I consider myself a pretty adventurous eater, and I feel lucky that my wife is as well. Well, not really lucky, it’s probably one of the many reasons I married her. When I was single I actually had more than one first date who said “I’m just a meat and potatoes girl” and I knew right then ain’t no way it was going to work out with us.
One thing my wife doesn’t like, though, is certain types of seafood cooked certain ways. She’s not really crazy about crab, so I’ll have myself a big ole crab boil when she’s out on a girls’ night. I also have a seafood soup I like to make, probably very close to a bouillabaisse- tomato-based with various types of seafood. I personally love it, but It’s another thing I have to make when she’s not around because she can’t even stand the smell of it. She likes cooked salmon, she likes clams, she’s ok with shrimp, but all three in a soup? No way. Also, she’s really not crazy about Mexican food, for some reason. Who doesn’t like Mexican food? I mean, she’s gone to Mexican restaurants with me on occasion and she’ll find something to eat, but if it’s her call she would never choose Mexican.
But these are pretty small issues when she mostly loves the same foods I do. Somebody in another food based thread mentioned that their wife no longer ate meat- I imagine this is pretty common— one person in a relationship being an omnivore and the other vegetarian or vegan. That, to me, would be a tough thing to work around, I not only love eating stuff with meat in it, I love cooking with meat too. If I had to BBQ for just myself I’d be sad
May have been myself, but I’m certainly not alone in the meat/non-meat married households. In my case, it’s easier in that while she, like anyone who thinks about it, has some moral reservations about ethical animal rearing for food, she just doesn’t like the taste particularly.
Actually, this should have been something figured out a long time ago. She only ate meat that was cooked to the point of well done, drenched in heavy sauces and the like. She never liked any seafood at all. The only meat she ate with any measure of visible enjoyment was various heavily breaded fried foods. After realizing it after (many!) years, she stopped eating meat and became much happier. But she doesn’t object to me eating (medium rare, lightly seasoned) chunks of meat or other dishes. And she can and will try things, if she’s sufficiently interested in the dish, or if we’re travelling and trying new things.
Since it’s just the two of us, we pretty much each cook our own thing, which is still fun time being in the kitchen together, and eating together, just very different things. The biggest issue is we now have at least 50% more dishes to wash every days, so even with just the two of us, we often do a load of dishes daily.
I will say that she hasn’t tried to force her preferences on me, and I long ago learned not to worry about hers (her father on the other hand…) But I have embraced (per Gov. Polis) suggestion of a meat-free day, so I do it every two-weeks to a month. And then we have the same things together for dinner. But it’s easier as we do vegetarian, not vegan. So plenty of options with eggs and cheese.
We are both conventionally adventurous eaters, by that I mean we’ll do gourmet restaurants with modern oddball stuff. But we wouldn’t do exotic asian street foods.
But, day-to-day, there is a difference. One is attitude about likes and dislikes. There isn’t much I dislike, so I’m OK with pretty much anything. But of course I do have preferences. Whereas my spouse is VERY binary about likes and dislikes. Either we like it, or we won’t touch it AT ALL. So, there is a whole list of things I like that are just not an option.
Also, among the list of dislikes, I perceive what I would term “un-dainty” foods. It seems like a lot of things potentially messy (long pasta noodles) or eaten by hand (corn on the cob, ribs) or gas producing are out. But, oddly, a lot of kid foods are A-Okay (hot dogs, pizza, tacos, burgers).
Of course, all of these foods to avoid are true for US, but not mentioned if we are guests outside of our home.
My boyfriend and I are both picky. For example I won’t eat spicy food, he won’t have a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, or scrambled eggs. He’s got more weird food hangups than I do, but liking spicy food allows him many more choices.
When we eat together, we eat out. If we lived together we could probably eat the same boring dinners together, and if he wanted something crazy I’m always up for a bowl of cereal (which he won’t eat).
For the most part, we’re pretty in-sync on food things. We’re both adventurous, we both will eat most anything, and we’re both not wild about offal.
Where we differ is in our relative preferences for certain things. For example, my wife LOVES squash- summer squash, zucchini, butternut squash, pumpkin, etc… I can tolerate it at best, with more love for the summer varieties than the winter ones.
I’m a seafood fanatic, and she’s somewhere between indifferent to mildly liking it. Similarly, she LOVES a steak, and while I like a good steak, I’m not going to choose one over whatever the seafood option is at most fine dining restaurants.
The final one is our tolerance for spice. I’m a minor chile-head, and she doesn’t like spicy food as much as I do. That’s not to say she’s a mild food person or anything, but I’m the sort that adds hot sauce to stuff, while she generally does not.
Ha, my wife and I are the same way. She loves that stuff, and I can take or leave it. If cooking for herself she might sauté up just zucchini slices and put them over pasta.
Or, she’ll buy some yellow squash or zucchini or whatever it is, not get around to putting it in anything, and then I’m making a nice red sauce and she’ll say “hey, can you cut up that squash and put it in the pasta sauce to use it up before it goes bad?”
My wife is vegetarian (but eats fish) and I’m omnivorous. I’m fine only eating meat in sandwiches for lunch and when we go out, or if I grill. My Mom is amazed how many vegetables I ended up eating after I got married. Broccoli, however, is still a no go.
My might as well be husband and I have similar tastes in most things that are animal in orgin but where we differ is that he will only eat 3 vegetables (corn, carrots & green beans) and he doesn’t love lamb, which I would love to make a lot more often if he did. He’s not a fan of sushi either but we can still go out to the local sushi place and his search for more interesting plates instead of just teriyaki chicken has been good for me too. We often share an appetizer like yellowtail collar that I wouldn’t have ordered on my own since I’m there for the raw fish or a special cooked item. We also both like seafood. The only difference there is I developed an aversion to scallops as an adult so I don’t make them often. We work around the vegetable thing - I just cook on weekends and most of the time there are leftovers for Monday. On the weekends, I usually make myself a separate veggie side dish because ,frankly, I’m bored to tears with the three he will eat. Tues- Thurs, I make very veggie heavy meals like stir fries and he’s on his own. He usually eats the most unhealthy , exclusively meat/carb/fast food crap he can find and he rarely will cook his own meals, he just picks it up. I feel only slightly guilty about this - I did try to cook for him during the week but it was just soo heavy all the time with no vegetable variety. On Fridays, we go out and, though I’d like to try new places more than he would, we generally like the same kind of restaurants . We also both like to drink on those Friday nights out, which resolves most cuisine differences anyways.
My wife and I don’t like much of the same stuff. She’s a very picky eater and I’m pretty much open for anything as long as it isn’t revolting (not eating balut). She won’t eat any seafood, the only veggies she’ll eat are potatoes, corn, and lettuce, and whenever we go out to Italian or Mexican restaurants she’ll always order the same dish.
Luckily we’ve settled on 30 or so dinners that we both enjoy (or really, 30 meals that she’s deemed acceptable) so that’s what we do… just cycle through the same menu each month.
We are very similar, but my wife does not like chocolate. I’m talking any kind of chocolate, even white chocolate. Anything like Oreos, brownies, chocolate cake. All out.
She has not issue, however, buying me these things(and the kids, of course), so it makes very little impact.
I eat all the guac in the house. Husband eats more red sauce pizza and jalapenos than I do. I’m not a beer drinker either, which suits him just fine. : )
The Mrs. and I are pretty adventurous when it comes to food, but she loves her veggies, including raw ones. I learned to enjoy a lot of veggies, but I need them cooked, preferably nicely browned with olive oil and garlic and parmesan. She likes beets and cauliflower, while I don’t.
Strangely she loves omelets (especially filled with veggies, ugh) but hates scrambled eggs. I’m meh about omelets but love a nice scrambled egg sandwich on white toast with butter and ketchup or sriracha.
Minor stuff, really. We’ll mostly chow down together on nearly anything.
My wife and I enjoy mostly the same things. The one big difference that comes to mind: I am of the opinion that all dishes should contain copious amounts of onions. My wife believes onions should be eradicated from Earth. So I mostly go without. Every once in a while, I’ll make myself something to get my onion fix.
We are not epicures (I loathe that word “foodie”). We live too far from town to eat out more than a few times a year – birthdays and such. Cooking is just another job for me.
I have an overly sensitive palate and my food choices tend to be bland because of that. Spicy food, for example, makes me feel like I have chemically burned my mouth, very unpleasant. I also have a strong gag reflex, so one piece of gristle and I am done with that meal. My husband and I are opposites in those departments.
If lived alone I’d be mostly vegetarian as, ethics aside, there is no nutritionally valid reason to eat a lot of meat and I don’t enjoy it enough to override that. I’m a very health-conscious eater and try to eat a lot of raw fruit , raw and cooked vegetables, and whole grains. Organic as much as possible (although this much more for ecological reasons). My idea of breakfast is raw rolled oats, raw fruit, nuts, and yogurt, my idea of lunch is a bowl of noodles and vegetable and tofu, and I don’t eat dinner any more.
My husband, left to his own devices, would consume little but pizza, chili, sausage, bread, beer, and ice cream. With hot sauce on most of those. However he doesn’t like to cook (he does the dishes). I don’t like cooking much either but I am an experienced practical cook with rather narrow food parameters, so I do virtually all the cooking, and he eats whatever is put in front of him with gratitude that he didn’t have to make it himself.
I try to hit a balance between what he likes to eat and what I do. I make a lot of ‘updated classics’ – whole wheat mac and cheese with kale kind of thing. I’m actually making a meatloaf today, quite a rarity, which is entirely because he loves meatloaf. But it will be accompanied by roasted beets and winter squash. And I imagine I’ll hide some kale in it. He’ll douse it with hot sauce.
This is me and my wife with beets, but not cauliflower. She’ll buy giant Costco jars of pickled beets and pile them on a salad. I can’t stand the smell of beets-- to me they smell like a moldy, mildewy basement, and I can’t imagine they taste any better.
We are a perfect match as far as food and drink. We’ll both try anything and are not picky in the slightest. We both drink more than average, as far as alcohol.
The one difference is that she will make “healthy” food choices, which isn’t something I consider.
