My dad is a very, very fussy eater. His diet is very limited, he will only eat egg and chips, steak and chips, gammon, pie and chips, roast dinners (but only if cooked in a a certain way)traditional stews or a fry up. He won't eat anything "foreign" anything "fancy" spicy or anything in any kind of sauce, rice pasta and any fish other than cod are also off limits.
He's always been this way and I appreciate we will never change him now (early 60's) but I get so incredibly frustrated by the way it impacts on all our lives. When my parents go on holiday they even have to check in advance that there are restaurants selling English food so my dad will eat it.
We frequently go out for Sunday lunch as a family, but we are restricted because dad will only eat in one particular place. It's a two for one pub place, OK, but the food is obviously fast food shoved in a microwave. Dad likes their roast dinners though because they serve them the way he likes them which is with cremated meat, watery packet gravy, frozen Yorkshire pudding and with the veg he likes which are carrots, peas and potatoes. So we always go there, on a few occasions we've managed to get him to go somewhere else he's moaned that he hasn't liked what he's had. He wont even eat a dinner if it's serve with mashed potato (even though he likes roast and boiled, work that one out?) or if the food is "piled up" which is how they serve diners in nicer places.
My brother and his DP have already stooped coming with us because in my bro's words the place is "crap, the food is shit and it's full of screaming kids". It's also only got 4 stars on the hygiene rating which makes me boak every time.
I recently took my mum away for a few days and said she'd never eaten so well. We ate at a Mexican place, a lovely Italian, and an Indian all you can eat buffet. Stuff she'd never be able to do with my dad. It made me sad, going our for a lovely meal at a nice place is one of my favourite things to do. My poor mum hardly germ to do this.
AIBU to think my dad should get over his fussiness? Food is food at the end of the day!
AIBU?
To be so bloody frustrated with adult fussy eaters?!
SmellyMuffin · 17/08/2014 13:44
If there was cauliflower cheese anywhere near my dinner I would vomit. Seriously, I wouldn't be able to help myself.
I hate fish, the smell, the thought, the sheer vile yukkiness and yet I have sat next to people eating it and managed to not throw up over them. Same with lamb [buerk]. because I am an adult
It sounds really, really annoying.
Has anyone actually asked your father why he's behaving like this?
My father is like this, though not quite as extreme re: food (he used to be). He does have a lot of ASD traits though (I am diagnosed with ASD, I am not just chucking the term around as an excuse), which may some explain rigid adherence to extremely fussy eating. I know the level of gagging fear induced by some foods, though I am also pretty strict with myself about shutting up and getting on with things unless there's good evidence i am actually allergice to something.
However, mild ASD in someone clearly extremely high-functioning really isn't an excuse for selfishness. Men of that generation are frequently unlikely to accept psycho-babble type explanations of their behaviour - better to just continue aggressively, intransigently, pigheadedly, rather than appear weak or soft by trying to work out what's really going on here. My father is a lovely man in many ways, but is capable of being controlling, babyish, aggressive, dismissive and generally rude and intransigent. He also gets stressed a lot by sensory input generally, so these behaviours tend to appear in public.
What is hopeful is that with some genuine will, people can change. My father has got a lot more adventurous with food, and since retirement and with frequent put-downs for being grumpy from his beloved granddaughter, has actually learnt some manners. It can happen, even late in life 
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