To get a bit impatient with really fussy eaters (adults)

[atthewelles]

I'm not talking about people with medical conditions which preclude certain foods from their diet or people who have anxiety issues re certain types of food/ different foods touching each other on the plate etc

But adults who just turn their noses up at anything other than plain meat and potatoes and act as if vegetables, pasta, fish, anything containing spices or garlic or cooked in a sauces is on a par with serving up roasted worms are a bit irritating - difficult to cook for and impossible to please when trying to meet up in a restaurant.

AIBU to think grown ups should at least try a few different foodstuffs and be a little bit open minded about what they're prepared to eat?

[YoSaffBridge]

I'm not the world's most flexible eater but like other's say, when asked before dinner parties etc I just list my top two hates - very spicy food and seafood - and then just eat the rest. I really, really don't like mushrooms but after a friends suggested she make seafood risotto and I politely said I couldn't eat seafood, she then said she would make mushroom risotto instead... Ate it though, it's only polite!

[Pascha]

This is my mum. Everything gives her food poisoning apparently

[atthewelles]

No noble 'just the behaviour' of precious, fussy people who make a big fuss about not eating this, that and the other; forcing people to choose dull boring restaurants or to go to the local English Caff when on holidays and make 'ooh, yuck' faces when people are trying to eat anything more exotic that a cheeseburger.

[ILikeBirds]

OH will eat spaghetti but not fusilli, drives me bananas

[lustybusty]

My mums best friend makes me , but I do get that I might just be being unreasonable... She won't eat "forrin" food. So no Chinese takeaway, or Indian, no spag bol, no fajitas, no garlic, no herbs, no spices, no taste

I'm still struggling to figure out what she WILL eat, other than fish and chips/sausage and chips... I just don't understand. Personally, as a pp mentioned, I don't eat organs or glands (but have tried many, including bull's testicles!), I don't like fish or shellfish, eggs or bananas. BUT I will pretty much only refuse banana (all the rest I will try)and I only refuse banana as part of a pudding, if it was say, banana in a curry, I'd force at least some down...

[YoSaffBridge]

Didn't finish my point YANBU. Medical reasons and phobias are one thing. As a grown adult, though, you should manage to her through something on the plate that is put in front of you. If you don't like part of the meal, just don't eat that bit and apologise politely, or try a little bit at least!

And yes, FFS don't go on and on about how 'disgusting' that food stuff is.

[noblegiraffe]

Some people have more tastebuds than others and some people are super tasters.
Those of you who proudly announce you'll eat anything probably just have a limited sense of taste.

[ifancyashandy]

Horrace - so what happens in a restaurant with others?

[HoratiaWinwood]

FIL won't touch onions, leeks, garlic, pasta or rice. Not an enormous list, but rules out pretty much 95% of what I cook. He thinks he eats "most things"; I think I eat "most things"; but somehow we hardly overlap at all.

DH had a similarly restricted diet when he left home. He has gradually added things as time has gone on. So you might think it ridiculous that he won't eat mayonnaise or cream, but you don't see that he has learned to eat pasta, for example.

So YABU and YANBU.

[atthewelles]

Yeah right Noble

[atthewelles]

I think that would put me off as well Horace

[Roseformeplease]

But I think the OP has made a really valid point. It is not so much that people choose NOT to eat something, it is that they make such a fuss of it. I also particularly hate it when my choice TO eat something is focused on - "Ew, you are not eating liver / olives / vegetables etc". I can cope with allergies and people disliking a whole food group (e.g. Fish) but I struggle when it is so complex and you are expected to remember. I have known people (acquaintances, work colleagues etc) who will say things like, "But you know I don't eat sugar" as I offer them a cake and that really boils my piss.

As a frequent dieter (who normally eats anything I can get my hands on) I just say, no thank you. If we have guests, I always check or do several dishes for them to help themselves to. But I am not prepared to host someone who highlights my choice to eat something perfectly normal, like a tomato, as somehow weird.

[Jins]

The only bit of this that I can relate to is when people are rude about the food on offer. That is annoying.

The rest of it I can't get excited about at all. Don't go to the bland restaurants - go where the majority want to go and let the fussy ones either find something to eat or join you afterwards. I also don't care what people eat when they are on holiday. If they have a limited range then that's their issue not mine. I couldn't care less what people eat or don't eat but if I'm catering for them I'll make sure that there's something on the table for them.

I really don't get why people get so bothered about what other people eat

[Theicingontop]

Yanbu. What especially irritates me is if these adults then influence their children to act in the same manner.

I have a friend who hates pretty much everything, except sausages and chips. Guess what her DS will only eat?

"Oh no thanks he won't eat that"
"Has he tried it?"
"Well, no. But it's disgusting, why would he like it?"

[musicmaiden]

I think YABU too. I have an adult friend who, partly due to things that happened when she was young, has a very limited repertoire of food she'll eat. I feel a bit sad that she doesn't especially enjoy eating out, but when she is in that situation she just makes the best of it - and there are very few places that won't do plainer things, sauce on the side, what have you! Since no-one she is with makes a big deal out of it, it's all fine, and we all get to enjoy her company regardless. Food is so bloody fetishised these days, what is the big deal, really, about what an adult chooses to eat? It's just fuel at the end of the day.

I think it is rude if you are cooking for someone not to ask if there are things they won't eat and it is the mark of a decent cook (and friend) to try and accommodate them.

I agree that no one should be rude about what they are served, though.

[5Foot5]

I am always entertained by the people who are fussy but would be shocked to find that you think them so.

My dear old Dad (sadly long gone) springs to mind. As a child he had been brought up to eat whatever was put in front of him with no complaints and consequently he claimed to have no time for "faddy" eaters. However, he was raised on a very traditional meat, potato and two veg diet and had always had very conservative tastes as a result. The list of things he wouldn't eat was astonishing. E.g. pizza, pasta (unless it was spaghetti out of a tin), cottage cheese, melons, anything spicy (anything foreign full-stop), crumbles ( he liked a pastry crust). I could go on.

But he would have been outraged if anyone dared to accuse him of being a fussy eater.

We have a friend of our own age who also has quite a long list of dislikes but, again, I am sure he does not consider himself at all fussy.

[Angelico]

YANBU. My DH is a bit like this although bless him he will eat what is put in front of him but without any real enjoyment. So I feel guilty and end up cooking quite bland food rather than the lovely pasta dishes and curries I like making (which are also low fat and healthy).

And don't get me started on the nobheads who go and stay in a chalet in the Alps and then announce they don't like garlic / cheese / cream / tomato etc. Go and stay in fucking self-catering then you nobheads!!! It's the Alps!!! EVERYTHING contains garlic, cream, cheese and tomato!!! Bitter ex chalet girl

[ENormaSnob]

So if one of your social group would only eat at an English food type restaurant would you pander to that or tough shit?

I wouldn't pander tbh, neither would any of the people I socialise with.

[atthewelles]

I don't care what they eat at home Jins, I just find it irritating if I'm cooking for, or going out for a meal with, someone who really just wants to eat roast beef and potatoes or somesuch and thereby limits what you can cook or the places you can go as a group to eat.

Likewise the disgusted faces when they smell garlic or the comments that spaghetti 'looks like worms' etc..... Seriously, in this day and age??

[starlightraven]

Well I am a fussy eater. You get annoyed by other people being one? Try being one! It sucks. I would love to have a love for food like everyone else. I wish I could eat anything and everything.

I struggle to find food I like. I do new try foods but I am really sensitive to taste and there is very little I like. I was brought up by parents who fed me pasta and bread and pretty much nothing else, and it has been a struggle to develop my tastes as an adult, but I have tried. I know people who find it easy to enjoy different foods will think I am pathetic and not understand. But I would never expect to put friends and family out by refusing to go to certain restaurants or request specific food if I went round to theirs - it is my issue and I have to live with it.

I don't understand why there is such judgement towards picky eaters - I'm not hurting anyone else. I don't choose to be like this, and I am trying to change. But it is harder than people imagine it is. Especially if you have eating disorders mixed along with everything. I could easily give up food altogether.

[catwithflowers]

I don't find it especially unreasonable but I do find it incredibly and utterly dull. Their loss I guess

[LadyClariceCannockMonty]

Oh, don't get me started. I hate this. I hate food snobbiness a little less than 'I don't like that' fussiness, but both are infuriating.

I had a friend who was ultra-fussy and rude and attention-seeking with it: making 'Yuck' noises and faces while holding communal bowls of food that were being passed round the table etc.

Also a friend's twattish husband who, when she rang as they were approaching my house for a weekend stay to ask if they could bring anything for lunch, and I said no, I had everything thanks and was making poached eggs on toast for everyone, could be heard asking her to check with me that the butter would be unsalted and if I had this or that kind of bread etc. Fucking ungrateful tosser.

Sorry, obviously still angry about that one and I don't like him much generally

[Kendodd]

I had a friend would would never eat any kind of fruit or veg. She would even pick the peas and corn out of her Pot Noodle. Somebody else I knew would only eat pizza, chips and burgers, even on Christmas day!

[Jins]

I agree with the disgusted faces.

I am friends with a the fussiest couple ever. They will eat at our house because they know that I do a pile of jacket potatoes as well and they can eat those if nothing else appeals.

For group eating we do not take fussy eaters into account at all. We choose the place that the majority want, let the fussy ones know where we're going and link them to the menu and leave them to decide.