Were you a Picky Eater

[Schielke]

I was a very picky eater as a child.

From what I can remember, I would not eat:

Beans

Pickles

Tomatoes

zucchini

mushrooms

olives

fruit salads

Ham

Cold noodles

cold salads

bell peppers

eggplant

anything slimy

Some of this I believe stemmed from being forced to eat a "no thank you" helping of anything I did not want. Also, I believe I was given poor examples of some of the above items in the past.

As I grew up, I started to like more and more. I have been systematically eliminating my dislikes and am at the current list.

Pickles

mushrooms (in process of liking them, it is a texture thing)

Olives (I am yet to like them alone)

Cold Salads (pasta salads and potato salads are still unappetizing to me)

Green Bell Pepper (The smell and taste is just offensive to me)

Goat Cheese (Some are ok, but some taste like I am licking a goat)

I wonder if some of my extreme pickiness as a child opened me up to having really good experiences with food. For example, I knew I did not like olives but when I was presented with a lovely presentation involving top notch olives I tried it to make sure that I did not like it. I now appreciate the unique saltiness they bring to a dish.

Were any of you very picky eaters as children? Or did you always enjoy eating everything presented to you?

Ben

[rstarobi]

I didn't eat:

Bananas

Mushrooms

Brussel Sprouts (and most vegetables other than cabbage, carrots and tomatoes, actually)

Escargot

Ham and smoked foods in general

chopped liver

Gefilte fish

Of course at the time, I wasn't really aware of tripe and stinky cheese as eating options - same applies to most non western cuisines (other than generic westernized Chinese and Thai)

Since then, I've cut the list to:

Gefilte fish

Mushrooms (I also am slowly learning to enjoy these)

Oh, and anything particularly slug-like - I'm terrified of those things, yet I have no problem with snails.

[Schielke]

Yeah, while I was not exposed to them as a child, I am sure I would not have eaten any offal or anything like snails or such.

I did enjoy many spices and such though. I remember liking chinese food quite a bit if it had none of the items on my list.

Ben

[Huevos del Toro]

Food wasn’t a consideration when I was a child. I only ate because I was told to. I didn’t dislike food, it just didn’t interest me. We were a meat and potatoes family, with the vegetables cooked to mush and the meat generally tough.

Now that I’m older (much older) I’ve finally realized that “fresh” and “properly prepared” are the keys to the enjoyment of food. Looking back there is honestly only one food that I couldn’t stand, and still cannot…rancid seal oil. Talk about an acquired taste!!!

Sure, there are foods that I don’t particularly care for but it’s usually about texture (boiled okra for example) and not flavor. I wouldn’t turn down some nice fat grubs if given the opportunity to taste them. I rather enjoy trying new foods.

I had read recently about the link between food and bad experiences, how they become intertwined, never to be separated again.

So if you are in an emotional upheavel or physically ill, do NOT run to your comfort foods. You may link the two together and never be able to eat that comfort food again without a very unsettling association. I suspect this applies more to childhood than adulthood but I could certainly be wrong there.

[torakris]

I was a very picky child and in addition the the common lists of veggies, I refused to eat and still today refuse to eat:

jello

bananas

peanut butter (except in peanut sauces)

beets

brussel sprouts

[A Scottish Chef]

Up to about going into secondary school at twelve I used to guddle salmon from the wee burn behind my home. Fresh, wild scottish salmon for free.

I wouldn't eat it under any circumstances. I think it was watching it thrash itself to death on the bank that put me off. That and it's eyes.

To this day I have difficulty enjoying fish.

Everything else I ate. Except tea, which I detest.

[Jaymes]

Everything else I ate. Except tea, which I detest.

Rather than eating it, you might try steeping it in a pot of hot water and drinking it. Much more palatable, I believe. And it reduces the chance for all those annoying leaves to lodge between one's teeth.

But then again, who knows..... you may well not care for it that way either.

Edited January 21, 2003 by Jaymes (log)

[jhlurie]

We've had variations on this discussion before, I think. I was a picky eater, but there were a variety of reasons for it.

1.) Parental tastes and influences: My parents raised me as firmly middle class, and had themselves both grown up as well educated but poor. This somewhat limits your food horizons--especially the variety of foods which were made available to me. Even worse, we lived in a somewhat rural area.

2.) Bad examples: For years I hated mustard. Eventually I figured out that I hated mustard because the only examples around my house were French's and Gulden's. No doubt this pattern was repeated with many of the other things I disliked--which simply weren't available in an isolated area.

3.) Preparation: My mother was a competent cook--at the things which HER mother had taught her. At least in my younger years she didn't experiment much. This not only affected the KINDS of food I got to try, but the methods of preparation. And it wasn't just the obvious things... for example, my mother knew that I didn't like cooked spinach. But I'm fairly certain that I never got to taste RAW spinach (which I love)--prepared like lettuce in a salad--until I was an adult. It's little things like that which slip through the cracks.

4.) Ethnicity: We were non-religious Jews living in rural mid-state New York. As mentioned earlier, my mother's main "menu" was derived from HER mother--a non-religious Jew from Queens, New York. So a certain portion of our menu WAS ethnic, but not as much as most Jews. My grandmother and mother's staples included a variety of things like kugel, beef brisket and chicken soup, but most of it was as unspecific as beef stew, lasagna and breaded chicken cutlets. But we weren't really exposed to French or continental cooking--our background, our rural existance and our economic bracket simply didn't allow it. Also, conversely, we weren't really exposed to a lot of the "white bread" things that a lot of our midwest members talk about occasionally--we never used Mayonaise, and I never even SAW a bottle of Miracle Whip until I was in my late teens. Shellfish is an interesting collary to this: my parents had no religious convictions on this and ate it. I never liked it, and it had nothing to do with religion or ethnicity.

We grew our own vegetables--so on that count I was well exposed. This is an additional area where many eGulleteers may have been limited though.

Another policy which hurt me was the "finish what's on your plate" philosophy. My mother gave up on that in later years, but I'm sure it hurt my enthusiasm for food in my earliest years.

The "anything slimy" ban from Schielke has got to be close to universal for American kids, and its one I never quite outgrew. Texture, rather than taste, is still my big bugaboo.

[Stephanie]

Looking back there is honestly only one food that I couldn’t stand, and still cannot…rancid seal oil. Talk about an acquired taste!!!

And when would you have had an opportunity to eat this??

As a kid, I refused to eat tongue, liver, beans, tomatoes, or eggplant. Pretty small list. After a while I stopped liking beets, and I won't eat any organ meats to this day. But there are things I eat now that simply weren't part of my childhood diet because Mom never cooked them, such as mussels, okra, tofu, etc.

[Huevos del Toro]

Looking back there is honestly only one food that I couldn’t stand, and still cannot…rancid seal oil. Talk about an acquired taste!!!

And when would you have had an opportunity to eat this??

Kotzebue, Alaska, 1961. Relatively small Eskimo village. I worked in a trading post there. We "harvested" a whale and ate raw whale flipper on the way back to shore. Tasty but it had the texture of a tire.

But the locals poured this nasty, rancid seal oil all over their food and loved it. When a seal was harvested, the skin was turned wrong side out, tied off at one end, then packed with raw seal blubber and the other end tied off. They sold it to the trading post where we let it naturally render in an outbuilding. Later, they would come back and buy the poke to use on their food. One of the very few unpleasant food experiences of my life.

[Schielke]

So, how did everybody work around their pickiness? For myself, I just decided that I wanted to make sure that I did not like something on my list. I figured that since somebody likes them, there must be some kind of redeeming factor to these foods.

Ben

[elfin]

I ate EVERYTHING except sandwiches with butter and sandwiches with mayo with beef, ham or salami/corned beef (only mustard). I still won't eat these today.

[Nick]

Lima Beans

Lima Beans

Lima Beans

Lima Beans

And baked salmon ring that my mother made from canned salmon. Yuk! Other than that, my mother was a great cook and I liked most everything. Also, my sister and I could not leave the table until we'd finished everything - including the creamed lima beans.

[ranitidine]

Nickn, send me your uneaten lima beans. I LOVE lima beans. I can't believe I left them off my list of favorite vegetables when that thread was hot last week. It must because a certain other person who lives here really doesn't like them, so never makes them. I have to wait until we go to a Greek restaurant. Then, I order an entire plate and have it all to myself.

[chantrelle]

I was picky but still loved food as a kid...I wouldn't eat Veggies that were cooked, only raw--i think that's cool actually!

But i'm still picky...inconvenient for a foodie.

I still don't like:

bell peppers

olives

most hard alcohol

cheese (*realllly* bad for a foodie!!!)...

but it's a medical condition, I'm a Supertaster (too many tastebuds) see :

[Really Nice!]

I was not a picky eater. My family called me 'Mighty Mouth' because my mom would empty the bowls of food, one at at time, on my plate as she cleared the table. God, I wish I had that metabolism today!!

Things I'm picky about today:

• Panko
  

[muon]

This brings back happy memories.

I was definitely the 'pickiest' eater in the family. We had three table by-laws: A) you had to try a least a little of everything; B) you had to clean your plate; and C) you couldn't leave the table until you were finished. I can remember several nights of being left alone sitting at the table, in the dark with a 1/2 eaten plate in front of me, when everyone else was finished and watching the '70s version of must-see-TV in the family room. My parents weren't cruel by any means, I think the lights-off thing was done a couple of times for dramatic impact (on me). Didn't work very well. I was perfectly happy to sit there until I was told I could go upstairs to my room -- that meant I won.

Although it's a biased view, I don't think I was really *that* picky of an eater -- but I was a very slow eater, and never had a large appetite. I think by-law C above is the one I had the most issues with. I can think of only two things that I would NOT touch, after a bit of experience: beets and brussel sprouts. For me, the issue was obstinance -- it became a battle of wills between me and my father for domination. I was a reasonable, but very logical child -- a nightmare, I'm sure, for any parent. If I thought something was beyond unreasonable, I wouldn't do it. For example, my loathing of brussel sprouts was well known -- as was my father's like for them. So we had them on occasion. Because of table by-law A, when we did have them, one half of a brussel sprout would be placed on my dinner plate. I would push it to the edge with the tip of a knife (very deliberately -- I could be dramatic also), and eat everything else. And then I'd put the utensils down, and the debate would start. And there I would sit. I think I got a perverse satisfaction out of not being controlled.

There were periods of time where some foods were blacklisted, because of bad experiences -- that list includes cauliflower, peanuts, cracker jacks, and milk ... all at different times. When I reached early adulthood, I challenged myself to take on my food phobias -- with most of them I realized the issues were mostly mental, and not because of a strong conflict with my palate.

The worst memories though, are from spending summers in North Carolina with my grandparents -- who largely had the same table by-laws. For a child having issues with brussel sprouts and beets and cream style corn and fried okra, dinner at my great aunt & uncles farm was treacherous terrain. I don't remember direct confrontations over dining, but I do remember some issues. Luckily my Aunt Grace & Uncle Claude always had a number of dogs circling the room -- I think I probably mastered sleight-of-hand during those years.

This is all, of course, a matter of perspective. I think I'm going to call my parents this week and get theirs. Great thread though -

--m.

[Anna N]

We didn't have the luxury of being "picky eaters". Further we were almost at least a little hungry and any food was better than that. What we didn't eat at breakfast- porridge - appeared for lunch and if it wasn't finished then, it re-appeared for "tea". I learned to eat it first thing in the morning before it set like concrete! Tripe, kidneys, liver, blood pudding, bread and dripping - whatever appeared on our plates we ate. But our diet was not particularly varied - there are many, many things I see on this board that I have never eaten. As an adult I have very few dislikes - lima beans, yellow beans yech! pumpkin - no thanks. But there's a world out there to be discovered!

[maggiethecat]

I hated:

1)Hot dogs..still do, unless incinerated black on a grill, skin split. With all the garnishes I can choke one down.

2)Peanut butter on white. Gack!

(The above were a royal pain for anyone serving a kiddie menu!)

3) Cottage cheese. Still makes my toes curl.

4)Liver. And my mother cooked good liver beautifully. No prolbem now with chopped chicken liver, pates of all kinds, or foie. But a piece of liver? As the old song said...it makes me quiver. (It also said that"The liver lounges on the pancreas like a whore on a pillow of fat. Refrain: "I hate live, liver makes me quiver, liver makes me curl up and die, makes me cry...livlivliv liv liv...etc.)

Anything else...no prob. When handed my first oyster on the half shell, aged ten, I slurped it down. Loved stinky cheese.

[Jaymes]

Looking back there is honestly only one food that I couldn’t stand, and still cannot…rancid seal oil. Talk about an acquired taste!!!

And when would you have had an opportunity to eat this??

Kotzebue, Alaska, 1961. Relatively small Eskimo village. I worked in a trading post there.

Kotz? You were in Kotz? How'd that happen? How long were you there?

Did you go down to Nome for a good time? (Because there ain't no such thing at Kotz, right? Or was there, then?) Ever go to Nome for New Year's Eve? I hear that if you haven't spent New Year's Eve at Nome, you haven't lived!

So, tell all!!

[Aurora]

Was I a picky eater? Yes.

Onions were evil. Nothing could have onions. They burned my mouth.

Fish. Well, look at them. What kid worth their salt would look at the things and not immediately file them under "yucky?"

Call it BEANS and forget about serving it up.

For some odd reason I was convinced that bread crust also burned my mouth. It had to be removed. That was not negotiable. I've overcome my dislike of onions and bread crust, but some things never die...

My grandmother made the most beautiful COCONUT birthday cake for my seventh birthday. No one in my family has ever dared served coconut to me again.

PEAS. I hated them as a child, and I hate peas now. And no, I will not "give peas a chance"

LIVER is vile. And please, don't bother with the "but you've never tasted it the way I make it" line.

[awbrig]

I hated:

onions

mushrooms

liver and bacon

girls

peas

cheese

ketchup

corn not on the cob

Still wont eat:

mushrooms (except truffles)

ketchup

peas

[mamster]

I thought I was picky until I read this thread.

Actually, I was a fairly picky kid, although I always loved vegetables. The things that I still find revolting are tuna salad, anything else with jarred mayonnaise, dill (but dill pickles are fine, for some reason), ketchup, and probably more than anything else, American potato salad. It's generally unfair to dismiss a whole cuisine, but I will make an exception for American church potluck food.

Both of my parents hate beets. They say their relationship is based on mutual hatred of beets. I love beets. Call me Johnny Rebel.

[Blue Heron]

I was definitely the 'pickiest' eater in the family.  We had three table by-laws:  A) you had to try a least a little of everything; B) you had to clean your plate; and C) you couldn't leave the table until you were finished.  I can remember several nights of being left alone sitting at the table, in the dark with a 1/2 eaten plate in front of me, when everyone else was finished and watching the '70s version of must-see-TV in the family room.  My parents weren't cruel by any means, I think the lights-off thing was done a couple of times for dramatic impact (on me).  Didn't work very well.  I was perfectly happy to sit there until I was told I could go upstairs to my room -- that meant I won. 

Although it's a biased view, I don't think I was really *that* picky of an eater -- but I was a very slow eater, and never had a large appetite. 

muon's experience mirrors mine. I was not picky so much as verrrry slow, and had a very light appetite. Like muon, I was also expected to finish my plate before I could be excused from the table, and this occurred often well after dinnertime was over. My parents tried everything to get me to eat faster and not pick at my food (even spanking me on one occasion), but it did not deter me from my slow and light eating habits. My light appetite caused them much worry, even taking me to the Dr. to see if I was ok, but the Dr. said I was fine and suggested they serve me a small glass of wine before meals as an appetite stimulant . I was only 6 or so, so they decided not to do that (just as well).

As far as foods I didn't like as a child, my list included lima beans, garbanzo beans, cottage cheese, pb & j sandwiches, chipped beef on toast. I could eat liver, but I had to have plenty of ketchup on it.

[Schielke]

I too was a very slow eater. Even if it was something I enjoyed.

I still have report cards from 1st grade that mention how my "eating speed at lunch has improved some but still could use some work".

Ben