It's a texture thing...

I was doing my usual Saturday morning with coffee blog reading, luxuriating over the time that I had, not having to rush around, get dressed in something presentable, and go to work. One of my usual blogs that I enjoy was Cro Magnon's blog in which he was discussing the virtues of an egg. From how he was describing the process and the timing of the boiling, I presumed he was enjoying soft boiled eggs.

Not wanting to comment because I thought it would be rude to say, "Ewww, gross. I can't stand soft boiled eggs", it did get me thinking. About eggs. And other food. There is just something about the texture, or maybe it's even the thought, of slightly uncooked eggs that sends me. A fried egg with the chance of anything remotely runny initiates my gag reflex. A soft boiled egg in which you might dip a piece of toast also, to borrow a younger phrase, "grosses me out".

Cro did inspire me to have eggs this morning however.

They may have started out like this in the bowl,

but they quickly got scrambled.

Then they were cooked to within an inch of their lives with nothing runny or jiggly left at all.

It really is a texture thing. There are a few other foods that fall into the "gross out" category for me. Certain types of seafood are just too chewy, rubbery, or just plain slimy for my liking. We have travelled to the east coast of Canada a number of times. When in Prince Edward Island, one must eat mussels, oysters, clams, or lobster. I managed to dip mussels into garlic butter and perform an obligatory couple of chews before choking them down. I wanted to love them. I really did. But I kept trying not to feel them in my mouth the whole time. Lobster is great, but god help me if I get served up a female complete with eggs. My poor sweet young daughter at the time received this at one of the famous P.E.I lobster suppers. She was, and still is, an adventuresome eater (I have tried to be somewhat silent in my disapproval of certain textures so as not to pass on my issues to my children), but even the sight of those tiny red eggs made her think twice.

I even forced myself to put my big girl panties on and try a raw oyster on our most recent trip (husband and daughter were in there having a feast!) I'm not even going to tell you what that blob of raw oysterness felt like sliding down my throat. (It's giving me the shivers even now). I don't care how much hot sauce or lemon you are going to squeeze on that thing, that was my last oyster event.

Clams. They just stay there. You can keep chewing till the next day and they never change, or go away. They are giant rubber bands to me.

As a child going over to the farm where noon meals were essentially "supper" as was the practise of farming families who had been up and choring since well before 6:00 a.m., I was used to meals that had not one, but sometimes two choices of dessert. (Did I mention I was a fat kid?) Sometimes it was custard pie, or it was apple dumplings, "store bought" donuts sprinkled with sugar, even a piece of bread swimming in real maple syrup, and sometimes, yes, sometimes it was a bowl of tapioca pudding. Shudder...  Could you get more "eating of fish eyes" than a bowl of tapioca pudding?

Fat on meat, anything less than completely crispy chicken skin (and even then, skin... bleh), the tiny bones in canned salmon, the jellified top coating of pate, the thick cream that rose to the top of our straight-from-the-bulk-tank-non-pasteurized whole milk, the little globules in breakfast sausages, chunky bits of pulp in orange juice, wine gums, bacon that is even remotely wobbly, jello... the list goes on and on.

I know this makes me sound a bit like a princess, but I don't voice my disgust because I know it's just my own personal issues. I don't send food back in a restaurant, I don't make requests of a hostess when invited to dinner, and I don't go on about it (except for it being the topic of this post). I just quietly trim the fat off my beef and leave it in a little pile at the side of my plate.

What about you? Are there any food textures that send you packing?