Were you a Picky Eater

[NeroW]

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.

Ain't that right. I always thought it applied more to childhood as well. Then last year I got REAL sick, my kidneys, and could not eat much for a few weeks. My mom brought a seafood paella, up until that point one of my favorite comfort foods, and I had to eat it. Cold. I couldn't stop myself, even though I knew it was a bad idea. Now I can't even look at it. I even gave my paella pan away. And mussels. I made the grevious mistake of eating moules frites once when I was just getting over the stomach flu--BIG mistake. Moules frites were my Favorite Food Period, now I can't even think about them without wanting to run away. I hope it passes. I love moules frites.

I ate almost everything as a child. The only things I did not eat were nuts of any sort, in any incarnation--I can't abide pecan pie, bleecccch--sweet pickles, sweet potatoes, Pepsi, lutefisk (as a child I hid a chunk of lutefisk on this little piece of wood that braced the underneath of my grandma's dining room table; it is probably still there, and still edible), caramel, alfredo sauce, and shrimp. I have learned to like shrimp, everything else is still grody.

[SobaAddict70]

When I was a kid living in the Philippines, I was notorious for having a tendency to "ba-bad". (No English translation equivalent, but I would just sit there with a mouthful of porridge or rice and take an inordinately long time to swallow. This usually resulted in me with a plate of half-eaten food in pretty much the same situation as muon, but for different reasons. I think somewhere along the way I picked up an unreasonable fear of choking, which is why I developed that habit.) Obviously I grew out of that habit.

Along the way, I hated: garlic, spicy food, peanut butter, Big Macs (I had a bad experience once where I pretty much vomited after having one), sukiyaki (it was the raw egg thing that got to me) and stinky food (cheese, natto, etc.)

I've grown out of all of those dislikes, except for the last part. You haven't had stinky food until you've been exposed to durian. Nope, not even cabrales (the cheese, not the poster ) can hold a candle to a crate full of durian. ( )

SA

[coolranch]

I was not really a picky eater...I'd always at least TRY it. I still have a hard time with people who won't even TASTE something new. Jeez, just give a try!!

But as a child, I didn't like:

-sweet potatoes

-lamb chops w/mint jelly

-cold beet borsht

-pulpy orange juice, or any pulpy juice for that matter. growing up on Florida, I had my own personal strainer for the OJ

-escargot

-anchovies

-cilantro

-coconut shredded/flakes, it's a texture thing, as with the pulp

-stuff in stuff, fruit chunks in yogurt or ice cream, nuts in muffins or cakes.

Currently..

-lamb chops

-still can't handle pulp, had to strain the OJ/lime juice for the Flaming Orange Gully I made at home...it's like drinking hair

-coconut flakes

-papaya

-still not a big fan of escargot, but I'm still giving a try now and again

[Shermar]

I also had a orange juice strainer.

I hated all vegetables(cooked in true 1950's fashion-until dead). For years, I swallowed them whole rather than chew them!

I never wanted to taste anything new. Dinner was always a war with many an evening spent looking at my plate wishing the food would disappear.

If my mother were alive today she would be amazed at all the different foods I eat now.

[La Niña]

I was never a picky eater. The only things I didn't like as a kid were bleu cheese (which I adore now), lima beans (which are just fine), brussel sprouts (which I love) and fennel (which I am liking more and more).

Everything else I ate. And I mean everything. I even ate offal as a kid.

[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.

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!!

I'd just graduated from high school and wanted a little adventure in my life. Luckily, my uncle worked for the N.G. Hansen Trading Company, running their Kotzebue trading post. He was a retired grocer from Vashon Island in Puget Sound. So...I flew to Kotzebue to become a gofer. I think I earned just enough to pay for the plane fare. We sold everything; firearms, ammo, lumber, Blazo (fuel oil), food, clothes, seal oil, outboard motors, dried fish, hardware, etc. You name it, we sold it. Almost everything came on the one boat a year. The sound was too shallow to allow the big boat in so they would barge the cargo. We'd spend 2 or 3 weeks restocking for the next year. It was strange to be in full sunlight at 2 o'clock in the morning. The sun would just make a circle without ever dipping below the horizon.

There was no city plumbing system and we had the only flush toilet in town. It was my job to dig out the trench on the beach and empty the 500 gallon steel containment vessel when it got full. Raw, right into the sound. Who knew! The rest of the townsfolk just used 5 gallon Blazo buckets. In the winter the buckets were emptied on the ice and it wasn't bad. But when the spring thaw came everyone prayed that the ice would break up fast and move out. It got pretty smelly until it did.

I did lots of fishing as well as some hunting. The Dolly Varden trout were not only delicious, they were so thick you could nearly walk across the streams on their backs. Oddly, the Eskimos didn't eat fish. They dried them on racks on the beach, then bundled them up like hay bales and fed them to their sled dogs. They starved their dogs in the summer and fattened them up in the fall so they could pull the sleds. This was before the snowmobile took over.

An older Eskimo and his grandson took me out whale hunting. We were in a 14-foot boat with a 40 HP Evinrude outboard motor. The bottom of the boat was piled high with rifles of all caliber’s. There was also a handmade harpoon with a detachable ivory head. We motored out into the ice pack, about 20 miles offshore. We'd periodically stop and listen. I never heard what he was listening for but he certainly did. He was listening for the whales blowing. We finally found a pod of Beluga. We each picked up a rifle and after choosing the whale we wanted, shot for the blow hole. You had to guess where it would surface and lead it. We finally hit it enough times that slowed enough that we could catch up and harpoon it. They don't float so after the harpoon head is deeply imbedded, the shaft is pulled out and a braided sinew, tied to the head on one end and a rope on the other, to which is tied an empty, sealed Blazo can is tossed overboard to mark the spot where the whale sank. Each family paints their Blazo cans with a unique set of colors. We continued the hunt but didn't get another one. We pulled the whale up to the surface and lashed it to the side of the boat. It was about the same length as the boat. On the way back to the village the kid would whack off a piece of flipper and cut it into bite sized pieces. It reminded me of a rich nut meat. Very tasty but with the texture of a tractor tire! Chew until the flavor's gone, spit it overboard and start in on the next piece.

When we finally got back, we went for a big bowl of caribou stew, which came from a limitless pot, while the village women butchered the whale. Let me say this...I never saw any sign of "sport" hunting up there. This was strictly subsistence hunting and they didn't waste ANYTHING!

All in all a delightful experience, especially for a 19 year old kid who hadn't been out of the Washington timber.

I got to eat some strange things too. One of my jobs was to cut up countless reindeer. They all got cut into stew meat. The Eskimos hadn't heard of steaks and roasts yet. (They have NOW!)

So I had reindeer, muktuk

(Muktuk is the outer covering of the whale. It includes the white skin, approximately 1-2 inches (2 1/2 - 5cm) thick, plus a thin pinkish layer immediately underneath. After taking blocks from the whale, leave 2 days hanging to dry. Cut into pieces 6 x 6 inches (15x15cm). Have water ready to boil. Cook untilit tests tender when pierced with a fork. Keep in oil in a 45 gallon (206 litre) drum after it is cooled. Store in a cool place and you will have muktuk all year. Most Inuit prefer to eat muktuk raw, as it has tender-crisp texture and tastes like fresh coconut. ),

seal, ptarmagin, Dolly Varden trout, & Eskimo ice cream. Now there's the other thing I didn't particularly like, the "ice cream" was whale blubber and tundra berries mixed with seal oil and whipped up to a froth, then frozen. At least that's what I remember being told it was. It tasted kinda "nasty".

You're right about a lack of entertainment there. The town was "dry" so any alcohol had to be flown in from Nome. Beer was too expensive because of the weight but EverClear was wildly popular! Mix it with a little fruit juice and you could get blind in a very short time! As soon as the populace got their government checks they would line up to cash them and get a handfull of quarters so they could call Nome and order their liquor. It was usually wise to lock your doors Friday night and not come out until Monday morning. Knifings and shootings weren't exactly common but not unheard of either. So the entertainment essentially consisted of drinking, fighting, and practicing making babies.

There were several "characters" in town and if the stories (rumors, really) were only half true, there was a trail of undiscovered bodies stretching across most of Alaska.

I suppose I've really strayed from the original purpose of this thread but I DID mention food, didn't I?

Great memories, thanks.

[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!!

I suppose I've really strayed from the original purpose of this thread but I DID mention food, didn't I?

Yes, you did. AND drink. And I very much enjoyed hearing about it, and I'm sure others have, too. So very different from most of our experiences.

Thanks!

[Jinmyo]

Huevos, very interesting tale.

[maggiethecat]

Huevos: Thank you so much for your Alaska recollections. Stories like yours are one of the reasons eGullet is such an amaxing place!

[Nick]

Huevos, Thanks for taking the time to write that. Looks like we're about the same age and I've had some times, but not that one. My aunt spent some time in Labrador back in the late forties, early fifties and said the sled dogs (tied up) would get so hungry sometimes they would have eaten a person if they got half a chance.

Did you really go twenty miles off-shore in a 14' skiff? That's quite aways. You must have really had some trust in the grandfather.

[hjshorter]

I was never a picky eater. I remember disliking only two foods: raw green peppers, and a hideous seafood casserole my mother made with Campbell's Cream of Shrimp soup. The thought of it still makes me gag. My mom was a pretty good cook aside from that one casserole. I outgrew the pepper dislike early on.

There were plenty of foods I grew tired of eating, and to this day I can't stand eating leftovers. We didn't exactly live high on the hog when I was a kid, and every meal was divided and served again that same week. Blech.

[Jaymes]

H del T -

You should go back to Kotz sometime. There is a wonderful native museum there now. And that old man whose face is on the tail of Alaska Airlines planes? He lives there. I've met him. You probably knew him.

Oh - did you ever hear that Alaskan pronunciation guide: "It's caraBOO but KotzeBWEU." Sound familiar?

Edited January 23, 2003 by Jaymes (log)

[hjshorter]

I've grown out of all of those dislikes, except for the last part.  You haven't had stinky food until you've been exposed to durian.  Nope, not even cabrales (the cheese, not the poster  ) can hold a candle to a crate full of durian.  ( )

My husband and I bought some durian filled cookies once out of curiousity. They smelled so bad that we threw them away, and then took out the trash immediately. I have since had fresh durian and liked it, but on the whole I'm not a fan of stinky food with the exception of a couple of cheeses.

[Jim Dixon]

There were quite a few things I didn't like when I was a kid, including:

fish (except smoked salmon and fried trout, both of which we caught a lot of), onions, mushrooms (they were all canned then, but I had texture issues), and other stuff.

I became an omnivore at the end of my junior year in high school. Instead of a prom, our class decided to send 50 randomly chosen juniors to Outward Bound (this was the early '70s in Eugene, Oregon, a hotbed of radical thought).

My name came out of the hat and I spent the last 3 weeks of the school year hiking through the snow around the Three Sisters. It was cold and wet, but since I'd been a boy scout the camping and hiking were fine. But we got really hungry.

We ate mostly freese-dried backpacking food (early Mt House cuisine) and would argue over who to drink the juice from the cans of Vienna sausage or the grease from the sardine tin. In the cold you crave fats, and everything was drenched in margarine.

When I got home I would eat pretty much anything.

Jim

[s'kat]

I was an incredibly picky eater as a child. It is much easier to list what I did eat:

-Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches on Roman Meal Wheat Bread, cut diagonally. (My poor grandmother made the mistake of making me a PB&J, one day after school, and cutting it horizontally. I stubbornly refused to touch it, insisting that the cut affected the flavour. Frustrated, she threw it into the kitchen sink, saying, "Then don't eat the damned thing, darling, but you don't get anything else!". We still have a laugh about that to this day. Ah-hem. Back to my list.)

-Cheerios, with or without milk. I wasn't that picky.

-"Shelley" steaks. They were some sort of frozen, pre-frabicated meat-type 70's product, with the texture of cube steak. I remember being very suspicious of them initially, but became so overtaken with delight at the thought of a steak being named after me, that I ate it without incident.

My mom also took me to the doctor, where she was told I would eventually grow out of it and not to worry. I did eventually, but a large portion of my growing has happened in the past 10 years, after being away from home. Discovering well-cooked food has been a miracle.

The only things I currently stay away from are organ meats. Just this year, I've had the pleasure of discovering the joy of stinky cheese! And to think that I lived in Holland for 3 years, and wouldn't touch dairy products with a stick. *shakes head wistfully*

[hjshorter]

-pulpy orange juice, or any pulpy juice for that matter.  growing up on Florida, I had my own personal strainer for the OJ

Gack, I forgot about pulp! It gives me the willies. Disgusting.

[malarkey]

I was very very picky. Like s'kat, its probably easier to list what I did eat.

I was one of those horrible children who wouldn't eat at dinner time but would beg my mother to make me something later. I'm sure I drove her crazy. I think I pretty much lived on pancakes back then. Oh, and oatmeal with an inch of sugar on top. And donuts, and maple bars and cinnamon rolls.

Had to have hamburgers plain. Nothing but meat & bun. Loved french fries though ;-) Would eat fried baloney. Lots o' meat & potatoes. And some vegetables.

I didn't eat cheese till I was in college. And not till my junior year. no kidding. Wasn't really exposed to any kind of ethnic food till I was in college too. And, it was coming into my 20's that I started to get interested in food, and started trying things I'd previously hated "hey! THIS is GOOD!"

Today, I'll eat pretty much anything. I can only think of a few things that I would hesitate at: prunes & prune juice. nope. still can't do it. And liver doesn't taste right to me. Can eat paté and foie all day long but calf's liver... errrrrr.... Can eat other offal though, sweetbreads, tongue. I imagine that maguey worms and ant eggs might put me off. but I think I would at least taste. maybe.

super stinky cheeses can turn me away. But I mean only the super stinky ones. But I will try them. Never encountered durian.

[rstarobi]

Here's another one - until I was around 16, the only salad dressing I could stomach was Bleu Cheese. Oddly enough, now I can't stomach creamy dressings at all as a result of a diet and a fridge cleanout that forced me to pour out around 2 dozen rancid bottles of the stuff. There was an interregnum where I briefly enjoyed ranch, Italian, etc.

Now, it's balsamic vinegar (the cheap, fake stuff) or bust for my salads!

[Lady T]

I loathed beets and lima beans when I was small. I loathe them now, even more.

Consistent? ME?? Surely not in everything: just food.

[Stephanie]

-pulpy orange juice, or any pulpy juice for that matter.  growing up on Florida, I had my own personal strainer for the OJ

Gack, I forgot about pulp! It gives me the willies. Disgusting.

I feel the same way. Reminds me of this line from The Odd Couple: "I don't like pits, pits, pits in my juice, juice, juice!"

Edited January 25, 2003 by BklynEats (log)

[snowangel]

Even as a child, it had to be spicy (not necessarily hot spicy; I just love how the Thai language allows for "hot" in two senses -- temp vs. peppery). No root crops, no melted cheese, no ketchup, no runny egg whites, no undercooked poultry.

Come to think of it, not much has changed, except I will tolerate melted cheese on pizza. And, I will eat root crops (except parsnips) when they are roasted.

[awbrig]

I loathed beets and lima beans when I was small. I loathe them now, even more.

Consistent? ME?? Surely not in everything: just food.

when do you run into this items when you arent using them "as food"?

[GHOSTTOWN]

I grew up on a ranch in west Texas, we ate beef way too often. I hated the taste and texture. I would chew up as many bites of steak as I could stand, excuse myself, and spit it out in the toilet. No one ever caught on, despite leaving the dinner table several times per meal. I still love a good burger, but you'll never catch me eating steak.

[ruthcooks]

My three siblings and I grew up on a family farm in Illinois during the 40’s and 50’s. Most everything we ate came from the farm, except cases of canned crushed pineapple, Heinz ketchup, Campbell’s tomato soup and tuna (my dad didn’t like to run out), and staples like bread and iceberg lettuce. All of us were more likely to fight over who got more of something, rather than who had to eat it. It wouldn’t have mattered if we were picky, anyway, because if it was on the table we were going to eat it.

My mother was basically a decent home cook, although her menu choices were often a bit skewed as in serving two salads and no hot vegetables or vice versa, or an all-red meal of ham with sweet potatoes and red Jell-O. (And there was plenty of Jell-O, which explains the case of crushed pineapple.) Out of every ten “salads” at least four were Jell-O and four were cole slaw, the remaining two being iceberg lettuce or cottage cheese or fruit. I rarely eat Jell-O these days, but I’ve never grown used to the idea of eating a green salad every day either.

There were two dishes my mother made which I did not like. One was weak-flavored oxtail soup with huge pieces of cabbage and potato and carrot. I still don’t like vegetable soup or brothy soups. The other, a casserole in its worst incarnation, was layers of rice, sliced raw potatoes, and hamburger, with a can of tomato soup dumped on top. Yuk.

Foods I did not like included:

Peanut butter: I stayed overnight with a friend at around age 10, and was given a slice of peanut-butter-on-white-bread for a snack. What a nasty food, I thought, to give a hungry child! When no one was looking, I opened the kitchen door and threw it into the yard. Don’t give me any peanuts, either. For some strange reason, I like peanut soup.

Beef heart: We butchered all of our meat and therefore ate all parts of the animal. Beef heart was boiled and served plain. Haven’t eaten it since I left home at 18.

Rice pudding: When I was six, my parents gave me medicine in rice pudding. For years, it tasted bitter to me but I outgrew that.

Sage: My dad kept wanting more sage in the turkey stuffing/dressing. When the sage began overpowering the onion, I started making my own. Nowadays I tolerate sage, but just a little.

SWISS CHARD: the biggie. I haven’t eaten this one since the farm, either. Couldn’t believe it when chard started becoming an “in” veggie.

It seems the older I get, the pickier I get—mostly about the way foods are prepared. But that’s another chapter.

[srhcb]

Based on reports from a usually reliable source on such matters, my Mother, I was definately NOT a picky eater According to her, my first word was "bite".

Then again, I may attribute this trait to one of my Mother's dining policies, phoneticly transcribed from Serbian as, "oches neches modach", and literally translated as, "you want it or not, you got it".

SB (never did like oysters though)