I agree with this, and I’d like to point out that it’s not an issue of “feeling superior.” It’s an issue of jaw dropping astonishment that someone would just completely obliterate an entire category of physical, intellectual, emotional, and social pleasure.
I’m feeling defensive because Ascenray’scomments are so offensive.
Thanks for trying to explain your mindset without resorting to being a jerk about it. If food isn’t something that is “emotionally charged” for me, and you know that’s the way I feel about it, why would it still feel awful if I rejected it? I get it; for some of you food has many connotations and serves as much more than just fuel for your body. You don’t understand how anyone could not feel that way, but you’ve been told that in fact, some of us don’t,so why can’t you just accept it? Terminally ill folks and babies that won’t eat are completely different situations. Those indicate possibly dire circumstances in which you are fearing for their health. Nobody gives a damn if I don’t eat their beef stroganoff because they care about my well being. I don’t like what they like and it pisses them off, though why still hasn’t been explained very well.
That’s because it’s a sign that they’re about to die.
I, on the other hand, appear to be a reasonably healthy person. I am very obviously not on the brink of starvation. If I only have one of your stuffed mushroom appetizers and claim “Wow, that’s so rich - I need to save room for the main course.” (While thinking “mushrooms, still nasty”) You needn’t worry, I’ll probably make it 'til tomorrow.
I agree 100%
And on preview, **Amarinth ** just said what I was about to. I’m not going to worry if a perfectly healthy person is thriving on their chosen diet.
This is getting ridiculous.
Why are you all so concerned with what I put in my mouth? That is rude, plain and simple. A host offers, a guest either accepts or declines. Too much attention paid to the food or the eating habits of anyone present is bad manners.
If the plans are to go out to dinner, that is a bit different, but not much. Why would you drag someone to a sushi bar who has no interest in sushi? Are they forcing you to go to the opera? If MIL only eats at 3 places–don’t go to those places unless you’re with her–that should limit the horridness of it to some extent.
Primal, schmimal. If anything, Americans are way overfed. It sounds to me like the “foodies” are more hung up on the emotional aspects of food than those who are defined as “handicapped” and “disabled”.
Someone upthread said it best: when you get to be an adult, one of the luxuries is not having to do stuff you don’t want to do (for the most part). Eating cabbage is right up there on the list for me. You love coleslaw? You make the best damned coleslaw this side of the Mason-Dixon line? Bango for you! And no thank you, I don’t want any.
WOOK --I’ll join you in the “losers” corner. Fight you for the breadsticks!
I’m feeling defensive because Ascenray’scomments are so offensive.
Thanks for trying to explain your mindset without resorting to being a jerk about it. If food isn’t something that is “emotionally charged” for me, and you know that’s the way I feel about it, why would it still feel awful if I rejected it? I get it; for some of you food has many connotations and serves as much more than just fuel for your body. You don’t understand how anyone could not feel that way, but you’ve been told that in fact, some of us don’t,so why can’t you just accept it? Terminally ill folks and babies that won’t eat are completely different situations. Those indicate possibly dire circumstances in which you are fearing for their health. Nobody gives a damn if I don’t eat their beef stroganoff because they care about my well being. I don’t like what they like and it pisses them off, though why still hasn’t been explained very well.
Funny that you should use those examples. My grandfather couldn’t stand violin music. It actually caused him acute pain to hear one. Something about calcification of the structures of his inner ear. And severeal years ago, I recall reading an art book by a succesful commercial illustrator - I want to say it was Wayne Barlowe, but I’m probably wrong - who detested the color yellow, and hated assignments that required a lot of its use, even if the final product was succesful.
Is it so hard to understand that, for some people, those pleasures simply don’t exsist in the first place? You like one certain thing a whole lot. Other people don’t. What is so difficult about understanding that people like different things? Is this a general problem for you? Are there other things that astonish you when you find out people don’t like them? even sven’s comparison to people who don’t like to read is just as bizarre. I love reading, but I don’t get the vapors when I find out that someone else doesn’t like to read, I just assume that they have different interests than I do, and make a mental note not to bother bringing up the latest book I read in conversation with them.
Maybe it helps that most of my interests are extremely geeky and nichey, so I’ve never gotten into the habit of thinking that what’s important to me is, by default, important to everyone else.
I don’t understand why anybody would not play computer games. But I know that some people don’t, and I accept that and leave them alone about it. I don’t pressure them to try some game that I think they’ll like, like some people do with food. I don’t have a problem with foodies. I do have a problem with foodies who want to pressure me into trying something that I’m fairly sure I won’t like. It’s even worse if they think they know better than I do what I would like.
I’d be offended if someone said that my liking computer games or my dislike of most reality shows was something to be “outgrown”, too. Someone who says that is saying that their tastes are superior to mine. Everybody’s got different tastes, and taste is morally neutral- you’re not a better person than me for liking some food that I don’t like.
I think we all do, sometimes. You’ve never forgotten to bring a lunch to work and not felt like leaving your office to go to the cafeteria or a restaurant? You’ve never had a morning or an evening after work where you’re tired and out of it, and you just don’t want to have to think about what you’re going to eat, or have to make the effort to prepare it?
Same here. To use my earlier example of computer games, if I know someone who doesn’t like them, I discuss other things with that person when I talk to them.
I’m sorry that I’m coming across as offensive here, but the very fact that this question has come up is an illustration of how basic this is to human interaction.
This isn’t a question of “I like X and I don’t like Y.” As I said, everyone has different Xs and Ys to fill in here. This is a question of the “picky eater,” a question of someone who routinely rejects hospitality. Once it was common for there to be societies in which you wouldn’t get out alive (and some still my yet exist) if you refused food you were offered.
If it isn’t important to you, then you’d just eat whatever you were offered. But it isn’t just an issue of “food isn’t important to me.” It’s an issue of “I’m offering you something, a gift, freely (and moreover it’s something that will help you stay alive) and you are refusing it.” That’s a slap in the face.
As I’ve said more than once, it’s not an issue of what I like or what you like. Everyone doesn’t like something. (I’m going to be saying “you” a lot here, but don’t take it literally. I’m talking about any person in a social situation.) It’s an issue of when you’re offered something, you refuse it altogether. If you don’t like the stroganoff, maybe you like the squash soup or the apple-and-walnut salad or the brocolli. The one or two things you don’t like so much, maybe you pick around it, but you taste at least a little bit, and you don’t flatly refuse everything.
Only kids get to declare “I don’t like any of it and I’m not going to have anything and not even taste it!” It’s part of maturing that in order to become a full-fledged member of society, you learn to graciously accept what’s offered and at least try it and make appreciative noises about it. And it’s part of maturing to learn that the offering and accepting of food is a critical part of human interaction and that, regardless of your own attitude toward food, people will worry about someone who routinely doesn’t eat what’s offered and causes constant worry about how to organise a meal.
It has been pointed out that here in the United States, things are much more relaxed than in other countries. For example, in India, where most of my relatives live, it is simply unacceptable to refuse an offer of food. It’s a flat insult, a slap in the face. Acquiring and preparing sustenance in the form of food is hard and expensive and offering it to you means that someone else won’t get it. It’s a sacrifice, and just flat refusal of such an offer is anti-social. It’s not a question of your likes and dislikes, those you can indulge on your own time; it’s a question of accepting your role in an interdependent society of human beings.
There are times when I am offered something that I just hate and nothing in it is redeeming to me – like a plate of canteloupe, watermelon, and other melons. The stuff just makes me gag. I hate the smell, I hate the taste, I hate the feel of the rind, I hate the texture, I hate the squishy sound it makes when you bite into it, I hate the way the juices run all over everything, I hate the way you feel sticky afterwards.
At those times, when I’m feeling tortured and unsure of what to do, I recognise that this is my problem and that my hosts are engaging in a perfectly valid and basic act of human connexion, adn that they have a perfect right to expect that I will take what’s offered and enjoy it. This is a defect in me, a failing, that I cannot just enjoy what’s in front of me. It’s healthful food, nutritious (better for me that most things I would prefer) and, to most people, tasty and enjoyable. If I just can’t go through with it, I have the decency to feel embarrassed and apologetic and not blame them for being disappointed or upset when I fail.
I accept! (but no parmisan on the pasta, 'kay el? 
It’s not your issue of feeling superior? Riiiiight :rolleyes:
It occurs to me that maybe you derive a little too *much * pleasure out of what should merely be the act of fueling your body. Is counting on food to bring your physical, intellectual, social and especially emotional pleasure a healthy thing? Sounds an awful lot like an addiction to me.
Yes, of course, I’ve felt all these things on occasion. Everyone gets stressed out or tired or too busy from time to time. But that would not lead me to conclude that, in general, I wish I could live on food pills.
Actually, on those occasions, what I’ve felt is, “My relatives in India are so lucky because they have office peons* who will bring their food for them when this happens.”
*Actual job title. They bring you tea and biscuits twice a day and you can send them out for lunch or other errands for a small fee.
If you can get to this point, then why not consider it a failing on the part of someone who’s offended that someone won’t swallow something that they don’t like? Why is it my failing that some people are apparently obsessed with food? I’m not trying to be offensive here, but I don’t think that foodies are an example of the average person either. Most people just don’t feel *that * strongly about food.
See, I tend to see it just the opposite way. If I offer you my squishy melons and you refuse, I think that it’s my problem if I get offended by it. I’ll still be able to enjoy the squishy melons and let the juice run all over my face. I might say, “Well, if you change your mind, they’re over here.” Granted, if you aren’t going to eat what I’ve offered and that’s all there is, I’m probably not going to offer you something else. But I certainly wouldn’t consider it a slap in the face that you didn’t want my melons.
I also get those categories of pleasure (in various degrees) from my marital relationship, sexual activity, from reading, listening to music, viewing art, seeing movies, watching television, working, maintaining my household, interacting with relatives, friends, and co-workers, and other things. Perhaps I’m addicted to all those things. Perhaps I have an unnatural attachment to life. The Buddha would certainly think so. Shall you join me under a bodhi tree so that we can renounce the bonds of life and achieve true enlightenment?
I’m not setting myself up as some perfect enlightenment creature. I’m a rather mediocre human being, really, with negligible accomplishments. I often fail to accomplish those goals that would make me a perfect human being and a perfect social companion. I’m not criticizing your tastes or preferences. What I’m saying is that the exchange of food, the offering and accepting, is a basic component of social interaction, and, that it’s unreasonable for you to expect that people whose hospitality you refuse completely are just going to brush it off as normal variation in personality. Most people will see it as a problem and it will affect your standing as a desirable social companion.
So how’s life in the Bronze Age working out for you?
Guess what? I don’t live in India, and I’m not bound by their social customs. If I happen to find myself on the subcontinent, perhaps I’ll reconsider that, but you’ll excuse me if I don’t take your particular family dynamics as gospel on what the proper behavior is for all of India.
You’ve got that backwards. If someone offers you something you hate, and you refuse, it’s their problem if they get bent out of shape about it. Not yours. The point of hospitality is to make your guest feel more comfortable and at home. If you offer them something that makes them uncomfortable, and insist that they take it, you’re being a poor host. They are not being a poor guest.
First of all, I am not talking about “foodies.” I’m talking about ordinary human beings who engage in the ritual of hospitality.
Second, as I’ve said repeatedly, it’s not a question of someone who just doesn’t like this one thing. I don’t like this one thing, I refuse it and I feel embarrassed. The host might be mildly disappointed or might not notice that I refused this one thing.
It’s a question of someone who, in effect, refuses the hospitality of food altogether or creates a societal problem with his or her pickiness because the community has to constantly be concered with what this person will or won’t eat.
This right here tells me that you, and people like you are getting way more out of food than the average person is. I assumed that you were a “foodie” if not, then okay, I’ll withdraw that term, but my point still stands.
No, the community really doesn’t have to be concerned. You might choose to be, but that is your own decision. As someone else said, the feelings of offense just aren’t as strong here in this society for the most part.
Yeah, that’s funny, because in the modern world we don’t depend on societal networks. We’re all just hermits going about our business without having any effect on the people around us.
I was using the social customs of India as an example for the proposition that the offer-acceptance transaction is basic to human interaction.
It’s a two way street. Host and guest both have duties in order make the human connexion. I guess I have to say it again: It’s not a matter of “I don’t like this one thing so I’ll decline.” It might not be the most polite thing to do, but everyone can do this from time to time without serious consequences. Of course I occasionally refuse food that I don’t like. I’m not saying any of us has to pretend we live in a society in which we’ll be ostracised or killed or considered less than a man for not downing that pot of kumis (fermented mare’s milk).
What we’re discussing here is a person who routinely rejects of all hospitality and thus becomes a societal problem by making everyone worry about what he or she going to eat or not eat when they’re considering inviting you to a social occasion.
It’s okay not to like some things and to decline to eat them. But if every time someone wants to invite you over, they have to think “Well, the whole menu (or the restaurant or the arrangements in general) depends on this one person’s likes and dislikes because he’s so damn picky,” then you’ve failed to achieve full maturity as a member of your society.
A-freakin- men, Miller.
Don’t try to force another culture’s mores (or your own, for that matter)on me, ascenray. And please, cut the drama, would ya? You want to resort to self-flagellation because you dared to reject my watermelon, go right ahead. I hope in between lashes you’ll keep in mind that I could not possibly care less. I don’t know who these people are that live by this sacred unspoken contract of " you reject my food, you insult my mama" but I’ve never encountered it and if I ever do, it will still be that person’s problem.