Just a Taste of Something Different

Have you ever had a fear so consuming, so real, so much larger than life that you can't shake it no matter what you do? Welcome to my life. I start each day facing some of my greatest fears the second I walk into my kitchen.

Yes, I have a fear of food, food preparation, and many of the utensils needed to have such food. It's not easy to watch your friends prepare a meal knowing you couldn't do it yourself. Knowing without them you'd be living off frozen Pizza Pockets is a hard thing to come to terms with, luckily I've had years to cope.

I've always been a picky eater, spending much of my childhood eating bread and butter sandwiches for all meals. On major holidays I have peroggis while my family has turkey or ham, cooked to the right perfection, with such a lovely aroma, only to stop myself from eating it out of fear. Save perhaps a two month stint when I was ten, I can't tell you the last time I've eaten any type of poultry. Is it the feathers? The overall cute appearance? The fact that you can tell it's an animal ready to pounce on you as it sits on your plate? The threat of salmonella? I couldn't tell you. What I do know is that something physically stops me from eating foods in this category. This summer I accidentally ate a piece of breaded chicken thinking it was pork, and the second I was told otherwise I was physically ill. People often think I'm crazy to not eat something I may find visually or aromatically appeasing, but not eating these foods is survival.

Hot Dogs are an essential part of any summer, and I love them.

Think of your favourite food. For most of my life I've loved bacon. Yet living away from home I now face the stresses of food preparation. My fear of touching raw meat now takes the forefront. The cold, slick, slimy texture of raw meat is enough to keep me from having my favourite food. This fear extends to eggs (I only started eating them last year), which I actually have to get one of my roommates to shell for me. It's embarrassing and makes every second in the kitchen a struggle. Will I ever be able to cook for another? At the rate I'm going fears need to be faced fast. The first piece of raw bacon, raw meat in general I've willingly touched was only last week.

Ironically, I like my steak rare.

My fears extend into the realm of other food groups as well. I can't eat cereal with milk (unless it's Cinnamon Toast Crunch or NesQuick and even then I eat quickly) for fear of soggy food. I will only eat dry oatmeal smooth peanut butter. Not to mention my intense fear of being grated by a cheese grater which prevents me from touching one and the use of knives larger than a butter knife is usually a no go. Brusselsprouts remind me of aliens ready to infest my brain and the fact that capers look like baby cucumber gives me the creeps. Diced tomatoes are just too odd looking to eat. Salami is the only lunch meat I'd buy, ham is aiight ( a little skin like) but the others are just too icky looking. Cauliflower lacks too much colour, lettuce is too flaky (as well as filler and a flavour waster), zucchini is like an expiring cucumber turning yellow, and if anything may have in any way come in contact with raw meat I'm deterred.

Hot Rods are safe, they're super saturated in salt.

The most perplexing to many is my fear of hamburgers. Up until a couple of years ago I refused to eat most meat. Then I jumped in and ate a steak. I went as far as to eat fish and chips, which is still one of my greatest fears (it has to do with the scales and the eyes, and the smell) and promptly got drunk and threw it up on my new veranda in front of the neighbours. In these two years I began eating burritos (only from Taco Bell, try the Cheese Burritos) and no longer pushed the meat sauce to the side of my pasta. Still I can't quite bring myself to eat a hamburger. I recently tried a veggie burger, and while I like the taste, I just can't quite bring myself to eat ground beef in burger form. The way it's packed together just instills a paralyzing fear I can feel creep up my spine and shoot through every nerve ending. I can't quite put into words how hamburgers make me feel.

Still it's not all bad, I'll always like beef (excluding burgers) and broccoli.

Just something think about the next time you make your tuna casserole or chicken Parmesan, you never know how it might affect someone.



This one's for you Lil' J.