Food Trauma as a “Picky Eater”
Until a few years ago, one of my most traumatic food-related childhood memories was still trotted out as a joke at family gatherings, particularly Sunday dinners at my mom’s house, which we went to every week before the pandemic.
It was a bowl of goulash. I doubt the way my mom made it was anything close to “authentic,” since we ate very bland foods due to my DAD’S sensitivities to spices — including black pepper — but it was basically macaroni, ground beef, and onions with whatever else may have made it goulash.
I could happily eat a McDonald’s hamburger with diced onions on it, or macaroni and cheese, but I couldn’t tolerate the texture of ground beef and onions in my noodles. There was a three-hour standoff that involved me sobbing because I already knew I didn’t like it, I already knew it made me gag, but this was a hill my parents were prepared to die on. It ended with me choking down cold goulash.
I went through a long period of time where I refused to eat beef at all, something that I didn’t start doing again until after I was MARRIED, and while I can’t specifically remember when that started, this may have been the instigating incident.
To this day, I still can’t eat ground beef in anything but burger form. On a bun. Preferably with cheese. Likely because of the lasting trauma of having to literally choke down my mom’s goulash because my parents decided to “take a stand” against my “picky eating.”
