What can i feed the fussiest eater in the world?

Slinky_Malinky

Go to the library and borrow Delia and Jamie`s ministry of food plus any others that grab you - then tell him to choose some dishes for you to try. There will surely be a few recipes that he could force himself to try.

puddy

misskool wrote: »

can you cook something like sausage casserole as one of the repeat dishes? And maybe something like bubble and squeak which you can leave out the meat for yourself (and save)

If he won't eat pasta, but does like rice can you try couscous/bulgar wheat/quinoa? Rice noodles?

Fishcakes? Will he have soup and bread as a main meal?

Rotate the meals more, maybe make it once a month meal planning? Hide the leftovers well!

Otherwise serve him chops and chips every night until he learns to like something else.

yes, im trying to get a list of some foods that we can both eat and rotate.

just tried the discussioin with him (again), he will eat salmon and potatoes (one of my favourites) but then starts saying, well, salmon's not that great though, its not my favourite.

i will try rice noodles.

no, he doesnt like cous cous or bulgar wheat. he wont eat soup and bread for a meal.
he wont eat sausage casserole

he would gladly eat chops and chips every night, he wouldnt get bored of it (but i would, and i want to cook just one meal each night that we both tolerate).

he's just gone on at me about how everything he has to eat now are things that he wouldnt normally choose to eat, all too many vegetables in it, no meat etc etc (which isnt true). he can eat this stuff but doesnt actually 'like it'. he would have chosen stew every night with offal or things like corned beef hash.

and I said, well that makes two of us because I dont choose the things I serve up either, Im trying to find things that both of us will eat, which are healthyish and cheapish. its very hard. i used to eat vegetarian pasta based dishes nearly every night. now i cant remember the last time i had pasta. so im making compromises too.

lynzpower

He sounds like a nightmare to me.

When I met my OH he would barely eat anything and poured ketcup over the top of everything. I think im a pretty good cook and I really made an effort

In time I just persvered. He eats anything now. The bottom line is that there is something awry with this idea that "he wont eat anything that has been frozen for more than a week" Sorry but thats what junk food is. If he eats most takeaway chicken burgers etc, they wil lahve been frozen too! Ask him when the corned beef was tinned. It sounds like its his way or the highway and to be honet I couldnt stand for it. Hes wrong about freezing food and there is something rather deep rooted sounding about all this.

Have you really talked about why he has these issues with food?

tanith

I have a similarly fussy OH (meat and 2 veg man), we manage to eat the same meal maybe 3 times a week and then I want things that he won't touch, salad, pasta, curry with rice, spicy chicken, pizza etc, so I cook something for myself and he is happy to have beans on toast or something equally quick and simple, I used to try and cook so we could eat the same thing but found more and more I wasn't having what I liked and I was eating things I didn't like or want more and more.. so I settled for 3 days a week eating the same and the rest of the time differently.. it works for us.... and I am not fighting a constant battle trying to find things he'll eat... I feel for you but honestly let him cook what he wants and you have what you like not sure how you sort out the overspending though

puddy

lynzpower wrote: »

He sounds like a nightmare to me.

When I met my OH he would barely eat anything and poured ketcup over the top of everything. I think im a pretty good cook and I really made an effort

In time I just persvered. He eats anything now. The bottom line is that there is something awry with this idea that "he wont eat anything that has been frozen for more than a week" Sorry but thats what junk food is. If he eats most takeaway chicken burgers etc, they wil lahve been frozen too! Ask him when the corned beef was tinned. It sounds like its his way or the highway and to be honet I couldnt stand for it. Hes wrong about freezing food and there is something rather deep rooted sounding about all this.

Have you really talked about why he has these issues with food?

i know, ive analysed him to the nth degree. ive had the discussion about how long ready meals or junk food has been sitting around for. it makes no difference.

he is an extremely defended person. i didnt want to go into it here but it stems from him losing his mum when young. he has contradictory symptoms but they clearly stem from the same anxieties. he wont throw anything away, extreme horder,,,, yet anxieties about sell by dates, food storage etc. slightly obsessional about home security, although nothing really extreme. for me, its about loss, it hasnt been dealt with. his wife also died when the kids where the same age as he was when he lost his mum. but none of this makes it any easier dealing with entrenched, irrational ideas!!!!
we've had the 'how to freeze food' conversation many times. nothing will change. so the answer is finding something he will eat.

so far i have stew, chicken curry (although he moaned the last time we had it), spaghetti bolognese (yes its pasta, he will eat this though, but only with the bolognese sauce, with anything else it turns into the pasta he doesnt like), fish in breadcrumbs and oven chips, beef chilli,

apart from a slap, what else can i give him?

puddy

tanith wrote: »

I have a similarly fussy OH (meat and 2 veg man), we manage to eat the same meal maybe 3 times a week and then I want things that he won't touch, salad, pasta, curry with rice, spicy chicken, pizza etc, so I cook something for myself and he is happy to have beans on toast or something equally quick and simple, I used to try and cook so we could eat the same thing but found more and more I wasn't having what I liked and I was eating things I didn't like or want more and more.. so I settled for 3 days a week eating the same and the rest of the time differently.. it works for us.... and I am not fighting a constant battle trying to find things he'll eat... I feel for you but honestly let him cook what he wants and you have what you like not sure how you sort out the overspending though

i think its a shame but im thinking like this tonight. its so hard, every day he'll ring and say, 'what we got for tea' and then is obviously disappointed at what it is (unless i say stew).
the other thing is, that in reality, im quite happy coming home and having toast or a sandwich for tea, i dont really want the hassle of trying to be inventive and money saving every day, so to keep having to come up with new and interesting ways around stew is becoming difficult.

the trouble is with letting him loose in the kitchen is this thing about him cooking for a million people, plus the mess he creates. if the right food isnt in the house, he'l go out and buy too much or worse a takeaway. plus he has diabetes so i worry about him buying crap

the_cat

Perhaps it would be an idea to initiate a meal plan together. If he felt he had an input and chose 1/2 the meals on the plan and compromised on the others a little he would be more accomodating.

If you compromise also by perhaps giving him the fish in b'cumbs or chop more often and having a HM freezer meal a couple of times within the fortnight too which you like you would get a bit more variety but only have to batch cook yourself some meals in one hit, which would lesson the blow of catering for two different meals

If you had a set plan he knew about in advance he wouldn't keep phoning you to ask what is for tea - that would drive me mad. I would probably refuse to tell him - childish I know!

puddy

yes, i think i need to get him to own this a bit more. the annoying thing is that although he'll give me a list of things he will eat for a meal, when he's told that its for tea, he'll moan.

so, if i get him to fill out a plan, then when he moans, i can say, well you picked it, so thats what im cooking

he phones me to ask about dinner because its his little ritual, trouble is, he does it about 3x a day because his memory is terrible and he cant remember, in fact i could tell him a different meal each time and he wouldnt know

misskool

could you buy/borrow a cookbook, something like economy gastronomy with lots of pictures and asks him what he would fancy?

not quite sure what else to say as a lot of it seems to psychological and you don't want to wear him down and resent you for it.

Maybe get him to try a few mouthfuls of what you have when you make 2 different meals a week? If he open to trying new foods or is food his comfort station? Maybe he just needs some sort of control for it?

puddy

its completey psychological. some time back, i actually got him into an italian resturaunt (he had refused to go for ages because they 'only do pasta').
anyway, whilst eating a delicious meal, i said, try some of my pasta. so he did, he liked it (in a creamy sauce too).
after he ate his, i got full up, so he finished off my pasta. he now absolutely denies that this happened!!!!!

in fact the more i think about it the more i like the idea of simply going on strike. everyday he will quiz me about where the ingredients came from for the food. when did i buy it, when was it opened, how long has it been in the freezer for etc etc. actually i dont know why im even bothering!