The Wall Street Journal looks at adult picky eaters — adults who won’t eat anything but a very small list of foods.

Unlike people with anorexia or bulimia, picky eaters don’t seem to make food choices based on calorie content. They aren’t necessarily skinny or obsessed with looking a certain way. Researchers don’t know yet what drives the behavior, but they say textures and smell can account for a picky eater’s limited diet. Some will only eat foods with one consistent texture or one taste, leading some medical experts to speculate that picky eaters have some obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Doctors worry that over the long term such eating habits could lead to nutritional deficiencies linked to health concerns, including bone and heart problems.

Picky eaters tend to gravitate to certain foods, including blander products that are often white or pale colored, like plain pasta or cheese pizza. For reasons that aren’t clear, almost all adult picky eaters like French fries and often chicken fingers, health experts say.

Continue reading this entry »

I know that several of my readers are wondering how the turducken we had for Christmas dinner turned out. So, how was it? Apart from the fact that the cooking directions on the box were different from those on the packaging (and actual cooking time was something different still), and the fact that $70 is still an awful lot for holiday poultry, no matter how boneless it is and how much meat you end up getting, it was pretty good. Turducken is, in fact, pretty fucking delicious — in no small part due to the heavy seasoning on the outside of the turkey and in the pork sausage stuffing and the fact that the ambrosia that is duck fat ends up pervading everything. Aaah. I know you’ll want a good look at it: here are my photos of the cooking and carving. Don’t know if we’d do it again — as I said, $70 is an awful lot, especially for just three people — but I’m very glad we did it this time.

So I felt like doing something other than a turkey for Christmas dinner this year. Maybe a ham, maybe a duck, maybe a goose. Or, if I’m feeling particularly indecisive, how about three things in one: a chicken stuffed inside a duck inside a turkey — a turducken?

I’d heard about turduckens, but, since I had never seen one in the stores, I assumed they weren’t available here. Well, they are, and we’ve picked one up. So it’s turducken for Christmas this year — an odd choice, even more so because they seem to be a Thanksgiving item in the U.S. — but odd is interesting in our books.

It’s a U.S. import, which I guess makes sense — and, I guess, also explains the $70 price tag. It also comes in a box, which I didn’t expect.

More anon. Operation Turducken is under way. The bird bundle has been acquired; cooking and eating to follow at the appropriate juncture.