Gene and Jude’s. No ketchup, even for the French fries, though technically that is not in Chicago proper (but it is one of the esteemed Chicagoland hot dog joints, and they don’t do the full Chicago style.) 35th Street Red Hots in Bridgeport had a bell they would ring if anyone ordered a dog with ketchup on it. Or was it that the customer had to ring the bell? I can’t remember as I will not out ketchup on a Chicago hot dog (though I will do as the locals do elsewhere.) I don’t think anybody really takes it seriously—it’s just a bit of silly local ritual.
People who slurp their soup or coffee piss me off.
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Hey there now. We have enough problems without you bringing some sauceless, cheeseless … *thing *into the conversation and calling it pizza :dubious: 
I can think of a situation where someone might actually be somewhat entitled to be angry about how someone chooses to eat their food, and that’s the hoary old stereotype of the chef coming out of the kitchen to bitch at a patron for eating it wrong or something.
I mean, I can totally see how a chef might carefully prepare a dish to be balanced and have a specific flavor profile, and to get torqued out of shape if some bumpkin slathers it in ketchup or soy sauce or whatever, because it’s basically a form of disrespect for his craft and the effort he put into designing and preparing that dish. Granted, this takes a certain level of dining where the food is more of an art form and experience than just some defrosted stuff slapped on a plate by some guy with no formal culinary training at Applebee’s.
I don’t care what anyone eats as long as they don’t talk about it, and don’t criticize what I’m eating. People who talk about food like it is great sex (also don’t want to hear about your sex life), or their sports team, make me run out of the room.
The only reason I cook is so I can have something hot to eat, not because I want to gift anyone with my marvelous gourmet talents. I’ll make more of what I’m having if you’re hungry. It’s probably noodles and tofu and vegetables.
I see several reasons people become upset about others’ food choices.
First, food is the basic trigger of our disgust instinct. It protects us from eating things we don’t know are safely edible. We learn what is food and what is not very early in our lives and it’s hard to change. Some people can overcome that instinct better than others, but its still there in all of us.
Second, food is a tribal marker. Our in-group eats this. That out-groups eat that. We can improve our status in the in-group by disparaging the out-group. Or, if we’re surrounded by outsiders, we fear being mocked. Interlopers are inherently threatening to us, even when we try to compensate intellectually.
Third, people are authoritarian. We know what is right and what is wrong. There’s a right way to eat food and many wrong ways. We will enforce our norms, because people should be good and not bad.
So when we see someone eating something we would not, it can trigger visceral disgust, fear of the other, and moral indignation, at varying levels depending on circumstance. Hit the trifecta and no wonder we get angry.
This may be the greatest sentence in this thread thus far.
I have known a couple of people who were so vegetarian oriented that they would deride others who ate meat products in their presence. 99.9% of the vegetarians are NOT like that, but a very few want to show how sensitive they are.
Those are the vegans, IME.
I feel like most anger you see is not general anger, but a joke you might be missing the point of. I’ll happily joke that pineapple on pizza is a sin against nature, but I honestly don’t care what other people are eating. It’s just a joke.
My theory is that deriding others for their food choices is a lazy, shorthand way of asserting superiority, without all the bother of having to back up that superiority.
If you claim that you’re intellectually, physically, or morally superior to someone, they’ll expect you to prove it. If you say you’re smarter, you’ll have to show them your Mensa pin or your Harvard transcripts, or demonstrate your intellect by reciting the digits of pi. If you say you’re stronger, you’re expected to perform a dramatic feat of strength like lifting a piano over your head. If you claim moral superiority, you should prove it by pointing to your name on the local children’s hospital or by showing off your Nobel Peace Prize.
But if you believe you’re superior to another human being because you don’t put ketchup on a hot dog, you don’t have to do a goddam thing—except eat the hot dog. Easy peasy. 
I get it, I do, but what tastes good to someone is entirely, 100% subjective. If that were me, I might be a little hurt, but I’d focus more on making meals for everyone ELSE in the family to enjoy, and let the step-son just continue to eat the way he wants. Unless the whole family is piling condiments on their dinners which, if that’s the case, would lead me to think you aren’t the cook you thought you were (but I’m pretty sure it was just your step-son doing this, and I’m sure your food was very tasty).
My hunch is that pineapple on pizza is born of a desire to be creative - which pizza offers all the room in the world for. If you start with the principle that pizza is a vehicle for toppings, you can make it anything you want it to be. You can easily replicate other dishes (say, a Reuben pizza or a Buffalo chicken pizza or a cheeseburger pizza), or adapt it to another culture (as in a Thai pizza or Hawaiian pizza).
I’m a fan of combinations of sweet/savory/spicy when done right. Pineapple on pizza ain’t it. Not long ago I made one of my aforementioned chili recipes - a sweet ‘n’ sour version that included pineapple chunks. It sounded good on paper, but it was entirely too sweet, and reinforced my dislike for pineapple.
What a great summary of the whole discussion. I might add, it’s especially easy if you confine your claims of superiority to extremely low-hang fruit. McDonald’s sucks. Walmart sucks. Hot dogs with ketchup suck. Dan Brown sucks. Coldplay sucks. There, see what a cool guy I am?
Pineapple on pizza actually is very nice on some types of pizza. I discovered in college that pineapple and Canadian bacon were the only toppings that made a Domino’s pizza edible. (Though Domino’s is much better now than it was in the 90s.) There’s absolutely nothing wrong with pineapple and I don’t get why it irks people so much. Then again, one of my first threads I started here was about the sin of putting ketchup on hot dogs, so, hey. (I’ve mellowed much since then.) Meanwhile, I think barbecue sauce on pizza is absolutely disgusting and I have not tasted a single barbecue pizza I found remotely appealing. But pineapple can be nice. Different strokes, I guess.
Yeah, that stupid “chili has no beans” thing. Good grief. There’s chili and then there’s chili con carne. That later has meat with the beans. What is the main ingredient in chili if there’s no carne???
A related stupid issue is the “Pizza is not eaten with utensils.” Sure it is. The best pizza place in my home town served pizza on plates with utensils. Authentic as can be. Papa John’s and Pizza Hut can suck it.
You want to eat with your hands? That’s your choice. But mocking other people’s choices? Come on.
Personally, the one I face is I don’t put any dressing on a green salad. This offends waiters and a bunch of other people. Why? Why? Why?
So … back to the OP. Remember the OP? The issue about what is going on with this interfering folk. Answer: Some people are just jerks. (Not a Homer quote, but said to him.)
Chiles. The name “chili con carne” literally means chili peppers with meat. I don’t care if you put beans in yours or not (I do either, depending on my mood. Hell, I’ll put it over elbow mac sometimes, as well). But the name itself is not an indication of the presence of beans or anything like that.
This!!!
I have a coworker who I don’t like eating around because she’ll ask you what kind of cheese you’re eating. If it isn’t the kind of cheese you’d get in the speciality cheese section of the grocery store, watch out. And heaven forbid you admit to having an American cheese single on your sandwich. Her facial expression will immediately let you know that you should be utterly ashamed of yourself.
Being a “foodie” is a point of pride for her. She sees it as a hobby. But that attitude is too much for me. It screams “I’m a big ole try hard. Point and laugh at me!”
Well, there’s another way whereby how someone eats their food actually impacts how you eat your food. This I think justifies getting a bit pissed off.
To wit: Once I went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner with friends. In these parts accepted practice is to order a number of dishes for the table and everyone helps themselves to what they want. One dish we ordered was kung pao chicken, a favorite of mine. Another was a steamed fish dish.
Well, one woman served herself some fish and then she asked for the kung pao chicken to be passed to her. She then scraped off nearly all the peanuts from the chicken and put them on her fish. I was so taken aback I couldn’t think of what to say, but you can probably tell I’m still a bit pissed off. I mean, what’s kung pao without the peanuts?
It’s no different than getting angry over other people’s choice in music, religion, sexuality or any other difference. It’s an antisocial personality disorder.