Eating Around The Nuts In A Chocolate Bar & Finicky Eaters
Have you ever been given a chocolate bar that has nuts in it? I have. I’m not a nut guy. Growing up though, I hardly ate anything and I was labeled as a “finicky eater.” I basically ate only cinnamon crackers, strawberry jam on white toast, Kraft American Sliced cheese that were individually wrapped!!, salted potato chips, chocolate ice cream (on special occasions), and Oreo’s. That was my food group. Anything else was yuckkk! Oh I forgot to mention my childhood go to tipple, Carnation Instant Breakfast- Chocolate. I would eat it with a spoon to make it last longer.
I was the thinnest kid around. If I turned sideways I would disappear. If you planted me in a yard, I might have been good as a sundial depending on what season it was and by how long my shadow would have been, you could have known what time of the year it was. I kid you not! My Dad would not let me play football because he thought I would break. True story.
I thought nuts were ‘icky.’ To me, just looking at them gave me the hee-bee jee-bees. In my mind they were poison wrapped in a shell. Not only that, I couldn’t stand the smell of peanut butter. It was the most totally gross thing that anyone could eat near me. My older brother always ate P&J sandwich’s when we all had lunch together and just thinking about it is making me want to hurl. I had to inspect my jam on toast at lunch just to make sure my Mom didn’t accidentally use the peanut butter knife to spread my jam.
Later in life, like in the recent last twenty years, I have found a friendship with the salted cashew nut. It’s the nut version of popcorn. I have been told that they are not good for my health because of the great amount of salt content. Why is it, that when I try a new foods, someone gives me the low-down on how terrible it is for me?? Just once, I’d like to eat something where no one critiques my food selection.
My first attempt at meat was a hotdog. They were the Saturday night special in our house. My Dad used to boil them and my brothers would hoof them down. After a while I started to like the smell of them in the bun. I think that the smell of them in the bun and mixing their aromas together were giving me hunger pains, and so I decided to try one. No ketchup or anything to desecrate my taste. My Dad was overjoyed. I thought, ‘if they smell this good, they would have to taste good too.’
Rule number one in feeding a finicky food child: Food has to smell good to taste good.
I took my first bite. The bun tasted delicious. The hotdog kept sliding from one cheek to the other. My teeth couldn’t gain any sort of purchase into the meat. So I did what any kid would do, I spat it out. I could sense the disappointment in my Dad’s heart. I wouldn’t try another hotdog until my junior year in high school, when I stayed the night at my friends house.
We camped outside in his back yard. He put some dogs on the grill and cooked them up. The smell was gorgeous! He put the hotdog into the bun and handed it to me. I was too hungry to make a scene of being a finicky eater and took a bite. Glorious! Pure deliciousness! I asked for another one. He told me to go inside and get one. I opened the screen door and ran face first into the glass door. You know that feeling when you smash your nose into something and you check for blood? That hurt like hell, but I was determined to get another dog.
The next food I ever tried in the food group of meat was chicken. That was my “Gateway” food. After that I was hitting the heavy stuff, like steak and hamburgers. I once nearly overdosed on bacon. Don’t tell anyone, but I still hit the bacon on the side every now and them. I’m a food criminal.
I have a little diner that I frequent at least once a week, I call it my ‘local.’ It’s purely for my breakfast high. I get french toast, with three small sausages (too die for!) and two slices of bacon. When I walk in and the waitresses see me, they know what I am coming in for. It’s kind of a thing I have going with them. I’m like when Norm from Cheers when he walks into the room, but instead of everyone calling out my name, we just nod to each other.
My son works at a local Italian restaurant down the street from the diner. They make the best garlic chess pizza. It is so oily and unctuous, I am drooling just thinking of it. I have to eat it with a cold coke. I use the coke as a de-greaser for all the unctuous oiliness of it. I think that I could survive Armageddon if that were the last and only food to eat.
My partner in life makes this oily pasta dish that I absolutely love. I don’t know what she puts in it, but it just taste’s sooo gooood! It’s evident that there is penne pasta and a rich salami, not to hot as to ruin the experience. Of course there is olive oil, basil and salt. I have tried asking her her for the ingredients to make it myself, but nothing I make comes as close to the taste she gives it. I think she uses the spice called Love. It’s very rare. I don’t ask her to make it for me because I know that she is busy during the week and I don’t want to put her out, and the special occasions that she does make it I cherish.
Once when we lived in Christchurch, I had her make it for me several times in one week. I was food binging before binging became a thing!
I make a theme on spaghetti bolognaise. Basically I use the concoction for several dishes including bolognaise, lasagna, and in Sloppy Joe’s. Take note folks, I have used a hard tofu as a replacement for the beef. I slice and dice it up and then ground it into smaller bits, like mincing ground beef. Then I fry it up in a dry pan with barely a hint of a little olive oil spray, just to keep it from sticking to the pan. Once I have it ground up and dry fried I add it to the sauce and let it simmer away for a few hours, just like regular bolognaise sauce. Delicious!
It taste just the same as the regular stuff, has the same texture, but feels lighter in your stomach. It’s an extremely good source of protein too.
If you have finicky eaters in your household don’t be too hard on them. Especially the children. Getting mad at your child and telling them that they won’t leave the table until they eat their food is complete and utter bullshit. The bigger issue is your temperament. As they grow and interact with others there will be situations where they will take the initiative to try new foods. I am proof of that. I actually have a belly to prove it!
So I’ve come a long way since my childhood with regards to food. If you were to hand me a candy bar with nuts today, being me, I would probably still eat around the nuts and leave them uneaten. Some habits just can’t be given up.
