Other Weird Food Opinions like Dan and Jeff?

As someone who can be picky, but not to the extent that Jeff or Dan is, I have faced my share of ridicule over my food choices. But Giantbomb seems like an accepting place for weird food likes and dislikes, so why not share some of them!

The one thing that always gets the weirdest reaction from people is the fact that I don't like cheese. I've never eaten a cheeseburger, because I cannot abide the idea of processed cheese sullying the delicious taste of a burger. This leads into the fact that I've never eaten a Big Mac from McDonalds. I basically don't mention that to anyone, I get some shocked looks, plus a couple people who have offered to buy me one. I could get it without cheese, but I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

Anyone else with strange likes and dislikes for food? Anyone else on my side of the anti-cheese?

I'd say I'm at least as bad as Dan was

I enjoy eating buttered (with margarine) weetabix. I think hot-dogs are gross, and I don't like tomato ketchup, mustard, or mayonnaise.

I could survive off macaroni and tomatoes for the rest of my life.

...also fuck ranch or anything but plain and ketchup chips

I was completely dumbfounded by that segment of the podcast, the thought of living a quarter century never having had salad, etc...

I can't eat anything tomato based but thats is due to food allergy not pickiness. Avocados are the only food thing I don't get, oily and mostly tasteless.

I will straight up eat a block of cheese. I'm not proud of it and I'll usually feel like shit afterwards but when I see a block of cheese I just...get crazy or something.

i always hated Tree Nuts, i avoided them like the plague and never wanted anything to do with them. As I got older I started trying new things however and one day I took a tree-nut Nature valley granola bar to my SAT-2s.

Turns out I hated tree nuts because I was deathly allergic to them, and my avoidance of them had kept me from discovering this until I was 18 and 3/4 of the way through a series of important college entrance exams (Which were thrown away because college board wouldn't accept tests i passed out halfway through...)

A less rational dislike would be my hatred of Asparagus, that stuff is nasty, its bitter and a chewy and bleh...

I hate berries. All of them. Fuck every last berry.

Oddly enough I can still tolerate the juices and so on. Just not the raw, unhinged berrydom.

I have a parent who cooks a variety of things and made me try things at least once (but thankfully didn't force me to keep eating things I didn't like). I also like dabbling into new foods on a regular basis, so I can't understand someone who wants to eat the same things over and over again.

In describing his own food madness, Dan was also describing my madness. Even the salad thing, and even the "I'm finally branching out in recent years. A little." It's kinda nice to know I'm not alone in my indefensible lunacy, though.

Except I'm fine with ketchup.

I always used to be a fussy eater. Particularly with vegetables. Any green vegetable was a big no no. A lot of other vegetables too. There are still a lot of vegetables that I avoid, but I'm much better than I used to be. But still, I am never, ever, ever going to eat another brussel sprout in my life. Sprouts taste like the devil.

Tomatoes are disgusting to me. I've eaten them and hated them. I suspect a large part of that though is that all the tomatoes I have come into contact with have been really shitty tomatoes.

I like everything really. I like some things more than others, but I will still eat something if that's what there is. I find it strange that some people just don't like basic foods or refuse to try things, in my experience the more you taste something the more you begin to enjoy it. Things are eaten and enjoyed by millions of people, I don't see how someone can be so special to not like the most basic flavours.

Chitlins aren't so hot (well, with enough Crystal on 'em they are...) though I will eat them fried if it's required (how that would happen I don't know, but there it is)... I'm not a real fan of Lutefisk (though if you wind up at a Lutefisk dinner when traveling in the mid-west you do what you gotta do) and Surströmming is right out... Other than that, I'm pretty good on food.

I generally prefer that a food item be pared down to the necessities rather than overstuffed with "superfluous crap" which strikes me as similar to Jeff's food philosophy. So for example, if I have a cheeseburger I don't want a bunch of lettuce, tomato, sauces or dressings or condiments that aren't ketchup, onions (I really try to avoid onions at all cost in any meal) and other toppings, I just want the cheese, the burger, the bun, and ketchup.

Now I'm not against adding stuff I really like to that burger, say bacon or pickles, but don't do so every time. And occasionally I'll have a burger with some of that "superfluous" stuff on it if I'm getting it at a nice restaurant where I suspect it'll be good, though I will pick some off if there's a pound of lettuce or practically a whole tomato on top because I didn't order a tomato and lettuce sandwich, I ordered a burger. Don't bury the main draw under piles of garbage.

That core philosophy of only the bare necessities basically holds for all foods. I ask "what is the minimum amount of stuff I need to mix together for this thing to be this thing?" and just try to get that.

This thread is killing me. You people are fucking nuts.

I never really got people who really won't eat basic foods, I don't like mushrooms but I will eat them if they come with a meal. The only thing I truly hate is when very sweet foods are combined with savory food, like having cranberry sauce with turkey.

I believe that you can't say something is bad until you try it once. Also, regardless of the ingredients, if it tastes good it tastes good.

Also I feel sorry for some of you people and those weird eating habits. It's like going to the Louvre and only looking at a paintings in the first hall.

The only thing I'm not too keen on are olives, even though they can kinda work sometimes. Other than that, I can enjoy pretty much everything.

Not really a super fun answer, but there you go.

I am a fan of what I call:

THE EVERYTHING SANDWICH

This is usually composed of anything that can go into a samdwich, some things that should not, and bread.

My last ETS :

Mayo, Heinz salad dressing, Ballymaloe Relish, Cheese and Onion crisps (chips), Turkey, Ham, Stuffing, Cheese, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Branston pickle. A TINY amount of stinky blue cheese, chopped into teeny tiny bits and sprinkled on the outside of the sandwich (both sides. Bit of pressure and it will stick.) Mix a few drops of tobasco with a drop of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, brush onto the bread (both sides) and toast under a grill.

I have had way worse ones in the past full of random nonsense. Jam, chocolate spread and cheese as main ingredients once... that was weird. The only reason I can think of for doing this is that I enjoy experiencing many different tastes at the same time, and combinations of unusual flavours. I have a surprisingly accurate palate despite all the crap I eat. I will eat anything. I will try anything once.

As to drew's standing 'Would you eat your own leg if everything was cool?' question... definitely. I would try some of that long pork.

Weird meat I have eaten : Crocodile, Alligator (yes, they taste almost the same), Hare, Pigeon, Pheasant, Zebra, Horse, Snails, Snake, Reindeer and last but not least Ostrich. Most of these meats tasted like gamey chicken or beef.

My least favorite food category is fish/seafood. I don't like most any seafood and fish I don't enjoy but I'll eat super mild fish like sole or flounder. The only food I truly hate with a passion is bell pepper. Green bell peppers especially are literally nauseating to me. When someone is cooking a green bell pepper I actually have to leave the room or else I'll puke just from the smell. I sometimes even have to leave the house entirely. If you put a bell pepper on top of a salad, even if you then take it off and give the salad to me, those few lingering juices will still mean I couldn't eat any of the salad. Same with pizza or Mexican dishes that include bell peppers. Like if you have a fajita mix with bell peppers I can't eat any of the mix. And I can't eat a pizza that has bell peppers on any part of it. Even if the pepper never even touched the slice I was eating I'll still be able to taste it. And as I said, I quite literally will puke if I try to eat something with even a hint of bell pepper flavor. I can force down quite a few foods I don't exactly enjoy, but I just can't do bell peppers. It's so extreme that if someone else at a dinner is eating a dish with bell peppers I sometimes have to eat in another room as just the smell of a pepper, not even cooked, will cause me to loose my appetite.

@Raven10 My best friend has an almost identical reaction with mushrooms. If we are eating at a table and he even sees a mushroom on anyones plate, his stomach turns and he freaks out a bit. It's almost like a phobia, as his behaviour gets completely irrational when shrooms are about.

I will eat anything once. I don't really have any strong dislikes, and there's nothing I'll "refuse" to eat. Truth be told, if you are a picky eater (or God forbid, someone who wastes food), and that is the first thing I learn about you, it is going to be very difficult for us to be friends. I'm not saying it's impossible, but you are going into my book with a question mark next to your name.

I'm anti-cheese as well. I also don't like salads because I find many vegetables to be bitter or unappetizing, and dressing and vinaigrettes are very overpowering, to the point that I don't even like being around them. And then people put cheese on it and I'm all the way not interested. The same is true with things like wine and pesto, I get a headache just being around the stuff. Basically all Italian food is not for me.

People are often surprised by this as I'm very fit and look like a healthy eater and I've been made fun of before, but whatever. It's just food.

I live in America and hate burgers so much.

I hate beans and secretly judge anyone who likes beans. If someone is ever like, "Yeah, gimme some more of those beans!" then they're a complete monster.

Ironically, I really like Mexican food though. I'm just careful about what I order.

I will try and eat most anything 3-4 times to give it a chance. It could have been prepared poorly, not a good recipe, whatever. I try everything multiple times. Unless you are fermented soy beans. I have limits after all.

But what I don't like is a majority of fruit. Or candy. Especially gummy/chewy candies. Those are about as gross as you can get. I've never really been a fan of sweets and can only really handle them in small doses. I was the weird kid in elementary school who was super stoked on the days we had Brussels sprouts or spinach as side options at lunch.

I hate plain tomatoes but I love almost all of the popular tomato based foods.

The taste of milk makes me incredibly nauseous. No bullshit. I can eat dairy products just fine, but if I even get the slightest hint of that milk taste, bad things happen. I immediately have to search out something else to wash out the taste or I feel like I'm going to throw up all over the place.

This has caused me to despise one of the most prominent sweet treats: vanilla ice cream. Fuck that shit. It just tastes like frozen ass frozen milk. You know how many goddam ice cream cakes I've missed out on because they were made out of vanilla? ALL OF THEM BECAUSE NO ONE EVER WANTS TO GET ANYTHING OTHER THAN FUCKING VANILLA.

I don't like mustard, mushrooms, or tomatoes, but I love tomato sauce and ketchup.

My mom doesn't like ketchup on eggs which boggles my mind, and she doesn't like American cheese in general, and doesn't eat cheese on burgers. She also separates her M&M minis by color, and eats them in nnumbers of 6 at a time, 3 colors, 2 of each. She's insane I tell you! INSANE.

Also anyone who hates mustard is a bad person. Any kind of mustard too, shitty French's mustard is great.

If you don't put mustard on a hotdog, you deserve to be in jail.

I will try anything at least once or twice, except for cottage cheese. My wife loves that crap, but just the sight and smell of it churns my stomach. The weirdest things I do like, if you wanna call them weird, are peppers. Any pepper I can get a hold of. Hotter the better. People think it's weird I'll just grab a pepper out of the fridge and take a bite. Love those bastards.

Here are some of my food opinions people find weird.

Eating any seafood is equal to eating human shit

Mustard is disgusting

Mushrooms, olives, pineapples and all those other weirdo toppings are gross on pizza.

I hate eating at restaurants.

Sweet potatoes are gross

mushrooms, tomatoes, eggplant, anything really earthy I can't stand it.

Everyone that hates tomatoes, you don't actually hate tomatoes. You've just never had a good one. I too was on the tomato hating train for the first quarter century of my life but then I actually tried a real tomato from a farmers market that was grown properly and it was a life changing experience. Those floppy, gooey, pink little tomato chips on fast food burgers are not at all indicative of the tomato experience.

Never had ketchup

i hate condiments. mayo, mustard, ketchup - it can all go.

BBQ sauce is only good if it's cooked on.

Dips = ranch, french onion, and maybe a couple of others....They are luxuries.

I can't decide if this sounds horrible or amazing.

I am weird when it comes to some stuff in the sense that I really like the smell, but can't stand to eat/have any of them -- Olives, cinnamon, coffee and a lot of fruits all work like that for me.

I will also eat french fries with ice-cream whenever I can...

It's not a taste thing with me, it's texture. So I like small grape or cherry tomatoes, but big ones have too much goop and seeds in them for me. If they're on a sandwich, I can deal, but not straight up. Raw carrots, no. Cooked carrots, yes. Watermelon, gross, it's too wet. Otherwise I'm pretty open minded and I'll try anything at least once.

@mattyftm: I can make you a "buffalo wing" style brussel sprout that would make you love them! Dip them in blue cheese and you can't even tell they're not chicken.

I have some stuff that I dislike but I wouldn't call myself a crazily picky eater by any means. I like more things than I dislike.

I'll try anything and haven't come across much that I don't like. The only thing I can think of currently is calamari. I've tried it a handful of times and don't hate it but would politely decline it. This is a relatively recent development though. I was a real picky eater when I was a teenager. I wouldn't eat salads or most vegetables, and wouldn't go near any foreign foods. I'm kinda glad I was like that early in life though. It's made my twenties a really enjoyable experience of trying new things and finding foods that I absolutely love.

Oh, and for you mustard haters: I will occasionally eat a mustard sandwich. Like, maybe, once every couple months. Two slices of bread, mustard, that's it. It's a weird thing I've done my whole life.

I just really love mustard you guys.

Bananas are the devil. If you want to see me spew like Linda Blair (and no rational person should), force me to eat a banana.

Gross...

I don't like soup or beans. Those are usually the two that people don't understand. To me soup is like sauce, and why would anyone eat just sauce?

I hate Ketchup.

I can't stand fish or eggs. I think both are disgusting. I'm not overly fond of tomatoes either but love all sorts of tomato-based products.

I can't eat cheese or tomatoes by themselves but my favorite food is pizza. Tomatoes in salad are super gross. Cold slices of american, cheddar, swiss, etc are gross. Pizza = YUMMY. I have no problem with Parmesan when it's melted on pasta, or reggiano when it's on a good Caesar salad. Gouda is alright too. It's just gross prepackaged singles of super processed cheese I guess. I usually get hamburgers with no cheese but occasionally I'll be in the mood for a cheeseburger (but not from somewhere like McDonalds)? Cottage cheese is pretty gross but I have no problem with Greek yogurt.

Cherry tomatoes or any cold tomatoes on sandwiches are gross but I have no problem with them in pasta sauces, even if it's mushy chunks on them.

I hate olives unless they are really really good (like at a really authentic Italian restaurant)

I also hate any type of pasta salad that's just a cold food item with a lot of mayo. I don't know why. I like mayo on BLTs (minus the T) but that's about it.

I don't put sour cream on anything at all because I don't like it, but if it is in something already I'll eat it no problem. If it's a side on a plate of something I'm not touching it.

I think coleslaw is super gross.

I hate cold cuts so I never get hoagies (mainly because of the cold prepacked cheese slices), but I have no problem with sliced turkey if it's with bacon on a sandwich?

I don't really like cold cocktail shrimp but grilled shrimp is delicious sometimes.

and I HATE EGGS. Eggs smell like farts when you cook them! Why the fuck would anyone eat that?! They are so gross! OH WAIT, I have no problem with them when they are in fried rice, don't ask. I would never eat just eggs though. Omelettes, hard boiled, scrambled, etc. BLECK.

I'm weird.

I am not a fan of condiments or salad dressings. If I have to, I can stomach a bit of ketchup/mustard/mayo on a burger, but I cannot eat salad that has any kind of dressing on it.

Otherwise, mayo is the worst thing ever. That means I miss out of a lot other foods in which mayo is a major ingredient...but that is small price to pay for not tasting mayo.

Not a big fan of corn, but I prefer the taste of frozen corn over that of corn-on-the-cob. Yup, you read that right.

Just looking at green beans is almost enough to make me lose my lunch.

Nuts of any sort do not taste good at all. Why do you maniacs insist on ruining such wonderful things like, brownies, cookies, banana bread, and ice cream by adding nuts?

I'm okay with the taste of cherries but I cannot stand the texture of cherries.

Pretty much all seafood is terrible. Fish, shrimp, calamari...bleh.

Only food I can think of that I don't like is ham.