Guest's unfinished food-do you ask?

[shootingstar]

To respond to the original inquiry - I think the guest behaved entirely appropriately.

Food was PUT on her plate - she didn't take too much and then fail to eat it. She ate as much as she could, leaving the parts she didn't like/didn't want. Bell peppers are one of the few foods I have trouble choking down - they trigger a very strong gag reflex, and I get very sick to my stomach if I eat them. I likely would have done the same, and move them around/left them on the side of the plate.

I was also surprised at the comment about how much desert she ate - she enjoyed it, there was plenty. She's apparently fit and generally healthy - why is that a big deal?

Blueberry, somewhere earlier in this thread I did admit I didn't ask her in advance when dividing food up on everyone's plate. This topic thread just has deviated into other exploratory corners, so might be hard to pick up that detail.

For religious restrictions of others, I find it easiest to include a veggie dish. It's always a safe bet --a veggie dish.

We've had visitors from outside of North America. Believe me, it's worked out fine ..even without knowing people's food preferences in advance. Usually they want to eat our food...because it's expensive/rarer to prepare in their home country similar dishes.

[Cataboo]

I think it would generally work fine to have guests from outside of north america. Most of them are exposed to a much wider variety of food/meat choices to begin with. The exception being the British, who are as bad as Americans

You go to an American super market, and your meat choices are cow, pig, chicken or turkey. If you look a bit and if it's fancier, you can find some veal, maybe some buffalo, quail, duck, or cornish hens. But the average american is exposed to eating cow, pig, chicken or turkey. Anything more exotic than that is strange - horse meat is normal in europe, most americans couldn't stomach eating horse meat, because that's dog food and horse are nice creatures you ride. But go into a european super market, you'll find horse, goat, ostrich, emu, antelope, venison, and various other african species, etc.

I'll admit to finding it vaguely annoying when I have friends that are picky eaters, but for the most part I know that it's a product of how they grew up. I feel really really sorry for them if we go to an asian restaurant and all they can do is order fried rice, because they know they like that. If I'm going out with those friends, I will go to a burger joint or something like that and get a salad. If I'm having them over, I'll order pizzas or I'll make spaghetti or I'll put the grill on and bbq some meat & burgers. My sister's daughter told me a month or so ago "My Mommy says you only know how to make spaghetti, but you're really good at that" and that's because - my sister & daughter = picky eaters, they get spaghetti with a meat sauce - they like it, it's easy for me to make and they can't annoy me too much by being picky with it. I will say that my sister's 8 year old who can be picky, does eat a lot of vegetables and blue cheese and such like that, that I wouldn't have touched when I was 8.

I have other friends that I know will eat anything that I eat, and we go to various ethnic restaurants all the time and I'll happily cook for them and enjoy the fact that they appreciate it. But they do tend to be foreign born or have foreign parents or to have done a lot of traveling.

Now my bf would claim I'm a picky eater, but it's more of a - there are times when I don't think it's worth the calories to eat something because I just don't like it that much and there are basic bits of food sanitation that I like to observe that he's pretty cavalier about. And I figure since he's a bf, I don't have to be polite anymore.

[shootingstar]

I feel really really sorry for them if we go to an asian restaurant and all they can do is order fried rice, because they know they like that. If I'm going out with those friends, I will go to a burger joint or something like that and get a salad. If I'm having them over, I'll order pizzas or I'll make spaghetti or I'll put the grill on and bbq some meat & burgers. My sister's daughter told me a month or so ago "My Mommy says you only know how to make spaghetti, but you're really good at that" and that's because - my sister & daughter = picky eaters, they get spaghetti with a meat sauce - they like it, it's easy for me to make and they can't annoy me too much by being picky with it. I will say that my sister's 8 year old who can be picky, does eat a lot of vegetables and blue cheese and such like that, that I wouldn't have touched when I was 8.

Maybe there's hope since she likes blue cheese. Seriously.
There IS value when a child is exposed in a casual, positive manner to other healthy food prepared and offered by extended family members --grandparents, aunts , uncles, etc.

I know my oldest niece and nephew wouldn't have had as great diversity in their taste for Asian food if they had not eaten other stuff from other family members, outside of their parents, which is not normally eaten at their home. It's important that adults themselves don't make a big deal how certain foods look (ew, ugh, etc.) unless it really is unhealthy.

Relook at your role, auntie. But take tiny steps in this area.

As for only eating fried rice in an Asian restaurant....yea, sad. Ignoring 1,000+ years of complex, amazing gastronomy. It's like having only French onion soup and ignoring the whole wonderful legacy of other French dishes.