Picky eaters (rants and notes)

My husband is a picky eater; and he has some food sensitivities as well.
plus, he is German, though he claims to not crave German food, now that he is in the US.
I'm going to use this thread to keep track of stuff he will eat, won't eat, can't eat, claims he can't eat O_o and ask for recommendations.

divorce

Can't eat egg whites, he gets hives.
Can't/won't eat fish. I saw him turn green one time when we went to a seafood restaurant.
Won't eat poultry ;_; so much for a big portion of my repertoire.
Doesn't like lamb.
Will eat beef and pork. Doesn't want to see any bones, though <shrug>
Loves pasta and pizza! Hurray!
likes Chinese.
Hasn't had too much Indian or Thai. Not keen on Middle Eastern, though he is getting better.

Aw, he has other fine qualities ;) plus, so cute!

Likes pork schnitzel ("Did you say you were making...schnitzel?" Big smile! Plus he does the dishes)

just want to generalize here + say: this is totally a german thing. they like sausage + potato + sauerkraut + that's pretty much it

o and schnitzel

i was wondering what my room 101 picks would be the other day and drew a bit of a blank but you've reminded me that fussy (not allergic) eaters have to be the most indefensible thing.

PS, he is from the North, and all that German stuff is from Buh-varia.
one of the first things I made for him was sauerkraut and kielbasa.
"Mmm, this is good!"
hee.
I could eat all these schnitzels, though, mm.

I had to teach him to eat pizza with his hands, not a knife and fork.
Though, for fair play, I used a knife and fork when i visited him over in Hamburg.

I make home fries (potatoes) but call them bratkartoffeln ;)

Likes wine (Bordeaux, in particular), better than beer! O_o

he doesn't like to "see bones"? what is he, five years old??

at a dinner my Chinese friends were hosting a German exchange student told me that it was hard for him to eat the chicken because "the bones were still there"

Yes, reminders that those chicken nuggets and hamburgers were once walking-around creatures = squick

Yeah, exactly. Though now that I am not making any chicken, there hasn't really been any meat on the bone in the house for a while.

I need to get a tofurkey or something sometime ;)

destroy these people

i am worried about your husband's health.

how does he feel about vegetables? tofu?

He didn't want to eat salads but I am making him! Seems like he would just eat Chinese or pizza or pasta back in his bachelor dayze.
Oh, and he loves the asparagus. That's one veg down!
I cook a lot of just vegetable meals, and he'll eat them. Grean beans, broccoli, spinach.
i don't think he cares one way or the other about tofu, I've been making that every so often (though I sometimes can't find the tofu at the gorcery, what?? Only this expensive organic gourmet stuff)

This kind of shit should end when you reach ~10 years old tbf.

I think he just doesn't care and wants the eat the same stuf he ate when he first left home, way back when. (plus, I don't think his mother did much in the way of cooking)
Me, I'm all about delicious tasty food!

then why did you marry this guy?

Because he is pretty wonderful in other ways!

I don't know how much is just cultural - when I visited him in Germany, we went to a bar and got nachos. The salsa was spicy ketchup. <shrug>

I'm one of these picky people, but to be fair, I'm really embarrassed about it and I try to force myself to try new things all the time (it's one of the main reasons I'm learning to cook), and I won't say anything if I'm at someone's house and they serve something that freaks me out. Just eat it and smile, you wuss.

I was raised up in a household where the food was always incredibly bland and I stuck to bland foods when I became an adult. Then I read this article about overcoming food sensitivities and became aware of how silly I was being, and that it was time to grow up. It's slow going, but it's satisfying to be able to eat and enjoy stuff that would have made me squeal as a kid.

love that steingarten article

My friend's husband doesn't like *any* fruits or vegetables. I try to not make strange people explain themselves to me as I think it's generally a dick move but seriously this was so nuts to me that all I could do was grill him about it.
Not even asparagus?
Not even peaches?
Not even raspberries?
Not even...potatoes? Those are barely vegetables at all.
Not even butternut squash?
Not even artichokes?
He doesn't like any of them! He grills himself some meat on the Foreman grill or microwaves some bacon for *every meal.* I don't think I could be in a committed relationship with that picky of an eater!

Either he'll die of a heart attack at 40 or live to be 100.

Can't help but think he'll be dead soon. xp

I have a weird thing with fish. I try so fucking hard, but I can almost never finish a piece of fish - salmon, tuna, bass, cod, whatever. Occasionally I have had super-fresh fish that I loved and scarfed down. Fish leftovers disgust me beyond description.

I can't handle stuff that is fluffy and white, like whipped cream, or stuff that is gloppy and white, like sour cream. It's a dumb hang-up. I can barely even handle being at the same table as people eating it.

No mashed potatoes?

Mashed potatoes! I love them now but I did refuse to eat them as a kid for this reason. Ice cream, too, used to be on the 'do not touch' list and now it's ok.

just want to generalize here + say: this is totally a german thing. they like sausage + potato + sauerkraut + that's pretty much it

Oh Jesus Christ Our Lord, this is so true. My guy isn't THAT bad and we've settled down to a place where he pretty much eats and is gracious about whatever I make/serve, but I think left to his own devices he would default to the same ham sandwich with hardly anything on it, the same schnitzel-style fried things with roasted potatoes, and the same onions + mushrooms + meat item + curry powder + limp pasta.

It's not that he's a picky eater, tbh, it's that these foods are comforting and homey and unchallenging to him.

curry powder!?!?

YES. You have heard of currywurst perhaps?? Apparently Germans will put curry in ANYTHING; also, the things they consider acceptable foodstuffs may disgust you. See this website for photos of packaged foods commonly available in Germany.

yikes, i clicked on three products and they all looked like vomit in a bag. is that roughly equivalent to like kraft, campbell's, general mills, nabisco type stuff here? like, stuff that people buy (people must buy this stuff because the store is FULL OF IT) at normal grocery stores (rice a roni and shake and bake, etc)?

I don't know, I think so? I think it's like Spaghettios or Campbell's soup for them, although I kinda think the CREAM and MAYONNAISE elements to a lot of those packaged things are just making it worse. A lot worse. The funny thing is, he insists that all the processed foods in Europe are a step up from America -- ie frozen pizza there is like delivery pizza here, and so on.

I laugh. I'm making salads and cheddar cornbread tonight, btw.

lol my gf is german so i hear you laurel

Oh thank you, I'm not alone! The MUSHROOMS, I swear to god. Mushrooms and curry. I don't let him cook anymore.

haha yr not alone at all! and i have the same thing where my gf isnt a picky eater, she'll eat pretty much anything i cook, it's just that if it's up to her, it will be those same german things over and over.

he insists that all the processed foods in Europe are a step up from America

hope for your all sakes this isn't true.

restaurant food in the states was as good as it is in ireland, fwiw. and i think it's pretty good here.

i am not, it should be stated, a picky eater. it would be impossible to maintain my figure if i were.

just sayin, I webmailed you fyi.

got it, i will try and help you out!

hey just checking you got my reply

lol – all the problem eaters on this thread are German
except the guy I mentioned who hates vegetables, but this guy is a high school German teacher and would live in Germany if he could. "They have meat for breakfast!"

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