Saturday, August 19, 2017

Picky eater.

 

Warning: what follows is all about eating and has nothing to do with reading.
Often at mealtime, and at meal-planning time, I am accused of being a picky eater.
I disagree.
If you ask me, I’m just a man of simple tastes. I can’t help it. I was raised that way. The town I grew up in was so small we did not eat pasta there. We had macaroni. And we had noodles. But if someone would have said “pasta” we would not have had any clue what that person was talking about.
Bread was bread. It was usually homemade, sometimes store-bought, but always just plain old bread. Nothing “artisan” and no one ever served up a loaf sprinkled with stuff that looks like it came off the bottom of a bird cage. I see that sort of thing a lot now. But I don’t eat it.
Vegetables mostly came in in the form of potatoes, peas, beans, corn, and carrots. Salads were occasional and as often as not made with potatoes or macaroni rather than green things—and none of that green stuff was ever kale or arugula, to my knowledge. I only remember being served artichokes one time, and that was on a cattle ranch in Nevada. Which surprised me, and still does.
Meat was a staple. Because we raised it, it was always available. Roast beef and steaks and hamburger and soup bones. Pork chops and roasts and ham and bacon and side pork. Lamb (which I never cottoned to; same with goat) and deer meat. Lots of chickens (and eggs), fried. Nowadays I’ve narrowed my meat menu down to beef and pork, with chicken (yardbird, as my brother calls it) very rarely, still fried. As for other poultry, I get turkeyed out for the year about three days after Thanksgiving. Fish and seafood were pretty much unknown at our house, except the occasional “fish stick” or the rare trout we caught.
We seldom ate out when I was a kid. A trip to the hamburger stand when out shopping was about it. In fact, I thought it unusual that people would go out to eat for no particular reason.
At our house nowadays we eat food somebody else cooked quite often, and it’s usually just plain old food. I’m told it’s because I’m a picky eater. But, truth be told, I am simply not interested in strange cookbook foodstuffs that usually end in the letter “i” and hide under some kind of sauce, and where “plating” and “presentation” are more important than taste.


7 comments:

  1. Good one, Rod. My aunt and uncle ranched in Montana. When we visited them and the cousins, we brought along hot dogs. I never could understand that until one of my cousins told me how tired they were of beef steak and roast, day after day.

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    1. Dad would eat sardines and crackers when he needed a change, sometimes limburger cheese. I never developed a taste for either.

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  2. This is very funny, Rod, even though I am one of those people who does not eat meat, loves pasta, and feels compelled to incorporate a lot of "that green stuff." :-)

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    1. Thanks, Tanja. In the interest of full disclosure, I confess I ate a salad (iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers with Thousand Island dressing and croutons) two days ago.

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    2. I am glad to hear it. Since that was 8 days ago, your might have had another one in the meantime. But don't worry, I won't tell on you.

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  3. Loved you blog on being a "picky eater," Rod. I can relate. For me, a great meal is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with a side of Fritos.

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    1. Thanks, Nancy. I like Fritos and jelly, but am too picky to eat peanut butter. My wife, however, eats it with a spoon.

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