Does anyone else have food 'obsessions'?

[PurpleSky300]

I just wondered if anyone else is like this. I am a pretty decent home cook I think - don't eat the most varied diet but along the lines of chilli / curry / fajitas / stews / pasta dishes / risotto etc. Pretty boring.

Alongside this though, I feel like I always have a new food 'obsession'. It typically lasts 3-4 weeks until I get sick of whatever it is and then I move on. I've been obsessed with, in no particular order:

Kiwi fruit
Bananas
Vegetable spring rolls
Cheerios
Iced Gem biscuits
Paninis
Tuna
Specific types of dips and mustards

I get really fixated with a particular food and then I just eat it at every opportunity until I can't bear it anymore. If I go to a Spanish restaurant and I have really great Spanish chicken or something, then I'll make that 5 times in a week and just eat it over and over until I get bored. I don't know why I do this. When a 'phase' is over I never touch the food again. But when I'm in a phase, I will make special journeys to get that 1 thing and I will feel really restless and unsettled if I can't have it. I do this a lot when I am exposed to new foods and recipes. What is wrong with me?

Oh, yes. I'm the same, OP . Currently Ruvita, Red Leciester Crackers. They are so strong, but currently obsessed .

Only happens with junk food, funnily enough.

Not with food but if I have a notion eg I'm going to make curry and Indian food I not only have to have all the spices but a chapati rolling pin, balti dishes, metal serving plates and ffs I even bought one of those chutney twirly things you have in Indian restaurants.

Italian, I have a pasta machine, wooden dryer, ravioli cutters, gnocchi board and recently a tagliatelle rolling pin.

My partner wanted a sushi making kit, as yet unused but I have my eye on it.

So I wouldn't make the same meal 5 days running but I obsessively need all the gubbins needed to make and present food the authentic way.

Pressed post too soon. Years ago I did an afternoon tea for friends, cake stands, teapots, sugar tongs, cake server, cups and saucers, tea plates, teaspoons, dessert forks, sugar bowl, milk jug I did it once.

It's just the two of us and don't even have friends around to entertain!

Yup

Yes, obsessions are a normal part of human behaviour. At any 1 time I usually have a food obsession and a topic obsession. Right now the food obsession is a specific cereal with oat milk but previously it was cheese and cucumber sandwiches, sourdough bread with tomato and balsamic vinegar, chocolate hobnobs, and before that peppermint tea.

Topic wise I’m stuck on Donald Trump (in a bad way - I’m not a fan!) and before that was islands and archipelagos of the UK.

Yes, 100%. Obsessed. Made multiple times until absolutely freaking sick of them.

Memorable ones over the years:
Mango buckwheat noodles from one of Ottolenghi’s books
Goats cheese sourdough with walnuts and honey from the Polpo book
Mi Goreng noodles (no other ramen even come close)
Specific local farm shop coleslaw as a dip for specific farm shop crisps
The chorizo chicken from that Rukmini Iyer traybake book
Gorgonzola and spinach gnocchi bake

That’s not counting the go-to dishes/purchases from takeaways (always order the same few things) and places like Greggs or M&S. I expand and rotate favourites but very rarely stray from the path of righteousness. To order anything else from Gregg’s but a sausage and bean melt, for example, would be verging on sacrilege.

I'm a home cook too ( not a gourmet cook) and I prepare all of the things that you mentioned OP
(along with many more from different countries) and I don't think they're boring at all, especially to me as I find them interesting to prepare.

With all the many varied spices, they all make a change from each other; my family thinks so anyway!

The only thing I can think of that I ate every morning for 2 years straight was a certain kind of boxed cereal, with a large dollop of banana flavored yoghurt on top.
Now that was really good, but one week the store was out of the yoghurt, and I never went back to that breakfast routine again.

I guess I'm not obsessed about eating the same kind of food over and over because I like to create a variety, going online searching from one country to another for new recipes to try.

I do - they can last a few meals in a row or years and years. I think it’s an ADHD trait

I hear you. At the moment I want to make a chicken harissa casserole on repeat.

Yes, breakfast cereal, for most of my life!! And milk in general. I've given them up to lose weight though as it was getting ridiculous and I've put on 4kg.

I go through phases where I can't get enough rocket. Seriously, I can eat a bag as if it was a packet of crisps. But yes, I regularly go on crazes of other random foodstuffs - currently it's granola (which is unfortunate because it's pretty calorific 😑I weighed out the recommended serving and it's tiny.)

Wait for it.....wait for it....

Someone is going to diagnose you 😂😂

Oh yes. Crispy chili oil on everything (basically thinking of ways I can eat crispy chili oil without just spooning it out of the jar) has lasted a couple of years. But generally it's more temporary, like realising cereal with banana is delicious and eating it every day for two weeks.

I love mint chocolate chip ice cream. I try not to eat it by the tub…

Well this makes me feel so much better! haha.
I also love making sauces and trying different recipes to get the 'perfect' one, eg. homemade BBQ sauce, alfredo, vodka cream sauce.
And why does food taste so much better when someone else makes it?!

Yess, same here (currently I'm in the Indian phase) 😅
Tbh, I'm a little embarrassed by this, especially as I don't have the excuse of being 4 years old anymore!

Ooooh me too. We've had a quiche phase, bagel and salami for breakfast for about 6 months, currently wanting a bacon, egg and cheese (in toast) everyday but managing to curb it to sat and Sunday

I’m in my aioli phase. The yellow and green one. I am putting it on everything.

Yes!

If I don’t have a box of ritz crackers in the house I feel sad. Current obsession though is fresh strawberries and blueberries with some vanilla yoghurt.

I've done the egg muffin phase. Lovely but the bastard tins take forever to clean 😰

Oh yes! The last one was tuna toasties - every day for about 3 weeks and now I probably won’t have one again for a very long time

A whopper with cheese from Burger King is my current obsession. I've had it the past few weekends. I also went through a phase of loving ranch dressing but I can't find it anymore.

Yep. I ate crispy kale for so long I had to google if you could OD on it

Aldi has it in, I’ve just bought some

DD and I both do this. I actually found out I was deficient in a few things and when I realised that the foodstuffs I had been craving were high in the same vitamins and minerals it made me feel quite comforted. DD's is more extreme and lurches from steamed veg to thai chilli crisps to certain bao buns...then she will never eat them again. Fromage Frais was a the first time at just a few months old!