I have been a ‘picky eater’ for as long as I can remember. My parents tell me that, as a baby, I ate everything. Until I was three or four, when, suddenly, everything had to be plain: plain pasta, plain rice, no sauce, and a whole unwritten list of other food rules.
Dinnertime has always been anxiety-ridden. Growing up, I would come to the table to occasionally see something foreign on my plate: a piece of broccoli, a lone Brussels sprout, a slice of corned beef. All were an attempt to make me try something different, but I would do anything to get out of eating these intruders. Sometimes that meant hiding a group of peas under mashed potato. Other times, skillfully lowering gravy-coated meat under the table, where our dog would lick away the evidence.
Often, I would be brazen, resting my knife and fork on my plate, signaling I was done despite the ‘bad foods’ remaining untouched. Five bites until I could leave the table, dad would say. I’d refuse. Three bites. No. My sister complained at being made to wait, when she’d polished off her meal half an hour ago. One bite. One bite and you can leave. Sometimes, I relented at that point, which often came an hour or more after sitting down to eat. I’d regret the decision as soon as my gag reflex was activated. Mostly, I stubbornly sat there until I was sent to bed.
Chinese is boiled rice and prawn crackers. Thai is satay chicken skewers with no satay sauce.
Takeaway or eating out is usually easy because I choose the only suitable thing on the menu. Unless it’s the hardest thing in the world: “We can’t go here, Brittney won’t have anything.” Chinese is boiled rice and prawn crackers. Thai is satay chicken skewers with no satay sauce. Italian is cheese pizza (an improvement on pizza crusts – my mum, dad and sister would bite until no toppings remained and stack them on my plate).
My poor parents tried everything to make me like more foods. But at some point, they resigned themselves to cooking a separate meal for me on the nights they wanted beef stroganoff or stir-fry, and hoped it was just a phase. Perhaps they’d suffer through my teenage years and, on the other side, I’d have a matured set of taste buds.
Fast-forward to 23-year-old me, and little has changed. I live with my partner, with whom I have to negotiate weekly grocery shops and nightly meals. He has made a bit of headway in three years, teaching me to tolerate salmon, grimace through bok choy, and enjoy turkey. But when he asked me out to dinner on our first date, my panic was far more intense than the usual pre-date butterflies.
He could choose somewhere really fancy, where I wouldn’t eat anything. Or where my only options would be ordering from the kids’ menu or insisting I wasn’t hungry and picking at fries. I’d have to ask where he wanted to go, and hope they had a menu available online. I might have to ask for something without sauce and face questions about why I didn’t eat sauce, which would inevitably lead to questions about what else I didn’t eat. So, I replied with a counter-suggestion. What about dessert and drinks a bit later?
Thinking about food takes up more time and emotional energy than I care to admit.
Travelling has been hard: refusing chicken feet in Hong Kong, trying warthog in Zimbabwe (and not hating it!), and surviving off rice and naan in India. It’s difficult to become immersed in new places, embrace spontaneity and be culturally polite when finding something to eat on foreign soil is such a barrier.
In India’s Udaipur last year, a group of us caught a tuk-tuk to a street food stall selling momos, a South Asian dumpling. While everyone else ordered and ate, I sat on Google Maps, zooming in on surrounding streets for a McDonalds or Dominos. As it turned out, we thankfully found a pizza place just a few blocks away, where I could order a Margherita without fresh tomato.
Most recently, I started a new job at which we’re provided lunch – a dream come true for most. Suddenly, my relationship with food – prohibitive, shameful and anxiety-inducing as always – has become professionally public. I hope for lunchtimes without social embarrassment and hunger, and that new colleagues won’t comment on my plate of bread and cucumber (checked for no sign of dressing).
I’d love to be able to eat more, to agree to dinner invites without stalking restaurant websites.
Thinking about food takes up more time and emotional energy than I care to admit. It’s exhausting to be invited to someone’s house for a meal and risk appearing rude if I ask what my hosts are cooking, or to awkwardly ask friends if we can order something else when they suggest sushi. And it wears me down: lying about not being hungry, feeling like a burden when I go out for dinner, speaking my order softly to the waitstaff to avoid embarrassment, facing unspoken judgement from people who think I’m just being difficult.
But why am I like this? I’d love to be able to eat more, to agree to dinner invites without stalking restaurant websites. Is it neophobia, a fear of new foods? ? Am I who finds some flavours overwhelming? Is what we flippantly label as ‘picky eating’ (as though we’re simply choosing not to cooperate) ?
Maybe I’ll get to that twentieth serving of bok choy and my gag reflex will reward me for my persistence. Or maybe I just need a little longer – perhaps my taste buds will mature at 25, or 30? A girl can dream. In the meantime, I’ll just keep hoping chicken schnitzel is on the menu.
