When I don't know the language in a country, i point to what someone else in the dining establishment is eating. Now this sounds easy, and it is, but you have to be discreet as people really don't like others to point at what they're eating. So it all comes down to how you point--you kind of have to cover the pointed finger with your other hand while you walk toward to what you want to eat.

http://digitalartphotographyfordummies.blogspot.com/

Love your blog - just found it a few weeks ago and have been working my way through all of your archives. My quirk is a diet coke every morning first thing. I've been doing this for over thirty years. I then move on to iced tea - I had to give up coffe.

I'm one of those "no food touching each other" types, but I also like to eat only one food at a time, and I always save the thing I like best for last. :)

I have to agree with your husband on: don't let the food on the plate touch! The thought is GROSS! I have two daughters, one like me. The other like you, FW! And, a boyfriend like you FW too! lol.

However, I do not need to eat one food item at a time, and I like M&M's with peanuts or without!

Other food quicks:

food textures - can't eat certain foods because of it. i.e.: can't eat raisins alone (too mushy!) - but can eat them in Oatmeal Raisin cookies - no problem! (I think they dry out when baked!)

clear glass mugs - this might be my #1. I hate being served hot liquids (coffee, tea) in clear glass mugs... I know it is probably in my head - but, the drink doesn't taste as good. (I have a girfriend who has this issue as well)

I guess it comes down to tolerance - being tolerant of our differences AND wouldn't life be too cookie-cutter-ish if we were all the same.

So, are you sorry you asked about food quirks now? ;)

I've known several people like that. The CFO where I work canNOT have anything touching. No sausage on top of the pancake. No chip touching the beans or rice.

I knew one person who when she started eating one food, had to completely finish it before starting on to the next.

My dad and I eat the same way - we take one bite of one food, another bite of another food, and it has to come out even in the end - there has to be one bite of each food left to finish. Though we don't mind mixing :)

Does eating salad greens with your fingers count? I don't do it all the time, only at home with the fabulously fresh organic mixed greens from the farmers market. Without dressing!

I'm a "no mixage" girl.

When I was a child I was a "no food must touch" kind of girl. As in, when we had spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner the spaghetti was on one side of the plate and the meat sauce on the other.

It wasn't until the peer pressure of college that I got past that.

Re:

"My dad and I eat the same way - we take one bite of one food, another bite of another food, and it has to come out even in the end - there has to be one bite of each food left to finish. Though we don't mind mixing :)"

That's what I do! I like to savor the different tastes in some sort of sequence, but if the items spill over onto each other, I eat as is.

Also, until I was in my 20s, the only time I ate cheese was on tacos; I've since graduated. Friend of mine won't eat tomatoes, but he will eat salsa with tomatos. No olives other than in one recipe.

I still don't like cream cheese or sour cream alone, but will eat dishes that include each (cheesecake, cream cheese frosting, stroganoff). Don't do hollandaise, either.

No asparagus, ever! But I know why - got sick on it as a child (an exorcist moment)

the only food quirk i really find myself noticing is that i won't eat things with a slimy texture, such as jello. i can't stand anything that's gelatinous in any form at all.

as far as mixing foods though, i'm all about it. my most favourite mix recently is tabouli and olive tapenade. both are lovely on their own, but together it's taste-bud heaven. in fact, i think i'm going to go have some right now!

i like my couscous hard. i mean top with boiling water and let sit for, oh, say, 1/2 hour. then bake. drizzle with soya and a dollop of plain yogurt or sour cream and dig into that bad boy with edge of spoon as though eating a torte.

and cereal mush. raisin bran, all bran, corn flakes and, possibly the best, shreddies. top with milk and let sit for, oh say, 1/2 hour. until soft and soaked up all the milk. slice banana over top and dig in with edge of spoon as though eating something slightly softer than a torte. soft and scrummy.

and wilted salads. well, not so much wilted as zapped. that's right. make yourself a crunchy fresh green salad (don't forget the frozen green peas. just don't), dress it and nuke it. for, oh say, a minute or two. the lettuce wilts a treat and you can thus get so much more of that green goodness on a forkful.

okay, i also make vinegrettes with those cartons of vegetable soup. just add your favourite vinegar and presto!

plus hard boiled eggs dipped in or sprinkled lavishly with chopped dill is da bomb.

as are cucumbers, celery and mushroom dipped in dijon for a snack.

heavenly scrummy!

okay, i look quirkier on paper than i am. honest.

I am not a fan of mixing foods, but they can touch...

There are only a few foods that I will eat leftovers of - Christmas turkey/dressing/cranberry sauce, borcht (because it's always better the next day) - same with cabbage rolls. Other than that leftovers and me don't get along.

Foods that are greasy make me gag - literally. I can't eat those cheapy breakfast sausage - or most sausages for that point.

Jenny: I do the EXACT same thing. Don't like food to touch, especially vegetables (not potatoes) and gravy. I used to (and often still do) eat all of one thing before moving on to the next. And I used to eat what I liked first leaving the stuff I didn't like (mashed potatoes...with no gravy at that point because it was a touching thing) until my mom pointedly noticed that I was always full before it was time to eat the potatoes. Now it's reversed.

And if we're eating frozen peas (BLEAH, GAG PTOOOIE) they're eaten first so that the rest of the meal can drown out the taste.

I guess my food "quirk" is that I can go from sweet to savory to sweet without a problem. It seems that doing so grosses other people out. I don't mix my food per se, but I don't keep it separate, but I can eat a peach, then a salad, then a half of a blueberry muffin, then a bowl of cottage cheese sprinkled liberally with black pepper but no salt, followed by a couple of medjool dates.

I give that as my example because, uh, that because that was my lunch.

I think it comes from cooking professionally, because I have to make desserts first (they usually need to cool) then half-prepping the entrée, then making the salad, then finishing the dessert, then making the sides & finishing the entrée.... tasting as I go, the way a good cook should. :-D

Anyway, I've discovered that the way I eat freaks people out, but it's natural for me!

Celexa works WONDERS for OCD, folks!

My quirk is pouring my cereal into one side of my bowl, and just a small amount of milk into the other, then scooping the cereal into the milk and eating it immediately so it's still crunchy. Finish milk, add milk, repeat. :o)

Hmmm....

I like my food to touch, to introduce themselves, to (dare I say it) get intimate.

I like playing with mixing textures and tastes.

I do not like my food to be wall flowers, off on the side of the plate with no body asking for a dance.

I hate the last item on my plate, wondering why I left it out and could I have saved something better to end with.

(sigh)

I don't like my food to touch either but I do like peanute m&m's.

Besides my strange affection for eating dark chocolate with pink lemonade (the flavor combination is one of my favorites), I cannot drink water through a straw. It makes the water taste like plastic.

Until a year ago, I never could eat a hamburger or hot dog with all the components together. I'd eat eveything separately.
I don't care about food mixing or eating food separately. Except for sausages and pancakes. I won't eat a sausage or bacon or anything savory served alongside if it gets syrup on it.

I have to have my tomato sauce BESIDE my spaghetti.

I just wanted to say that I love your blog! I found it a couple of weeks ago and read your entire site within a week. Thanks for so many hours of entertainment and laughing out loud so my boyfriend gives me that "are you ok" kind of look.

as far as food goes, I am totally a mixer. It used to gross my dad (a non-mixer) out whenever I would do it. Mashed potatoes are meant to be mixed with everything on your plate if you ask me. Thanksgiving is the most amazing day for food mixing. My quirk: texture. I can not stand celery because of the stringy crunchy texture it has going on. Oyesters are a whole seperate topic.

I have this thing about the correct order of foods, salty before sweet in particular, and my wife will, after 10 years of marriage, still delight in offering me chocolate, and then opening a bag of crisps, knowing full well that I will grumble while she finishes the bag!

My grandmother used to eat an apple for dessert. Nothing wrong with that. Except she would slice it and use it to mop the gravy off her plate! Used to drive us kids batty!

No fruit in food. Like this current fixation with mango salsa on meat. Eeew! Waldorf salad horrifies me. And tomatoes have to be totally de-slimed. No seeds, no skin, and none of that goop inside.

But dipping hard preztels in vanilla ice cream is delightful!

I'm with Jenny -- I have always, for my entire life, saved whatever was best on my plate for last. I would prefer that my food not touch, but I'm OK if it does. Or, at least, I'm better about that than I was when I was a kid.

Although I've never been a picky eater.

I also eyeball everything and divide it out in my head into equal portions. If someone at the table needs to know whether or not everyone has had their fair share of something, I can usually tell them. (It's a little bit OCD...)

And, last but not least, I refuse to eat cereal with milk on it. This is due to an unfortunate incident with some bad whole milk -- it had been so long since I'd had whole milk that I didn't recognize until I was a little ways into my bowl o' cereal that it was, in fact, so bad as to be chunky -- and so I now eat cereal dry. Makes it much easier to eat during commuting, though...

Genie
http://www.theinadvertentgardener.com

I don't do this any more (probably because potato chips are more technically advanced now and don't include those potato bubbles) but when I was a kid I would fill up the bubbles in potato chips with Pepsi (never Coke!) and enjoy the sweet, the salt and the liquid adventure all at once! Yum!

Ok, I had to de-lurk for this one! I always eat the edges of sandwiches (burgers, etc) first - all the way around. I also always try to leave a little bit of my favorite part of the meal until last, but then I risk my husband stealing it off my plate before I'm done! Oh, and my husband microwaves his ice cream!

That's a bit OC.

Ha ha ha! Yay for not being the only neurotic food eater!!! :)

I have two items:

1. Small round candies must be eaten in pairs, one on each side of the mouth for simultaneous chewing. This applies to skittles, m&ms, red hots, etc.

2. Waffles, even if round, must be cut into squares along the inter-square seams, perfectly preserving the little wells so that no syrup leaks out onto the plate. That would just be plain unacceptable.

Other than that, it doesn't matter how it gets in my mouth, just GIMME! :)

-- I like dry Ramen. Like, uncooked, straight from the bag.

-- I like coffee scalding hot and very strong.

-- I love cinannamon raisin bagels that have been stored next to the garlic ones and so have garlic on the bottoms -- YUM!

-- I go nuts when Cute Husband mixes leftovers -- I need chicken, rice, sauce to be separate so everyone can serve in the proportions they personally like. I hate goopy rice or unsauced chicken, so don't tolerate their being stored together.

My foods cannot touch on the plate. I've been like that forever. My 6 year old is the same way and I absolutely understand! :) I also cannot have one bit of fat on my meat. My dad used to call me the Surgeon when I was younger because I expertly cut away any sign of fat from my steak. One touch of the fat on my tongue and I gag.

I sort my Skittles by color, toss away the purple, then eat the green, then yellow, then red then orange.

I can not bear the feeling of peanut butter. If it's on my fingers I want to scream. I don't eat it but my kids do. I just about die cleaning the knife or their plates.

It's actually a really interesting quirk. Not allowing foods to touch eachother is a holdover instinct from the olden (really, really olden) days. Small children will seperate foods so that they can eat them seperately, so that if one of them makes them sick they can learn to avoid it.
Most people get over this need as they learn what is and isn't poisonous, what they are and aren't allergic to, etc.
But some people don't. I think maybe they just have extra caveman brain cells.

But honestly, if I see another person pick apart a quiche so that they can eat each component seperately I may get sick.

I have a friend who won't eat any meat with bones in it. My boyfriend and I freaked him out by ordering chicken's feet over dim sum and sucking on the bones (as you do). You should have seen his face!

I have another friend who for two weeks refused to eat anything that didn't come from a bain marie. And when my cousin was a kid he went through a worcestershire sauce phase, where everything he ate had to be doused in worcesteshire sauce.

Maybe I should take a long hard look at my friends.

I mix everything up on my plate! I used to completely gross out my step mom with my strange combinations... The mix of savory and sweet, hot and cold, crunchy and creamy makes it worthwhile! Although I must admit it often looks disgusting.

I don't like my food touching on the plate. I prefer M&M's with peanuts. Try to make my last bite the thing I like best. My pankakes must be on a separate plate, I don't like syrup on eggs or meat.

I have a temperature thing. Hot foods must stay HOT HOT and cold foods cold. I can't stand lukewarm meats off the grill and my ice cream must be rock-solid, ice-cold. It is not unusual for me to microwave my plate halfway through dinner to rewarm everything.

My boyfriend eats cans of soup cold and it drives me insane. It's probably hormonal.

I don't like butter on my toast or veggies. Even the smell of ghee in a frypan will cause me to wretch.

Biggles

YOP IS GROSS.

i literally can not be in the same room as someone DRINKING yogurt.

just gross.

as are chocolate fountains.

watered down, bug filled, luke warm chocolate is an insult to self-respecting fine chocolate everywhere.

quirk: i love eggs, but i pick the chalazas (those little squggles of membrane that anchor the york in place in the center of the egg) out when i'm baking. the idea of them in my banana bread or whatever severely grosses me out. god forbid i hit one biting into a hard boiled egg. it's just game over -- can't gag down the rest. just like hitting a bit of grissle in a hamburger. no matter how delish that burger was, biting into a bit of grissle is a deal breaker -- into the trash with that bad boy.

I'm a new reader and I absolutely _love_ your blog; I worked in restaurants for thirteen years and remember your pain...

As for food quirks: My only real quirk is that if I'm eating colored candies (skittles, m&ms, etc), I sort them by color. That's apparently not so wierd, after reading the other comments; but then I have to make sure I have the same amount of each color. If I have any overage I take it and eat it all at one time to get it out of the way (for example, if I have four blue, four yellow, five green and six brown, I'll take one green and two brown and toss 'em all into my mouth at once). Then, I eat one from each pile till they're gone.

This applies even when the color makes no difference in the candy's flavor, so I really have no idea why I do it.

:) I'm not crazy, really. I'm just misunderstood.

This is so hilarious. See, FW... things at work could be worse :)

I love you people.

I have been known to reheat one cup of soup five times lest it waver from optimal consumption temperature.

Oh and the sorting of the skittles into equal, colour-coded piles, tossing back evil extras all at once and consuming the rest one from each pile? I totally do that. And the eating of the sandwiches all edges first (or all insides first -- file under french toast, banana bread and anything with a delectably chewy crust)? Yep, I'm on board with that one too. And as far as I'm concerned, mash potatoes are a vehicle of transfer for everything else that's on your plate. Think of it as a flatbed for your fork -- load with other injestible(s) of choice and it's off to the mouth with that puppy.

Kay, gotta go reheat my soup.

Black Wine Gums last of course.

And if you don't suck the sour stuff off the key part of a sour key before even thinking about taking on the ring? Well colour yourself a rube of the severest kind.

And who doesn't break off and eat all the chocolate crust on their Revolo ice cream before contentedly sucking on the vanilla inside? Yahoos, that's who. People who probably know nothing about the highly civilized practice of eating neopolitan ice cream by colour -- rather disgusting strawberry first, hum-drum old vanilla second and finally best-for-last chocolate. I still don't really understand why neopolitan is better than just buying plain chocolate ice cream. But it so is.

And ice cream cones? What's that about? I'll tell you what that's about. That's about a sorry, anti-climatic tube of air with the taste and texture of cardboard. Sugar and waffle cones I can do. Sugar and waffle cones are worth eating in their own right. They bring something to the table. But regular stack-in-a-box ice cream cones? Oh please. Give me a bowl and spoon and let's do us some ice cream eating already.

And anything that purports to be toasted that doesn't have some evidence of slight charring (oh, being 'burnt' if you will) is false advertisement. 'Golden brown' my behind. Scorch me some carbon dammit!

Well...all food is good to me. I have no quirks! Put it in front of me and I'll try it. I remember on the holidays thinking that the turkey sure did taste good with the cool whip ( a purel coincidental rendezvous on my plate, I assure you! )

I always thought my sister was weird because she won't eat strawberry jam or oatmeal, or anything remotely 'lumpy', but compared to people who have to separate their skittles...!
But I think my boss wins. She can't eat food with wooden chopsticks, just can't stand the feel of them. We went for sushi, they didn't have any plastic chopsticks, she had to use a fork. Me, I just have an aversion to anything made with Cool-Whip, but I dont' think there's anything actually wrong with that.

in response to alphagirl, you just reminded me of my biggest food quirk of all that I forgot! wood. I can not stand the taste of wood. I dont care if it's in a popsicle, chopsticks or those little wooden spoons you could get with those rock hard ice cream cups from the ice cream man. I can't do wood.

I don't really have any quirks that annoy people when it comes to food. The only think I can think of is eating KitKats layer at a time. (Oh, and maybe insisting on Snicker bars being frozen--not the frozen ice cream version either.) Chiseling off each with my teeth, not surgical equipment.
And that having to have food not touch makes me near homicidal. It's so friggin' retared--what do they think happend to it once it's in the first stop in the GI highway?

As a child I was extremely fussy and wouldn't eat foods that touched (so that meant no salads). Now I love complex salads and sandwiches. However, there are some foods whose textures I can't stand. This includes meatloaf, meatballs (even though I like hamburgers), and I can't stand tomato sauce (even though I like marinara as a dipping sauce). I also hate most soups but love almost all gazpachos. So basically I'm still picky but I eat lots of foods that the average Americans are too wimpy to try. Oh, and I also love pickles and ice cream (even when I'm not pregnant)!

This is so awesome! I thought I was the only 'eat the crust first save the middle for last' sandwich eaters. And I save a bite of whatever I like best on my dinner plate. I also separate Skittles,Starburst, etc by color. I always eat the citrus flavors first and save the red and purple ones for last. I love cottage cheese but it can never be mixed with fruit. There's something about the fruit juice mixing with the cottage cheese liquid that just puts me over the edge.

1.) I can't STAND to hear someone else chew (unfortunately for my husband). Also, if the food makes squishy noises of any kind, I'll be gagging.

2.) After being a Weight Watcher for a little over 2 years, I now mentally tabulate the POINTS value of everything I eat, even if I'm not tracking my POINTS intake at the time.

I'll eat anything (food allergies providing), but need ice in my drinks.

One of my favorite foods (leftovers often, but I've been known to make it all just to have it together) is what my mom called mush when we were little. Mashed potatoes and gravy with corn, all stirred together and made a little less solid with some more milk Probably still ranks high on my list of comfort foods.

My weird quirks are all sensory. I hate having smells on my hands and I hate having sticky things on my hands. I kind of have to psych myself up for them. So I eat grilled cheese and donuts and other traditional finger foods with a fork and knife. I can't stand the stuff on my hands, even for the duration of the meal. It's not exclusively how I do things, but it's how I do them most often. I know I'm weird.

Im a repentant eater. I eat the items I like the least, first, working my way towards the bits I like best. I used to take the beans out of chili so I could eat them last. I would lick them clean and put them next to my napkin and eat them last. I dont really do that but then I dont really eat chili much lately.

As for cooking, Im terrible. and terribly impatient. I recently burned myself from a) frying sesame oil WAY too hot and b) dumping the whole (cubed and dry but) box of tofu into the pan. If I hadnt been holding the lid of the pan with my left hand, I probably wouldnt be typing this. great topic!

eating chocolate bars in layers! i totally deconstruct my chocolate bars. coffee crisp, kitkat. mars bars are eaten nougat first, then a lovely long layer of caramel and choco. i even eat each bite of a wonderbar by eating the caramel and chocolate outside first, then the peanut butter inside. same with each bite of a skore bar -- chocolate outside first, then crunchy inside. peanut butter cups? I poke out the insides and eat them first. perhaps weirdest is breaking up caramilk bars into squares and biting off the chocolate base, then licking out the caramel, then popping the cleaned out chocolate cup into my mouth. and a box of black magic chocolates MUST be eaten in a certain order -- crap fillings first, then nuts, then mints, then nougats, then plain chocolates, then liqueurs, then good cream fillings (hello hazlenut!), then chewy caramels for last. the revolting marichino cherry gloopy ones get tossed with the box. as a kid, i'd only eat rootbeer popsicles. and only the white and the yellow freezees. nerds? one side, then the other. while dip sticks were carefully alternated between the two flavours.

ooh, i just remembered another one. when i decided, at the ripe age of 12, to become a vegetarian (still am, 17 years later), i still went to macdonalds and ordered cheeseburgers and big macs, hold the burger. got weird looks but i tell you the taste was exactly the same -- warm flat white bun with prossessed cheese, hot dill pickles, diced onion, ketsup and mustard. man oh man were they tasty. and i LOVE pizza crusts. the toppings part is just a prelude to be quickly dispatched before digging into a pizza's worth of saved up tomato sauce and cheese-dusted crusts. i always asked other people if i could have their crusts -- i couldn't believe they would just leave those precious treasures in the box!

I don't have any quirks related directly to eating, but here's something that makes me absolutely batty - more of a pet peeve:

Going to BBQs at other peoples' homes and having to stand idly by while the host/hostess cooks 5 oz. patties of hamburger for 14 minutes on each side, and then presents the guests with a tray of black lumps covered with cheese. It bothers me to the point that I literally have to physically remove myself from the grilling area, to prevent a violent involuntary reaction.

I can't lick wooden spoons or popsicle sticks. Even thinking about it to write this makes my front teeth hurt. Sort of like nails on a chalkboard.

Homemade mac and cheese must have ketchup with it. (This is a family thing, learned from my mother, who converted her entire sorority in college to this practice, though my father's family also did it.) And only Heinz. Hunt's is nasty.

Miracle whip is also nasty. Can't eat anything with it. Mayo on the other hand....

Hate fat on meat. It must go. I'm pretty sure it's a texture thing, since bacon and the like are fine if crunchy. And preferably with maple syrup. Scrapple with maple syrup. Yum.

Chicken must be deskinned before eating, even if fried.

Fish MUST have the heads removed before being put on the plate. I find it hard to eat something that's looking at me. (I'm not sure if this last one really counts as a quirk.)

since I was a kid - two silly quirks, pickle juice on potato chips (now they come conveniently packaged in dill pickle flavor) and potato chips or fritos on my sandwich. crunchy, salty goodness.

Tomato is NEVER allowed to be next to the bread in a sandwich, regardless of how much mayo/butter is there to form a moisture barrier. The soggy-factor is just too high.

Beef is only ok when pickled, cured or otherwise "de-beefed" in flavor. Pastrami and corned beef are ok, as is Korean bulgogi, but filet mignon is not. It's dumb.

I have a friend who will not eat ANYTHING that is blue. She just can't stand the thought of it.

And lo, above the deli appeared a heavenly host... The sandwich commandment is this and it must be followed: Thy mayonnaise shalt not infringe upon thy mustard; verily they shall be separated by the meat, by the toppings, and by the holy Swiss. Forever and ever, Amen.

Heh, I eat one partiular food until it's done and then go in to the next, starting with the meat and ending with the dessert.

as an adolescent, i knew no greater joy than pressing fresh, soft bunsmaster kaiser buns against my ears. it was just such a comforting sensation. soft bread against your ears. bun-muffs i called them. you just can't beat the bun-muffs.

oh, and if the buns were still warm? heaven.

bet i'd still enjoy it today.

being an adult sucks.

oh heavenly bun-muffs...

subsequently removed from the ears, cut open and laid face down to sop up the butter in which my shaved black forest ham had been frying and thence to turn a buttery golden brown. the fried ham in then inserted between those fried orbs of goodness and the whole summarily consumed piping hot, with or without mustard in which to dip it, one bite at a time (go french's or go home) or processed mozza slice (oh the way you melt on the crispy buttery hot ham. oh the joy you bring), with instant and deep, soul-bolstering gratification.

dear god i've have a coronary and a straight jacket if i could still eat and act like an adolescent...

but oh, the bun-muffs...

I HATE CELERY. Passionately. I cannot have it in any dish. If I forget to ask the waiter if a salad has celery and it comes out with celery I can't eat it. I can't even pick through it because I hate the taste so much that i don't want it lingering on my fork. I tried to talk my mom into thinking I was allergic when I was younger (unfortunately for me, my mom knew I wasn't having an allergic reaction when I tried gagging everytime she forced a stick in my mouth). Most people who have no real sense of taste tell me that celery has no taste. My retort is always, "Yes, it does. It tastes like CELERY!"

don't understand why I cannot eat liver, but would sacrifice my opera tickets for fois gras sauteed in sauterne.

My biggest food quirk is that I order my food usually without something... Like, I want that sandwich, but no mayo, or tomatoes. I don't ever try and sub, but I hate mayo, and too many tomatos. I also don't eat fish, at all, but I wish I liked it... Milk, I can't have anybody drink out of my milk glass!!! GROSS!
Ok, I am weirder than I think!

the thought of raw eggs in anything is absolutely nauseating. mayo, orange julius, cookie dough.

RE-

VOL-

TING

period.

Wow, the whole food not touching thing is weird, I personally know no one who eats that way. Does this mean you never eat sandwiches??? What a loss! I think that people who eat that way had mothers that made them eat everything on their plate before they finished a meal.maybe?

...mixing up the food of people who can't stand their foods to touch.

I tend to eat all of one thing before moving on to the next (say, all my potatoes) but I'd say the REAL quirkyness is something I never grew out of, though I avoid it most places: I am a condiment mixer. I will mix ketchup and butter and sometimes other stuff with my gravy, or worchestershire and teriyaki and soy, and another type of soy, and frankly stupid things like that.
I just generally do it when people aren't looking. And yes, I occasionally drink a dressing or sauce. Again, privately XP

Hmm... pre-packaged orange juice, frozen or not, makes me queasy. Yet freshly squeezed doesn't seem to bother me. Uncooked tomato seeds and their jelly... gag. Coleslaw... URK! not on my plate! If ketchup touches my eggs, I freak out a bit, yeah. Eating nearly everything with my fingers if I can get away with it.

Wow, it must an American issue. I have never heard of anybody having those concerns anywhere else, although I have lived in almost 10 different countries in Europe and Africa. If my food could not mix, it would rule out 3/4 of my cooking, and hence of my pleasure. Funny how people are different :-)

your post got me cracking up. it reminds me of "when harry met sally". yep, i guess 'on the side' is an issue for some. personally, some foods are better eaten all mixed and mashed up. especially soaking soft bread in curry (drool drool). but nothing beats putting a scoop of ice-cream on a slice of soft bread drizzled with choc fudge and nuts. try it!!!

Ok, my food quirks are that I can NOT taste food while I am cooking it. It ruins the whole experience and then I don't want to eat it when it is finished. I love "experimental" cooking and throwing things in left and right, but it's kind of like russian roulette, I'll find out how good or bad it is at the table.

I also have a problem with food that cooks all day. After smelling it all day, I really don't want to have anything to do with it.

I also hate zip-locks to store some foods. Like cookies or crackers totally taste like plastic to me if stored in a zip-lock bag. I have always thought this was strange, but I found out just recently that my sister has the same quirky zip-lock issue.

my novel of freakishness, in no particular order:

my sister and i both feel cheese before we buy. yep. that's us. feeling the cheese. i only buy one kind of mozza but i have to stand there squeezing each ball in search of the one with the hardest texture. this often perturbs fellow shoppers right out of the dairy isle.

i do it with bread too, to get the loaf with the softest insides. yep, that's me, standing in the bread isle, patting each bag of bread.

i buy cookies by colour for optimal doneness -- not too pasty (uncooked), not too dark (all crunch). it's all in the colour. (i'm so one of those people at the bakery pointing to a highly specific specimen: 'can i have that one? no, not that one. that one.')

don't even get me started on what makes a good and acceptable bottle of bick's baby dills and what makes a cringe-worthy one. size and size consistency...

and if anything like yogurt or mustard or peanut butter separates in the fridge, i pour the offending liquid out rather than mix it back in. i don't know why mixing it back in is gross but it really really is.

and i can drop a carrot stick on the floor, pick it up, wash it off, and eat it, but anything that falls in the sink is a gonner. eat nothing out of the sink, immaculate though it may be.

fresh ice in each drink, even if the ice cubes from the last one are still quite large.

cut mold off cheddar? sure. scrape it off the very top layer of homemade jam? i've been known to do it. scrape freezerburn off ice cream? not on your life. that sucker's gonedy.

my mother peels her apples. all apples. drives me bats.

do NOT cut the cheese/bread/apple with the same knife you cut the tomato/avocado/pate/butter/mayo/egg/anything else with. separate cutting utensils please. but once you've got it all on the plate -- sure, fix yourself a sandwich. retarded? yes. true all the same? yes.

and by the way, pate is revolting. and if you insist on a bit of that revoleting jelly edge with your slice, well, this is me leaving the picnic.

i can't stand the texture of watermelons. the grainy texture of watermelons is severely disgusting.

pickles walnuts look revolting, but they are delicious. pickled eggs look harmless, but they are revolting. that's just the way it is.

relish is gross. sweet pickles are gross. yes. they are.

all liqueurs of strange and fantastic colouring are revolting. no drink should be electic blue, hot pink or neon green. blue curacao, how you offend me.

chocolate flavoured yogurt or chocolate chunks in yogurt is not on. not on at all. fruits like raisins or figs in green salads, however, is definitely on. how odd.

i spritz my popcorn with water and season it with dry parsely, dill and salf-free spike.

i nuke my fig newtons.

i often nuke red wine. not to get it to room temp, but to get it warm. and let the flavour of the herbs infuse. that's right. herbs in my warm red wine. hey, the greeks did it. civilized folks, the greeks.

also, dipping crusty french bread into my glass of red wine may (okay, does) garner surprised looks in restaurants. but i don't care. it's damn delicious. only slightly less delicious that dunking crusty french bread in vinegar, preferably balsamic. but i know i'm not out to lunch on that one. only, hold the oil. it's all about the vinegar. lots and lots of vinegar.

do you know what's a good sandwich? feta inside crusty french bread is a good sandwich. don't talk to me about other ingredients. more than the feta does this perfection of a sandwich a violent disservice.

i'm a vegetarian woman. who gets a serious and totally freakish metaphorical hard-on watching men eat meat. meat and seafood. the rawer, messier, more hand-held it is, the better. juice-dripping burgers, tear-into raw oysters and the king and queen of all vicarious sensuousness: richly be-sauced wings and ribs. hail the wings and ribs. hail them. god i'm sick.

before i became a vegetarian, i used to like the taste of 7-11 burgers. i know. i'm sick. just sick.

among other things, i have one egg and half a cucumber every single day. and i take my (bone dry) vodka martini with exactly one olive. no more, no less, no matter what the size of the olive.

obsessive compulsive freak much?

i'd pretty much have to say yep.

I eat the thing I like the most last, so I can savor it. I was made to try a bunch of stuff I didn't like growing up, so I always ate the item in question first and got it over with, then I could have the stuff I liked!

I don't do leftovers. I leave those for MacGyver and the kids.

Not a fan of my food touching on the plate but I don't get uptight about it. I do eat all of one thing before moving on to the next.

I like my milk ICE COLD. So cold that, even if it JUST came out of the fridge, I drop an ice cube in it.

I prefer my dressing on the side with my salad. I'd rather dip my greens in dressing than have is slathered on.

Hearing people chew is like listening to nails on a chalk board. It's enough to send me over the edge.

Can't eat a burger without cheese on it. Ever. And I like mayo on my hot dogs.

There's more but that's enough for now.