"Peaches! I hate peaches! Biting into a fuzzy peach is like biting into a fuzzy little kitten!"

Everyone has food preferences. The first President Bush hated broccoli, calling them "little trees". My mother can't stand cooked spinach after my little brother and I commented on how alge-eating tropical fish would love boiled spinach. "See, mom, how much it looks like alge?"

Growing up, my big sister had rapidly changing lists of "yucky" foods. One week she'd hate spaghetti noodles and insist on eating only the sauce, carefully licking the noodles clean before depositing them next to her plate. The next week she'd hate the sauce and declare it "yucky". We spent most of a month watching her carefully squeegee the spaghetti noodles free of sauce before she'd slurp them up.

Some people's list of yucky foods are easy to understand. My wife's grandmother was severely allergic to eggs and poultry. My dad learned to hate fish during his years in Vietnam. Okay, understandable.

People who know of my epic appetite and my willingness to eat almost anything may be surprised to find out that there are foods I declare yucky. Grape Kool-Aid. I learned to hate it in Cub Scout meetings when it was served warm. Like the kids we were, we dunked Oreos in it. By extension, almost all artificially grape flavored anything is yucky. Grape candy, grape soda, grape fruit roll-ups. But I like grape jelly and adore real grapes. Weird, huh?

In fact, I can't stand artificial watermelon, green apple, grape, or strawberry flavors. Love the real stuff, but the fake flavors are... well... yucky.

Raspberries, however, are yucky both real and artificial. I occasionally get a nasty surprise when I get served raspberry flavored iced tea or a raspberry vinegrette on my salad. Sometimes the waitstaff gets a nasty surprise from me when they bring it.

There are a few Asian dishes I refuse to eat, even though there are things I've sampled from time to time that I'd rather not think of. Dead things. Live things. Things prepared in ways that I can't imagine being healthy. Let's go back to other, less stomach churning examples of yucky food.

I can name a dozen people right off who became vegetarians, not on principle, but because of the fictional novel "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, with very graphic descriptions the pre-regulation meatpacking industry. Woops, back to stomach churning. Sorry.

The real problem about yucky food is that the mere mention of something normally safe, let's say, Pop Tarts, is enough to send somebody, somewhere, running to the bathroom, cursing me for mentioning it. No matter what food it is, there's bound to be some reasoned or unreasoned decision to declare it yucky for someone.

But if you pin down most people about their list of yucky foods, you'll find they haven't even tasted the food they hate. There are some things declared yucky on the name alone. A coworker of mine once declared, "I've never eaten there, but just from the name, I've decided that Jack in the Box food is yucky." Well, I've eaten there, and I'll keep my opinions about Jack in the Box (and most fast food places) to myself to avoid being hunted down by the Jack In The Box Defamation Patrol and forced to eat a Big Jack hamburger. Guacamole is another food declared yucky on name alone, at least to many Rhode Islanders. In retaliation, most Texans have declared Rhode Island's snail salad a yucky food without tasting it.

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When I was a kid, I knew another kid whose dog refused to eat hot dogs. It's hard for me to imagine a dog refusing to eat anything, even dill pickles dunked in hot sauce, but a dog refusing hot dogs seemed past imagining. He'd hold up the wiener and say "Here, Spot. Come eat a hot dog!" (Okay, the dog's name wasn't Spot, it's been a long time and I don't remember the name. Don't let it detract you from the meaning of the story, okay?) The dog would refuse to eat it. Then he'd hold up the same hot dog and say, "Here, Spot. Come eat a wiener." The hot dog would be gone in two bites. The dog clearly had put hot dogs on his yucky food list based on the name alone.

My mother used the same method with my picky sister. "Mom, I don't like black-eyed peas or potatoes au gratin."

"No problem. I know you don't like that yucky stuff. So tonight I'm making crowder peas and scalloped potatoes, just for you."

"Thanks Mom, you're the greatest!"

Too bad Mom fooled her. It would have been fun watching her trying to peel the black-eyed peas before she ate them.

About the author, Paul Pence: Not a life-long Rhode Islander, Paul got to Rhode Island as fast as he could. He has 25 years of writing experience and numerous publication credits including the Providence Journal, the East Greenwich Magazine, Weissmann Travel Reports, Travel Lady Magazine, Jackhammer, Your Skin and Sun, TravelNotes, TexWoman, and many others.

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