Jack Sprat Could Eat No Fat...

Jack Sprat could eat no fat,
His wife could eat no lean;
And so betwixt them both,
They lick'd the platter clean.

Those lucky dogs! I was contemplating this poem today as I made yet another dual breakfast to accommodate the Picky Eater, who refuses to eat eggs with runny yolks. He got fried eggs, yolks broken and cooked through, I had mine poached. He also refuses to eat seafood in any form (except for his annual New Years Eve shrimp cocktail, 4 pieces and he's done for the year) and tomatoes. Chicken on the bone upsets him, so I have to work around that as well, although I sometimes tell him to suck it up on that front. Pepperoni and sausage on pizza gives him terrible heartburn, so that's out too. He won't touch the beautiful homemade salad dressing I prepare, preferring Ranch to the exclusion of all other dressings. Fat on meat freaks him out completely. I won't even go into his veggie prohibitions (some he'll eat cooked, some only raw, every now and then he'll decide he doesn't like a vegetable at all anymore, usually right after I tell him what I'm making for dinner), but they vary from day to day.

To be perfectly honest, he could live off of ham sandwiches with yellow mustard & lettuce on potato bread and canned soup for the rest of his life and be perfectly happy. I've tried the "eat it or you don't get dinner" gambit and it fails. He'd rather go hungry than eat a beautiful piece of salmon.

Thinking about this made me curious. What foods does your family refuse to share with you? Anyone else out there making accommodations/dual meals for the picky eaters in their lives? What lengths do you go to for your loved ones and where do you draw the line?

One of our friends won't eat any vegetables or fruit. I'm talking no raspberry sauce on a chocolate cake-type of no fruit eating. Luckily he is OK with me making fun of him when we go out.

Another guy I know ate only fruit for a year. It really takes all kinds, doesn't it?

My dear husband, Cabbagehead, will eat just about anything. Over the years I have introduced him to some new foods—or rather convinced him that the versions he had before my cooking did not fairly represent the food (this is true for lamb, chicken livers, and artichokes). But our children are another story. My 16-year-old son is open-minded and is willing to try most things. But he is not keen on fish of any kind and he quite passionately hates lamb. Our 19-year-old daughter claims that a year at college and a former foodie boyfriend have changed her eating habits for the better, but there are still many things she won’t eat—pork (except bacon), chicken unless in boneless breast chunks or fried tenders, steak, cabbage (a sadness for her dad), asparagus, mushrooms, runny egg yolks, and more. My dinner policy is that I only cook one meal but that I try to have at least one food that I know each kid will eat. If I make pork chops, there’s pasta for the daughter. If I make asparagus, there are also potatoes and salad. Sometimes she only ends up eating potatoes and bread, but she always compliments me on the meal! When the kids are away, Cabbagehead and I get to eat anything we want, which is great. Bring on the lamb chops, the liver, the beets and beet greens, the cooked spinach, yeah!

My family is evolving. My husband has learned to eat many things since we've met. My kids are coming around too. Neither of my kids likes potatoes unless it is french fries. My youngest does like potato pancakes now. I'm the only one at home who will eat spinach, couscous, rice pudding, tapioca pudding and bread pudding. My youngest will not eat hamburgers; my husband will not eat hot dogs. The oldest loves broccoli and cauliflower, hates peas. The youngest is the opposite. I'm old school in that I make a protein, a starch and a vegetable for dinner. More often than not, the kids will just get protein and vegetables since they won't eat potatoes and the youngest won't eat rice. Everyone is eating whole grain pasta now. Neither child will eat fish, so I'll usually cook it when it's just my husband and me eating. I do occasionally make different things for different people, but that's the exception, not the rule.

I don't eat olives (I once had a reaction to black olives), stinky or blue cheeses, or things that are outrageously hot and spicy (my reflux rebels terribly.)

At first, they refused just about everything and now they refuse close to nothing. My wife still doesn't like most olives or super stinky cheeses. My son is still not a fan of tomatoes or chocolate, even though I'm sure he'll eventually come around. Neither of them tolerate heat very well (even though they do like it), which leads to a regular 'negotiation' over how spicy to order our som tum. But that's the very short list. As for accomodating them, a couple of weeks back when a friend hosted an arranged dinner at Double Li, which specializes in fiery Szechuan cuisine, I went solo because I knew they wouldn't be able to handle it.

What my wife often says -- and I agree with her -- is that there are many foods she loves now that she used to think the she didn't like. The difference is in the quality of the ingredients and their preparation. When you grow up in central Indiana eating freezer-burned/oven-baked fish sticks, perhaps you end up believing that you don't like fish. But then, when you have great fish/seafood on one of the coasts or in a number of select local venues, you begin to develop and appreciation and even a craving for those things. Foie gras, sweetbreads, liver, etc. all used to require a bit of arm-twisting. These days, we 'negotiate' over which one of us gets to order them.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:When you grow up in central Indiana eating freezer-burned/oven-baked fish sticks, perhaps you end up believing that you don't like fish. But then, when you have great fish/seafood on one of the coasts or in a number of select local venues, you begin to develop and appreciation and even a craving for those things.

Well, it's a hypothesis, but I'm not yet persuaded. Just because you grow up not being able to afford certain things or having access to them doesn't mean you won't like them later when you can and do.

Katie wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:When you grow up in central Indiana eating freezer-burned/oven-baked fish sticks, perhaps you end up believing that you don't like fish. But then, when you have great fish/seafood on one of the coasts or in a number of select local venues, you begin to develop and appreciation and even a craving for those things.

Well, it's a hypothesis, but I'm not yet persuaded. Just because you grow up not being able to afford certain things or having access to them doesn't mean you won't like them later when you can and do.

Case in point - the Picky Eater grew up in CT/MA and cannot stand seafood. Go figure!!!!!

It's nice to hear that others have had success in getting their picky eaters to accept new foods, it gives me hope. It really isn't a big deal for me to fix a piece of fish for myself and a chicken breast for the P.E., but it would be nice not to have to deal with it at all.

I'll admit that I occasionally use underhanded tactics. An example - I'll make a dip or soup with crab in it and not tell him what it was until he has eaten and enjoyed it.

Katie wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:When you grow up in central Indiana eating freezer-burned/oven-baked fish sticks, perhaps you end up believing that you don't like fish. But then, when you have great fish/seafood on one of the coasts or in a number of select local venues, you begin to develop and appreciation and even a craving for those things.

Well, it's a hypothesis, but I'm not yet persuaded. Just because you grow up not being able to afford certain things or having access to them doesn't mean you won't like them later when you can and do.

Are we not saying the same thing? Who said anything about money?

I wasn't generalizing. I was speaking about my wife and I, both of whom ate fish sticks growing up, mainly up because they were the most convenient thing for our mothers to keep in the house and make for us. They were the culinary coin of the realm in the suburbs in which we grew up in the 1970's. Thankfully, I later ended up in New Orleans for a couple of years, where I developed a love of fish and seafood. Wife moved to Chicago, where the same thing happened to her. Maybe it would have happened even we hadn't been exposed to these new places and their wider range of quality offerings. Of course, we can't be sure. But I do think that this is the epitomatic example of having one's horizons broadened.

Conversely, being exposed to something in one of its finest forms isn't necessarily a guarantee that you'll end up developing a taste for it, either. Sometimes, you just don't like something. I really hate kumquats. Cannot stand them. And I've had very good ones at some very nice restaurants. Seriously.

=R=

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Money has nothing to do with it. My mother was an excellent cook and my sister and I wanted no part of her scallops, her trout, her salmon, her white sauce, the weekly trips to the fish monger. We wanted fish sticks like all the other kids had. My grandfather used to MAIL her fish from Ireland (which made the mailman really really mad at us). Those were my father's favorite dinners. We wanted frozen junk. We didn't want to be the immigrant kids eating fish from the mail. How I wish we could eat one of those dinners now.

Well, I was just guessing that it would have been prohibitively expensive to get fresh seafood flown in daily to central Indiana back a few decades ago...but I could be wrong. There's always catfish, of course.

Ronnie, I realize you meant to describe your wife's perspective in particular, rather than generalize, but when you word it as "When you grow up in central Indiana eating freezer-burned/oven-baked fish sticks, perhaps you end up ..." etc., you have to admit, that sounds a bit like a generalization.

Who said anything about money? I did; I didn't say anybody else did. "When you grow up not being able to afford certain things OR have access to them..." etc.

I completely agree about not liking things you have access to, such as kumquats for you. When I was growing up my mother made sure I had far more access to Brussels sprouts than I ever wanted. I left for college at 16 and have very happily never eaten a Brussel sprout in the nearly 30 years since.

I'll begin by saying: My mother was a cook, my husband's was not.
I grew up on a farm, eating only the very freshest ingredients. The hubby grew up in the city, eating frozen/ boxed dinners.
We've been married for over 5 years now, and I have always made my food with a certain pride and respected the art. Maybe I'd make a delicious sesame seared tuna with haricots verts or a prime roast with mashed potatoes infused with white truffles etc evert single night. Want to know what we had for dinner last night? Manwich with Jay's BBQ chips and canned corn. Why? Because it makes him happy. It's actually a treat for him to have Velveeta Mac n Cheese!

He cannot understand the idea that food is not only a necessity. He really appreciates how pretty the presentations are, but he could care less if it's a NZ rack of lamb or a frozen Bubba Burger.
While this killed me in the beginning of our relationship, I've learned to deal with it. I'll usually spend a good 2 or 3 hours making myself a delicious lunch and maybe 1/2 hour throwing something together for dinner.

Crazy, but true.

bella54330 wrote:Want to know what we had for dinner last night? Manwich with Jay's BBQ chips and canned corn. Why? Because it makes him happy. It's actually a treat for him to have Velveeta Mac n Cheese!

Hey, wait a sec ... what are you doing with my husband?!?!?

While this killed me in the beginning of our relationship, I've learned to deal with it. I'll usually spend a good 2 or 3 hours making myself a delicious lunch and maybe 1/2 hour throwing something together for dinner.

Okay, now I get it ... you're me.