Dear Queenie,
Our family gets together a couple of times a month on the weekend. Mostly we have a nice visit and dinner, but one of the in-laws is a very finicky eater and never has anything good to say about the food.
Very often she refuses to eat something if she thinks it doesn’t look right and she won’t even try a new dish, even though the cook explains what it is and what went into it. And then she makes comments like, “It doesn’t look very good,” or even, “That sounds awful!”
Most of us like to cook and try new recipes and we are trying to teach our children to eat all sorts of things and not be afraid of new, strange foods, but she sure isn’t helping. And I find her remarks about the food insulting.
Queenie, should we keep trying to please her? Or what should we say to her when she starts getting on about the food? And what do we tell the kids?—
Fed up cook
Dear Fed up cook,
When your finicky relative refuses to eat something, tell her, “Fine. There will be that much more for the rest of us who like (whatever it is)!” Then pass her the bread and butter and ignore any further comments she makes.
As for the children, tell them privately that you think this woman misses out on a lot of good food by behaving the way she does. Use as examples some of the things they like at which she turns up her nose and ask them, “Isn’t that silly?”
Then tell them that there is nothing you can do about this woman’s eating habits, because she is all grown up and it would be rude to try to correct her, but as they are still children, you expect them to eat at least a small portion of whatever they are served.
