My first husband, who not too much later became my only "ex," thought himself quite the gourmet. However, he had some very definite dislikes, one of which was onions. Now, how can one cook many delicious savory dishes without onion? At any rate, I tried my best to conceal onions in my dishes. He detected them every time. I couldn't even use onion powder!!
I spent many, many hours in the kitchen trying to create/prepare meals he would eat and, in the end, I simply wound up cooking mostly mediocre recipes. He came from a midwest country family but he had traveled and spent time in the military outside of this country experiencing other cultures/foods. Go figure.
I grew up in this area. My daddy was a true poor country boy and grew up with very spartan meals. His father was a coal miner and things weren't good in those days. My mother came from a fairly well-off family up north and was used to "high falutin'" food. How those two ever got together I'll never understand.
My mother was a very good "basic" cook, but wasn't very adventuresome. Her steaks were legendary. Just suffice it to say, you could shingle a roof with them. Daddy LOVED to eat and would try darn near anything. The only time he was able to do that was when he ate out or traveled. Ironically, his favorite thing was a rare grilled steak.
Mother had some peculiar attitudes/opinions about foods. She wouldn't eat white corn because corn was SUPPOSED to be yellow. Ditto for wax beans. Beans are GREEN. Everyone knows that. Forget about tomatoes that were any color but red. She wouldn't even try some of the regional foods here because they were "peasant" food and below her. Huh?
At any rate, because of an assortment of issues, I became the cook for the family when I was about 8. That seemed fine with me as I loved being in the kitchen and, by the time I was 13, I was quite an accomplished cook.
After I split with my first husband, I met Buck and was in cooking heaven. He would eat anything. Well, just about anything. I cooked rabbit for him once, not exactly telling him what it was. Let's just say I evaded the question of, "What's this?"
He liked it but I finally had to 'fess up and tell him it was rabbit. His response, "Oh, no, Thumper!!!" I was afraid of such a reaction, which is why I was evasive with my answer to what he was eating. He would never consider eating it again.
I'm married to Glenn now and he will eat practically anything. I'm still learning about his likes and dislikes but, when I do prepare something he's not wild about, he'll at least eat the meal and then tell me if he doesn't care for it and why.
So far, he's not crazy about any type of liver, but is willing to try a recipe for chicken liver I've described to him. Fair enough. I like liver, but it's certainly not a deal breaker.
He's not too wild about "white" stuff. Ranch dressing, creamy casseroles and the like. He's not especially fond of casseroles in general. He prefers his food "separate" and not smooshed together.
The only real disappointment, if it can be called that, is he doesn't much care for chocolate. As far as I'm concerned, chocolate is a FOOD GROUP.
At any rate, I'm managing and have gently gotten him to eat a bit of chocolate for dessert in the form of chocolate-zucchini cake.
As for any other picky-like eating, I raised 8 children and lived with the pickiness of one or more of them. All but one of them detested liver and onions, which I understood. But, on the days when all of them but Ryan were gone, he and I would pig out on liver and onions.
I learned through my children to just go with the flow and make sure there was enough on the table to nutritionally satisfy them. Five of the eight were boys, so I learned early on to cook in quantity if nothing else.
My philosophy is that life's too short to argue or fuss over what to eat. There is so much out there, it really doesn't matter in the end.
I have given up trying to please him. Now when I cook (every day) I just figure he can either season and spice things himself or cook something else but I am eating the way I want to eat. I'm tired of being bored with food because he is so ...well, I don't even have a word for it. My it felt good to get that out!
