AIBU for hating people wanting “a taste” of my food?

The “ecstatic noises” would put me off as well.

I get weirdly squeamish about people commenting on my food. One time eating a salad someone said, “Oo! That looks healthy,” and I barely restrained myself from dumping the whole thing straight in the bin.

Nope. Still not sharing. And don’t even get me started on bloody Chinese food!

I will order what I want. You order what you want. Stay away from my food.

Or a steely knife 😁

I only ever do this if somebody offers, and then only if it’s something unusual or exceptionally delicious. It was very bad manners for her to ignore your boundary, when you’d already told her no.

Is she really food obsessed, or something? Because it seems really odd to be so desperate to try someone else’s scrambled egg and salmon - I mean, she must know what that tastes like? Any variation from one place to another is really minimal.

I do like sharing food but only when I'm volunteering to do so. I'm quite funny with food and eating out means I usually don't eat very much.

I have one friend who, as soon as I've decided what I'm having she'll say 'oh, I'll try some of that'. It's like she knows I'll probably offer but it feels kind of pushy to assume I'll have any to spare.

I had one male friend who'd just sit there eyeing up my plate, willing me not to finish it. He'd look crestfallen when I'd eat every crumb just to stop him being such a greedy sod.

Oh god that's gross. If it's a good friend and an unused fork then MAYBE a taste but I'm funny with food anyway and I'd just be thinking about the bit where her fork touched and likely not eat my food. I don't mind sharing things like sweets and whatever but I'm not having other people's mouth germs in my mouth. 😷

DC are different. They can do what they like because they came from me. 🤣 Although I don't drink from their water bottle or eat out of their lunchbox if they've been in school. Germs. Germs everywhere.

sticking your used cutlery into someone else's lunch is totally grim. don't blame you for not wanting the rest of your food. it's only normal to share if you both agree! anyone trying to snaffle off my plate will get a fork in their hand.

I honestly don't get how curry is a shared meal. I could understand getting a side of 6 onion bhaji and have 2 each in a group of 3 or something but not sharing a curry.

I think a lot of shares are just insanely ignorant to the fact that many of us have dietary requirements.

I can't eat usually 90% of options (and thats in a good place with decent options) so really what they mean is they want some of my already limited food choice (because I can't have theirs) and also didn't even cross their mind about the cross contamination that could make me horribly sick from them diving into my food.

MIL often says that she doesn’t want to order anything because she isn’t hungry. But then says “I just pinch little bit of all yours”

YANBU if you don't wanna share your food then don't. Just say NO.

I will maybe share a 'taste' with my husband but other than that no.

I had a co-worker who would hoover up bits of leftovers so would give him any tomatoes I picked out of food but in general never encountered this really other than that (and it was kind of just a quirky joke among the group 'oh, don't throw that away, save it for David'). He didn't watch you eat eagerly or pounce on your plate or anything though. They just always asked for anything someone was about to throw out so people just started putting their unwanted picked out bits to the side for him.

My middle child will constantly beg for others food or reach for their plate but only when at a seated formal meal. He does it even before eating his own food which is the same. He's never hungry at other times, has access to food constantly and we have no idea where he got it from or why he does it but we just block his grabs and remind him every time how rude it is. I'm hoping he will grow out of it because I have no idea how to fix it other than to keep telling him 'no'. Our other kids don't do it and never have and no one in the family does it so its not 'learned'.

I do like tasting bits and sharing meals. It allows me to assess whether I want to get that thing the next time, learn about a new taste, share recommendation, get just a one small bit of something less healthy I don't want a full plate of, taste something I suppose I wouldn't like but want to know, many reasons.

That said, your friend would annoy me and I wouldn't like to share with them for a few reasons:

1)I see it as ok to ask (once), ok to say no situation. Noone should just help themselves without asking. And asking means something only when you are ready to accept "no".

2)I don’t want other people’s used cutlery in my food or them eating the part of my meal I was looking forward to the most.
I actually agree with this. With wider family or friends we resolve the sharing/dividing/tasting pieces before we start eating. We distribute the tasting bites while the cutlery is clean and than everyone eats what ends on their plate.
My DP is an exception from clean cutlery rule, but it's our mutual agreement.

It's just one of those things some people like and some don't. And, to be clear, people around me join happily in tasting and exchanges, so it's not me being a CF.

To add, I would share with my son, he’s almost 7 and loves trying new food so he can take what he wants. Anyone else, NO

My brother stabbed me with his fork when I took a chip off his plate when we were kids. It taught me a good lesson (although I still steal chips from the kids now and again).

I would hate what you describe, OP. I never offer a taste and refuse other people's offers to avoid a quid pro quo situation. Someone who didn't understand the boundary and just dived in would horrify me too. How rude and how unhygienic, as you say!

Puddings can be different but only if you have agreed to share, not just someone asking for a second spoon without you having offered to share! New friends needed for you, OP!

Oh my Christ I’ll always remember, I think it was 1997 and my friends and I had started eating in pubs, drinking our pints thinking we were so grown up. It was the days you could smoke indoors, so that was bad enough, people puffing around the table.
My food was put down before my friends and before I could react she reached over, and grabbed some chips before I could say anything. She had been smoking so I just remember her yellow faggy fingers grabbing some of my chips “because she was starving”. Absolutely rank!
It’s rank, and I’m on your team OP. If you want something else order something else!
Blech

She laughed and said “well I’m still tasting yours”

I wouldn't go out for brunch 'quite often' with someone so rude and annoying.

Honestly, nobody has ever done this to me before. My friends and colleagues are all nice and normal people who eat their own dinner! My husband will occasionally say, 'this tastes amazing, so you want to try a bit' but that's offering his own food out.

Fork stabbing. Not too hard, just light enough that she'll never stick her fork in your food again.

It's ok to share food if you want, but it's also ok not to share, especially when people are sticking their used fork in your food.

Tapas and curries are very different, that's more of a buffet, which is fine. It is not fine to help yourself to someone's individually ordered main dish.

I’m another YANBU!
Perhaps, ALL eating places should have little table signs with; “NO sharing or staring”! for each normal individual who likes to eat their own meal; then no arguments will ever happen again, for any1?

I don't even like it when people start taking my leftovers off my plate because I've finished eating. I still see it as my meal, so God help anyone who takes food off my plate while I'm still eating it!

Yes, some people are sharers and some aren't. I'm a sharer. DH is a sharer. We have friends who we know 'are NOT sharers' so we don't expect them too...though it does take some of the joy out of say a curry evening.

It also means that we don't tapas with them. It's too tense.

An ex colleague - we would go out fairly regularly for a curry as a team - would loudly declare at the beginning of a meal - I don't share....

This! I really don't have a problem with tasters when out with friends or family.

Husband and I often have two meals and share or offer tastes for something unusual. However, demanding or, worse, snatching a forkful without agreement would result in 'consequences', even if it was my husband.
Sharing is an agreement not a right.