If someone pushes food on me I simply toss it in the garbage can right in front of them. But then again I enjoy being an asshole to people I find pushy and annoying. Especially if it makes them cry.
Boy, just reading about eating a mouthful of goat, and **msmith **just keeled right over.
nudges msmith’s body with toe
You okay?
If it’s a matter of I don’t like a food I’ll choke down a mouthful for the sake of politeness. I will not, however, do so if it’s a food item that can endanger my health.
As an example - I don’t really care for pork (except bacon and occasionally ham, neither of which is very much like pork tenderloin or pork chops). I don’t buy it for home consumption. I don’t order it in restaurants. However, some friends who do have us over for dinner occasionally do serve a pork tenderloin, which I eat. They enjoy it immensely, and it’s a dish the household cook is comfortable cooking in a manner that is safe for this allergic person to eat. It’s safe for me to eat, even if I’m not thrilled with the taste, and with ample condiments I can eat a full serving (truthfully, she does make a very nice pork tenderloin, almost makes me wish I liked pork). So I’ll eat pork on those evenings and it all works out fine.
I’ve also been known to have a taste of calamari or octopus to be polite, even though I don’t really like those, either.
On the other hand - I’ll never even taste something with tomato in it, no matter how offended the offerer gets. Sorry, just don’t want to spend time in a hospital.
MOST people are reasonable about this when I explain that tomatoes really don’t agree with me for health reasons, I really can’t eat them safely, but I’d be happy to try your cooking that doesn’t contain them. Really, it’s not your cooking, it’s my health problem and yes, it’s a tragedy I will never be able to enjoy XYZ but let’s focus on what I *can *enjoy, m’kay?
You crack me up.
The most horrifying part of this to me is, who in their right mind would use ketchup in beef stew? Ew!
I was an ovo-lacto pescetarian for about 10 years. Recently, I started working out to build muscle and also found that I could not get sufficient protein to build muscle without bringing chicken back. I still refuse red meat because of high cholesterol, which in my case, is genetic.
I love me some soup, especially made from scratch (I hate canned soups), and also was offended (as a cook and as a foodie) that many, many chefs/cooks/can processing plants make cream-based soups using chicken stock. That’s not actually a cream-based soup; it’s a chicken based soup. I’ll see “Cream of Broccoli soup” on the menu and think, Score! I can eat that! Then I inquire (because I’ve learned the hard way) and will be disappointed to learn that this Cream of Broccoli soup is actually chicken broccoli soup with some cream in it. So you never can tell what some cook’s idea of “vegetarian-friendly” might be.
I’m thinking of my friend with celiac disease who educated me that most commercial soy sauce usually has some wheat gluten in it. I’d have never known if she hadn’t told me and looking for hidden gluten in foods has not typically been on my radar, as I’ve been looking for animal fat.
One of the tactics that frustrates me a lot is when people try to guilt me into eating something that I know will give me projectile diarrhea (and if I’m lucky, that’s all that will happen) by saying things like, “I feel sorry for you. Why don’t you try eating just little bits at a time, once in a while, so when we offer you a steak, you can eat it?”
Because A) I don’t want the steak. B) It’s been so long that beef and pork now smell gross to me, nevermind that greasy mouth feel that red meat leaves. Bleargh. C) I really, really don’t want to experience the stomach ache and the projectile diarrhea that ensues whenever I “cheat” just so it will be easier for you to figure out what to cook for me. A much better solution to that problem is: we all go out to eat so everyone can find something they like and will eat.
Um… someone trying to avoid using tomatoes?
Seriously, though - ketchup is a very common ingredient here in the semi-rural Midwest. It’s sort of frightening - particularly for me what with my allergy to it and all. It’s everywhere!.
When Ronald Reagan wanted ketchup considered as a vegetable for school lunches it didn’t’ surprise me a bit - he’s was originally from downstate Illinois where ketchup actually is treated sort of as a vegetable ingredient in a lot of food.
Actually, almost ALL soy sauce has wheat gluten in it (unless specifically labeled otherwise) because virtually all soy sauce is in the US is a product of fermented wheat and soybeans. If it’s not that, it’s usually called soy sauce - but, as you point out, non-celiacs are unlikely to know that. Why would they know that? (Actual Chinese soy sauce I think is more likely to not have grain in it, but going to a Chinese restaurant is no guarantee - many of them use Kikkoman brand, with is a Japanese-style soy sauce (about 50/50 soybean and wheat) made in Wisconsin.
Again, this is why the game of “tell me what you’re allergic to and I’ll figure out if the food is safe” is so dangerous - tell the person with the health problem what’s actually in the food and let them make the determination.
Hey, I’m with you - I may be a confirmed carnivore (I eat cows, fish, birds including ostrich, deer, bison, sheep… but I don’t like pork either. It smells gross and feels greasy to me, too. Go figure)
I guess I’ve been really fortunate – based on this and other food threads – with my friends and co-workers.
On the work side I guess it helps that both the IT company I’m currently at and the one before had people from all over (like a mini United Nations), and any team lunch would undoubtedly include at least some Hindus and Muslims (and others… one chap was a Jain) who observed various dietary restrictions, and others with specific preferences, or food sensitivities…
Team lunches tend to be at places with a wide range of food (Thai is a favourite of the current team) and I’ve not seen anyone hassled about what they eat or don’t eat.
Team pot-luck lunches have been fun with all sorts of offerings, and helpful cooks keen to let you know that this one is vegetarian, or that one has peanuts, or whatever.
Mmmm… curries… 
I was at a party last night and there were at least 15 male vegans there - all were white native-born Americans, but one (he was Chinese and was raised in a rural area eating meat, he’s vegan because he went to an American college really). They do exist!
People are just too damn sensitive about everyone else’s diet. They tend to forget that everyone makes their own decisions for their own reasons. Personally, I’m not the biggest meat eater, having grown up with a vegetarian (from birth, it wasn’t a social decision). I’m not big on lamb, beef (outside of burgers) or pork at all. Always tough to explain that I eat some meat and not others, and nearly all seafood, but it’s very easy to say no pork. With an Arabic first name, people tend not to push that one. Still, I have encountered pushy folks on both sides of the meat/veg debate and they reach equal levels of jerkiness. People with religious dietary restrictions are actually the coolest because they tend to say nothing at all about whether I choose to tear into some flesh or not.
I am allergic to soy, (hospitalized twice which surprises me because until recently they really didn’t label soy well) I hate the taste of raw tomatoes and I can’t stand cake. The only reaction I have gotten out of people that actually annoys me is the cake thing. When I was younger and had less of a spine I would choke down a forkful and then toss it. Now I just say I don’t like cake. At weddings, birthdays and other special occasions, my date/sibling/parent/cousin/bff eats the piece I take so people don’t feel like I am poo-pooing the whole celebration thing. Kind of ridiculous that people give such a strong reaction to not eating cake but I am glad to see that at least on the dope, I am not in the minority.
Actually, LaChoy (the cheap American brand) is gluten free! Not that there’s any fancy label on it, but they don’t use wheat in production. “Real” Chinese Soy Sauce is almost *always *made with wheat (remember, the stock grain of Northern China is wheat, not rice), unless it’s called “Tamari”, which used to be Japanese but is now sold by both Japanese and Chinese companies and is specifically wheat free but tastes pretty much the same as soy sauce to the Western palate. Thai made soy sauce generally doesn’t have wheat…but it’s harder to find here, and often even Thai restaurants use the cheaper Kikoman’s, which is made from wheat.
Although, all that being said, there’s a hub a bubbing in the gluten free community at the moment, as no one can seem to figure out if there’s any gluten in the actual soy sauce! Gluten Free Living had an article a few months back, and even their reporter couldn’t figure it out. It’s quite likely that the gluten, a large molecule, is removed in the manufacturing process, even though it came from wheat to begin with.Two samples sent by soya.be tested at a lab under 20ppm, making them “gluten free” according to the FDA’s proposed labeling guidelines. Obviously, however, that’s an underwhelming sample size and a biased source. So yes, your point stands. Some people with Celiac might be incredibly sensitive or otherwise choose to avoid soy sauce until further testing is done, while others may be reassured enough and choose to eat it. Personal call, that, and not one that I as a cook am going to make for you, although I’m happy to share what information I have on the topic.
I don’t really care for home-made food from people I don’t know well. I’m just funny that way. Especially if it looks like the dog’s dinner. I worked in an office with a woman who tried hard to be ‘domestic’ but she’d bring in her latest Fail for luncheons and potlucks and say, “I know it looks awful, but it tastes fine.” :rolleyes: And birthday cakes - all the time, birthday cakes. I hate cake. And my neighbors would drop off baked goods at my mother’s, and she would insist I have one.
No, no thank you. Really, I’m-stuffed-I’m-allergic-I’m-trying-to-lose-weight - falls on deaf ears. So now, I take the smallest possible piece, pick at it, and when no one is looking cover it with a napkin and stuff it down into the bottom of a trash can.
With old people who insist you take home leftovers, I find it’s easier to just do it. Later on someone else in the house might get really hungry and eat them, and if not, into the trash.
“Tomatoes give me the trots.”
Sure fire conversation stopper 
The few things that I’m truly allergic to, like some processed cheeses that make my scalp terribly itchy after I eat them, I eat anyway. Because, well, it’s cheese!