I have always considered myself to be a picky eater, primarily because I don’t like most vegetables. This may have something to do with father’s preference for vegetables during my childhood–overcooked, unseasoned, and mushy–or it may have to do with the bitter compounds found in many dark green vegetables. Or maybe it’s something else entirely. The vegetables I do like I love, primarily raw or very lightly stirfried.
I don’t whine about how “gross” I find mushrooms, and I don’t expect others to cook to my food preferences. I do go out of my way to cook for other people’s preferences and allergies: I leave tomatoes (which I love) out of food for E., who’s allergic, and put mushrooms in for F. I also put in snowpeas for me, although F. hates all peas and picks them out. It doesn’t offend me. There are a lot of food items in the world, and I don’t expect most people to enjoy all of them.
But I will not eat really spicy food. It hurts my mouth–which isn’t a medical problem, no, so I guess that makes me a big ol’ baby–and impairs my enjoyment of other flavors.
But am I picky in the classical sense? I eat a wide variety of foods, try most everything at least once (with the exception of things like rotting shark meat or some cheese I once smelled in Whole Foods that made me check my shoes for cat poo), and love highly spiced (but not spicy-hot) food. So I don’t know.
I’m sensitive about this. I know intellectually that vegetables are good for me. I read a study a while back that suggests that some vegetable-haters may be genetically more sensitive to bitter compounds, which would explain why I love spinach, peas, onions, artichokes, corn, and potatoes and don’t mind vegetables like beets, broccoli, or even properly-cooked cabbage, but find most other vegetables unpleasant. But I’m not “seeking attention”–I’ll choke down almost anything to be polite (and I mean that literally, because I haven’t yet found a way to banish my gag reflex, it being an unconcious reflex) short of hakarl and the aforementioned cat poo cheese. And I resent the WaPo’s implication that it’s “unintelligent” to be a picky eater as an adult (otherwise intelligent men and women who banish from their diets specific tastes or textures or sometimes entire food groups)–nonvoluntary preferences have nothing to do with intelligence, thank you very much.
I don’t expect others to avoid foods they like because I don’t like them, so I’d appreciate the same courtesy in return: don’t expect me to eat everything because you are fortunate enough to like everything. People who love or at least don’t mind every food ever are in the very small minority of the real world (if a large majority of the food blogging world). Show me one person with no food hatreds and I’ll show you a hundred who have at least one.
So–I eat Indian, Thai, Italian, French, Spanish, Moroccan, Malaysian, Indonesian, Mexican, Vietnamese, American, and medieval (I’m not thrilled about most medieval spicing, but I’ll eat it). I’ll eat meat (organ meat kind of bothers me, sorry), fish, all kinds of grains and root vegetables, most fruits, certain cheeses (cheddar, various Italian cheeses), cultured dairy products of all kinds. I love most herbs and spices.
I don’t eat much non-cultured dairy for health reasons, but I’ll drink milk in order to politely choke down vegetables without gagging (and feel bad later). I can’t eat really spicy food without pain and total lack of enjoyment. I don’t like a lot of vegetables, but I’m trying to expand that.
If it pains you that I pick the mushrooms off pizza, don’t eat pizza with me. I got the mushrooms on the pizza to make other people happy in the first place.
People who are fortunate enough to like just about everything are just that–fortunate. They weren’t fed overcooked, mushy vegetables growing up, or they’re genetically disposed to love everything. I don’t know. But it would be nice if they realized that they are, in fact, not the norm. Most people have preferences. I suppose the question is “How many preferences can one have before one is considered picky?” Yes, I feel a little sad for people who only eat bland food, or only have 20 or 30 things they’ll eat. But the only people they’re really hurting or inconveniencing are themselves.
I envy people who speak lyrically of their delicious vegetarian stirfries. I didn’t choose to dislike most vegetables.
So the guilt tripping? Really not going to help me expand my palate; much more likely to make me stop going out of my way to add things I dislike to meals I cook for others.
Thanks for the condescension, WaPo.
