Your personal food rules.....

I'm not a fan of scrapple. However, I do enjoy Mexican food.

Crunchy is always better.

I so totally agree. It's up there with Miracle Whip and margarine. There's no reason for it, provided the items they are imitating (mayonnaise, "real" cheese, butter) can be found. White bread is also in that category...oh, and fake pancake syrup - that's disgusting.

Next rule: Be willing to try absolutely everything (unless it is alive, totally unethical as I understand it, or its aroma induces vomiting).

I have tried eating mushrooms and drinking milk. I hope to get over the mushroom thing some point during my next 40 years (I keep hearing what I'm missing), but it will be a struggle. Milk - forget it.

What else...

=Steak in a restaurant is almost always disappointing (i.e., not as good as when my best friend grills it at home), or it's wicked expensive. I'll order something else.

=I'm a recent 50% transplant to the South. No sweet tea for me. Iced tea is best unsweetened. Lemon and mint are optional.

=I want milk in my coffee. I can't stand the way cream coats my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I'd rather have it black.

=While it's a welcome sign that my lettuce has been washed, I can't stand to be served a wet salad in a restaurant. Wet with water, not dressing, I mean.

=I had a strict no-hot dog rule, but then a local boutique charcuterie opened, and I've adjusted my rule to: no grocery store hot dogs.

there will be more.

Ahh this one!! I agree fully, it is especially bad and highly pronounced in a taco salad and that seems to be some of the worst offenders (otherwise good mexican holes in the wall!)

Water soggy lettuce, and a 'wet chip' at the end, yuck!

Totally disagree - American cheese has one purpose and one purpose only: cheeseburgers. It melts perfectly and mixes well with the patty and most of the standard burger spreads. I'm a big fan of fancy cheeses, but I always order American cheese when it is offered with a burger.

Eat at the dirtiest BBQ places.

Absolutely, though I still think the best grilled cheese and turkey/ham melts are made with American cheese. But otherwise, I agree with the other posters.

i have no idea how i keep living here....

my "home" rules:

- no sandwiches not even fancy ones
- no raw veggies, not even salads
- no cold food or drinks until evening and even then I'll take a hot meal over a cold one
- no sour foods, including eastern NC bbq and vinegar based anything
- no fresh water fish, tilapia is sewer fish to me in particular
- seafood is preferred if it met its death in my kitchen by my hands
- no sirloin steak or cuts, tastes like blood/iron to me
- no margarine, canned whipped cream, american cheese
- no white meat chicken ever
- no farmed shrimp, tastes like dirty fish tank algae...so does chain restaurant lobster


my "travel" rules ( i travel to asia mostly)

- eat what locals eat where they eat.
- anything with pandan is going into my belly asap
- eat all the purple and green desserts ( most likely sweet taro and pandan based)
- if it looks like lava, eat it


I think I need to relocate.

I'm not sure what it is about mayonnaise (IMO it goes well, sparingly as you said, with club sandwiches/things with bacon). Shield your eyes though if your meal comes with a salad in China, or if you check out bakeries also in East Asia-mayo is well, and possibly even alive. And well. That part of the world mostly turned me off of the stuff.

I'm with you on the purple/green stuff, and dare I add king cake to your likely SEAsia-specific hyphenpoint?

In china indeed.

I was eating at a rather nice restaurant, and we were with some locals, they ordered the fruit salad.

It came, with mayo all over it! I was appalled, but learned this is very common there. Those with my suggested that it may have been seen in the west to have some 'white stuff' on top being whipping cream, and so someone came back and put mayo on it thinking it was mayo, and started a countrywide trend....who knows for sure!

Here's a pic:

I put king cakes on my list, I've yet to be disappointed with green and purple anywhere!

I think my se asia cravings have been seriously amplified by living on the east coast. Its even made me forget about the mayo in some asian food in the above post. That was rampant in korean owned sushi restaurants on the west coast, I couldn't get a piece of sushi without it being covered in sriracha and mayo.

Japan gave me the love of kewpie mayo, I'll happily take an okonomiyaki or pizza with kewpie mayo drizzled on it. I've never seen mayo in any chinese establishment though.

There are very different grades of American cheese/"cheese"; the cheap, sweet stuff most places use is generally labelled "processed cheese food" or worse yet "processed cheese product" and both are (to my mind) only useful for a basic grilled cheese sandwich, and not good on burgers.

Better American (less sweet, higher cheese-to-not-cheese content, and actually labelled "processed cheese" without sales modifiers) is a bit more versatile, and I wouldn't turn it down on a burger if I knew that was what was being offered, although I'd rather have something better.

I know I'm in the minority, but as much as I love cheese, I don't like any type of it on burgers at all. If it's American cheese, I won't eat the burger period.

Cheese - blue is the best and going in/on anything when it's an option.