I used to (age 13 or so) lick the salt off of Pringles before eating them. Then I realized they didn’t taste like anything without the salt, and I stopped eating Pringles (and licking salt!) altogether.
Apparently I’m not the only one!
Most of this thread screams “OCD” to me, BTW.
No matter what I’m eating, I always save the best part for last. After all, that’s the taste I’ll remember afterwards.
I always eat the perimeter of a sandwich, then the middle. With pizza, I eat the crust end first, then work toward the point. I eat all the cake, then the frosting. Oreos: I’ll separate everything, eat all the wafers first, then savor the huge white blob last. Mixed nuts: I’ll eat them worst-to-best, saving the cashews for last. Hot dog: eat the ends first, then the middle.
Another thing: If I’m eating a sandwich that has lettuce, tomatoes and pickles in it, I’ll remove those things and eat them first, then eat the sandwich.
Obviously, I have to make compromises when other people are around, which explains why I prefer to dine alone.
I, also, eat one thing at a time until that part is done. It’s not necessarily the meat first, unless it’s a steak which must be eaten while still hot.
An extension of this: I never put a hamburger down once I start eating it. Too messy to pick it up again, I guess.
I am a right-handed American, but do not switch my fork back and forth between hands when cutting meat. This is (unintentionally) sort of European, I guess, except that I also don’t hold the fork in the inverted position when doing so. I hold it like I would hold it the rest of the time in my right hand.
OCD? Perhaps I’m just confused. :rolleyes:
Unless the salad dressing is exceptionally yummers, I leave the crunchy wet white parts of lettuce.
I also usually leave one small floret of broccoli on the plate, in remembrance of all the kids who were ever forced to eat every last bite of their broccoli.
I eat tons of pickles, usually in the form of little sliced sandwich pickles. One of my favorite and weirdest snacks is to take 2 sliced pickles, sandwich a pinch of shredded cheese between them, and eat the bite-sized pickle & cheese sandwich.
As long as we’re on about odd food affinities, I like:
More odd habits:
I peel my baked potato, and eat the peel separately. Used to drive my mother crazy, when I was small and demanded that my baked potato be peeled, then ate both the potato and the skin.
I prefer my foods separate, and not touching. If my peas roll into my mashed potatoes, I’ll push aside those certain peas and not eat them.
And I eat one item at a time. I’ll eat my broccoli, then my potatoes, then my steak, for example. Or my spaghetti first, then my garlic bread. I don’t alternate bites of anything.
If it’s a sandwich, I eat the middle part first, so in case I’m full before I finish, I haven’t wasted the middle, but just the edges or ends.
I have no problem with green lettuce, but white lettuce must never enter my mouth (texture thing) and so often I forefit lettuce all together out of fear of white lettuce.
I tend to eat as many foods as possible with a fork. Pizza, french fries, pickles, etc. If I am not eating a food with a fork, I usually must wipe my face after every bite.
If I am not eating pizza with a fork, I will eat the point part first, and then I will roll it up so it is wrapped around the crust and eat it like a swiss miss roll or whatever other rolled up food you can think of (I was going to say burrito, but I eat those with a fork.)
Any kind of sandwich, if there is any plain bread overhanging on the edges, that bread must be pulled off and discarded. The sandwich is then eaten around the edges in until the very last, perfect bite - the center bit with everything on it - is consumed. I never ever eat the heel of the bread, or the first three or four slices from either end. Unless it’s a loaf of french bread, and then the heels are both mine.
Catsup goes on hamburgers/cheeseburgers, mustard on hot dogs. Relish on both, either sweet or dill. No exceptions may be made. Mayonnaise only goes on cold sandwiches, otherwise it is an ingredient in things like potato salad or dips, etc. French fries/tater tots need Marie’s Tartar Sauce, not catsup.
Salad is supposed to be eaten after the meal to refresh the palate. Mine must be in a bowl, separate from the rest of the meal.
Any cereal, hot or cold, must only have enough milk to be barely visible around the center. I do not drink cereal milk, and it’s a sin to throw away perfectly good food. If I have to, I give the extra milk to one of my kids.
Any Oreo type sandwich cookie is carefully pried apart, with the filling in on one side only. Say I have three cookies, after splitting them I have three plain cookies, and three cookies with all the yummy filling. I eat the plain cookies first, and enjoy the open faced filled cookie halves by themselves.
Colored candies (M&M’s, Skittles, etc.) must be separated by color. M&M’s are eaten in this order; blue, green, light brown, dark brown, red, orange, and yellow. Skittles, jelly beans, Starburst, etc. are eaten purple, green, orange, red, yellow. Any variation (some weird pink, white or black) is always eaten first. Also, the colors need to be in groups of even numbers, and any odd numbered colors must be matched with the closest color, for example orange may go with red or yellow, but not purple. If there are an unmanagable amount of mismatched colors, I give them to my husband or the kids.
I don’t like it when my food touches one another, but I can deal with it. However, any bread served with the meal needs to be on a separate bread plate, even if I decide to drag it through the gravy or sauce, I need a virginal clean piece of bread with which to sop.
Fried eggs must have unbroken, runny yolks, and the white must be completely solid. Scrambled eggs must be moist but the white must be so thoroughly incorporated so that there is no soft white pieces. Runny or soft albumin is never tolerated.
Canned beets and spinach are not food items. Neither are frozen green beans.
If someone takes a sip of my beverage, it is immediately theirs. I can not drink out of a container someone else has drunk from. I know where this phobia comes from, but it is so TMI I will not gross y’all out with the details.
That’s just off the top of my head. My husband rolls his eyes at me frequently regarding my food rules. I don’t make anyone else to follow them, so I don’t see why it matters. Yes, I have OCD.
I’m another one that doesn’t like my food touching. When steak juice gets on the mashed potatos… :eek: But if I mix my foods, then it’s OK.
I eat one thing at a time, usually the veggies first. I like them best hot.
Hmm. I don’t alternate when I eat either. I eat the whole thing of something first before I move on. Meat is usually first. Then usually vegetables. Then potatoes last because they retain heat the best. And I always leave SOMETHING - no matter what meal it is. Pop Tarts - I only eat the part that’s under frosting - the edges get pitched. Grilled cheese sandwiches - I only eat one crust side. The rest of the crusts get fed to the dog. Breakfast - if I’m having eggs, I have to have them piled on hashbrowns with cut up sausages mixed in and then the whole thing swirled. I really only like eggs sunny side up. I will NEVER eat lettuce on a burger of any kind.
And no, I don’t have any kind of disorder or nothin’, I’m just weird. 
Not so much eating as storage. I keep my breakfast cereal in one of those clear plastic containers with a clip top and a little lid you open to pour out a serve. Last week I was topping it up and my visitor was horrified that I was putting in a different cereal to the one already in there. I figure they just form in layers like sedimentary rocks and when you finish one period, you start on the next. Often I have alternating layers of apple/cinnamon, mixed berry, and date muesli.
Checking this week indicates that no-one else seems to mix cereals in the same container.
But with eating I sometimes find that I pick up a sandwich and before I can eat it I have to turn it upside down. I have no idea why I do it nor why other times I don’t. I just look at it and have to invert it. Never happens with burgers though.
Ok, so some of mine might be considered as symptoms of an OCD.
Small round foods like M&M’s, shelled peanuts, Skittles, must be consumed in even numbers. I’ll pop let’s say 4 peanuts in my mouth; 2 to the right and 2 to the left. They should be of roughly equal size.
When I eat unshelled peanuts I suck the salt off the shell first, then open it and eat the peanuts in the above prescribed manner.
I eat the tip of the pizza first, then I will eat the rest of the piece down the side, starting with the crust.
Count me in on the “food must not touch” club. Mostly just the sauces or juicy parts.
Fried eggs, over easy.
I eat all of the white first, leaving the circle of intact yolk. Then I carefully pop the yolk and mop up the liquid yolk with my toast. After all the liquid yolk is gone I throw away the circle of solid yolk left on the plate.
What are quepapas?
It’s a pizza hut thing, it’s like a diced potato, cheese and jalapeno thing thats molded into a roughly round shape and lightly fried. Quite yummy.
I do the opposite of the people that eat all of one type of food at a time before moving to the next. I have to finish the different foods at the same time. I’ll take bites (usually in order) that are proportioned so that the I’m left with one bite of each food. For example, if I have turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing, I will take a bite of turkey, then mashed potatoes, then stuffing, and repeat in that order until there is only one bite of each. Sometimes I might take extra bites of a food if there is a surplus. Depending on the food, I’ll mix the last individual bites so I don’t have any single food bites left to choose from.
Similarly, with Skittles/M&Ms/other multi-colored candies, I sort the candy into piles by color and eat pieces of the color that has the most until all piles are equal. I then eat one piece from each pile in order until I have one piece of each color left. Then I eat all the remaining pieces at once.
I also like to put jelly/jam on my scrambled eggs. Preferably grape or strawberry.
–FCOD
I sort of do this, except mine are sunny-side up (though cooked with a lid on so the top gets some cooking without the need to flip).
If I’m having two eggs, I will make three pieces of toast, buttered.
Slice 1 gets all of the egg whites placed on top of it and eaten that way.
Slices 2 and 3 each get a remaining yolk atop it, broken and smeared over the remaining exposed area.
There’s something about the combination of toast, butter, and fried (liquid) egg yolks with a little pepper that’s an irresistable combination.
Pasta and salt. Simple yet tasty.
When I eat a pepperoni pizza I eat all the pepperonis before I start on the pizza itself.
I eat all the crappy grain pieces in lucky charms first so that I can enjoy a few spoonfuls of pure marshmallow delight at the end.
Sounds good. They don’t have them here.