MoonMoon, I must hand it to you. If they ask why I’d rather not eat something, I’ll tell them. I don’t say disdainful things about their food or cooking, but that I’m not fond of the dish. I don’t want to be served it again unless I’m in the vast minority, and I’m pretty sure they’d rather I not suffer at their dinner for appearances’ sake. If they do wish me to suffer, I probably should reconsider our friendship.
For the record, I can’t stand to eat pears, because it seems like I’m eating wood. However, I love Chips Ahoy.
I would not be able to eat blue cheese, I probably would have tried to scrape it off unobtrusively and then proceed with caution, because I have learned from sad experience that any remaining molecules of blue cheese are powerful enough to make some poor innocent food revolting. You have admirable self-control CairoCarol, but even if I could pull that off, I would never pretend to enjoy blue cheese out of fear of being presented with “my favorite” every time I visited that person.
I have many times pretended to enjoy things that I just don’t care for all that much. We laugh now with our best friends about how the first time we went to dinner at their house, they served sautéed mushrooms on mashed potatoes, which is so unpleasant to me from a texture standpoint. But I ate it! I will eat what I’m served if I can, because I don’t want to be thought of as tedious. Every once in awhile I will get caught by a “stealth” ingredient (like blue cheese in potato salad- ugh!), if that happens I just stop eating it and of course polite hosts don’t mention it.
Definitely! I think the next most expensive ingredient is real sharks fin.
I tend to back out of meals at certain ethnicity restaurants unless I can be sure that they understand my allergies and can cook for me without adding fungi or palm/tropical/coconut or bivalve anything [oyster sauce, most premade ‘Chinese’ sauces] <the Chinese place in my tiny home town makes me General Tso tofu with homemade General Tso sauce instead of out of the bottle. It is also extra gingery and I feed the little peppers to mrAru=)>
I don’t care for sweets but make a point of eating at least a portion of wedding cake.
Even bacon?
Something tells me the wedge salad and pork belly with Bleu Cheese dressing at SW Steak wouldn’t be appreciated much in this thread. Oh, well…just more for me.
Like MoonMoon and others, I just don’t eat things I don’t like or can’t stomach. If I’m feeling polite, I’ll blame a food allergy. If I’m not, I’ll just decline with a smile.
The heck kinds of pears are you guys eating?
I went to a traditional Chinese New Years dinner in Asia and one of the courses was Shark Fin Soup. I did not know at the time (I barely knew what ANY of the dishes were). I did not enjoy the bit I did try, the texture was very off-putting. I didn’t finish that course.
I think it’s worth noting, that for some of us, it’s not that we won’t, it’s that we can’t.
Our involuntary gag reflexes, far exceeds our desire to be polite. When folks like us gag on something we don’t like, we are not doing it because we are spoiled little brats. We can’t help it!
So, for me, I find it far more polite to say “No thank you” rather than risk spitting up chewed food debris on the dinning table. And I’m sure everyone in my company appreciates that.
I’m a picky eater so I avoid social situations where I’m forced to accept food from other people. When such a situation does occur, I just say “no, thanks” and make up an excuse if they press. The excuse is usually along the lines of already having lunch, dinner or or just not hungry.
Doesn’t happen; I eat everything.
But these days I have to restrict certain foods for medical reasons. Everyone I know understands this.
Not recent, but the worst meal I ever had was a friend’s house. I really, really hate cheese. I can choke down mozzarella on pizza, but other than that, nope. So, the dinner menu was lasagna, Greek salad with feta, and cheesecake. I just sort of nibbled.
I have no objection to this approach, and certainly if I was allergic to something, or truly couldn’t swallow it, I’d politely refuse. But, in both instances where I was offered the pears and bleu cheese, it was clear that the hostess had gone through some effort to prepare a nice dish (in one case, the pears had been cored and carmelized, in the other the presentation was quite artful). For me, my desire not to disappoint the hostess - coupled with the fact that I can swallow almost anything if I have to - outweighed the discomfort of eating the food.
But if someone politely refused food I’d prepared, I wouldn’t mind. Although I can’t think of any particular time when that’s happened, I’m sure it has.
Umm, just pears? Doing a search for “woody tasting pear” brings up a NY Times article claiming they will get a woody texture if they’re allowed to ripen on the tree.
I’m weird about food texture, so maybe I’m just sensitive to it.
Nah, you are in good company. I know plenty of people who don’t like pears - I always say, “that’s because you haven’t had GOOD ones.” Pears run the gamut from flavorless drudgery to sublime sweetness. I’ve had both.
Plenty of people don’t like pears (though I prefer them to apples), but I’ve only found what I would call "woodiness " in seriously unripe pears, just like when you get hard, unripe peaches. Now, they vary by varietal, but a good ripe pear like the Bartlett to me has the texture almost as soft as a peach. Boscs are particularly tough and flavorless/starchy when unripe.
Anyhow, I eat whatever’s put in front of me, but the one time I could remember really needing to make an effort was my Mom’s friend’s Thanksgiving stuffing, which was about 80% giblets (not exaggerating–it tasted like nothing but liver and gizzards) and way over cooked. I had taken a big two spoonfuls, not realizing just how much overcooked organ meat was in there. Out of politeness, I felt the need to clean my plate. Now, mind you, I like liver and gizzard, but not in a mush cooked for far too long.
A simple “no, thanks” should always suffice. A polite hostess should not care whether you don’t “like” a particular food. you’re allergic, it’s against your religion or you just ate a giant meal. If they insist, do what you must…
I’m a non-picky eater & usually try just about anything. Of course, bad preparation can render even the best ingredients inedible. Unless I’m in a restaurant & am paying for the dish, I’ll take a taste & push the food around the plate.
I must say there’s a much different tone in this thread than there usually is in food related conversations around here. By now someone should have come in to tell us that it is the height of poor manners not to eat any and every thing that is put in front of one and that picky eaters are uncultured, childish dolts.
I think a comedian beat me to it, but pears, like avocados, have like a 2 hr window of ripeness. You kind of have to schedule when you’re going to eat them, or else they’re either tasteless fiber or vaguely alcoholic mush.
I can eat almost anything (like Panache, whether I *should *is another matter) but the last time I remember having to fight my gorge was at a popular sushi restaurant a few years ago. I don’t know if it was the sea cucumber or urchin roe that did me in, because both were served at the same course, but I felt myself turning green. Thankfully the tea was good and strong. I’ve heard that those have to be super-fresh, but I’m just not going to try again.
I did kind of inhale some canned mackerel the other day that my toddler insisted he wanted, then changed his mind. It’s really strong tasting unless prepared a certain way, and I had already done it up like tuna salad. 
I don’t care much for most (raw) fruit, but if you give me some and it’s ripe and well-prepped I will eat it and try to enjoy it.
I would no more eat shark fin soup on principle than I would cut up and eat a live kitten. I would refuse to eat it and if anyone pressed me, I would gladly tell them I think it’s so unbearably cruel to sharks. Let the awkwardness flow, I don’t care.
I don’t like cake much. I really don’t like birthday cake: the cheap, run-of-the-mill yellow cake with white shortening based frosting that’s produced 9 out of 10 times. Even when they think to buy me a birthday cake, that’s what I get, right out of the cooler at the nearest grocery store. I appreciate the sentiment and all, but the taste is just a wad of flour, sugar, and shortening. I’ll take a couple of small bites of the cake, and slip the paper plate with the rest into the trash, unobtrusively.
Can’t help but think of those hilarious scenes in “Frenzy” where the detective has to put down his wife’s newest culinary creations.