Everyone has their own special criteria for what makes an ideal partner. In my case, you really do have to be adventurous with food. When I first started dating Marcus, he was the exact opposite of that, which made for an interesting conversation considering I'm usually pretty reserved. As I recall, it went along the lines of:
Marcus: I'm pretty picky about what I eat. Just...you know, so you don't get your feelings hurt when you cook dinner. It's not anything personal.
Me: I...what?
Marcus: There are only a few things I like to eat. I'm probably not really--well, what is it you're making again?
Me: I have a special pork chop recipe with white wine and Dijon mustard. It's fun!
Marcus: Yeah, I'm gonna probably just want you to leave a couple of pork chops plain for me. That doesn't sound very good.
Me: ...but how can you say that if you've never tried it?
Marcus: Look, I know I'm just not going to like it. It sounds weird.
Me: Oh my god, this is never going to work between us.
When I brought the dish out, he very grudgingly tried a tiny bite with the mustard sauce--and then promptly ate the rest of the entire pan. Following that, he requested the same meal at least three more times that month (and still does to this day!).
Over the course of our relationship, I've tried to encourage Marcus to try eating new things. My deal is, I don't believe in forcing food on anyone who doesn't like it (including kids!). I do generally request that you try at least a bite of the aforementioned food before declaring you don't like it, though. When I first dragged him to my favorite curry restaurant in Flagstaff, he made me promise that we could go get something else for dinner later if he didn't end up enjoying it. Not only did he find it delicious, he is now so obsessed with Indian food that within our first week of moving here he insisted we go exploring to find our new "place". He doesn't typically to go too long without a reliable supply of his tikka masala, you see.
Lately, he's been the one who's been more vocal about craving food-related adventures--which is great! Today he requested that we try a new Vietnamese place we've seen around one of the outdoor malls, so we took a little drive over together and had some lunch. He tried a sweet curry, I got a lemongrass chicken banh mi, and we both shared my yam fries. We've decided that the place is definitely worth going back to--next time, we're trying the pho soup and a different sandwich flavor. We had a blast! The entire time, we kept watching people's food come by and trying to guess what they'd ordered.
It was just sort of on my mind today that I really appreciate having a partner that I can have these kinds of experiences with. Not everyone considers food (especially of the spicy international variety) to be as high of a priority as I do, which is understandable. Personally, I'm always going to be glad that I was able to sway Marcus just a little bit. The other day, he was talking about how cool he thought it was that he eats so many things he'd never even have touched a few years ago. He hates seafood, but now when we go to the market, he still tries a tiny bite of everyone's food to see what he thinks. Turns out, he enjoys crab! Who knew?
Now, I'll just have to see if I can turn him on to eggs at some point...
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