Everyone has their own unique food quirks, (says the girl whose favorite snack growing up was cream cheese slathered on saltine crackers that had been broken in half), but not all picky eating was created equal. I support picky eating, because I know that without picky eaters in the world, we'd all just be eating couch crumbs, garbage pizza, and Hot Pockets. Picky eaters are the reason that recipes exist-they're why we don't put cilantro in apple pie or glob marshmallow cream on cucumbers. At some point in history, one of our ancestors mixed roots with armadillo leg and pronounced, "That gross," and our ingredient combinations evolved as result. Despite being one of these self-professed picky eaters, time has refined my palette-I now use whole crackers for optimal cream cheese coverage-and transformed me into a much more discerning foodie. My time spent frowning at menus has also taught me two very important things about my picky eaters peer group: Every picky eater who isn't me has bad taste, and the rest get a strange thrill from cuisine confrontation.
I first joined the picky eaters at age 5 when I first crossed paths with lima beans. They looked like vegetable roadkill-wannabe peas that that been had smashed under the weight of 20 mattresses and slumbered upon by a princess. I assessed this threat on my plate, and carefully used my spoon to escort them away from the edges of my beloved mashed potato mountain. My mom was incredulous, but my grandma quickly came to my rescue and insisted, "Oh, let her be. She might just be a picky eater." That singular instance grandmotherly intervention empowered me to wrinkle my nose at fish, mayonnaise, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (but not peanut butter and jelly separately), macaroni and cheese, sweet potatoes, and celery, among others, for the past 20 years.
It was a long period of peace among plate-sharers. I got along famously with my fellow picky eaters; exchanging nods across the aisle with them at restaurants when we'd notice each other extracting olives or quarantining blue cheese. We were all part of a team, combating the same often-green enemies. But lately, the group that calls itself picky eaters has deteriorated into the eating equivalent of the GOP. Too many oblivious people with bad taste and ax to grind with the world have begun calling themselves "picky eaters," tarnishing the very label the rest of us have sacrificed good first impressions and Thai dinner invitations for.
There's talk of building a wall to separate beet farmers from the rest of us; some are even offended by the marriage of breadsticks 'n cheez. I don't know where these people came from, but I don't want to be associated with them. These so-called picky eaters are picky about all the wrong foods. They're those who scorn tomatoes and wrinkle their noses in contempt when coconut comes up in conversation. They're staunchly anti-raisin and besmirch Cap'n Crunch sans crunchberries. Some of them don't even like corn on the cob. As a true picky eater-perhaps one of the last true picky eaters in the known world-I can confirm that these are not my people. When I see these individuals troubling restaurant servers to "ask the chef if the dressing uses dill" or "use a bun without poppyseeds," I do not recognize them as one of my own.
The problem is that everyone found out that being picky comes with a certain prestige. After all, who among us wants to be known as the human garbage disposal who's willing to eat whatever slop lands on our plates? We want to be special. We enjoy being the one person at family gatherings bold enough to sneer at Aunt Gertie's Cornish "Hevva" cake. We like being untouchable, because besides claiming an allergy, picky eating is the only thing sure to earn you a Get Out of Eating That Weird Stuff Free card every time. Once a picky eater reveals their status, everyone quietly accepts that they're just a real pain in the ass about food, and that it's probably not worth threatening bodily harm to get them to try potato soup. So us picky eaters skate through life without sampling anyone's weird sweet potato concoction or enduring restaurants that only serve salad.
But being picky in 2015 doesn't have the same allure that it did 2005. The first handful of years of the 2000s were the golden age of picky eating, when scraping mustard off of bread was everyone's pastime. There was still a quiet humility about being picky then-the understanding that even the most confident picky eaters had a reason to be embarrassed, even ashamed. The picky eaters of 2015 have grown bolder, less apologetic in their cockamamie requests about whether the lettuce on a burger is shredded or whole leaf. Gone are the days when picky eaters humbly asked for omitted pickles. Now they make demands. They scoff when a waiter explains that a quesadilla without the sour cream, tomatoes, salsa, and chicken is just a round grilled cheese sandwich made with flour tortilla bread. They sulk in corners at parties where there are bowls of cashews and almonds instead of their beloved peanuts. There are times dining with a vegan would be more straightforward than breaking bread (not rye, wheat, pumpernickel, though) with these types.
Some picky eaters are faking it, too. Full disclosure: I pretend to be a lot pickier about food than I actually am at family gatherings to give my family something to talk about. I figure if I can offend them enough with my controversial Jell-O comments, maybe they won't ask me any prying personal questions. But that kind of over-the-top picky eating serves a greater good. Other picky eaters are just picky to be confrontational in a low-pressure environment where they have the upper hand. They make casual threats in restaurant booths like, "If this burrito has beans in it, I'm going to be pissed. The menu doesn't say anything about beans, and even though most burritos have beans, I ordered it assuming there would be no beans. I would've said no beans if I thought there'd be beans. Maybe I'll ask the waitress when she comes back. I think she was starting to ask me if I wanted beans or not, but she didn't. Did you catch that? Why wouldn't she ask me? And why did she assume I wanted this lemon in my water? Do I look like I'm the kind of person who wants lemon water?"
Ironically, these same picky eaters never seem to detect the spit in their food.
So to all those picky eaters out there who are not me, I grieve for you. I'm sorry that you think "too chocolatey" is an actual thing food could be and that you refuse to eat limes because they taste like hipster lemons. It is my sincerest regret that you've decided to manifest your passive aggression in a manner that sidelines you at Chipotle. Above all, I'm sorry that you have such bad taste and that someone who loves you too much to tell you otherwise let you go through life thinking you're a picky eater.
Katie Hoffman is a writer living in the suburbs of Chicago. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @bykatiehoffman.
