I was such a picky eater until I was 17 that people who knew me as a child are stunned that I eat sushi and soybeans and a wide variety of foods. I had to learn to accept and try new things. Everything changes and so did my diet. My parents indulged me as a picky child but the rest of the world does not as an adult. Those times I could afford to buy what I wanted, I could eat what I pleased. I learned about healthy food choices and had to find ways to introduce needed nutrients into my daily diet. That meant experimenting and when I had children myself and didn’t want them limiting their own choices, I served a wide variety of foods and set an example of healthy eating.
Didn’t always work, but the kids are nowhere near as picky as I was.
Thanks, Wook. That’s mainly what we try to do. The only thing we haven’t figured out is the out-of-town thing: we’d really like to take her on a couple long-weekend trips, but we just can’t find a way that we’ll all be happy together for several days in a row. I’ve suggested that Mr. Athena talk to her about it, but he says she’ll just clam up and decide that he and I are “fancy gourmet eaters” and she’d rather not go. Which is semi-true - we do enjoy our food - but we’d be happy going to Taco Bell once or twice if she’d agree to return the favor and go to a couple meals at places we pick out (and we wouldn’t pick Sushi bars or the latest Fancy Food places that we’d tend to go if we were alone) and at least try to be happy with the selection.
It wasn’t really a potluck in the sense that people brought whatever they wanted, more like a semi-organized thing where my mother asked one person to bring a cake, another to bring bagels, etc.
People ask why she’s not eating because not eating, in this and many other social circles, is evidence that something is wrong. Was she sick? Does she have an allergy? Did someone offend her? Could someone throw something together that she would like?
Hello Again puts it well: eating is a social thing, and refusing to eat - even for the most legitimate reasons - is, at a minimum, something that people question.
Very interesting, Hello Again, and also very fucked up. I’m not shooting the messenger here; I know you didn’t create this phenomenom. It just goes so totally against the way I (and others here)view the whole eating issue. That’s what makes it so awkward for those of us who are gastronomically apathetic. We just don’t put any importance on food, yet we have to bare the brunt of society’s neuroses? If your theory is correct, doesn’t that mean that me and Picky Pickerson are more evolved? 
Depends on the restaurant. When we go to the local pub where we eat at least 2-3 times a month, we go for the company, and to get out of the house, and all those other reasons.
When I cook a fancy meal at home, or we go to a new or upscale restaurant, it’s very much about the food. We read through the whole menu and talk about what to order. We taste each other’s choices; we try to deconstruct how it’s made. We compare how the salmon at this restaurant is versus the salmon we had last year in Seattle. If something is particularly good we gush over it. We talk about what wine or beer or cocktail would go particularly well with it. And we love every single minute of all of this.
That’s not to say that we don’t talk about other things as well, but when the food comes, chances are that the conversation turns to the food.
Perhaps an analogy would be watching a movie or TV show with others, which is another social activity. The analogy isn’t perfect, because part of the appeal of sharing a meal with people is the conversation, but if you focus on the eating itself, I think the analogy holds up fairly well.
I can enjoy watching movies by myself, but if I’m watching one with other people, who are also enjoying the experience, my own enjoyment is somehow enhanced or magnified. But I wouldn’t want to watch the movie with someone who did not like movies, or whose taste in movies excluded the kind of movie we were watching. And I think a similar thing is true with enjoying food.
I figured it out.
It’s exactly the same feeling I get when people tell me “Oh, I don’t read books”.
Yea I agree. I’m not wired that way, but that explanation makes sense. In my case, if someone politely refused to share the food I had, I’d shrug, say okay, and keep eating and chatting with them. We can both have fun interacting, and I can get nourishment.
That’s why the movie analogy that I see on preview breaks down for me, personally. If you don’t want to watch the movie that everyone else is looking at you’re pretty much stuck. You can’t strike up a conversation with the other people because they won’t be able to hear, and they won’t be able to enjoy the show. Unless you think that sitting quietly for 90 minutes is fun, then you’re going to be pretty bored. I see how it would fit for the rest of you though.
Well, if you had acted like that at a restaurant with me, I wouldn’t have eaten with you again, either. Sorry, but another person’s rude behavior does not excuse your own.
I was a pretty picky eater as a child. There are still some foods that I don’t like/won’t eat. However, I have never gone to a restaurant where I couldn’t find at least one thing on the menu I liked. Frankly, if people are going to be that critical of my food choices and exclude me from functions because of my food preferences, they’re probably not the kind of people I want to hang around anyway.
I was quite picky as a child. In my 20’s, I made a point of trying different things and found I liked some and learned to like others - some of which are now favorites (e.g. seafood). I do enjoy eating and especially enjoy certain foods. I can find something I like at almost all restaurants and at-home dinners.
Still, there are things I hate, and I’m picky compared to most people I know. I am quite sensitive to taste, smell, and texture. From my observation, most people have little trouble eating stuff they don’t particularly like. In contrast, there are some foods I DETEST. It’s not a matter of simply not caring much for them, it’s a matter of finding them definitley nasty and EXTREMELY unpleasant to eat, and often to even smell*.
I’ve been eating food for over 50 years, and I know myself in this area. There are some things I will not put in my mouth because I KNOW I’ll find them distasteful. I find it quite irritating when some people can’t accept this, and insist I try something. It’s hard to make them understand, because often there aren’t any foods that they have the same reaction to. My plea to these folks is if I say I don’t eat such-and-such, take my word for it and drop the subject.
*Speaking of smell - when I was a kid there were things I knew I wouldn’t like because of their odor (squash is one example). My parents always made me try one bite, saying I couldn’t tell how it would taste just by smelling it. Then in school, they taught us that much of what we call “taste” is the smell, as the tongue only senses four basic things. It baffled me that my parents didn’t seem to know this.
Which is, what, superiority? Not trying to put words in your mouth, even seven, just using your quote as a segue to my question as to why people find a lack of interest in food such a negative trait. The whole “social compact, food as a uniter” theory aside, if we’re talking about people that you know somewhat intimately and they’ve explained that it’s nothing personal, they’re just not into the food thing, why is it still a problem? Again, not saying this pertains to you, or anyone else here, but I get the feeling that some people think a great interest in food = sophistication.
Yeah, I sure hope that conversation was a hyperbole. Cuz like I’m sure that the woman just loved to have her food quirks laid out for ridicule by one of her “friends.” I agree that if she’s that persnickety about the food restaurants probably aren’t for her, but that doesn’t mean the people she’s eating with should make fun of her. I’m sure the staff already got their eyerolls on.
And I for one think that talking about food is really boring. I’m sure things I talk about are boring too, but that doesn’t mean I get to have a superiority complex and say people who don’t “get it” have some kind of psychological disorder. Geez louise.
Are you “picky” in other areas of life besides eating? Not really, no.
Do you value familiarity and comfort over variety and adventure? Definitely not. I love trying new restaurants, and with friends and dates I try to avoid going someplace we’ve been to in the past. There are a few places where I’m a “regular,” but they’re usually diners where I feel comfortable alone; I can study or read the paper and not feel hurried.
Do you have a higher-than-normal sensitivity to tastes or smells or textures? Most definitely. Texture more than anything can cause reflexive gagging, even if the taste is wonderful. “Just swallow it!” isn’t an option.
Can you trace your eating habits back to some psychological association or conditioning, with regard to certain foods or to eating in general? No.
Do you have allergies that force you to be wary about what you eat? When I was a child, yes. Less so now. No peanut allergies, thankfully.
Do you have some “control issue” in insisting on a certain narrow selection of foods? Certainly not.
My diet is MUCH broader than the white bread and mac n’ cheese that some here believe picky eaters limit themselves to. It’s been expanding through the years; my diet is a few orders of magnitude broader than it was when I was a child. The contents of my cupboards and fridge look like anyone else’s. I can find lots of things in any restaurant that I can eat. I don’t complain, and I don’t project an image of being a “downer” when it comes to food - unless people insist on pushing the issue.
Some of us, who are picky eaters and have religious restrictions on what we can eat, have more trouble finding something to eat in certain restaurants.
I keep kosher. I will eat at non-kosher restaurants, but won’t eat meat or poultry there, or anything made with meat or poultry (including stock), or non-kosher fish or shellfish. I wouldn’t be able to find anything to eat at McDonald’s (they cook their fries and fish in oil that includes flavoring from beef) or a very authentic Mexican restaurant that uses lard in most dishes.
I’m not big on raw vegetables (and I don’t like fruit), so a salad isn’t usually a real option. Plus, a lot of restaurant salads include meat, chicken, or bacon bits, none of which I can have. Casual dining chains often have only one or two things that I can choose from- everything else has something I can’t have in it.
In the Bay Area or urban areas on the east coast, most restaurants offer at least something vegetarian that isn’t just a salad (or something with kosher fish), so I can usually find something at most restaurants (with the exception of McDonald’s or other fast food places, or Mexican restaurants that use lard). That’s not necessarily the case in less urban areas or more old-fashioned restaurants. I will usually want to look at a menu before agreeing to eat at a certain restaurant, to make sure there’s something I can eat there.
I will often question the waiter about ingredients- what kind of fish is in this fish dish, is this dish made with chicken stock, et cetera. Those questions are for religious reasons, though, not pickiness. I do try to be discreet and not make a big deal of things, but I will make sure I’m not eating non-kosher meat or fish. If someone makes a big deal over what I’m eating or not eating, I won’t back down and eat whatever it is. I’m sorry if it annoys you or hurts your feelings, but I’m not going to violate my religious beliefs to make you feel better or to fit in. And don’t try to sneak non-kosher meat or fish into something you give me and tell me it doesn’t have it- you will seriously damage my relationship with you for a very long time if you do something like that and I find out.
I value comfort and familiarity in areas that matter- jobs, where to live, et cetera. But I’m generally willing to try something new if it won’t make a difference in a day or two. I’m very sensitive to food textures- there are a lot of foods I won’t eat because of the texture. No allergies, psychological issues, or control issues with regard to food.
I dated someone who would only eat plain hamburgers (bun, meat, bun), chicken fingers, mashed potatoes. Nothing spicy, nothing he had never had before - no bean sprouts, for example. He didn’t make a big deal out of it; he wouldn’t put up a fuss or make a scene. He was like Bartleby the scrivener: if he didn’t like something, he just wouldn’t eat it. If I wanted to go to a restaurant that served food he didn’t like (ie, anything other than ‘American’), he would refuse to go or sit there and not eat anything (which was just soooo awkward).
I have a hard time fathoming how someone could see this sort of behavior as not having an impact on me/ us. It limited where/ what I could eat, it caused conflict in our relationship (as someone was always compromising, by definition, since I’m not big into chicken fingers, and while it’s not an instant “deal-breaker” sort of thing, it has an effect). It limited what I could cook for him, which meant there was one less way I could show him I cared for him.
But don’t you think you are missed? If I had a good friend that was a really picky eater, to the point that they wouldn’t come to a big dinner, I would feel bad: I would miss their presence, and I would also miss that I couldn’t give them the gift of a dinner I worked hard on, as a sign of affection for my friends. Lots of people (though apparently not all) express their affection for others through food. My friend gets sick? I send over a pot of soup. My parents are celebrating an anniversary? I make them their favorite dishes. It’s one thing to say “I don’t understand the emotional attachment people place on food”, but it’s another thing to say “People shouldn’t put an emotional attachment to food (in general or because I don’t)”.
Even though polite, you are effectively refusing to take part in the interaction (I don’t mean to imply that you’re at all rude or impolite). But just because it’s a polite denial doesn’t mean you can claim incomprehension that people are upset/ sad at your absence.
They cook for themselves like I do. I generally won’t eat anything I don’t cook myself. A very few limited things by my mom and generally nothing by my so. If we go out to a place I don’t like I’ll just pound some drinks instead.
I joined the Navy and learned to eat a lot of things I wouldn’t touch as a kid.
My dad’s sister eats like this.
We call her a closet anorexic. 
I agree, but drop the borderline. In fact, the woman in question agrees that it’s pathalogical. But she’s the one that does the cooking in her household, so she buys the stuff that she eats, and her husband is so happy to have someone cooking for him, he just eats it.
They’re not a super fun couple to either have over for dinner, or to go to their house to eat, or to eat out, as I’m sure you can imagine.
I agree.
No one has said that because it goes without saying. Look up the definition of sophisticated. There’s really no argument.
Anyway, the OP’s question has already been answered on this board. Most grow out of it, and learn to resent those who don’t. Then we all get into a big fight.