My DH has the idea that treating me to a meal is to order in pizza.

I make things that are great for lunch and then again the next day - for me - and leave the unadventurous to him.

awwww... I feel bad for you, ngraham. I'm lucky -- my BF is a foodie who loves to cook. Maybe the meds have affected his tastes, or maybe he thinks he's doing you a favor by going out to eat? Does he know that you enjoy cooking and experimenting?

I grew up in a very adventurous family when it came to food. Both grandmothers were excellent cooks and they taught me everything they knew. I brought these skills to my first marriage and my late wife ate and loved everything I made. Well, almost everything.

My new (current? Jeez, what's the correct term here?) wife has a very limited palate, although she will taste many of the dishes I prepare. But I've learned in the 3+ years we've been together that I have to keep the cooking simple to please her and make the other stuff for myself on the nights she works late.

Neither of us eat any fast food and we do eat healthy, but she'd rather have frozen veggies from the microwave rather that fresh, steamed on the cooktop. Spices are limited and never anything hot. I keep a bottle of Gray's Pepper Sauce on the table next to the salt and pepper to solve that problem.

While I sympathize with the posters above, one thing I've learned in these three years is that compromise is critical if you want to have a happy marriage.

NGrahan ... "Recently DH told me to stop making the sauce, he prefers a can of Hunts spaghetti sauce."

Maybe he like the saltiness? Some drugs really kill your sense of smell, and things either taste strange or have little taste at all.

How frustrating for you, and how kind you are to still want to make him happy. If you really enjoy cooking and creating, please don't give it up! That would be terrible. I sure would try to zero in on what he doesn't like....maybe he has a problem with certain herbs and spices. Fast food is very bland.

I think that my attitude would be to continue to create delicious, healthful food; try to find things that he does enjoy like a roasted chicken or pot roast or slow cooked ribs.

On lasagna or spaghetti night, pull out a frozen meatloaf dinner for him, lol. But as we mature, it's important to cook and serve healthy food and steer clear of the fast food.

Don't cook small amounts....just freeze the leafovers for your meals on another day.

I'm lucky with my DH, he prefers my cooking to most things, including his mother's (I'm with him on that one :-) MIL is an OK cook but doesn't really enjoy cooking and so is unadventurous and a bit stodgy.)
At the moment he is on a low FODMAP diet which does cramp my style a bit and calls for some inventiveness but I do it for him because he feels better this way.

Like Colleen, I am lucky as the HG prefers my cooking to most things.

The HG's mother died when he was a kid so he grew up with whatever his dedicated and hardworking dad could put together which almost always included rice.

When we got married I made a salad every night like my mother and grandmother did to go with the meal. And like them, I put anchovies in the salad. After a month of marriage he tells me that he doesn't like anchovies. I thought that was blasphemy! I resorted to using anchovy paste in the salad. After a month he then said "How odd, I know there aren't anchovies in the salad but I can still taste them".

At first he didn't like asparagus, brussel sprouts, or mushrooms either. But we are long over that.

I live with my brother, and he has admitted that he does not have as sensitive taste as I do, but he pretty much eats whatever I cook, and I seldom let him cook, unless I give him details instructions, which almost defeat the purpose. He barbecues outside, however, and does the smoking, although I prepare the foods that he cooks outdoors. He will not eat beef or pork, and so sometimes I cook pork or bacon just for myself and buy cooked ham just for myself.

A lot of his lack of taste has nothing to do with his taste buds, but instead his dull sense of smell. I have a lot of flowers (especially orchids) that I can smell but he cannot. I've always been aware that I have an acute sense of smell, and that is often not a good thing, but it does allow me to identify flavors in something I am eating, and so if I have something that I like in a restaurant, I can often replicate it at home from memory.

Our sister has very different taste, and she likes a lot of things that my brother and I do not, although I think our father also like them. These include Miracle Whip, sweet pickles, canned peas, etc. Oddly enough, however, our sister seems to like pretty much everything that I make, although I hold back on heat when using chilies if she will be eating it. She likes hot, but not as hot as I do.

Maybe your DH is on the wrong meds. If he were on THC he might enjoy your cooking more. Perhaps his doctor could prescribe some for him.

Lars

I would be thrilled out of my mind if my DH never wanted me to cook. I'm a mediocre cook at best, yet that doesn't discourage him from eating my cooking. Maybe there IS something wrong with his taste buds ... I've killed them?

This post was edited by jellytoast on Fri, Feb 6, 15 at 13:56

My Dad is 87, in good health and very active but his tastes have changed. Most things need more salt for him and nothing is too spicy either. It is aging, the taste buds start to die off I have been told. Also, the sensation of thirst diminishes and I see this also.

At dinner last night, brats and fried potatoes, he salted twice and never even realized it when I called him on it. His lunch today was a can of Hormel Corned beef hash. The whole thing, full of sodium, way too salty for me. He was in heaven.

Yes, cooking can be a challenge.

My husband willingly eats everything I make, but he has very simple tastes. He would happily eat frozen dinners every night. He thinks the Stouffer's Meat Lovers frozen lasagna is the best lasagna he's ever had and he's Italian!

It's frustrating for me. I consider myself a foodie and he just doesn't get excited about food at all. I would love to do more fine dining and while he will go, he thinks it's a waste of money, doesn't enjoy himself and would much rather eat elsewhere.

Oh well, he's wonderful in other ways so I can just hope that our future kids will be foodies too!

Hey Pep, Augie is perfect so diminishing taste buds are no big deal :>)

My wife loves to eat and loves good food, but really has no skill or aptitude for cooking. She says way back on our second date when I made dinner rather than going out to a restaurant she knew I was a keeper.

She always seems to really love the food I make, to the point that for a while I wondered whether she might just be just saying she liked it so as to not hurt my feelings. However one evening years ago, I decided to try a new recipe -- Stuffed Squid -- that seemed interesting, and her response after trying a few bites was, "Ewww, this is gross, I just can't eat it." So although I was upset that for all that work we ended up throwing out the food, I was reassured that at least if she doesn't like something I've made, she won't be reluctant to say so.

i love this thread, and a good laugh is what I needed. I have indeed gone through things like this. My first husband was only 56 when he died. I had a nine year old, and he missed all the things his Dad did, although he had a 15 year old brother. After 13 years of widowhood and getting my kid educated, I remarried. When I fixed something he did not like, he would say, "you don't have to fix that again", and I knew our tastes were different, but he didn't want to hurt my feelings. It isn't often that somebody is lucky enough to find two good ones, and I thank the Lord for my good guys. Just want to make the point that it pays off to be prepared to go the other 50% if necessary. I love your freedom though to vent and the good nature of your SO to allow you. Barb

I have to add this funny thought. When my son got divorced, his wife took everything--I mean everything. I had to give him a skillet to cook for his son. His son chose to live with him and he had the other two on weekends. I can remember the kids saying, " We're not having hamburgers again are we, Dad". They survived while he learned to cook. That was a long time ago, and he has happily remarried and she is a "meat and potato cook" which he loves. Barb

My problem is the eating out with the ones who prefer fast food. :( Not only is there a lot of salt, there's a lot of MSG. Both may be the things that attract your husband--they're what make me puff up and get a headache. :)

Something you might try, if your husband is willing, is gathering samples of all the really flavorful foods you have available and have him blind taste them. The blind is really important because you want to know what he tastes now, not a reaction based on his memory of what he likes. It could be very surprising. You can help him by describing the texture a bit--this is something crunchy, this is something chewy, this is something gummy. That way he can still anticipate, which is part of eating, and also not confuse texture so much with flavor. Try to have the items at the temperature they'd normally be served at.

So, keep a score sheet, and have him rate them 1-5 (hate, dislike, meh, good, great). More numbers aren't really useful, but fractions can be--which is why numbers are better than just the words.

Make sure to include lots of umami tastes, since that's what MSG is going for. You can actually add MSG, but there are plenty of glutamates in good foods, and you don't over sodium it if you have the whole flavor. These include mushrooms, tomatoes, parmesan, and caramelized meats (i.e., the grill marks).

Also try salty things, sweet, pungent (turnips!), acid, bitter (greens), sour, sharp, creamy, etc. A good variety.

Once you know what foods he likes and dislikes in isolation, it may be easier to create dishes you'll both enjoy.

The only major taste dispute DW and I have is over black pepper. I love it, she doesn't care for it. So I can't make steak au poivre.

Other than that, though, we're pretty compatible. Although, Bob, I had from her the same response to a squid soup I made. Gotta say, even though I like squid and the recipe was from a Pierre Franey cookbook, it was pretty icky.

When I first started going out DH, the only thing he had in his cupboard for spice was salt, pepper and chili powder. Strictly a meat, potato and something green kind of guy.

He loves my cooking, for the most part. There are things that he won't try, like sweet potato or a butternut squash soup, although he loves both those veggies baked. He is not big on East Indian food, although I will give him an A for at least trying it. He won't eat a good stroganoff, or a sauerbratten. And if he really doesn't care for something, he will just say, "it really isn't a favorite." In other words, don't cook that again.

Oh, and the spice cabinet is now full of great aromatic flavors. I can't just cook with S and P, except maybe a steak.

Barb, I was wondering where my husband got that line "you don't have to fix that again"! He said it for the first time just a couple of weeks ago :)
I think salt is part of it. He fusses if I put salt in anything, actually fusses about all the salt even when I don't put salt in at all. Mainly my mashed potatoes.The only salt that is in them is in the margarine. I would use unsalted butter, but he doesn't like real butter. He loves the potatoes at KFC though-to me they taste like instant. He adores potato chips, pizza, lunch meat, spam. I think that is what I find so confusing, he wants me to cook low salt, says he doesn't like salty food, but that is what he eats. He is on several meds-diabetes, high bloom pressure, cholesterol, blood thinner etc. Come to think of it, when I had hip replacement they had me on blood thinner & everything tasted metalic, so maybe that is it.
Thanks for letting me vent. I've kept him for 40 years, and I'm sure part of it is aging. Sigh...

My DH has more sensitive taste buds than I and is willing to analyze/critique anything. It is a double edged sword because he can appreciate it when things come out right but, it also creates pressure to get it right.

I crave flavor though, so if his tastes changed, I would have to find a way to still eat what I like and enjoy the cooking progress and still keep him fed. I recall my grandmother often making 2 meals because my grandfather had stomach issues and could not tolerate a lot of different foods. I seem to recall he ate mashed potatoes, a lot.

OMG, my husband is a bigamist. He's apparently also married to chi83!!

Because now is my busy season, he has been doing the grocery shopping. Because I am often out of town and he has to prepare his own meals, our freezer is now stuffed with Stouffer's. At one time, I spent my weekends making meals for him. I put them in the freezer with instructions on how to cook them. When I would get back home on Friday, they would all still be there.

I think my MIL must have used lots of convenience foods when DH was growing up. I've come to the conclusion that his palate prefers the fake flavors found in convenience foods. Maybe for him that is the definition of "comfort food."

PrarieRose, you reminded me that when I first met DH he never cooked fresh vegetables, only frozen or canned. He quickly came to prefer fresh vegetables. While he could cook quite adequately, he was always a bit intimidated by my cooking because it was more adventurous so even back in the days when we both worked full time so cooked turn and turn about, if we were having guests for dinner on one of his cooking nights he would chicken out and get me to cook :-)

Now that we live apart (for work only :-) he got transferred to the city 100km away so he stays down during the week and comes home on weekends) he cooks for himself mostly though he does enjoy taking back leftovers from the weekend to eat during the week. He often does a lot of overtime and is too tired to make a decent meal when he gets back to the flat. But when I visit him in the city during the week he has only once cooked for me (after I said, "I always cook for you when you come home but you _never_ cook for me when I come here!). Either I cook or we go out, but that's OK because the flat we bought is near a foodie heaven part of town (that was one of the big attractions ;-) ).

Who does the cleanup when you cook? If he is the cleaner, maybe he prefers to eat out rather than clean. I sure do. Many good cooks use lots of pots and pans and dishes and make big messes. Also, some good cooks use expensive ingredients while their budget watching spouses would rather eat cheaply, if they can do it cheaply at a fast food place. It is not always about the palate but the work or cost.

Sorry westsider, you're off base there. I almost always clean up when I cook, it's very rare that I haven't done the bulk of the clean up as I go along, then quickly do the dishes and cutlery after dinner. Also, we share finances, so we have the same budget, and in any case, we never eat cheap fast food.