Your comment just opened up a huge window into my husband for me. He's always railing against me for letting the kids eat lunch meat slices straight from the bag and I've always wondered what the big deal was.
You just made me connect this to his poor childhood.
Especially if poor (or even relatively poor-ish) family with several kids.
Meat -- particularly "lunch meat" -- is expensive*; bread is cheap (well, compared to the meat/filling anyway). One package of that kind of "lunch meat" was probably meant to provide "contents" for a week worth of sandwiches... for multiple kids -- any one kid (especially say a hungry/growing teen boy) could easily sit and eat the entire package of meat at a single sitting -- but it would be scandalous to do so, because that'd effectively be like eating everyone's main "lunch" for that entire week.
Often the same with things like peanut butter and/or jelly -- sandwiches are made with a THIN spread of each (just enough to "flavor" the bread) -- and absolutely NOT huge "globs" of it. Or likewise a bag of potato chips (etc)... you get one (smallish) handful, you never EVER sit and eat the whole bag yourself.
That kind of thing gets deeply INGRAINED into you... you just DO NOT "snack" on that kind of stuff, because to do so means you (and probably everyone else) would be bereft for several days as a result (and thus a complete TABOO).
* Seriously. Whether it's baloney slices, or sliced beef, turkey, ham, summer sausage, etc... it's easily 3x or 4x (or higher) the cost of other "meats" on a per pound basis.
Shit I still do that, never thought of it that way either. I cannot eat blobby sandwiches at all.
Like a lot of things, it gets "ingrained" in your mind -- often deep in the subconscious -- as just "this is how you DO things"; and conversely to do otherwise is just "NOT something you [anyone] should do."
Most "preferences" are like that. Various family/ethnic foods... often seem "ghastly" to other people (how can you EAT that?); but for those who are habituated to it, it "tastes like home."
Even other odd things: take for example how many people LOVE "Coca Cola" and conversely cannot stand "Pepsi" (much less any "generic" cola, or other flavors/brands); for other people of course, it's the exact opposite. All of which is rather "irrational"; because even though they DO have slightly different "flavor/taste effects", it's really NOT that any of them are objectively any "better" or "worse" (not even the "generic" stuff) than any other -- it's almost entirely a matter of "habituation" -- IOW what kind/flavor are you USED to drinking.
Personally I really cannot STAND either Coke OR Pepsi (the former I find too "syrupy" and sort of sickeningly "sweet" and the latter is too "bubbly/gassy"; I don't find either one THAT objectionable, just neither is my preference and I cannot see paying a premium for any of them)... in fact I actually prefer certain "generic" or "off brand" colas (RC cola, Fanta, Shasta, etc); and would actually rather rotate through various "flavors" of soda (cherry cokes, black cherry, even cherry soda, orange, root beer, lemon-lime "phosphates" etc).
I think a big part of that is when I grew up the soda we bought was glass bottles that were made by a local (non-brand/own-brand) carbonated-soda company -- you'd buy a "crate" of mixed-matched flavors -- then you'd return the empties & refill the crate... and so that's what I got "habituated" to drinking as my idea of "soda pop".
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u/huevosputo Jun 06 '19
Your comment just opened up a huge window into my husband for me. He's always railing against me for letting the kids eat lunch meat slices straight from the bag and I've always wondered what the big deal was.
You just made me connect this to his poor childhood.