Well obviously if you have an actual illness you would rather go hungry than go into diabetic shock or swell up like a balloon. I’m talking about people that just don’t like things.
I had a daughter that went through a stage where she couldn’t eat food if the foods were touching each other. Thank God she out grew that.
Try beefalo as well. It’s enough like beef to like but it’s also a bit different. I had it and it was good but it was expensive and I am not that found of beef anyway, so I wouldn’t pay extra for it.
These describe what seem to me to be socially debilitating psychological disorders of some kind. I wouldn’t apply any label to that except to hope that there is some kind of treatment that those experiencing such things can avail themselves of and that I hope that they are able to find some relief from the trauma that ordinary social interactions cause them.
But that doesn’t change anything that I said about picky eaters. “Picky eater” doesn’t encompass someone with a health condition or religious prohibition.
This may come across as harsh, and so I apologize in advance if I hurt your feelings.
But the question in bold is ironic to me. It might be unreasonable to be bothered by picky eaters who find whole classes of foods traumatic, and I concede that some of this hostility is irrational. That said, it is the epitome of unreasonable to be sickened, frightened, or traumatized by the mere thought of eating foods that the average person would find mundane and innocuous. So let’s leave reasonableness out of the analysis.
Rightly or wrongly, picky eaters have their hangups about food, and anti-picky people have their hangups about picky eaters. Why they have their hangups really doesn’t matter, when you get down to it. Neither side is really going to sympathize with the other. The best we can hope for is toleration.
ETA: Folks who physiologically can’t handle certain foods aren’t really picky eaters, so I’m not talking about them.
I suppose I should be shocked by the level of hatred people have for picky eaters, but I’ve some to expect that kind of selective intolerance on this board.
I’m a picky eater. I will go out of my way to make sure that that fact has a minimal impact on the people around me. If everybody wants to get food, and somebody suggests Chinese, I’ll happily grab something else.
It’s not because “I just don’t want to” or immaturity, it’s that certain smells and textures are extremely off-putting. I have to try new foods with care, and its usually just easier to eat what I know I like already.
I’ll admit, I have a moderate amount of food pickiness, and none of it is “excused” by medical issues. It’s all preferences reinforced by never being forced to eat anything I didn’t want when I was a kid. But I’ve never had a problem getting through life and all sorts of social situations without it being a big deal for anyone else. I don’t really ask people to accommodate me if I’m having dinner at their house, and I’ll just be quietly selective about what I’m eating. If the cook says something because I’m picking past an element of the dish, I’ll reply with something along the lines of “I just don’t like , but that’s my problem, not yours.” Restaurants with a group are never a problem because I can always find something on the menu I’ll like.
So I try to be polite and quiet about it. But at the same time, I’m well past the age where I care to be apologetic at all about my food preferences. It used to make me self-conscious and self-loathing. But then I realized one day that for every food I didn’t eat, I could think of another that I enjoyed while many of my friends or family didn’t. I might be at a table of friends giving me shit for not liking mushrooms, but be the only person there who didn’t think bleu cheese was disgusting. Over time, I stopped beating myself up about it, because I do have the same mix of adventurous and picky that a lot of people have. I just draw my boundaries along a different axis than some. Nowadays I’m done apologizing…I know what I like, I know what I’ll never like, and I know what I’m willing to give a try.
Much like Acsenray above, I don’t like chunky pieces of tomatoes. Tomato sauces, tomato juice, and products made with pureed tomato or paste are all great. Pieces of raw or cooked tomato gag me. Like many of my preferences, it’s texture and not taste. (Very few tastes turn me off, but certain types of texture do.) With chunky tomatoes, I’ve had sufficient opportunity over the years to try them every concievable way, and I’m just never going to like them. Don’t think for a moment that you’ll be the one to provide that enlightenment and clarity that’s going to make me change my mind. Being persuaded with “If you just had it prepared like so” isn’t going to fly in most cases, and if you push me hard enough, my initial politeness will turn into some variant of “fuck off”.
The one thing I sometimes lie about just to shortcut the discussion is nuts. I don’t like nuts in most any application. Nothing ruins a perfectly good brownie faster than the addition of walnuts. Some people don’t understand why I wouldn’t like them. So if I get an early hint that they might get a little hostile about it, I just lie and say I have an allergy. No one questions the medical reason. I hate misappropriating a real issue for some, but if it saves me from an endless round of “Why?”, so be it.
I haven’t noticed anyone expressing “hatred,” and I reread the thread to be sure. Various degrees of incomprehension and annoyance, at worst.
Guess I’ve come to expect that kind of exaggerated victimhood on this board.
Are guests aware of this rule upon invitation, or do they only find out the passive-aggressive way, when they stop receiving invitations? :dubious:
Because I think it would be rude if the conversations went like this:
Elfkin: You’re invited over to our house for brunch on Sunday at 11:00. Please bring a dessert. Also, how many foods do you not like to eat?
Dogzilla: :dubious: I refuse to eat raisins, coconut, and any form of melon.
Elfkin: That’s too many items! Your invitation is rescinded! Kindly fuck off.
Dogzilla: 
I don’t think I’d really want to accept an invitation where I’d be under a lot of pressure to not have any food preferences. I don’t see why politely declining the raisin muffins would be a problem. Unless the entire breakfast was raisin muffins with a bowl of melon, topped with coconut flakes. Then I’d just be all :(.
Often, I am called upon to bring a potluck dish to a group of people who all have wildly different food preferences. I will call the host and run all my foodie recipes by him: Could I bring this? What about that? Will they eat this other thing? Finally, he just told me, “Look, a good cook plays to her audience. Keep it simple and you’ll be fine. I wouldn’t make raisin-coconut-melon muffins for you, so don’t make a bunch of firey hot stuff for my mom. Okay?” If I do choose spicy, I will bring an alternate, not-spicy dish for the not-spicy eaters. I don’t understand why a certain amount of reasonable accommodation isn’t the Middle Way here. I do understand why cooking an entirely different separate meal for one guest would be unacceptable and I wouldn’t expect anyone to do that for me and I certainly wouldn’t do it for everyone else.
But do I expect 100% of the party goers to love my seafood gumbo? Hell, no, a lot of people hate seafood. What about the crab dip that has cream cheese in it? I know a lot of people who dislike white creamy foods. I think what is reasonable is for cooks to make some minor accommodations and eaters to make some minor concessions and eat non-favorite foods.
That’s the point, isn’t it? A “picky eater” is someone whose tastes are so narrow that the result of accommodating that one person means that no one else ever gets to make choices, that that one person’s preferences essentially become the group’s sole set of options, because he or she will only eat at restaurants X, Y, and Z, and will never touch A, B, and C cuisines.
Because no one could possibly have a different reading of it than you, you blameless and holy creature. :rolleyes:
I’m not saying all kids specifically like mac and cheese. I’m saying expecting them to understand and appreciate fine culinary prowess to the point of being insulted by them thinking your food looks and tastes weird is well… a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of reality.
You don’t hurt my feelings. You just piss me off. I used “unreasonable” because I didn’t want to say cruel, selfish, and tyrannical. I stopped not wanting to say that.
What you, the perfect and average person combined, find mundane and innocuous, some others can’t bear. It would be like me saying, come on, vomit isn’t so bad, just keep trying it! Or else prove yourself the pathetic, spoiled, defective I am already convinced you are for not enjoying vomit in the first place."
And this “toleration” you speak of – that’s saying that you will tolerate my nausea if I’ll tolerate your lack of empathy? What a tempting exchange.
Except some folks, even in this thread label someone as a picky eater if there are just a few things they don’t like. That’s absurd.
Damn. I’d hate to have dinner with you guys. If I say “no thank you” one too many times Acsenray will think I’m immature and unpleasant.
If I explain that it’s due to health issues Illuminatiprimus will think I’m irrational and have psychological problems, and monstro will just think I’m being annoying in general.
There are things that will cause me to have a very unpleasant day if I eat them. Some of them are things that I like and wish I could eat. In fact, I can’t think of anything that I’d refuse simply due to taste, texture, etc.
There are foods that I have to avoid but, if this thread is any example, no matter how I pass on something, someone in the crowd will think less of me because of it. That’s a lot more immature than saying “no thank you” too many times.
I think Elfkin477 was actually being critical of what I had written earlier. I have since clarified, saying: "It’s not really a rule. It’s just that if someone has one or two things they let me know they don’t like, I consider that totally normal. If you come for dinner I will accomodate that, you might get your own special soup or something.
However, if I get a long list of everything you don’t like then I won’t accomodate. And however polite you are, I will be offended if you pick at your food, move half to the side and don’t eat what’s on your plate.
I should stress that this has never happened, despite regular huge dinner parties & other ways of cooking for many people."
So no, that would absolutely never happen. I am now in the middle of cooking three different sets of pasta salad (regular, non-wheat & non-cheese/pesto) because of preferences & allergies. But if those people came over and didn’t like anything I was making, then I would consider it rude. It’s not that they would never be invited back, but I would be hesitant because of accommodating them. And because it’s really annoying to watch someone push my lovingly prepared food to the side. And yes, I notice, however polite and discreet you are.
Look at it the other way around: I consider not liking one or two things the norm. Disliking too many things is rude (barring, as previously discussed, allergies, serious psychological issues & conviction).
Whats immature and unpleasant is having someone try to force you to eat something you don’t want. You should never have to say “no thank you” more than once.
I see what you’re saying gracer. I think I’d be offended if I’d gone to any lengths at all to accommodate a vegetarian or a creamy-white-foods-hater and had thoughtfully provided options my guest had previously accepted and then they just picked at the food. If someone has that many issues, perhaps they should offer to bring something they know they can eat, or decline the invitation. But if I asked, and you told me, and I tried and you still acted all butthurt and put out, then yeah, I can see not issuing any more invitations. (I refuse to invite my BF over for dinner. Last time, he showed up 45 minutes late and then complained about other stuff the second he walked in the door. My home-grown beautiful organic squash was a mushy overcooked mess. My issue is respect for my time, not other people’s food preferences [or requirements as the case may be]).
Back when I was a hard-core vegetarian, I was invited to dinner by people who were well aware of my eating habits. I was assured, with the invitation, that a vegetarian option would be provided and I didn’t have to bring anything because there would be plenty to eat. When I arrived, I discovered that the cook thought chicken is a vegetable. What was left for me was bread and salad. Nobody said a word to me or even glanced in the direction of my pitiful mostly empty plate. (No protein = not an entree.) Was I being rude because I couldn’t eat what was offered? Should I have declined the invitation on the off-chance that the cook changed menus after my invitation and decided that a little chicken would be okay? I don’t know; I’m asking. I feel rude asking, when someone invites me, “Well, what are we eating?” I don’t necessarily want people to make special accommodations for me; just tell me if meat is on the menu or not and I’ll decide if I want to decline, bring a vegetarian entree to share, or go suck it up and deal with the explosive diarrhea later.
Nobody in this thread is talking about offering the same thing multiple times.
How about, “I don’t remember if I’ve discussed this with you before, but I don’t eat meat. I don’t want to make you cook just for me, so I’d be happy to bring a vegetarian dish that I can share.”
If you have food habits that significantly clash with those of the people you socialize with, the burden is really on you to make sure that people are aware and to offer a solution.
I have several friends who are strict vegetarians, some of them were hardcore vegans for a while. I never had a problem sharing meals with them. My best friend always assures me he can always find something to eat wherever we go … um … except for Mexican, I think. And even then we’ve been to Mexican places together where the staff gladly came up with an off-menu vegetarian fajita platter that he was quite pleased with.
Of course, none of them are the type who want to vomit at the mere sight of someone else eating something that doesn’t jibe with their own restrictions.
Oh, god, please yes! Please, please, PLEASE save me from people who REPEATEDLY insist I try something or eat something I’ve already declined. NO, REALLY, I’M NOT GOING TO CHANGE MY MIND. Certainly not about anything that would actually make me ill.
That, and the “just try it, I’ll tell you what it is later” crowd. No. I am not going to risk severe illness, an emergency trip the hospital, and/or death for that. If you’re offended screw you, I am not jeopardizing my health over your Aunt Matilda’s super-secret family heirloom recipe for XYZ.
And I am so NOT going to play the game of “Tell me what you’re allergic to and I’ll let you know if this is safe.” Not since I told someone I could not have tomatoes in any form and they served me up beef stew made with ketchup “instead of tomato sauce” and it damn near killed me, as in I was lying in an ambulance, on oxygen, fading to black, and the paramedics were so desperate to find a vein they were talking about cutting open an arm and digging for one the hard way, and debating if they’d be able to do it fast enough to keep me from dying.
Oh, sorry - that was “gory details”, wasn’t it? But that night is why I will never, ever, EVER trust someone else to determine if food is safe for me anymore. You will effin’ tell me what is in that food or I will NOT eat it. No, not even a taste. Go on, refuse to invite me back, call me immature, crazy, selfish, whatever, that is not a negotiable point for me.
I realize, of course, that many people are understanding that I am “picky” because of an actual medical issue and thus, in their eyes, not picky at all, perhaps even sensible in avoiding the things that make me ill (17 years since the last time I saw the ER because of this, yay). However, there are plenty of other people who do, in fact, think I’m picky, deluded, selfish, immature, unreasonable, and so on. I know this, because they have told me so to my face.
>sigh<