OT: Yet more odds and ends -- The Cottage Cheese Trauma

I think I may have aroused some curiosity over the years with some of you, regarding my obsessive aversion to the evil substance known as cottage cheese. It's one thing to dislike a food; there are several foods I don't like. Beets, bell peppers, radishes, oatmeal, cheese (unless it's melted), avocados, pretty much all Indian food. But a special revulsion is reserved for cottage cheese, and it dates back to one of my earliest memories.

I was in nursery school (what they now call pre-school), so, what was I, about four years old? It was a sunny day and we were served our lunch outside. I don't remember what else was on my plate, but I remember that big blob of cottage cheese, paste-white and lumpy.

My parents didn't believe in making kids eat things they don't like, but they did have one rule. I couldn't just look at something and say, "I don't like that"; I had to taste it first. So I took a small bit on my fork, put it to my tongue, and immediately after I sensed the sour flavor and the coagulated texture, my throat closed. I put my fork down and looked at the teacher. "Do I have to eat this?" I asked. She nodded, her mouth full of her own nasty blob. She wouldn't let me leave the table until I'd eaten mine.

The other kids finished and went to play, and I sat there alone. I'd eaten everything else and now it was simply a showdown between me and this disgusting curdled stuff. I took a forkful and crammed it into my mouth... and then gagged so powerfully, I had to spit it back out or I would have lost the rest of my lunch. Then I started crying. There was no way I was going to be able to eat this.

Soooo... I used my four-year-old logic. If I couldn't make it disappear one way, I'd make it disappear another. Checking first to make sure no one was watching, I scraped the cottage cheese into my lap, hiding it in the folds of my skirt. Of course, that only worked until I stood up. Then the teacher saw the godawful mess I'd made, yelled at me and called my mother to come get me.

I didn't get in trouble for that with my mom. As I recall, I never went back to that nursery school and was shortly thereafter in a much nicer one.

To this day, I cannot stand the sight or even the sound of cottage cheese. I used to work for a boss who ate that crap every day for lunch, and my cubicle was near the kitchenette area. Just hearing his spoon go shhhlorrp into the cottage-cheese tub made my gorge rise. When cottage cheese commercials come on, I look away.

I don't care what you put in it. You can add bananas, pineapple chunks or peaches. You can add Reese's Peanut-Butter Cups for all I care. It's still revolting. Yes, I know it's good low-fat protein and it's a dieter's perfect food. I don't give a damn. If it were the last diet food on the planet, I'd simply say screw it, I'd been thin long enough, I'm tired of being freezing cold every winter anyway.

There you have it. Why I remember stuff like this in such excruciating detail, I don't know. I don't know anyone else who has a food trauma, either. Lucky me, huh?