Picky eater? Obsessive eater? Non-eater? What are your table habits that drive others crazy, or at least are a little peculiar?
One of mine is that no food may run out before any others. No matter what the portion sizes are to begin with, the next to last thing I want to see on my plate is exactly one bite of everything. I must think it’s symmetrical or something.
I cut my spaghetti with a fork.
I despise bananas, but I love banana bread.
I hate orange-flavored things, but fresh oranges are the bomb.
I dislike coconut intensely, but indian food made with coconut milk is divine.
I hate walnuts, except in baklava which is delicious.
I am a very very picky eater.
I like it all (with few exceptions, like olives and pickles). I don’t mind it all getting mixed together on my plate, and I don’t mind blending tastes and styles in the same meal.
I do, however, have to clean my plate. Every strand of pasta, every grain of rice, every pea has to be gone. And I will use bread to sop up any sauce or juice left. I can’t help it – I was raised that way, not being “forced” to clean my plate, but appreciating every morsel put in front of me, and not allowing anything to go to waste. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people wasting food.
I like cherries, but I used to hate cherry-flavored anything, because it all tasted like nasty children’s medicine. Now I like things like cherry pie and cobbler, and I’ll drink fruit punch, but I still don’t care for most cherry-flavored sweets.
I’ll also take chances with very spicy or exotic foods, even if everyone else is scared or disgusted by the thought of them.
I tend to eat all of one thing before eating another.
I eat the crusts off my sandwich first, then eat the sandwich. But only at home. If I order a sandwich at a deli I don’t do that. No, I don’t know why.
I have a deathly aversion to eggs. Smelling them cooking makes me want to vomit. If recipe calls for what I think it an inordinate amount of eggs I won’t make it. Nothing that has been on the same plate as an egg can be on my plate, because there might be some egg cooties on it.
I’m that way with chocolate. I love chocolate bars, but will pass on chocolate cake, ice cream, and brownies.
I love Japanese/Korean food, but refuse to eat it in a restaurant. I will only eat it at home. I will then commandeer the bathroom for the rest of the night.
Well, there is that M&M thing…
Oh, and I like to eat my Jello through a straw (it lasts longer that way).
Oh! I had totally forgotten about Jello through a straw…
thankyou thankyouthankyouthankyou!
I like my frozen veggies still frozen 
I despise ketchup. I don’t want to see it or smell it. When I was a waitress, the tables would need cleared and if I got some ketchup on my finger, I would start to gag.
I always eat my salad last. Always. This tends to drive servers crazy when I eat out as it will sit there untouched until after I eat my meal.
I love strawberries and ice cream but hate strawberry ice cream and/or strawberries on ice cream.
I don’t like any of the following if they have been cooked: spinach, cabbage, zucchini, yellow squash, broccoli, or cauliflower. However, I eat them all raw.
I’ve been a very picky eater all my life.
Although my overall health is very good (I’m 45), I was diagnozed with ulcerative colitis last year. I’ve had warning symptoms for a good while, which may have influenced my eating habits – I was avoiding things that caused gastric upset. The diagnosis was actually a bit of a relief – I now have justification for my quirky eating habits.
I don’t eat any eggs or dairy products, which makes it hard to eat a lot of food that comes pre-prepared. I travel a lot for work, and at all-day meetings, companies often bring pre-made sandwiches in. When this happens, I slip out and get something at the cafeteria, where I can ask them to hold the mayo and cheese.
It amazes me how people always feel entitled to demand why I’m not eating like everybody else. I ended up printing up business cards with a short description of my dietary needs, and handing them out to people who ask. I’m not just odd, I’m passive aggressive about it. 
More annoying still are the ones who keep trying to get me to have some pizza, even after I’ve explained why I don’t want any. :mad:
I’ll eat just about anything, and I’m not too picky about it. But I do have a tendency to eat one thing at a time: all my fries first, then the burger. This comes from years of eating while driving, or eating while reading. It’s just simpler that way. Since I got married, this habit is slowly dying.
I won’t eat brown M&Ms. Yes, I am an M&M rascist!
I put Tabasco on potato chips.
Yes, yes, yes! I can’t even watch other people eat it. It looks like blood. And if you’ve ever scrubbed dried ketchup off the wall (as I have) you’d lose your taste for the stuff real quick.
I don’t eat oddly colored foods in general. No purple, no blue, and reds and greens are taken on a case by case basis. Green broccoli…okay. Green cupcake…no, and I don’t want to see anyone else eat it either. I do eat spaghetti sauce, but only by consciously reminding myself that it’s not gore, it’s tomatoes.
I am suspicious of most raw fruits and veggies. I am only slowly learning to eat salad.
Fish and shellfish is gross. I will eat deep-fried fish, but that’s because I can pretend it’s chicken.
I balance what’s on my plate- one bite of this, one bite of that. I would drive Lou crazy because I almost always leave a little bit of something.
Gee, I didn’t realise I was that weird.
Couldn’t you apply this same logic to ketchup?
Not weird at all. Eat as much as you want! It would only drive me crazy if you took a huge portion of food you knew you probably wouldn’t finish, picked at it or played with it, and ended leaving most of it over. I have had dates like this, believe it or not.
To be considered edible, food must pass two tests:
a) Can’t smell rotten, and
b) Can’t see anything growing
If it makes it past those, it’s edible. Period. Last night I had some several-days leftover chicken spaghetti that I had accidentally let sit out overnight. I had some opened weenies that were probably two months old, and they’re gone now. Kinda like playing “Mythbusters” with food.
I have weird texture issues - I can’t eat cottage cheese, oatmeal or rice pudding because I can’t stand the slimy/lumpy texture. I don’t like pears because of the grainy texture. I also hate mayonaise. I don’t like sweet things to touch non sweet things (syrup on bacon, cranberry dressing on rice, raisins in curry).
I used to hate green peppers, but I’m slowly starting to warm up to them.
I absolutely love everything made with tomatoes: ketchup, pasta sauce, salsa, etc., and I’ll even enjoy stuff with diced tomatoes on it, but I find it very difficult to enjoy tomatoes on their own.
Adam
Tomatoes on their own, like in a salad, for instance.
Love Pepsi, hate Coke
Love Diet Coke, hate Diet Pepsi
When making a sandwich, whatever I’m spreading on it must be on every bit of the bread and must be even all over. It drove my dad nuts when I was a kid. If it’s a grilled cheese sandwich and I use two slices of cheese, I have to have cheese covering the whole slice of bread. So I put one slice on toward the side and then rip the second one into pieces and arrange it so the cheese is evenly distributed. I know, I’m not well. :o