Syag Lchochma,
“Unless you happen to have been at a table with him and witnessed something inappropriate I’m not so sure it is your place to be reprimanding him on his feelings about food or how he handles it (based on your perception of how it played out).”
Maybe I’m reading too much into zahavasdad’s posts, but I don’t think my response was based on unwarranted assumptions. He described eating the food he’s served like a kid who eats hated vegetables. We’ve all seen kids eating vegetables they dislike: intentionally or unintentionally, there is a non-verbal display of displeasure. It’s choked down. Also, and perhaps I could have expressed this in a less confrontational manner, kids eating vegetables they do not like implies that a form of coercion is at play. As a free adult, however, zahavasdad can choose to eat or not eat what he pleases. If he gulps down a piece of gefilte fish drowned in chrain, that was 100% his choice, and he is not a victim of anything but his own perception of etiquette. I’m trying to argue that it might be better both for him and for his host, to not eat foods that cause him so much distress. In most cases there’s so much food served that he won’t even need to actively refuse it, and if directly offered, there’s polite ways to decline it.
“And if you are just trying to enlighten him on their point, then possibly present it without the attached judgement regarding his preferences.”
I wasn’t intending to pass judgement on his preferences. If he doesn’t like gefilte fish, ptcha, or whatever, that doesn’t bother me in the slightest (and he’s got an ally where the ptcha is concerned). I was surprised by the vehemence of his disgust and the manner in which he expressed it, but maybe I’m unusually food-tolerant, or maybe he uses strong expressions more loosely than I do such that his “nauseating” is my “don’t prefer” , or maybe I was taught and believe that it’s wrong to call food disgusting, so I have a cultural perception that he’s being rude.