To not understand people who don't love food

[pastabest]

We had left over jersey royals from our tea tonight. And I overcooked (significantly) the marmalade ham I was making but it's created an amazing shredded ham thing when I've gone to try and slice it.

As I shredded the ham into an enamel tin to put in the fridge alongside the Jersey royals I was imagining all the delicious lunches I could make with them if I was WFH tomorrow.

We've got coleslaw, spicy beetroot salad, boiled eggs, lots of nice pickled stuff, a wide variety of salad stuff, houmous, all the cheeses etc and a massive herb garden. My mouth is drooling thinking about the possibilities.

Suggested to to DP who is at home tomorrow that he could have it if he wanted but if not I had plans for it for tea.

He looked at me like I was mad and said 'I'll probably just have a cheese sandwich and a packet of crisps like always'.

He is a food is fuel person and I just don't get it. I'm going to be going to sleep tonight dreaming of pulled ham hock with rosemary and garlic fried potatoes with a peashoot salad, a scattering of spicy beetroot and dollops of whipped feta covered in fresh chives , cherry tomatoes and cucumber with a sprinkling of seasalt and a nice zesty lemon based dressing of some sort.

I look in the fridge and I see endless possibilities, he looks in the fridge and finds the quickest and simplest route to being fed - enjoyment optional.

OP I am on my way over.

I love food, but historically loved it a bit too much and put on 3 stone. I’ve now lost it and have been dedicated to fitness over the past couple of years. I’ve had to try and train myself to think of food more as fuel rather than being so obsessed with all the amazing things I could eat otherwise I would fall off the wagon hard…

having said that, your lunch sounds delightful!

See, I too love food……. But only if somebody else makes it for me!

I read this…...

I'm going to be going to sleep tonight dreaming of pulled ham hock with rosemary and garlic fried potatoes with a peashoot salad, a scattering of spicy beetroot and dollops of whipped feta covered in fresh chives , cherry tomatoes and cucumber with a sprinkling of seasalt and a nice zesty lemon based dressing of some sort.

and I just think, feck that’s too much effort. I’m exhausted just reading it 😂

Depends on what you enjoy. I used to love talking about new projects. And while I liked food I enjoyed projects more. If you work from home then you have more time to plan food. My mother didn’t plan food. I think you need to grow up doing it. I do love good healthy food. But cooking is a chore. I hate the mess. If I planned all the meals then maybe.

@pastabest can you adopt me?

I love the sound of all that. I just cannot be bothered to cook it!

It was helpful to me, I had no idea I could freeze hummus!

@HiddenInCubeOfCheese

I then became significantly overweight before dropping to a healthy weight in my late teens…and then a full blown eating disorder lasting years. Food to me is scary - I can’t stop when I start and it’s hugely linked to emotions (positive and negative). As a result, I’m often thinking about food and what I can budget in for that allowance or how I can burn it off. Easier to not get excited by it because the guilt after takes SO much headspace.

I'm really sorry that's really shit.

Me neither and certainly not the heavenly bliss that’s chipped feta so thank you

Omg your lunch sounds so nice. I think I'm going to have to recreate it

I’m with your DH. I have been type 1 diabetic since I was young so everything I ate had to be weighed, measured and carb counted etc and eaten at the right time. We literally had a colour coded book categorising foods between “always allowed” “sometimes allowed” and “treats only.” Funnily enough, I get very little enjoyment from food now, despite having more freedom due to advances in technology meaning I now have an insulin pump. Food mainly serves to curb hunger for me.

Sadly, all I get from your post about ham and potatoes is a sense of how much washing up that would create!

You sound like my husband, OP. He loves food, cooking and planning meals. He’s a passionate and talented cook and also thinks about nutrition and ensuring we’re eating so many plants a week, higher welfare meat etc.

He had the extreme misfortune to marry someone largely uninterested in food. I’ve never in my life gone to bed thinking about something that’s in the fridge. I’d eat next to nothing from one day to the next. My husband feeds me and I am mostly grateful, but I eat more than I’d want to eat, just to be sociable as he’s cooked it.

Away from home, only hunger reminds me to eat. Today, I had my first bit of food at 3pm and that was half a Pret soup. This is anathema to my husband who wakes up thinking about what he’s going to eat/cook/buy.

(He’s not remotely fat btw, I’ve made him sound like Augustus Gloop.)

I’m team DH

I eat through necessity. Very little appetite.

Today I’ve had a protein shake and a cottage pie with broccoli and that was only because eye mince needed using up. If it wasn’t for the fact that I cook for DH I’d probably end up very skinny indeed

I don't think I could have a meaningful relationship with someone who was totally indifferent to food.

Sorry. 🙂.
I read it as a bit patronising.
The point is with the Ops spread theres too much that won’t freeze and bits that might.
But overall a freezer full of stuff needs planning in a way a fridge full of yummy bits you can take out and pick at doesn’t.

But then think of the grill he’d have to clean!!

Jeez I thought I was mardy!

Ah, it’s tricky, isn’t it? I love food but often lack inspiration. And if you have (or have had) an eating disorder, then food is rarely simple. I’ve also been fascinated by all the references to ‘food noise’ recently; I don’t have (hear?) it, but it absolutely makes sense. I think it’s great if you can enjoy it, OP. (I mean, I do too; I just wish I was more imaginative about it.)

i appreciate it so much ,grew up poor so good food was a treat. My other half seems to be on the fence, he likes good food but wont go out of his way to make it good. A little fussy but generally appreciative of a good meal .Thank goodness or i would loose the plot .I like to cook and his pickiness is minor like cucumber,avocado, pickles,tomato,olives and fish ,so i can work around it

I love being creative with food all those snackish nibbles are lovely pickles coleslaw ,olives .Just a shame my other half is not a salad person but it could be worst

My whipped feta didn’t work in the freezer either I might add.

I used to be the same as you.
And then I had kids.
I'll get back there one day.

My DH loves food - but for someone else to make it. He would totally have the cheese sandwich and the packet of crisps if it's left up to him.

See I don't see it like that.

I make a ham most weeks from a cheap gammon shank from the butchers - it normally cuts like ham and gets used like thick cut sandwich ham, either in sandwiches or e.g. chicken and ham pie. It's part of my routine but tonight I forgot it and it overcooked and became slow cooked/ pulled ham hock.

The Jersey royals were leftover from tonight's meal - I cooked more than we needed with the intention they would become fried potatoes or potato salad in the next fee days.

The rest is literally spoon out of the tub on to a plate decoratively. Its essentially leftovers with salad.

I don't think I've ever gone to bed thinking about food!

I hate meal planning, food shopping, thinking of what we all like, then cooking. One of the worst household chores!

I track calories, carbs and protein which is probably a good thing as if I didn't, I'd live off cereal, bagels and crisps!

I’ve no real interest in food. I have one meal a day and that’s it. Often a simple sandwich will do, as I can’t be arsed with anything else.

Its all just completely boring to me. If I could pop a single pill that did the job, I’d be all over that.

I'm like your DP but I get where you're coming from
As a child I once got a reheated roast dinner served up 3 times as I couldn't eat it... Still didn't eat it.