Recently on social media there have been a variety of lists posted that basically ask to see if you are as picky about foods as they are. The lists include things like Sushi, black jelly beans, cabbage, sardines, mushrooms, green and black olives, the list goes on and on.
I looked at a couple of lists and realized my husband aka “Mr. Romance” is also “Mr. Picky Eater”, it would appear I got the two for one bonus! On one list there were only two things on it that my husband would eat and one was black jelly beans.
Cooking for a picky eater can be one of the biggest challenges in a long marriage because the list of foods you can prepare is so small and after forty-three years of cooking about five different meals, one tends to get bored, aka insane.
Here is the basic menu I have had to work off of for all of those years: beef, chicken, pork, potatoes, and corn. That’s it. If you want to count pork ‘n beans as a vegetable then there are two he likes. Oh wait, I left out canned peas. The list of foods he’s never tasted is far longer than the list of foods he will eat. Lettuce, cabbage, any casserole, lasagna, any Mexican, Chinese, basically most foods.
This is a man who grew up on a farm, whose parents had a garden every year, who is a part time farmer himself, and this is how limited his food group is! It boggles my mind. Until we were married he had never had a grilled cheese sandwich. His mother, bless her, made meat and potatoes all the time. Obviously they never made him sit at the table until he ate his vegetables.
I grew up in a house with six kids and two working parents. If my mom could throw things together in a casserole dish and serve it, that’s what we got. There are not too many things I won’t eat, mushrooms being one, seafood being another (unless you count frozen or fast food fish then I’m good) and sushi being the last. Other than that, I will at least try most foods. I’ve tried kimchi, seaweed, candied ginger, stroopwaffles, most of this was from our foreign exchange students. Stroopwaffles were the only favorite.
Each week I have to rotate the same menu items to accommodate the picky eater. We have chili, spaghetti, pizza, meat and potatoes, rice and potato soup or hamburgers. That’s about it. I’ve done this for FORTY-THREE years. That is over 15,700 meals I’ve prepared of the same five things! Let that sink in.
If I want to eat something like a casserole or lasagna or tacos, I have to make myself a separate meal, or make it for myself at lunch. If you know how much I “love” to cook, you know I don’t often choose those options. So my foods have become limited by default of being married to a picky eater. My life as a foodie is non existent.
I truly believe picky eaters are a genetic strain that passes down through generations. My youngest daughter was always such a picky eater and now her son is a true picky eater, he rivals his grandfather. My daughter has since expanded her food groupsand I hope her son will too. My husband however, has stayed true to his pickiness, but that could also be the German stubbornness in him.
Until next time…
Toni