Other people trying to make you eat things you don't like.

Laurel brought this up on another thread.

My in-laws are the masters of this...

question: is it considered polite to ask your guest if he would like something else besides what everyone else is having?

I DO NOT LIKE LAMB and have had it plopped in front of me in all its disgusting bloody minty glory and was never asked if i'd like something else.

and basically i have out right refused to even try it. i can't fathom eating that shit.

My dad used to do this to me all the time. He seemed unable to understand how someone could possibly not like the things he did. He stopped after I started trying to ply him with 'weird' food discovered on my travels.

chris, gimme the lamb but minus the mint jelly (mint gastrique okay though).

i was also like this with sushi for a long time..of course now i would bathe in it.

Welcome to almost every day of life as a vegetarian. :-/

My post inspired by going to a business dinner a few years ago, at which I was seated at table of other company's CEO/owner, who saw himself as some kind of grossly fat, spittle-prone, benevolent patriarch who ordered several dishes for our table without asking anyone, and then tried to MAKE me eat mushrooms just by ordering me to try them several times in a row.

I was like, you want to make this a battle of wills, you rank amateur? Fuck your mushrooms.

mushrooms are tasty
so is lamb

My mother in-law is what we jokingly refer to as a "food-pusher".

-"Would you like to try (whatever food she thinks is the greatest)"
-"No thanks"
-"oh but it's so delicious! You should try some! "
- "no, thanks. I'm not a big fan of (whatever it is)"
- "you're not? this is really good. It doesn't taste like that other stuff. Try some"
- "I'm okay, really".
- "I'll cut you off a piece just so you can try it. You just have to try some."
-repeat ad nausem until family member snaps at her

is that quite the same thing? i think that's a variant on the other mother thing that works like 'would you like to eat some x?' 'no' 'have you eaten? how about some y' 'no i'm good really' 'oh, there's some z left over, you want some z?' 'honestly, it's fine' 'sure you don't want some x?' (repeat.)

Lol Laurel "Fuck your mushrooms."

Conversely, I have a group of friends who severally will not eat mushrooms, raw tomatoes, cucumbers, raw onions, mushrooms, garlic and fish. It can get a little depressing planning a dinner for them.

and i feel like my in-laws do it on purpose. I DO NOT LIKE CLAMS OR OYSTERS EITHER, do not try to make me eat them. Usually i just drink my dinner. I also get stuck eating Mutton Ribs for Xmas dinner each year over there, those i have had to eat because it would be an insult to my norwegian mother in law.

Conversely, I have a group of friends who severally will not eat mushrooms, raw tomatoes, cucumbers, raw onions, mushrooms, garlic and fish. It can get a little depressing planning a dinner for them.

fussy eaters itt

The man was like a caricature of the New Money strawman, to the nth degree. Uneducated, uncultured, unkempt and sloppily dressed, unbelievably loud, unbelievably ignorant, obnoxious, self-important, frequently patronizing when not obviously sexist, and yet somehow...RICH. I was embarrassed to be around him, and embarrassed FOR him, and wanted nothing more than to leave the dinner. And this cartoon thought he could order me to do ANYTHING?

I don't know why he thought just telling me would have any effect, but I could have sat there saying "No, thank you" in my coldest voice ALL NIGHT LONG.

i think its because my parents were never adventurous in the food department when i was growing up that i never liked a lot of things. I can remember us having the same things week in and week out...and it consisted of pasta, chicken, meatloaf..etc. Never anything out of the norm.

is it bad that my attitude to this is 'unless you are i. vegetarian/vegan ii. allergic then stfu and eat'

i don't mean, like, the guy laurel's talking about. that guy just sounds rude.

i never complain about it in the open, i just won't eat it.

I really hate cake, for the most part, and frosting. Just way too sugary for my tastes. But I've found you can't not eat someone's birthday cake. People see it as tantamount to rejecting the birthday person. So I've mastered the art of choking down a few bites with a big fake smile. No complaints from me! This feels like a good analogy for being an adult. Hopefully that's not totally bleak?

grossly fat, spittle-prone, benevolent patriarch who ordered several dishes for our table

nice adjectives and adjective clause here! wish i could use this on an exam

I think the burden is obv on the eater to be as accommodating as possible ESPESH when someone else has cooked. To refuse carefully prepared food when everyone is eating the same dishes marks you as some kind of self-centered infant, unfortunately. (To my dismay, because I am a picky eater.) Different in a restaurant, obv, since the POINT of the whole set-up is a meal of your choosing.

Otoh, to INSIST your guests do ANYTHING is equally poor on the part of the host/ess.

Things I don't like:

Capers (a little is okay);
Eggplant unless it's unrecognizable, i.e. baba ghanoush or ratatouille;
Truffles (there a few exceptions to this);
Mango or papaya (got sick on papaya as a kid) though I can eat mango salsa and ice cream and love green papaya;
Baked bananas;
Buttermilk;
Too much curry (never sits well with my stomach);
Uni;
Tripe;
Sub-par cheese (won't eat it/makes me depressed);
Baked oysters (I can't trust them unless I eat them alive);
and maybe some other things.

I have actively tried over the course of my life to overcome my culinary prejudices and find some version of things I previously didn't like which I could enjoy and have been mostly successful.

although i do credit my inlaws for getting me started eating different things, but i wont eat lamb.

Tripe has texture problems, it's true. But heavily spiced and in sausage form, I'm totally ok with it.

WILLIE
(quietly)
God, I am starving, but I can't
eat this...
INDIANA
That's more food than these people
eat in a week.
(pointedly)
They're starving, too...

Willie looks around at the emaciated faces and feels like crawl-
ing into a hole.

http://s3.hubimg.com/u/353386_f520.jpg

To clarify re the whole 'mother-in-law as food pusher': this isn't in a sit-down dinner context. Whatever is put on the table for me to eat, I will usually eat if I am a guest in someone's home.

However my Mother-in-Law gets her head turned by snacks of all shapes and sizes. She has a regular repertoire of chips and dips and things that we all like to eat but every now and again she'll get a wild hair and buy some thing that some friend told her was awesome.

that's when the food pushing comes into play. She loves it, thinks its amazing, and the only validation she can see is for everyone else to love it as much as she does. (My Mum is the complete opposite: you don't like it, fine, eff you, all the more for me mwhahaha).

That's where she has NO boundaries. You could say to her, 'Yknow, I really don't like anchovies" and it's like she acquires some kind of convenient deafness to your pleas of 'please, leave me alone'. she will try every possible way that she can think of to have you try her cockamamie anchovy paste.

What I hate is when you make a cake to bring to a potluck or whatever...and someone will say, "Oh what is that?" and I say, "Carrot cake"...and they will say, "Oh gross now way. I can't eat carrots. They make me vomit and the smell of them is disgusting and I can't even go near them and oh my god I break out in a rash and yeah I can't even be around it." Which now makes me a) not want to eat carrots either, gross...and b) regret even mentioning the cake at all.

All of that when a simple, "I can't eat carrots, I'm really allergic." would have sufficed.

sure thing, 'vegemite grrrl'

you know what's gross? vegemite

is it bad that my attitude to this is 'unless you are i. vegetarian/vegan ii. allergic then stfu and eat'

i don't mean, like, the guy laurel's talking about. that guy just sounds rude.

― thomp, Wednesday, 10 November 2010 15:23 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

OTM, for the most part.

Mind you as a kid, this was my parents' attitude - four children, so Mum wasn't going to accomodate for some brat refusing to eat certain foods by replacing them with others. I remember her once physically forcing my brother to eat some peas once. She wouldn't've allowed vegetarianism in our house, "quelle horreur" (we knew better than to even try contemplate that one).

I was never as fussy as some of my siblings, and today there's very very little I will refuse to eat point-blank. Of course there are foodstuffs I'm less keen on, but if it's served to me, generally I'll just shut up and have a little bit. Mostly it's if something is badly prepared that I would have the most trouble with.

So yeah, not a lot of time for fussy eaters, but I guess at my age I can assume that people should know what they DON'T like, so long as they've bothered to try it. People who "don't eat vegetables" or even "don't eat tomatoes" are a complete WTF to me. In my eyes things like this are close to a mental hangup in many cases. I mean, tomatoes, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU ACTUALLY EAT THEN? ;-)

poop

dingleberries

cow pies

mountain oysters

raw tomatoes are pretty much the only thing I don't eat. I have no problem with them cooked and if there's cut up bits in a salad or sandwich I won't not eat it, but I still think they taste terrible.

but if I was a guest at someone's house for dinner and there was tomato salad I'd eat a bit of it just to be polite

and i dont turn my nose up at the offerings of food, i will just eat other things that are on the table.

at my mothers house if someone doesn't like something she always offers to make something else for the said person.

yeah plenty things i am not mad on but if in someone else's house i just shovel it down as best i can...

see but the one time i did that (oysters) i was gagging so bad and almost vomited all over the table. whats better, not eating it or puking.

Most of the time my problem is that I won't drink and drive. Like, I won't have one glass of wine if I'm going to be driving, and it is amazing how hard it is to convince parents of this. No, I won't have just one. No, I don't want a drink. No, I don't feel like drinking. Yes, I know it'll probably be out of my system by the time I'm going home, but just in case. No thanks, no. NO NO NO.

And then, of course, once you've reached the point where you get angry about it, you're the uptight bitch who judges everyone else for their drinking.

i've always figured that when dining with people who don't know my particular food likes and dislikes, if they've provided the food and i've accepted the invitation, that i have an obligation to be graceful and grateful. to at least try to eat what's put before me, so long as i'm not allergic to it, and to vocally appreciate the opportunity. doesn't mean that i ate meat when i was a vegetarian, but i relaxed my standards a bit and didn't make a big deal about whether nor not i could eat what i'd been served.

which is to say: 'unless you are i. vegetarian/vegan ii. allergic then stfu fake a smile and eat'

i think people nowadays who are planning dinners for people are better about asking people beforehand what they can and can't eat cuz there are so many non-dairy/gluten/shellfish/meat/snickerdoodle motherfuckers out there.

this doesn't apply to old people/family though. they don't give a shit what you can eat.

i was also like this with sushi for a long time..of course now i would bathe in it.

which gives creedence to food foisters' mechanations

There is one family I hang out with where they think just because I occasionally eat poultry and fish, I'll also eat beef and pork. I cannot really claim myself as totally meat-free but there are so many things that turn me off about the way certain meats are processed.

I also cannot get myself to eat anything with mayonnaise in it. You cannot make me!

You should make your own. It's dead easy. ;)

VegemiteGrrrl, your mother-in-law is my mother, and since I'm an only child, that means we're married. Hi darling! I'm sorry about my mother. I'll have a talk with her about her food pushing.

I have grown to like a lot of foods that I once hated, so I'm pretty intent on being open minded and trying new things. I really, really hate beets, though, and I made some for dinner the other night and gagged down a small serving and Jeff was like, "You know you're a grown up and you don't have to eat beets if you don't want to." So I guess I am someone who tries to make myself eat things I don't like.

Beets w/goat cheese!!!

I've had roasted beets with goat cheese at restaurants and really liked it! So I tried roasted them at home (we didn't have any goat cheese) and they just tasted like roasted dirt. :(

Re: trying new foods. The chance of discovering a food that you think is wonderful is worth the risk of finding out you don't like it. It's just a flavor. Rinse it away with some water, eat something tastier, grow up a little.

Knowing already that you don't like it is an entirely different matter, and it's the "come on, you'll like it, have some anyway" insister who needs to grow up.

I've barely skimmed the thread so this post isn't aimed at anyone in specific.

I'm basically not allowed to cook beets at home. :(

I am Italian but sorry....I do not like prosciutto and never will! Tough if you don't like it!

^^^GAGWORTHY

i love all spuds. i could survive on potatoes. And cereal.

I much prefer sweet potatoes in savory form - usually roasted or as sweet potato fries. Not a fan of the sweet potato casserole with brown sugar and marshmallows.

Given the explosive popularity of food threads on ILE, I am mystified why I Love Cooking seems to just limp along without much participation.

I only recently tried lamb for the first time after ten years of vegetarianism. I couldn't distinguish it from beef.

Maybe if it were I Love Cooking and Eating
xp

I feel bad posting to ILC that I've made the same boring thing again, I mean I might be greatly enjoying it and I like my apt smelling like some delicious meaty soup, but other people on there do some cool shit with rare ingredients and spices and crazy cooking/preserving techniques, and it's not really worth posting to say that I made lentils again.

Also, in my current sitch, cooking is mostly just a chore.

i feel like ilc could do w/ more threads about microwaving things that are maybe past the point of being edible.

Maybe if it were I Love Cooking and Eating

Possibly! I don't cook much but I have opinions about food.

i really only like to think about things i would like to eat but i usually just end up eating stale bread

There used to be tons of stuff I wouldn't eat due to being on chemo aged five and those things prompting a hurl while so afflicted. If I'm invited somewhere I try to mention at the point of offer in a not-rude way.

OTOH if I am giving a dinner party I canvass my guests for allergies, veginess, ultimate food dislikes and cultural food avoidance and go from there. Anything else is kind of against the spirit of enjoying others' hospitality and/or company.

Sweet potato h8ters: Bake sweet potatoes until soft, then scrape out of the skins and mash with butter and canned chipotle peppers to taste and maybe you will like them.

Or don't. I'm not trying to make you eat something you don't want to eat.

i make great egglant parm sandwiches! you would love it.

x-post

Okay I will take one. Thanks!

Paypal it to me.

Pastry drive.

mmm chipotle

The texture of sweet potato bothers me. I think that's my main issue. Aside from covering it with marshmallows which is a whole other thing (shudder)

I do like sweet potato fries and crisps. Holiday sweet potatoes cast a major pall over the rest of it.

wow I think you all are crazy re: sweet potatoes

they are one of nature's perfect foods and about the only ways I can think of preparing them that would ruin them would involve excrement and/or poison

I wish y'all were in my family cause it'd mean more sweet potatoes w marshmallows for me

i think sweet potatoes would taste good mashed with goat cheese. i am probably wrong, but i am thinking this. and onions? like maybe even crispy onion bits.

I'm asking this non-rhetorically because I don't eat that many sweet potatoes, but how is their texture substantially different from regular potatoes?

slightly more fibrous

i like to make mashed that are a mix of sweet and non-sweet. yummy. (a little garlic. lots of butter.)

xp Hm, okay, I can see that. I've never really noticed, I guess.

Too sweet for me. Prefer my starches savory tbh.

wow I think you all are crazy re: sweet potatoes

they are one of nature's perfect foods and about the only ways I can think of preparing them that would ruin them would involve excrement and/or poison

otm

I eat 'em steamed, boiled, mashed, roasted, fried, in pies, in pastries, with butter and salt, with sugar or maple syrup, with flakes of chili pepper, savory with cumin and black pepper...the sweet potato is one of nature's most perfect accomplishments in my opinion

basically sweet potatoes & collard greens and a starch, either rice or rolls probably, is my perfect meal

I almost had one with "setting them on fire" but it involved using an accelerant, which would be poisonous, so I stand by my original statement

I find the sweet potato thicker and sort of, um, slimier in texture compared to potato, fwiw.

sweet potato enthusiasts are of course correct. they are surprisingly delicious cut into chips/wedges and oven-cooked w/ a small quantity of marmite. I regret years wasted not eating sweet potatos, perhaps I will retire here to compensate

http://www.traditionalfightingarts.com/history_karate_files/OkinawaIsland.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu7JeCGALcg

years ago, i used to have an oprah quote taped to the refrigerator: "all i want is a baked potato and someone to share it with."

about the only ways I can think of preparing them that would ruin them would involve excrement and/or poison

I read this as "excrement and/or prison" and wondered what the heck kind of potatoes they were to land you in jail o_0

To me, kumara (sweet potatoes) are meant to be a savoury thing: roasted with garlic and salt, or in a soup or curry with cumin and spices. Sure, it has a sweetnes, as does pumpkin and carrot.

But mashed with brown sugar and topped with marshmallows? Oh man, I feel like I am going to struggle to find edible food when I come to the US, geez.

Sweet potato scones are the bomb, btw.

I don't like pumpkin or cooked carrots, either. I mean carrot as a base for stocks & soups & sauces, yes. But not when you're going to actually be eating like a mouthful of carrot the way the portions are served. The sweetness puts me off, I dunno.

I can eat cooked carrots only w/salt and olive oil. I much prefer them grated in a salad generally, unless they're part of a stock.

Carrots have a weird feature where when they get a little old and woody, they can taste very strange. Kind of bitter and earthy? When that happens I dont care for them much. But I love grated carrot in coleslaw, and I'll grate carrot into bolognese sauce. Carrots roasted or steamed and then tossed in honey or marsala is also tasty, but quite sweet.

I eat carrots Bugs Bunny style.

yeah carrots are easy to overcook by just a little bit, and therefore ruin.

naked, outdoors, leaning on a tree?
xp

:-B

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/177/1164538758.jpg

trayce, i have yet to encounter a variety of sweet potato in the US that is anywhere near as amazing and delicious as kumara

carrots are great anyway you eat them. even the long way.

carrot juice is the best juice imo

it pleases me so much that on the streets here I can get a cup of fresh squeezed carrot juice for $1.25

carrot juice

carrot juice

ok so last night i gave it a shot, lamb kabobs. Well fuck me in the lamb ass....DELICIOUS!

you have a lamb ass?

yes its soft and wooly.

I'm glad you liked them!

The rich

No