting and gathering a wider variety of food, and expanding their diet to include things that earlier humans would have considered inedible or at least unpalatable. Hunter/gatherer societies that survived into modern times aren’t reflective of those that existed through the major part of human history.
We hosted a formal dinner party at our home a couple of years back. We did not provide a menu, or even choices (you got what you were given). We worked ourselves silly preparing enough of each course just to feed everyone; having multiple options would have killed me. It took three days to prepare for that party. The only choices our guests had were in the crudites we served beforehand as an appetizer (anyone who comes to our house for dinner knows that we are highly likely to serve a crudites tray; eat from it as you wish, or not).
While we did note who did and did not eat heartily of the provided food, we did not comment on that during the meal (except to accept compliments from those who offered them). The discussion on who did and did not eat what took place after our guests had departed.
Really? Fascinating! How much is known about paleolithic diets in different areas? I’m afraid I’m not good enough with anthropology to know the methodology used to find these things out (although, of course, things like shellfish leave obvious traces . . . ) - was this the situation in most parts of the world? Because, for instance, my understanding is that the aboriginal people of Japan ate a diet centered on shellfish for most of their history - or is this later than you’re talking about?
I might suggest that, if you are so invested in your own cooking, that you should refrain from hosting dinner parties. At least, you should make it clear that you are hosting a “culinary event” in which the prime attraction that evening will be the meal (and definitely include a menu with the invitation so that your invitees can decide if they wish to participate in the culinary event or not before accepting). In a normal dinner party, the prime attraction is the company of the guests; the meal is a secondary feature, not the reason for the gathering. It seems that your priorities are inverted from the norm.
As I said above, I’ve never hosted a dinner party, nor would I want to. I barely even cook for myself.
To reiterate: I think it’s polite to try something your host made for you to enjoy, barring any ethical, medical, religious reasons, as Kimstu and LHoD said. My worst-case scenario of someone going to pieces because of the littlest thing was over the top, so I retracted it and agreed that was not he norm (athough we’ve all known people like that, I would imagine). Most hosts would just shrug it off.
Miller’s right, no one’s even reading what anyone’s posting. Pardon my rudeness, but I’m gonna have to say, “No thank you,” to the rest of the thread.
Awww, come one, just one tiny little post? After all the work we put in to this thread? It won’t kill you. What’s the matter? You allergic? Sheesh. Nothing’s worse than a Picky Poster.
That’s probably true. However, the host has no right to insist (even in the slightest) that a guest partake of any particular food or drink presented to him (unless the event in question is a religious ceremony where such partaking is obligatory, in which the guest should either have been culturally aware of that requirement before or given the opportunity to withdraw without disgrace). If you can’t accept this restriction on your behavior, as host, don’t be a host. (This forces you to arrange any socially obligatory dinners at a restaurant – and when you do, you may not complain about what your guests order.)
Hey. I just read this ENTIRE THREAD from front to back. Took me a good part of yesterday and a good chunk of this morning. After about page 3 it gets pretty repetitive, though, and a lot of the posts are just snarky swipes.
Then why are you bringing up something I have wholeheartedly condemned several times, which is when a host insists a guest should try something they’ve already decided they don’t want to eat? Why direct it at me when I’ve said several times that that’s a rude thing to do on the host’s part?
I wrote that reply when I hit the post I replied to. I don’t recall seeing you say that you wouldn’t host a party, and I felt that it was important to point out that the attitude that you are defending is one that a host should never have. Period.
I woke up sick this morning and posted here straightaway; bad idea. I apologize.
That said, I don’t apologize for the Velveeta comment, even if you like mac and cheese and dislike Velveeta, because there’s nothing wrong with liking Velveeta. When I say I don’t care what you like or dislike to eat, I really mean that.
There are people who like food that I consider bland, like Velveeta. It’s really and truly no skin off my back. I don’t hold them in contempt. They are many of them great people. I do not mean to insult anyone by making a joke about variety is the Velveeta of life; I really do just mean that as a harmless joke.
Perhaps the lesson is that folks get pretty passionate about food, and that we need to cut people a lot of slack about the food they eat. It’s recognition of that fact that keeps me from being a proselytizing vegetarian, and it’s recognition of that fact that keeps me from getting too annoyed at proselytizing vegetarians. Food makes people passionate and often irrational; it’s intimately linked to who they are. Be gentle with folks about it if you can.
I had bowed out of this thread, but I really don’t like being misrepresented like that. Excalibre, you have seemingly already decided I’m an “ignorant asshole”, and that’s fine if you want to think that, and you don’t even have to agree with my arguments - but please understand what I’m arguing before you bite back. You obviously haven’t read my posts.
Firstly, I raised the issue of picky eating being possibly increasing in Western countries. Nowhere did I say that nobody anywhere else ever has refused to eat something. Please do not put words into my mouth.
Secondly, I’m really sick of having to defend myself against this “just because you do it, doesn’t mean everybody else does” nonsense. I accept that food aversion is real. I just don’t accept that it is always real, and I believe a lot of people are having themselves on. I think many of these people in the latter group are being a bit self-indulgent, sure. But this is not the same as “harbouring an irrational hatred” of them. Please don’t exaggerate on my behalf, and please don’t be a drama queen.
Thirdly, for Pete’s sake I AM NOT A “FOODIE”. How many times must I bloody say this? Once more for the dummies - my first post gave an example of a PEANUT FUCKING BUTTER FUCKING SAND-FUCKING-WICH. My diet is remarkably suburban. I can eat weird stuff, but I usually don’t. Yes I’ve drunk snake’s blood in Vietnam, no I don’t pack it to take to work every day. White bread and cheese, me.
As I said, you are free to disagree with me, but please get the parameters of the debate worked out properly before you begin, and please do not misrepresent me.
Cite? Don’t worry, I’ll spare you the trouble. There isn’t one. Indeed, NOWHERE in this entire fucking ten page trainwreck of a thread… NOWHERE have I engaged in the sub-debate about what a host should do. Nowhere. I was intending to, but I was busy with the main debate about the picky eaters themselves, and I didn’t get around to it. SO YOU DO NOT KNOW MY VIEWS ON THE MATTER. Yet, you still seem to have no problem with ripping into me for what you are guessing are my views. Maybe it’s time to go back to Debating 101.
Let me tell you my views about what a host should do. They are as follows: I FUCKING AGREE WITH YOU! I would never force a guest to eat any particular dish. In fact, whenever I have people around at my place, it’s usually a half-indoors - half-outdoors bbq-ish, buffet-ish smorgasbord-ish kinda thing with people wandering in and out with a plate and a beer, helping themselves to the various dishes on the table. I probably wouldn’t even notice what particular foods a given individual is selecting.
If I did happen to notice somebody had a particular aversion, I might or might not think they were being silly, self-indulgent, and all the other stuff I mentioned in the other branch of the debate, but I’d sure as hell respect them as guests, and keep those views to myself. I’d ask people to try something only once. Or even better, say “Have you tried the rancid goats’ bollocks? They’re quite good”, but say it when we’re not actually standing by the plate of rancid goats’ bollocks, and then I’d wander off. In fact, that’s my usual technique. I don’t stand over people shoving food down their throats. But thank you for the little lesson on manners.
