Dinah's Club: Special April Guest: Fussy Fanny

Food lovers are a dime a dozen. This month, we hear from a much rarer breed: someone who doesn't like to cook, won't tune into MasterChef religiously and could think of a zillion things preferable to sitting down at the dining table to pig out....

I don’t like food.

There, I said it. And before you roll your eyes: no, I don’t have an eating disorder (although I have been accused of having a mental illness), any strange allergy and I am not obese. I’m just a fussy eater and don’t get the fasciation with food.

Let me explain myself. I’m a 30-year-old woman who has never really grown out of eating like a child. Foods I love include: McDonald’s, cheese and vegemite sandwiches, mashed potatoes and chicken twisties.

People are often shocked when I just look at a dish - be it lasagne, a greek salad or even good old pizza - and refuse to eat it. My reasons? I don’t like the look or smell of it.

But how can you say you don’t like it, if you haven’t tasted it, I hear you ask? Easy, I just don’t want to try it.

As you can probably imagine this has affected my life in many different ways. But to be honest, it usually upsets and angers friends and strangers a lot more than it does me. For example... Friend: ‘‘Hey guys, let's go and get Mexican for dinner!’’ Me: ‘‘No, I wont eat anything from there." Friend: ‘‘Indian?’’ Me: ‘‘Nope, nothing there either.’’ After the whole group of friends crack the poops with me, I’m usually dragged off to a restaurant where I don’t eat a single thing on the menu. Then, I get a large cheese burger meal (the only thing I eat from McDonalds) on the way home.

Over the years, I’ve offended my friend's Nonna after refusing to try her lasagne, had a mate accuse me of a being a burden on people and made a friend's new boyfriend cook a whole new batch of mashed potato after he dared to put garlic in the first dish.

Never has my strange ways with food affected me more than travelling overseas. Always weary not finding things I will like on menus during every trip I’ve ever been on, I pack my suitcase full of savoy biscuits and vegemite. Yes, I would much rather eat this than a traditional dish in Thailand, or frogs legs in France.

After befriending a Danish girl in the UK she took me home to meet her family. Her grandmother had a feast prepared for me, including a quiche, duck dish and desserts that I couldn't identify. I was horrified. The family spoke little English, so my friend translated that I wouldn’t eat anything. The Danish conversation went on for some time, with all of them looking at me shaking their heads. I imagine it was something about me being a ‘‘weirdo’’ or ‘‘ungrateful.’’ I sat there and ate nothing.

People are always saying to me: ‘But you don’t know what you are missing out on'. Well of course I don’t and probably never will, cos I’m not gonna try it!

A short list of some of the foods I don't eat:

Pizza- (There is not one single flavour you could tempt me with.)

Cheese - (Except for cheese slices...yes yes i know it is plastic...but i like it!)

Salad (Except for beetroot. No tomato, no lettuce, no capiscum...none of it!)

Coffee (Never tried it, but I even hate the smell.)

Chinese broad beans (There is a strange tin of these on my desk as i write this... I will never eat them.)

Stir Frys (I dont really like things all mixed together.)

Sushi (I can't even look at it without wanting to throw up.)

Chicken parma (I love schnitzel, but I hate all the stuff added to parma!)

Pasta (I do not eat any other pasta except for Spag bol...)

Curry (Under no circumstances do i eat curry... and don't try and trick me and put it in meals...I will know.)

Garlic (See above!)

Kebabs (I just dont like what they look like)

Sour dough bread (This does not taste like white bread and quite frankly wreaks my meal when I order scrambled eggs and it comes out on this horrible bread.)