I just overheard a coworker saying “Oh, I would never try that in my life!”, in a discussion of food. (This was about consuming a steak cooked less than medium well). It made me wonder what life is like for those who refuse to try new food, especially those who refuse to try mundane things like fried shrimp.
Why limit yourself? It seems like such a closed-minded way to view food. Help me understand?
Growing up, my family has always accused me of being a picky eater, and it comes up every time we’re eating together. Every family get-together, it’s always a big deal whether I’m going to eat the prepared meal or not. My sister especially likes to offer to make a separate meal just for me because I’m “sooo picky!”
I can’t get it through their skulls that I’m less of a picky eater than they are - I’m just vocal about the very few specific foods I decided I don’t like. Which happens to be in a lot of recipes my extended family makes.
I spent 20 years traveling the world with the US military and I made it a point to try local cuisine everywhere I went. I became a bit of a foodie, and some of my favorite foods are from foreign countries. Every time family members came to visit me in other countries, I’d spend half of their visit just introducing them to amazing cuisine in the local area.
We’d eat out practically every day to give them a taste of the local culture. And surprisingly, most of them didn’t care for it. They wanted their “American food” instead. They weren’t very adventurous when it came to trying new things. There’s nothing worse than going to a ramen shop in Japan or a döner shop in Germany and having your family ask if we can go find a McDonald’s instead.
But sure, I’m a picky eater because I’ve hated squash since I was a child, and that’s apparently a staple of every family banquet.
Local cuisine… takes them to the fast food variants… now if you said introducing them to true local food and they didnt want it…
I did. I took my family to locally-owned restaurants, not food chains or fast food places. Just because I mentioned a couple familiar food types doesn’t mean I bought them from a fast food joint. Still, my family didn’t care for them. They wanted recognizable American fast food instead.
In one case, a Japanese friend of mine invited my family over to her parents’ house to have a home-cooked dinner. My family were weirded out by the food and barely ate. It wasn’t even strange foods; they had grilled marinated meats, rice, some local vegetables, etc. My dad did enjoy the sake though.
I love squash. Just some yellow summer squash fried up with a little butter, a pinch of salt, and some fresh cracked pepper 👨🍳🤌🫴. I could live on that shit. Sounds like your family has bad taste all around and they were fucking it up. But since you like most food, and mostly just not their food, and they are asking for McDonald’s in fucking Germany, tells me they told you that you’re picky cause you didn’t think a salad should include gummy bears and mayonnaise. It really doesn’t sound like you’re picky.
It kinda sounds like they are intentionally putting squash in everything just for the opportunity to pick on you.
I can relate. My mom would make little snide comments about how i was a picky eater and how i would check everything i took out of the fridge.
One time i got sick of hearing it and biting my tongue so i went off.
I told her, her cooking was fucking terrible and she never cleaned out her fridge so there would always be rotting food in there. She was a Brit who grew up in that countries decade long depression.
Hey same, except my mom’s mom went through the depression here in the states and it rubbed off on her.
She loves to call out how particular I am about food, when actually I love trying new foods! I simply don’t like getting food poisoning from whatever hot dish/casserole she made 4 months ago that has been sitting in the fridge. At Christmas one year she brought out canned whipped cream, rediwhip, and it was 3 years expired! I didn’t notice and was sick for a week!