As a kid, I was a very picky eater. I did start trying more foods in my 20’s, and now I’m just a picky eater.
I think part of the problem is that we don’t all perceive foods the same way, and it’s hard to relate to those whose perceptions are different. I often hear non-picky eaters talk about disliking certain foods, but eating them anyway. Yeah, there are some thinks I don’t like, or even dislike, that I can eat. But there are also foods I DETEST, and cannot eat without suffering. Some things (e.g. custardy desserts, whipped cream) actually make me gag. I don’t think non-picky eaters can easily understand this, because they just don’t have that type of sensation.
Now, I have a certain willingness to try something strange to me, but it only goes so far. For one thing, I’m in my 50’s, and I’ve been exposed to lots of foods over the years and have a damn good sense of what MY tastes are. So sometimes, just knowing the ingredients can tell me I don’t want to eat something. Example: green peppers. I HATE the flavor, and it permeates anything cooked with it. I can pick them off of a pizza and eat it, though I won’t enjoy it because every bite tastes of it. But I can guarantee you, no matter how much YOU doubt it, that there is no way to prepare green peppers such that I won’t dislike or detest it.
Often the aroma of a food tells me I don’t want to eat it. When I was a kid, I didn’t want to eat squash because it smelled so awful. My parents insisted that I couldn’t tell by smelling, I had to actually taste it. They were wrong. It tasted just as awful as it smelled. Furthermore, in school we learned that pure taste has four simple categories, and that aroma is a significant portion of the flavor of foods. So I figured that either my parents were stupid, not knowing what kids learn in 4th grade, or were lying to me. But I learned not to trust their pronouncements about food.
Some foods are offensive because of texture (custard), some because of taste and/or smell (which are really inseparable), some both. But those which are offensive are offensive enough that I would rather go hungry than eat them. The best parallel I can think of is certain odors - while most non-smokers don’t like the smell of smoke, some are actually sickened by it. Likewise with perfumes - take a given perfume, and some like it, some don’t, some are sickened.
To further illustrate the complexity here, I quite like some foods that many people don’t. I like liver, I like anchovies on pizza, I like broccoli. Naturally different people have different tastes, but I think it comes down to “normal” eater dislikes some things, picky eater simply cannot stand some things.
Pronouncements like these don’t help:
“Even if you’ve tried a food, and didn’t enjoy it, I still think you should try it again when it is served (again, one bite will do). Maybe the reason you didn’t like it before was because it was prepared differently, or not cooked right. Maybe your tastes have changed. Maybe you were mistaken.”
Maybe, sometimes. But friend, I will not try squash, no matter what you think. My life experience has proven to me that I will detest it. I’m not going to submit to the suffering of trying it (and yes, I will suffer with even one bite) to satisfy you. Maybe you should try hitting your thumb with a hammer again because you didn’t do it right last time.
“Not trying something before you decide if you like it strikes me as ignorant and prejudicial, and being adamant about all the foods you won’t eat strikes me as self-righteous. Those things annoy me.”
Not nearly as much as it annoys me to take a bite of something I detest, nor to have someone who has no concept of what it tastes like to me to judge me on the matter. Talk about self-righteous.
