The Joy and Horror of Being an Anti-Picky Eater

I work with a bunch of lovely women who really like to eat. One is vegan, another vegetarian, I’m holding down the meat-eater’s corner, but we all love to talk about food—what’s in your lunch, a new good recipe, plotting our next eating field trip. During one lunchtime chat about foods that we hate, I could think of, well, no foods worthy of my hatred. And I’m starting to realize this is a mixed blessing.

Sure, when I was a kid certain things were gross. Bratwurst. Beef vegetable soup. Asparagus. But now I love all those things. And it probably has something to do with my mother’s insistence that as kids, we ate grownup food. No one ever trimmed an icky crust off a sandwich for me, or made me buttery bland noodles. We ate Chinese, German, Italian, even a little French food (ok if you count French onion soup), and my mother is an excellent cook. Every night between 6:30 and 6:45 my dad would come home from work, and mom would put dinner on the table. Always a veggie, a salad, a protein and a starch, and it was 99% of the time some of the best food you’ve ever had.

Now it turns out I like all of the weird foods that make little kids want to cry. Beets, braunschwieger, lima beans, Brussels sprouts, broccoli (why do all of these foods have b’s in them?). I like anchovies and all types of seafood. Spicy food. Really, the only thing I could think of that sounded kind of nasty to me was cottage cheese. I reveled in that discovery and announced it. Then, two weeks later in a hospital cafeteria I threw some cc on my salad and thought it was pretty damn good.

Does this make me a garbage disposal? It certainly means I turn down less food than your average person. That sandwich has mustard on it? Bring it on. There are nuts in this muffin? Score. But it also COULD mean that I’m open to eating new healthy things all the time. Kale and quinoa and other such things I learned about at the Whole Foods salad bar. But that stuff takes effort. Whatever’s within reach in the vending machine and says either “chili” or “cheese” on it takes no effort and is ripe for the scarfing. So I guess what I’m getting at is that part of this little project is going to have to be stocking my fridge with more of those weird, yummy, healthy things I like. And then actually cooking them before they go bad. Sigh. But that is a tale for another day.