Friendo y Comiendo: Issue 03

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a picky eater. I have had many people tell me that I am the pickiest/weirdest eater they have ever met. I wear this "World's Pickiest Eater" title like a badge of honor.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a picky eater. I remember being in the first grade and looking at my classmates eating their fries with ketchup and being disgusted at the site of that condiment. Part of my picky habits can be attributed to my upbringing. Like many other Dominican parents, mine only cooked Dominican foods. No mac-n-cheese or green bean casseroles in the Alcántara household. Instead we usually ate la bandera Dominicana for dinner, which is a plate of rice, meat and beans. (In different combinations of course, but essentially 95% of my dinners were la bandera. I'm not complaining either, my parents are great cooks.) We didn't usually have too many vegetables, besides the ones used in making the rice/beans/meat.

Another reason for my picky habits is probably that my mother is also a picky eater. (It's genetic?!?) She doesn't drink milk or eat vegetables, and has a few other weird eating habits that I probably adopted. Whenever we would order Chinese food, she would make sure that we told the guy on the phone to make the shrimp fried rice SIN VEGETALES!

How picky am I? Well, here's a list of foods I didn't eat as of September 28, 2009 (the day before I joined the Peace Corps):
- milk
- most dairy products including: cheese and yogurt.
- condiments (ketchup, mayonnaise, BBQ sauce, mustard, relish, basically anything you would put on a hot dog or hamburger)
- peanut butter
- most vegetables (onions, peppers, spinach, cabbage, beets, broccoli, eggplant, squash, pumpkin, zucchini, artichoke, cauliflower, asparagus, radish)
- Dominican staples that when people find out I don't eat them they usually say something along the lines of "well you're not a REAL Dominican!" (avocado, platano verde hervido or en mangu form (I only eat platano verde in tostones form), platano maduro (I only eat it when its fried thinly and crispy, usually Papi has to make it because Mami lo cocina muy grueso), queso frito, beans (any and all forms of habichuelas)
- tuna and shellfish (shrimp, crab, lobster, clams, oysters, etc)
- certain fruits (apples, bananas, pineapples, pears, raspberries, blueberries, cherries, papayas)
- sushi
- meat that is not well done ('pink' is not a color I find attractive in meats)
- cream-based sauces and soups (this is related to my dairy products aversion)
I could go on but I think you get the point by now...

The number one thing I worried about before joining the Peace Corps was whether or not I would like the food in the country I was going to. What if I had to eat cheese every single day? Luckily fate put Azerbaijan in my destiny, a place where RICE (plov) is actually the national dish... what are the chances?!? If I was in America the only thing in this picture I would've eaten would've been the chicken and a few cucumbers:

I came to Azerbaijan with an open mind and determined to try new things and ease up on my picky eating. A year and a few months into my service, I am so proud of the change in my diet! My parents tried for 23 years to get me to eat beans, and that was one of the first things I started eating when I got to Azerbaijan! Some friends here still think I am too picky -- but that's because no me conocian cuando era even MORE mañosa! I was explaining to my family a few days ago over Skype all of the things I've been eating here, and they couldn't believe what they were hearing. Mami even joked that she should send Joel here so he can get over his pickiness too.

Foods that I eat now that I didn't eat before: beans, peanut butter, all the vegetables they have here in Azerbaijan (I'm still not that big a fan of eggplant, but I do eat it), all berries, and tuna. Sometimes I look at my plate of food here and I can't believe I'm eating (and enjoying) so many of the things I never ate back in the US. It's awesome!