4 bites in 22 minutes

It’s not just that I’m a picky eater.  I have legitimate problems with my stomach.  When I did an allergy test I had so many bumps the woman who had administered it just shook her head and told me she wasn’t sure what I was going to eat.

There was no single defining moment where I became a picky eater, but I can remember being stuck at the dinner table long after everyone else had finished.  My dinner was cold, making a bad situation even worse.  Every few minutes I would call back to either my mom or my dad and ask the same question: Had I finished enough yet so that I could leave the table?

Waking up on Saturday morning, my mom was already making a pie.  Around lunchtime she finished.

I saw the thing after it had been cut open.  It looked like a dissected torso.  Most of it was solid and the outside cover looked like pale flesh, and gushing out of the open end was some kind of liquid, like blood from a fresh wound.

I kept putting it off until around 8:17 on Sunday evening.  I wasn’t sure what the proper utensil was since I had never tried pie before so I decided to use a spoon.  Cake is eaten with a spoon and pie is like cake so a spoon must have been the right choice.

Up close I could see the liquid unsettling itself along the outer edges.  The spoon fell out of my hand as the strength left my fingers.  Do I really have to do this? I thought.  How much of it do I have to eat before I can leave the table?

I took a sip of water for courage.  I dug in with my spoon.  I couldn’t help but stare at it in the spoon before I took another sip of water.  I look away.  I start laughing.  It starts to dawn on me.  I’ve done it.  I’ve actually managed to recreate the experience of being a child because that’s exactly how I feel.  I feel like an 8 year old kid staring at a cold plate of macaroni covered in tomato juice. 

I know it’s going to be cold.  The pie has been in the fridge for over a day now.  I take one last sip of water before I take the plunge.

YYYYYUUUUUUUUKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was so disgusting!

I spit my first bite out into the garbage.

The question comes back.  Do I really have to do this?  My mom tells me just to throw it out from the next room.  The tase left in my mouth is kind of sweet and not disgusting.  It was just something in the texture/taste of the filling, the apple part that just disgusted me so much.  The challenge now becomes clear.   

How much of this pie can I force into my stomach?

I’ve never been more proud of myself in my life.  I did it!!!  I managed to swallow my first bite.  Dare I go for two?  (I think using the spoon reminds me of taking medicine for a cold as a kid, or being fed as a baby)

I press down hard with the spoon to pry open a large piece.  Chunks of apple ooze out of the other openings.  It’s just the part inside that makes me so disgusted.  They look like guts.  I think people who like apple pies must like blood or be murderers.  I’ve never been so disgusted in my entire life.  I can do this. 

In order to have courage, you must first be afraid.

And I am afraid.

There I go.  2 bites swallowed.  I think I’ll try for 4 more and that should be good enough.

I have a brilliant idea.  I get a fork and press it into a piece.  This way I don’t have to chew the pie in my mouth. 

The third bite goes down easy.  Wow.  This is making that perogie thing look easy.

I’m about to cheat on my 4^th bite and just eat crust when I change my mind.  I drag over some of the wet filling and as I do I drop my spoon.  I also let go of my fork. 

I mush a pile of apple guts and cry as I do.  (I just notice the clock.  When I started it was 8:17.  It is now 8:37.  In all that time I was only able to swallow 4 bites of pie.  One more and I’m finished.)

O.K. 

I did it. 

With that awful after taste still lingering in my mouth I can proudly announce that I have now tried apple pie and so when I say that I don’t like it and that it really sucks, I can honestly say it now having tried it.

I will now go to the other room and try to assure my mom that it was pie in general that I did not like and not just her pie. (although at this point I’m sure my mom knows I can’t stand her cooking)

I explain it to my mom the way I explained it to the Koreans: it’s not just your food I don’t like and am picky about, it’s all food.

P.S. My mom seemed to be a little bit hurt and got on the defensive about her home made pie.  She said that she still liked it and that it was good and that if anyone wanted to try it she would love to give them a piece.

Perogies Suck (Part 2)

(This was written just after I finished eating)

So I just finished eating perogies for the first time and I think I can sum up the experience in one word: YUK!!!  I’m really not liking the taste left in my mouth or the feeling in my stomach.  It was probably because of the cheese. (I do not like cheese)

At least I had a nice cold can of pepsi to wash it down with.   My mom says it would have been better if I had put butter on them.  (I don’t like butter, it’s too unhealthy.  I love salt though.  Put tons of that stuff on everything)

Here are the cold hard facts:

My mom made me six potato and cheese perogies.  I was able to eat four of them.  The first one actually didn’t taste all that bad, but by the fourth one I was finished/full.  I figured that I had eaten enough and it was okay for me to leave the table.  My mom was nice enough to eat the two remaining perogies.  I wonder if she put butter on them?

Not a big fan of the taste left in my mouth.  Wouldn’t mind washing it was with something more pleasant like a shot of tequila.  Don’t think I’m going to have perogies again, but if I am in a situation where someone has already cooked perogies specifically for me I’ll be able to have a few so as not to offend the person.  Should 

I survive the apocalypse or some sort of nuclear holocaust and perogies were the only food I could find, I would be able to eat them. 

As a meat and potatoes person, I clearly enjoy eating my fair share of potatoes.  I practically eat the once or twice a day, seven days a week.  The fact that I just had a meal where I ate a potato and did not enjoy it speaks volumes.   Sorry perogies, but YOU SUCK!!!

Stay tuned for later in the day when I will be blogging about trying pie for the first time.  Hopefully it will be better than the perogies.

Perogies Suck! (part 1)

It’s been a week and they haven’t deleted my blog yet.  I’m a little bit disappointed.  I guess it means I actually have to keep trying new foods.  Damn.

I kept putting it off a day at a time this week.  The original plan was to eat the perogies last Sunday but somehow I never got around to it.

Going in I figured the best way to do it was to go as quickly as possible and to try not to think about it. 

Preparations begin at 9 am.  My stomach is a little bit sore so I take a little medicine.  I do not eat.  If I can make myself hungry by not eating for a little while then the perogies will taste better.  If a person is hungry enough, anything can taste good.

9:57 – Final preparation.  By this time I am extremely hungry.  I think I’m ready.  Anything would taste good now.      

I get a call upstairs from my mom.  My perogies are ready.  I start to get nervous and think about bailing out.  I also start to feel a little bit like a modern day George Costanza, but with a little more hair. 

No more excuses, this is it.  Here I go.  I’m ready.  I’ve been planning to do this all week.  This is it, the moment of truth.  Zero hour.  I’m going to go eat some perogies, now, for the first time ever, in my life. 

I've Never Chewed Gum

DISCLAIMER: NO DOGS WILL BE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF THIS BLOG.

I first had the idea for this blog in March of 2010, while I was living in South Korea.  I had just started dating this American, and she liked to try all kinds of food.  She loved Korean food.  On the other hand, I did not like to try new food and I also wasn’t the biggest fan of Korean food.  The idea was that she would get me to try all of this Korean food, only I wouldn’t know what it was until after I had finished eating it.  With how picky an eater I was (and am) I figured that this would be really funny (her laughing at me while I was eating gave me the idea).  All this was going to lead up to her birthday when I was going to try eating dog meat (they serve it there) and live octopus.  To make a long story short, we stopped dating before her birthday and I never tried eating dog or live octopus.  To quote a cliché, “I had dodged a bullet”.

Looking back I guess it was kind of a shame that I never got to try all of those new foods, especially since I am such a picky eater.  To prove it, here are some examples:

I’ve never chewed gum in my life.  EVER.  I think gum is disgusting and I will never chew gum.  I was once offered a hundred dollars to chew a piece of gum for 5 minutes and I turned it down.  Under no circumstances will I ever chew a piece of gum. 

I’ve never once had a piece of pie or a perogie.

I went my first 5 weeks in Korea without trying Korean food.  In 9 months living in Korea, I only tried Korean food about 8 times.  When I left the country (the first time – I would later return) I had no idea how to use chop sticks.

In 2010 I spent a week in Thailand and I only ate Thai food 3 times.  The rest of the time I ate burgers and fries, like a good North American tourist.

I think I’m the only child ever to say no to pizza.  When I finally tried pizza I didn’t have any toppings on it, just sauce.  At least I was able to gradually outgrow this one, though til this day I never put anything more than sauce, cheese, and pepperoni on my pizza.  All those other toppings are for wackos.

I DON’T LIKE BACON.  I’ll repeat that for you if you are still in shock or can’t believe what you just read.  I don’t like bacon, in fact, I have no idea why anyone likes bacon.  I mean really, rest of the world.  REALLY?

I also don’t like gravy and I’ve only ever had poutine once in my life, and French fries are my favourite food.  The one time I did have poutine, it was Canada Day, and I was in Korea at the Canadian bar in Itaewon (Rocky Mountain Tavern, the same place I watched the gold medal hockey game where Crosby scored the gold medal winning goal, ya country of ungrateful hockey fans) This is also one of the very few time in my life where I have actually kind of, sort of, enjoyed listening to the music of the Tragically Hip in the background - it was Canada Day and I was feeling nostalgic)

STILL NOT CONVINCED?  Here is a list of things I would rather do than try a new food:

I would rather go to church with my mom.  I haven’t been to church in about 25 years and I couldn’t be happier.  Sundays used to be my least favourite day of the week.

I would rather learn how to speak a new language.  I lived in Korea for three years yet I can barely say two words of Korean, or Hangul as they call it.  I never learned to read the Korean alphabet, even though it is written phonetically and there are no ambiguous spellings or pronunciations of letters.  To put it simply, the language is written as it sounds and my friends have told me that it only takes a few hours to learn it.  In 3 years, I was not able to find these few hours.

Mow the lawn. (or do any kind of physical labour)

Jog 3 miles.  I am proud of the fact that I run a lot, but make no mistake about it, running is not a fun thing to do. 

Try to convince my 67 year old father that he should quit smoking tobacco, like I recently did.  Make no mistake about it, my father is set in his ways and one of the most sensitive, button pushing issues with him is smoking.  While staying with me at my apartment in Korea my father was upset because I would not allow him to smoke there.  It was my roof so it was my rules.  (I also had my parents do my chores like washing my dishes, doing my laundry, and vacuuming the floor.)

Finally, I would rather write this long, perhaps deliberately misleading blog post about trying new foods and not try any new foods.  Is this a cop out?  I don’t think so.  Stay tuned for my next blog entry where I will try pie and perogies for the first time.

Cheers,

Rymr.