Have I told you before that I’m a picky eater?
My food pickiness extends past just not-liking certain foods (I’m looking at YOU tomatoes) and textures.
For instance, if a food is supposed to be hot (soup, as opposed to salad), I want it to be reeeeaalllllllly hot. I cannot stand, say, lukewarm spaghetti sauce.
So if I go to a restaurant and the food is cold, I get very irritated. Like at those restaurants where you are dining with a group and the wait staff brings only two people’s dishes out and they have to sit there politely as their food gets cold while everyone waits for the rest of the dishes to come out?
Yeah, I HATE that. It makes me very antsy. It’s a dining-experience killer.
By the way, I always tell the people who get their food first to eat it right away before it gets cold. First of all, because they SHOULD eat it before it gets cold, and second of all, because I want to be able to eat MY food before it gets cold and so I like to spread good food karma. (And if you tell me to my food before it gets cold, I WILL. None of this, “Oh no, I’ll wait until everyone gets their food.” I mean, I will likely wait until you tell me to eat it… I am not RUDE… But I am not going to TURN YOU DOWN if you suggest it.)
My husband thinks I’m weird. He’s okay eating foods at a variety of temperatures. Just because stir fry is supposed to be eaten hot doesn’t mean that he needs it to be hot to enjoy it. NOT the same for me.
In fact, the worst thing about Thanksgiving was that my sweet, loving mother-in-law insisted on taking a photo of the table while we were all sitting there with food on our plates. And she has many, MANY good qualities… But taking photos quickly is NOT one of them.
Of course, you can’t yell at your mother-in-law for sweetly trying to capture a happy occasion and your first Thanksgiving triumph for posterity. So I drank some wine and doused my food with hot gravy as quickly as I could once the photo session had ended. Clearly, I survived.
(Seriously. I know having hot food is not a life or death situation. Some people don’t even HAVE food, let alone at the ideal temperature. It is merely a PREFERENCE.)
Knowing this about me, it’s probably no surprise that I would NEVER eat, say, leftover chili straight from the fridge.
But the fact is, I don’t even like SMELLING food-that-should-be-hot when it’s not hot. Like if I take leftover soup out of the fridge to warm it up on the stove, I will purposely breathe out of my mouth so I don’t have to smell it.
My husband sometimes will pull a container of leftover, say, pot roast out of the fridge and ask me to give it a sniff to see if it’s still good… And I just can’t do it. The thought turns my stomach.
Delicious-smelling-when-hot food does NOT smell delicious when it’s cold.
Do you have any Strong Feelings about food temperature? Or any Food Peculiarities in general? If so, I would like to hear them now.
Hmm… I do have a couple of quirks when it comes to food temperature! I’ve never understood the cold leftover pizza for breakfast thing. I can’t eat it cold, sorry! Also, a typical dish in Spain is tortilla (made with eggs and potatoes basically), and a lot of people like it for breakfast. I don’t mind having it for breakfast if they’ve made it that same day, but if it is from the previous night? Forget it. My boyfriend thinks I’m totally weird for that, especially since making a small tortilla for two takes as long as making a bigger one, so it’s understandable than when he does make one there will be leftovers.
I’m that way for some food-not all. I like my food hot, whereas Russ doesn’t really like his hot – because he doesn’t have the patience to wait and burns his mouth. I would rather have hot food and wait to eat it over having warm food and finishing it up cold.
This makes me laugh. T is definitely more like this than me. I eat cold stirfry or cold pizza from the fridge no problem, but he refuses. I decline food based on texture – pears, cooked mushrooms, zucchini (although I’m trying to get over this one). And I’m always the girl saying “EAT, EAT!” if their food gets to the table before mine 😉
Yeah, often I eat things that are meant to be hot cold because heating them up ruins the texture (pizza, for instance. . .all floppy when it’s been microwaved. Gross).
HAHAHA … this totally cracked me up! You sound like my daughter in law. All of us in our family are NOT picky eaters – so I am always intrigued by someone who is. Good insight. 🙂
oxoxox
Denalee
Haha. I don’t understand why servers can’t bring all the dishes out at the same time anyway… I mean isn’t that what they are paid for. If you all didn’t want to eat together then you wouldn’t all be there TOGETHER. I get annoyed when people eat early and they make mouth sounds. When I hear sounds my stomach turns and I’m no longer hungry! I was HARD on Gooner to eat with her mouth closed and EVERYONE teases me that “she’s just a baby.” Whatever, I feel like she should eat with her mouth closed! And it’s not like she gets a time out… but she does get a gentle reminder! I mean come on, she eats at the table with us! I want to enjoy my dinner thank you!
That’s funny. I have no food temp preferences. My weird food thing is that I HATE ketchup. We don’t even have any in the house. My husband bought some about 6 years ago when we started living together and I threw it out because it was contaminating all the food in the fridge. He’s learned to live without.
I’m definately a texture/taste eater. I’m pretty picky with veggies. And the ones I do eat I eat raw. I hate mushy hot cooked veggies, yuck!
I am dying over here! And love this post so much. I can’t have cold food either… well some but very very few items of food can I eat cold. But food that is meant to be hot is meant to be HOT. Like really really hot. I am even like that for my tea, or coffee – I order everything “extra hot”.
If I’m at a restaurant with a group, I’m incapable of eating before everyone has their food, even if they urge me to. I’ll pick up the fork and pick at it but I cannot start enjoying it if other people have empty places – people who have never eaten with me think I’m being overly particular but it seriously gives me anxiety. Also I’m the opposite about temperature: I love to eat things cold that are traditionally cold. Some of my favorites are super gross and I only will eat only because it makes others nauseous.
Lol! You’re hilarious! I can eat lukewarm or cold food, but not happily, I’ll admit. For instance, if I bring leftover pizza for lunch at school and can’t find a microwave, I will eat it cold, but only because if I don’t, I’ll be starving all afternoon.
I do share your disdain about temperature with coffee, though. I really don’t like lukewarm coffee, but I take my own carafe with me when I leave my apartment in the morning. Because there’s no eating or drinking on the DC Metro, though, I have to patiently hold my coffee cup on the train WITHOUT DRINKING IT. By the time I got to school, it was cold-ish.
I’ve discovered that if I use a mug with sippy hole that closes completely (as opposed to just being an open hole) and microwave the coffee first, so that it’s basically boiling when I put it in the carafe, then my coffee will still be hot by the time I get to school. Extravagant lengths I go to for this hot coffee, you see!
I don’t think I have very strong temperature preferences, but I definitely have very strong likes and dislikes for food. Matt is worse than I am though. Matt doesn’t like old food. As in, if he could get away with it, he wouldn’t eat leftovers ever, not even from the night before. Me on the other hand, I would happily eat something that I can’t remember how long it has been in there, as long as it is still the proper color. (As long as it has been properly reheated, obviously.)
I don’t have an issue with eating something that it supposed to be hot but isn’t quite so hot – BUT I do hate smelling cold food when it’s supposed to be hot. Ick.
I’m trying SO hard to like tomatoes, but it has been on my dislike list for so so long. I did read that they are one of the few veggies that are healthier after they’ve been cooked… and so if I get them cooked I will wolf them down as quickly as I can. But I still can’t eat them raw.
I don’t eat food that is supposed to be warm if it’s cold (like un-heated up leftovers). My husbands biggest aversion is cold soup, like cucumber soup (which is supposed to be cold). But that is the ONLY thing he won’t eat. Lol.
Hahahaha! This is the funniest post ever. I am cracking up at the thought of you even avoiding smelling cold food that should be hot! I love it. And I couldnt’ agree more – love me some HOT food!
You crack me up, I was laughing out loud at this! I don’t really have any really quirky food things (especially nothing that compares with yours 🙂 ) but there is something I’ve been wanting to write about but was afraid to, because I thought people would think I’m insane. Now you’ve inspired me to come out with it! 🙂 It will be the topic of my next post, so stay tuned. I just hope you still want to be my friend after you read it!
P.S. THANK YOU for your comment on my last post. You’re the best.
My coffee MUST be very very hot or I just can’t take it.
My husband can eat food cold, straight from the refrigerator. And while I can do this with somethings, post roast or cold used-to-be-hot meat of any kind is just gross. He things cold, leftover, slimy pot roast is the greatest thing ever. Gag.
OMG, this post made me laugh so hard! Eating cold food when it is clearly supposed to be hot really stresses me out. example: cold pizza for breakfast? YUCK…. never. Gazpacho? nope… reminds me too much of soup that is supposed to be hot. I once caught my roommate eating chili out of a can and I got so mad I took it out of his hand and heated it up for him.
Totally with you on this one!
Oh wow, I never met anyone who felt as strongly about this as I do!! I would rather burn the ever-loving tar out of my mouth than eat something lukewarm. I also cannot stand most leftovers. Soup is just about bearable, but anything that changes even slightly in appearance, texture, etc with the chilling and reheating process is gag-worthy to me. I’m a really picky eater anyway, and willingly produce three different meals each night for kids, husband and me, respectively.
Oh, and I think raw eggs are about the worst smelling food item ever. Sort of like wet dog smell to me.
YES. I feel identical about all of it.
Except the eggs – I think banana smell trumps eggs, but only slightly.
Oh god – bananas must be handled very carefully. One brown spot and they are too ripe for me. They do not belong in lunch bags, where they contaminate everything else with their scent/flavor. I once had a friend pull out a thoroughly over-ripened banana from within her diaper bag and literally had to turn away.
Hmm, I never realized quite how psychotic I can be about this stuff!!
This is funny! I generally don’t like sniffing food to know if it is ‘still good’. But I’m very concerned with germs and food safety so I try to do it. But ew!!!
I will eat anything at any temperature. In fact, some things that should be cold, like a can of diet dr. pepper, I actually prefer room temperature, and some things that should be hot, like mac and cheese, I prefer – or at least enjoy as much as if it were hot – cold.
BUT, Thanksgiving dinner is not one of those things. It should be hot. This year we spent Thanksgiving at my older sister’s, and after we all got our food, her and her husband had everyone, one by one, say something they are thankful for. There were ~12 people, and it took FOREVER, and my food was SO cold by the end. But no one else was eating, so I didn’t either. It was terrible, and it ruined everything. I didn’t even finish my plate of food. So, I agree with you there.