What are some weird stipulations you have with food?

I prefer Mac & Cheese to be reheated.

Like, cook it, refrigerate it, then microwave it.

And I’m not a big leftovers fan… so it’s double weird.

I won’t eat an apple that doesn’t have a stem attached. Don’t even think about giving me that stemless apple.

Egg salad is creepy food.
I will only use milk from my fridge.
If I do not make the tuna salad I will not eat it.

if it was ever alive, it has to now be dead. Other than that, I’m not picky.

@robmandu Hah, that is super weird.

On a sandwich, the mustard can’t be touching the cheese.

Oh man, I’m such a freak. OK, here goes

No foods can touch unless they are both the same flavor category. (salt,sweet etc)
No food can be too hot.
No food can be cold.
Mac n cheese has to be made a certain way (mixing stage).
Pizza has to have light sauce and light cheese.
Spaghetti must have more pasta than sauce.
Bagels must have all surface covered with a 1/6” layer of cream cheese.
Bologna sandwiches must have pepper (but not too much).
The texture has the be the same throughout the dish- no weird crunchy bits.
No weird stringy textures! (I just gagged a little bit)
Never gravy on mashed potatoes (it has weird bits of gristle in it).
Steak needs to be medium-rare to medium.
I never eat leftovers. (Thank God for Hubbs)
No hot pepper spicy (garlic spicy is fine).
I have to sniff my food before I eat it to prepare my tastebuds.

Can you tell I’m a bit off? What gave it away?
I’m a very picky eater so it’s a good thing I cook!

@gemiwing I also sniff any food or drink before consuming it.

@erichw1504 whew, glad I’m not alone

A hamburger must be assembled in a specific order. Bread, toasted, mustard on one side only, grilled onion on the same side as the mustard, meat. Pickles on the side, never on the bun.

@gemiwing I never thought about why, but preparing my tastebuds is probably the reason!

I tend to smell milk, yogurt and coffee creamer to see if they smell fresh, long before expiry date, even. If they smell a bit off, I’ll pitch ‘em.

Your food is your food and my food is mine. Don’t ask to try what’s on my plate and I won’t ask to try what’s on yours. Fair?

Colorful food mixed together looks too much like a Pollock painting.I can’t have that ;)

@Payton_Evil_is_as_evil_does fair

I don’t do leftovers.
Only use Skippy Peanut Butter!
Steaks MUST be on the outdoor grill not cooked in a fry pan.
I love egg sandwiches and on one slice of bread I put butter and on the other slice I put Mayo.
Meat Loaf, Chicken, Pizza and Pork Chops~I prefer to eat COLD.
Light light on the sauce when I order a Pizza.

I have to eat hot food HOT and cold food COLD. I like to eat things that are freshly made .. don’t like them sitting around long.

I do not eat anything that still looks like itself. Like crab, lobster. I also do not eat anything that can taste me eating it. Like cow tongue. Other things must be a certain brand name. Like Karft mac n cheese or skippy PB

I have a problem with people talking while I’m eating. It must have been weird for friends to come over to dinner when I was a kid. Dinner was always eaten in silence.

@nunya I agree on the steak Nunya… it’s only good cooked on a grill. Otherwise, it’s just nothing special.

@ABJustPlainBarb And to think in my “younger” years I pan fried steaks! UGH! It just isn’t the same AT ALL! So much better coming from the outdoor grill! NUNYA drools hahaha!

@Shatzee ditto on the tongue thing. ick.

I am so glad I’ll never be going out to dinner with any of you folks. :-)

@Mritty Don’t worry, I rarely eat out. I know I’m a pain and don’t want to inflict my horror on the waitstaff. Poor things

Reading food threads here, I’ve noticed that people are REALLY weird about food. I mean other people, not me :-)

I love animals and would like to pet every creature at the zoo and scratch behind their ears.
But I am not a vegetarian, so yesterday someone on Fluther correctly pointed out that I am like this person .

I’m a bit paranoid about under-cooked chicken and pork, so they must be cooked to the point of so-dry-I-almost-can’t-eat-this.
.
I NEVER drink milk from someone else’s fridge, even at a restaurant, milk has to be ice-cold and if it has been in my fridge for more that 2 or 3 days I pretty much won’t drink it.
.
Eggs can have NO runny-ness or I will throw up.
.
I won’t eat regular tuna, it has to be solid albacore in water.
.
I don’t eat shellfish, it’s a texture thing.
.
I eat french fries with mayonnaise

All of these things have been amplified since becoming preggers, usually I just get grossed out, but lately I really do have to run and vomit if I eat or even smell anything from my yucky list.

@Shatzee , @gemiwing Look out, I think someone might be trying to slip you some tongue

@missyb HOW COULD I FORGET EGGS? I’m with you 150% on that one

Once food enters my mouth, it doesn’t leave. For example if I end up chewing on a piece of chicken with a bit of fat, it grosses me out, but I’d rather swallow it than spit it out. Spitting food out, grosses me out more.

@missyb I’m with you on the “runny eggs” issue!
And I use Mayo and Ketchup mixed together to eat my french fries.

I can barely stand mayonnaise on my sandwiches, there can only be a thin layer. The stuff kind of grosses me out, but it is a good addition to a lot of foods.

@jaytkay ROFL! I got that in an email one time! What a HOOT!

I have to eat small things that come in colors (this usually applies to candy – like M&Ms and Skittles) in twos. I chew one on one side of my mouth and one on the other.

I don’t like bananas except banana chips or in banana bread. I also don’t like potatoes – not even potato chips or fries.

@fireinthepriory I don’t like blueberries except when they’re in other foods.

I can’t stand one spot of fat or gristle in my mouth. It makes me want to gag. When eating a steak, I’ll trim it down to an inch of its life. I agree on the Skippy PB. I have to have Miracle Whip. I want meat COOKED…especially poultry. NO pink in it at all. Just Velveeta & shells for mac & cheese…not that powdered crap. I’m sure I could think of more if I thought about it long enough, as I’m pretty picky with what goes between THESE teeth!

Robert from Everybody Loves Raymond touches his food to his chin before eating it. Anyone know of any other fictional characters that have weird food behaviors or requests?

No vegetable juice can ever touch my bread (soggy bread is gross) or my meat.

Absolutely no yellow mustard.

Tuna salad must contain celery (ever since I heard something years ago about roaches in tuna – there needs to be something to account for any crunching)

I will only eat food prepared by certain people. I take minimal portions and mostly push them around my plate in other circumstances (like when I am at my in-laws’ house)

I do not drink or eat after people. I won’t even go into double-dippers.

Appearance is everything. If it looks nasty, no amount of pressuring me will make me eat it.

Gristle gets spit out and I will not eat the rest of that piece of meat.

omg. There are so many.

I won’t eat white bread, because when I was a kid there was a little bug hiding in one of the little holes in the bread. It doesn’t make sense, because I will eat wheat bread… but white bread just freaks me out now.

I won’t eat cantelope because once (i swear this is true) a little stringy wormy bug the exact same neon orange color crawled off of a piece of cantelope like a catterpillar while I was eating it.

I like to store my cereal in the fridge, because my mom always had bugs in her boxes of cereal.

I used to crack open chicken bones and eat the marrow out of the middle. It really tastes pretty good. To this day my favorite part of a chicken breast is the little marrow-y brown piece of meat cradled between the curve of the bones on the backside of the breast.

Before I drink anything that’s been sitting out (or a bottle of water that’s already been open), I obsessively search for ‘floaties’. If I see anything floating in it, even if it’s almost microscopic, I won’t drink it. Because of this I usually just stop drinking bottled water when there’s an inch or two of water left.

I like to suck on M&Ms until they turn grey before I eat them.

I love putting EVERYTHING in my ice cream – peanut butter, oreos, candies, nuts, shelled sunflower seeds… ANYTHING sweet or salty.

I love eating raw potato, if I am cutting up potato to cook in some way more of it gets eaten raw by me!

I prefer mince meat on it’s own, no sauce at all (ie: bolognese etc). I’ll cook it and then put some in a bowl for me as it is before adding the Bolognese or whatever for everyone else.

If I have a steak it has to be very very rare (blue). I never thought this was strange but whenever someone new hears me order it they look at me as if to say “are you sure”?

I do not appreciate fruit in cakes. I like fruit, I love cake, but never together!

Oh, and I love eating ANY kind of raw dough. Cookie dough (of course), biscuit dough, anything.

@gemiwing Ya had me laughing out loud there!

Me, Pancakes must be cut up before I eat them and pushed to the top of the plate, then I have to tip the plate so that when I pour the syrup it pools at the bottom of the plate and doesn’t soak my pancakes. Then I dip one forkful at a time in the syrup. (Soggy pancakes always makes me feel like they’ve been soaking in water. I remember that bugging me as a kid.) It is difficult to read a book and do this at the same time, but I manage.
With pancakes…Milk must be ice cold.

I do not like “things” in my ice cream. Ice cream was not meant to be chewed.

I used to have everything strictly separated, and would eat one thing at a time. None of this, “eat a bit of that, then a bit of this, then back to a bit of that,” for me! No sirree!! But, I fits that particular compulsion a while back. Don’t know how or why.

I eat my food first (all of it), then I drink my beverage. Unless beer is involved, then the process is reversed.

Eating is such a pain in the ass! When do we get our nutri-pills?

@erichw1504 I don’t like blueberries unless they’re not in other foods. :D

@75movies So nice to find someone who feels the same way I do!!! It’s like, I will have been up for 5 hours and I’m going, “O brother. Guess I better get something to eat now…bleh.”

It’s gotta be fresh, ripe, edible and not moving. I am weird that way!

I don’t eat yellow candies (M&M’s, Skittles, Gummi Bears etc.) and there must be at least one more green one than red ones. If there are more red ones I throw out extras with the yellow ones until there are more green ones.

I hate mustard and honey, but I love honey mustard.

If there is tomato goop on anything, I will not eat it.

I like my cold tea with no sugar or milk. I like my hot tea with sugar and/or milk.

I bite the chocolate off of Twix and Kit Kat’s and eat the cookie part.

Cereal with different colors must be eaten by color. When a cereal has marshmallows, the marshmallows must be eaten after the other part of the cereal, and then the marshmallows must be eaten by color (if applicable).

I hate grape flavored anything.

There are tons more.

@75movies I enjoy eating. It is a time when (usually) you can relax and taste good foods and get some energy back.

Sandwiches must be made with mayonnaise (not miracle whipp, or any other substitute), or it doesn’t taste right.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwich means pb and strawberry jelly, not grape.
Pancakes must be buttered and then cut and drowned in syrup, bacon and sausage drowned in syrup too.
No crawfish – I just can’t even think about eating it.
My hot dog must have mustard, shredded cheese, and this is kinda on the weird side: mashed potatoes on top (nice thick layer) – tried this from a street vendor in South America and it tasted absolutely delicious.

Hate tomatoes unless they are diced and served on tacos or salads.

@erichw1504 I hate tomatoes too, except cherry tomatoes

@tinyfaery I do it the same way with marshmallow cereal but that is only cos I like the marshmallow to get soft in the milk.

Oh, and when I’m making Hot Cocoa I put extra mix in there so I can eat the wet, chunky chocolate accumulated on top.

@cinddmel I just gagged a wee bit thinking about crawfish. I mean what people do to those things while eating them! urgh…

@stemnyjones How do you make your hot chocolate??? With milk or water?? Cos if you use milk and no water you’ll have plenty of chocolate on top. Even if you only use a little. Seems to me like milk doesn’t absorb that shit very well.

I rarely eat cereal with milk. That’s just how I grew up having it. One of the only cereals I do eat with milk are Cheerios.

@stemnyjones That is disgusting. I just horked in my mouth

@stemnyjones Ewww….the chunky stuff in hot chocolate? Hahaa… Too gritty for me. I want it all mixed up.

I dip out the marshmallows while in the powder because I don’t like them in the finished product. I don’t like them sticking to my top lip.

I want hot chocolate now

@King_of_Sexytown Me, too.

:-)

@fireinthepriory do they have to be the same color or can they be different? Or maybe co-ordinating. I do that for fun.

@missyb Ooh, yes, they have to be the same color!!! Can’t believe I forgot to add that. I can do, say, one red and one yellow followed by one red and one yellow, but it has to even out in the end to two of each color in total.

Foods I eat need to be, what some people refer to as, ‘bland’. I think people are just too picky and I enjoy flavour more.

Unless we’re speaking about chocolate, in which case I don’t really like it unless it has more than 70% cocoa. Also, orange gatorade, I tend to mix at around 3 times the regular strength.

I forgot to mention that I like to pour orange juice on my museli rather than milk!

@daemonelson I thought bland meant not very flavorful. Chocolate that is more the 70% cocoa is anything but bland!!!! It’s as bitter as hell!!!

@King_of_Sexytown I know, I know. I’ve just gradually been eating stronger and stronger chocolate over the years. Now I really like 85% cocoa chocolate :D

@cinddmel You said, “Pancakes must be buttered and then cut and drowned in syrup” FROW up!!!

This is too funny, ya’ll! Anyone of these taken by themselves seem like they’d require psychological intervention, but reading this tells me NO ONE is crazy and EVERY ONE is crazy!

I’m only picky about meat. I freaking hate fat and gristle. I will dissect my meat at the dinner table for 20 minutes before eating it to get every last bit off, and I don’t care who knows it. For this reason, I try to avoid meat altogether. Gross. Gimme some fish and veggies.

I can eat just about anything as long as it has butter and/or salt on it. Nothing tastes right to me without at least one of those things.

Aspergers Syndrome comes to the forefront in this area.Textures are very important, No seeds, stringy bits, fat, gristle, skin, shells. Basically must be uniform texture. I dislike almost all vegetables and fruits but if they are run through a juice extractor I can drink them. Fish has to be a fillet with absolutely no bones in it.This list goes on almost endlessly. I thought that I had the strangest food preferences in the world until I was diagnosed and started reading about AS. It turns out that my preferences are fairly mild compared to others with autism; I’m not very fussy about colors or spices or tastes, just textures.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land I have that problem with lettuce and mashed potatoes and peanut butter and some other shit. I can eat peanut butter as long as it is on something harder than bread to make it go down like an apple slice. It sounds like you might have it worse than me.

@75movies – “horked”, I love that word!

It must not be alive when I eat it.

Well, first, it has to be FOOD! Liver is a FILTER, and there’s plenty of other things in and on the animal we could be eating.

Can’t even SMELL that crap being cooked!

Massive horking (thanx @75movies)

Many organs that are cooked to eat would induce much horking from me.

I like icecream out of the microwave.
Don’t laugh, my mum used to think I was mental till she tried it.
8 seconds on full just about does the trick.

Go on, I dare ya!.....

some ice creams you HAVE to put in the microwave just so you don’t break a spoon.

@stratman37
You live in alaska then? Or do you have a 3 phase 415v fridge?~

@Pazza…Are you trying to make fools out of us in front of our families????!!!!

nobody can make a cup of tea for me – only i can make my perfect cuppa lols – it has to be one inch from the top of the cup, about two teardrop size drops of skimmed milk, and the teabag mustnt be left in the cup for long, maybe you can understand how i sometimes long for somebody, anybody to make me a cup of tea – as it just doesnt happen :D

Pizza crust “must” be thoroughly cooked and crispy.
No pan fried Steaks…...just the thought makes me gag.
If bread is not fresh and soft the I toast it.
I like to mix several different kinds of breakfast cereal together. One straight kind is boring.
I prefer Organic cage free eggs.
Prefer Organic Milk and meat.
Prefer soft tacos vs. hard shell
Not to many chips in chocolate chip cookies.
Must have milk or Chai Tea to drink with Oreo’s.
Like a small spoon with my Ice Cream.
Do not like to eat in a Restaurant that has dirty doors and windows. If they can’t keep those clean Lord knows what the kitchen looks like.
I like a small glass of orange juice (grove stand) with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it.
Lots of cream in my coffee…....lots.
Will not take a tooth pick in a restaurant unless it’s sealed.
I remove skin from the chicken before I cook it.
Will not eat organ meats
Any meat for fish that tastes really strong…...yuck
Will eat nothing but an egg that shimmies before you cook it.

I also refuse to eat runny eggs, organs, the only fish I can eat without vomiting is salmon, I can’t have too much mayo on my sandwich, mushy foods in general are a turn off for me, so bannans, whipped cream don’t work for me. I don’t like jelly on my peanutbutter sandwich or anything else for that matter and I always feel I need to have both a hot drink and an icy cold drink with my dinner. Milk has to be just short of being frozen for me to drink it, I drink green tea all the time with every meal and I hate when people put sugar in my tea.

I peel grilled cheese sandwiches apart.

I squish the melty cheese into a little lump, and stow it under the de-crusted bread pieces for warmth. I eat the crusts, then the bread, then the cheese.

I like sometimes like bannana bread sandwiches for an evening snack with hot chocolate.
I like mayo on baked potatoes or boiled potatoes.
For a quick pick me up power drink, I like to scramble a raw yolk with sugar and vanilla and then add warm milk.

@dogkittycat Agree totally on the runny eggs and my milk has to be really cold also.

@King_of_Sexytown I use milk in the hot cocoa.

@JessicaisinLove I too only have a small spoon with my icecream.

Ah!!! the small Ice Cream Spoon society. lol Good choice.

My spoon is too big!

@Pazza – yeah, I knew it was just a matter of time before someone told me to turn my freezer up.

@JessicaisinLove && @Leanne1986 small, or the tiniest of tiny spoons available?

On the rare occasions I eat corn on the cob, I brush on a little mayo and sprinkle it with some chili-powder.

I don’t know what the original was, but this combination exactly mimics the flavor I remember of the corn from an Elotero in my grandma’s neighborhood

@Beta_Orionis Mmm. My husband might go for that!

@Val123 It sounds (and somtimes looks) disgusting, but the flavors meld really interestingly!

@Beta_Orionis I’ll….try it!

@Beta_Orionis I had one once that was perfect just a tad bit smaller than a teaspoon.
Sounds silly…...but then I’m unique sometimes. lol

@JessicaisinLove It’s not silly at all! I share the tiny spoon fixation. For me, the ice cream doesn’t even taste the same if the spoon is normal-sized. I had one about that small once, but tiny spoons are so easy to misplace…

I have to have a side of BBQ sauce no matter what it is.

I don’t eat ice cream.

@Beta_Orionis I usually use a tea spoon.

@Leanne1986 The metal variety actually intended for tea or the measure? If the latter, mine are the cheap, plastic variety and not so fun to eat with. If the former, good idea!

@Beta_Orionis Definately the metal variety :)

Oh, also, I don’t drink soda, or anything else carbonated. It hurts my tongue and throat. D:

If i have a plate everything has to be spaced out im always like “can i get another plate? my mac and cheese toched my beans”!!!

@Utta_J…Mom??? Is that you???? I didn’t know you had a Fluther account!!! :P

I cannot eat anything unless I also have some water, and take sips throughout – even if it’s just a snack. This is because as a kid I ate like a bird, and hated meat. My mom quickly figured out that I was making myself full by drinking my water first. From that day on, even though there was a glass of water at the table, I was forbidden to drink it until my plate was clean. yeah.

I’ll also need a napkin, please.

No blue M & Ms. Well, I’ll forgive them if eaten in the dark while engrossed at a movie.

Like @Val123, I’m very picky when it comes to eating pancakes… I have solved the Soggy DIlemma by employing the use of a small bowl, into which I pour the maple syrup. oh yeah, how could I forget? only maple syrup for me, none of that other stuff when it comes to pancakes, although for french toast sticks Mrs. Butterworth is fine So basically, I section off a bite size of pancake, then dip it into the syrup. Voila!

When it comes to applesauce, I refuse to eat the sweetened or flavored stuff. Mott’s makes an excellent natural sauce: it has apples, water, and some citric acid.

Hot cocoa mix is meant to be mixed with milk. (or in my case, soy milk) Don’t believe the instructions to add water printed on the envelope. It is a lie.

Will not, cannot, won’t ever be able to drink the milk remaining in the bowl after all the cereal is all gone. It has floaties in it. Sometimes I use OJ. Same theory applies. It’s OK for the hot cocoa to have floaties on top. In fact, like @stemnyjones, I rather like them.

Natural PB only, none of that doctored up stuff. Oh, and you get extra points if you use chunky when making my sandwich.

Soup must be eaten with an actual soup spoon, or it won’t taste good.

Grilled cheese sandwiches taste best when dipped into a bowl of apple sauce. Seriously, try it.

No mayonnaise. Dear God please, no mayonnaise.

@Leanne1986 I too love raw potatoes!! They are especially yummy on hot summer days.

@Payton_Evil_is_as_evil_does sums up my remaining food quirks nicely. Well, at least until recently. My guy is the exception. And this is new territory for me… until I met him, the concept of sharing my food was no-can-do. And as far as me trying the food on your plate? You’ve got to be kidding me. Ditto for drinks. Also, he enjoys introducing me to new foods, and for the first time in my life I’m not scared to try new stuff. Weird.

I have one more: please don’t expect me to taste the food I’m cooking. I just can’t. I’m a strictly by the recipe’s measurements type of cook. Just help me keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn, as I tend to forget once it’s shoved into the oven. Another reason why dogs are fun to have around. My dog comes and gets me. Somehow she knows when it’s done.

whew! I think I’ll go make some hot cocoa now :)

My burgers have to be upside-down on my plate when I eat them. Reason being that I grab it with my fingers under the top bun and my thumbs on the bottom bun, then it’s right-side-up when I lift it to my mouth. Feels more natural.

I really enjoy the burnt kernels of popcorn in the microwaved bags, yum.

I put Ranch dressing on my pizza.

I love cheese on canned peaches.

I cannot eat any food of a wooden spoon, blech!

@gemiwing – I have to sniff my food as well as my drinks before I can take a bite or drink. Also when drinking from a bottle, I look down in it both before and after I take a drink.

@stemnyjones – that hot cocoa thing you do is funny, but it actually sounds good to me!

@mcbealer – Ooh, I will take the blue M&Ms and leftover cereal milk (especially if you’re having Cocoa Puffs or Pebbles) thank you!

@forestGeek ~ you can have all of my blue M&Ms. Come to think of it, you can have the red ones too. They are only slightly less evil. As far as the cereal milk though… blech!!

I forgot to mention, on my veggie burgers I put the cheese and ketchup on the underside. That way when I take a bite, it’s the first thing my tongue tastes. I learned this from a friend who used to work at a popular hamburger restaurant. He said that when you take a bite of food your tongue usually flips it over in your mouth. Isn’t that weird?!?

@mcbealer The reason hot cocoa packets ask you to mix the contents with water is because they contain some “dry milk product” which requires reconstitution. Gross!

This is why I must mix my own cocoa from unsweetened powder, sugar, and raw milk.

@Beta_Orionis ~ good catch! hmm… dry milk product, eh? it looks like the type I buy, Hershey’s Cacao Reserve Mayan Blend Drinking Cocoa contains nonfat milk, but it is very very yummy and worth checking out!!

@mcbear nonfat milk or other, it’s still some dry milk product! They mention the Mayan method of preparation to distract you from the fact that you’re really re-hydrating the milk powder. Personally, I just can’t forego the raw milk; commercial milk just tastes so chemical. There’s the added problem in my case that most preexisting blends are too heavy on the sweetener, and not rich enough in their cocoa aspects. If I mix it myself, I can fine tune the balance to perfection!

Also, recently, I’ve taken to letting some earl gray or peppermint tea steep in the hot milk before adding the sugar and cocoa. Depending on your flavor preferences, I consider tea an excellent addition to nearly any blend of cocoa.