Fascinating
I don't eat meat, stopped in 1989 - do occasionally eat fish, but that's it.
Not really anything else I don't eat. I'm convinced food likes/dislikes are real, not imagined. I live with a dog who loves omelettes - but hold the eggs, please. She has a longer list of things she won't eat than does the cat.
When we cook for friends and acquaintances, it's always a major planning affair. He doesn't like this, that or the other. She doesn't eat this, that or anything from that family. He only eats broiled, never fried. She doesn't 'do' microwaved anything......
Wow. Then the whole spices thing - yes or no and the whole 'spicy hot' thing, - yes or no and the whole tomato ketchup on prime filet minion yes or no...and, worst of all, anything, anything new and untried or varied in any way from how it's always been done.
Americans aren't as bad about is as are Germans, but, gosh - something which runs this deep has to be biological and not (just) psychological. Wonder if two aspects of our heritage play a role here. First, we're related in equal parts to Chimps and Bonobos (I said 'related', not descended, so you hysterical pseudo-scientists can just put down the mouse right now) and, two, except for some pure Africans (not too many of them, either), we're all more or less a mixture of at least two hominid species who ate differing diets.
As to the psychology and early childhood and other nonsense - we were always permitted to eat or not eat whatever we liked. If one didn't eat the main meal, though, whatever it was, there were no snacks or desserts later. I ate everything and took seconds, my brother was the pickiest eater (he'd outdo those here with the longest lists easily) and still is. My mom commented many years later that the easiest days for her in the kitchen were when I was the only one home - she could cook exotic Scottish food she had a yearning for and know I'd eat it whilst cooking for my dad and brother meant following a rule book a metre long.
