Picky Grouchy Non-Cook
Personalities Related and Relevant to the Non-Cook
Personalities Related and Relevant to the Non-Cook
The Picky Eater
Although an entire volume could and should be devoted to the Picky Eater, it is possible to make some brief remarks here. The Picky Eater is not necessarily by any means a non-cook. In fact, pickiness is a quality that seems to crop up in all kinds of people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, political leaning, or cooking status. The people it does not crop up in are the people who are having, and many of those who have had, an experience of real hunger. In the grand scheme of food related problems, pickiness is barely a real issue at all. However, in the not grand scheme -- in the small scheme of luckier lives, pickiness often reares it's picky head and demands its picky attention.
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If the Picky Eater is a child he or she is called a pain in the bootie. What else can be said? One of my children can be considered a Picky Eater – on the all white food diet, as our pediatrician termed it without any sign of alarm. One Halloween, when the family was sitting around after trick or treating, making ourselves ill by eating too much candy, my husband noticed that our picky one was spitting out about every third candy. My beloved husband caught my eye and nodded over toward the pile of rejected candy. “Picky,” he said with a wry sort of snort. I actually though it showed integrity, being picky across the board like that.
If the Picky Eater is a cook, he or she is called discriminating or is said to have sophisticated taste, or, less charitably, is referred to as a food snob. These are the types who can only bear to eat fancy expensive chocolates that come in subtle looking boxes. Since I’m on the subject of chocolates, I will mention here that another kind of Picky Eater may or may not be concerned with the quality of the chocolates but is definitely concerned with the presence of a nut, say, or a cherry, or that icky almond flavor present in some of the chocolates in the box. It might sound outrageous -- like a bit of far flung mythology -- but it’s actually true that this is the kind of Picky Eater who will take a little bite out of each chocolate and then put it back in the box until she finds the one she likes. Cook or non-cook, I think this kind of picky chocolate biter-putter-backer deserves a category of her own. If the Picky Eater is a non-cook he or she can be referred to as the No-Eat Non-Cook. This no-eat designation is an exaggeration. But there’s a grain of truth. And it is amazing what a great variety of foods it is possible for a person to refuse to eat. It is perhaps even more amazing what a great number and variety of foods a person can refuse to even try. Often, the not trying totally eclipses the not liking because the not trying comes first, permanently beating the not liking to the punch. This is a testament to the economy and straight shooting of the Picky Eater. Why bother to not like if you can not try? Often an identifying mark of the Picky Eater, the not trying, drives not picky eaters and cooks crazy. And when they have managed to string together something to put in the table, it even drives non-cooks crazy. How do you know you don’t like it if you haven’t even tried it?! This is what is said. Or sometimes: how do you know you don’t like it if you haven’t even tasted it?! So the poor Picky Eater must either try it or taste it to get any peace. I would like to state here emphatically and for the record that “trying” and “tasting” are the same thing as eating. In order to do either of those things the item must pass your lips, and go all the way into your mouth. After that, unless something prevents it, the item will go down your throat and into your belly. And after that, the digestive process begins and whatever that food item once was, part of it is on the way to becoming part of you. If you ask me, that’s eating. So why the euphemism? I think it is because the person attempting to get the Picky Eater to eat the food knows that he can say "try" or "taste" a greater number of times than he can say "eat" before starting to sound really controlling and rude. It’s true that the unwillingness to try new things can seem to speak of a certain closed mindedness. It can make the Picky Eater look small, provincial, narrow minded, stubborn, and even dull. Wouldn’t it be nice to let a person hide these failings instead of constantly pointing them out by calling attention to the fact that the person hasn't tried or tasted? By insisting that the Picky Eater eat what she does not wish to eat, the person on the other end of the insisting is forcing her into a defensive position. There are tons of reasons not to eat something! How do you know that the poor unfortunate Picky Eater you have been harassing is not ill, heartsick, or full? Give her the benefit of the doubt. Leave her alone, will you?? The Picky Eater can be a great comfort to the non-cook because he confirms that cooking/providing food is necessary but not sufficient to feeding such an eater. It has to be just the right food. If there’s more to it than just the cooking, and you, the non-cook can’t even do that, then why try at all when the project is possibly or probably doomed? The right kind of Picky Eater can also be a great advocate for the non-cook. If the Picky Eater is the type who just wants to be left alone with a box of crackers, she will embrace the non-cook as a fellow traveler, or at least someone who is not breathing down her neck trying to get her to try or taste a big dripping hunk of bison stew, or a strange shriveled up thing that is supposed to be a mushroom, or whatever totally fine or even totally special and rare thing it is, only it's something she doesn't like. In the best of all worlds, the Picky Eater and the non-cook coexist in a mutually beneficial live and let live style. How nice to practice reciprocity: we don’t cook it, they don’t eat it. |
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