Sampling Etiquette

There are people out there who hate cheese. I've met them. I'm *cough* friends with some of them. Some hate cheese in all its variations. More commonly, people who claim that they're "not really a cheese person" just hate eating a piece of cheese for the sake of enjoying the cheese. The latter category, however, generally eat cheese if it's masked as an ingredient in other foods (i.e. pizza). I feel you; there's nothing that will make me purchase a meal faster than if I see it involves cheese melted and generously blanketing other food items (faster, even, than adding bacon to the dish). 

I'm a glutton who likes to eat almost anything, but even I have my hang-ups. Most people have at least some food they don't like or are picky about. It's perfectly normal. Sometimes it's not even rational. Steamed rice. I'll eat it, but rarely more than a few bites. Why are there so many flavorless little grains?! It seems insurmountable on my plate. Cauliflower. Get that stuff away from me. It looks like a magnified abscess. Why is it so freakishly white?!

But, let's be clear. If you present me with a steamed rice or cauliflower meal at your home, I'm not going to run, screaming from it in fear. It's just food. Sometimes I'm even surprised by the meal. Once at a dinner cooked by my parents' friends in Baltimore, I scarfed down a delicious cauliflower dish that was heavily masked in a delightful curry. 

I've noticed, however, at many farmers markets and festivals on both coasts that not everyone's momma taught them proper manners. It is of extreme importance that everyone understand food of any kind is 1) sustenance, and 2) a hand-made culinary creation that someone used time, effort, and creativity to make just for your enjoyment.

It's best to know your limits when testing your culinary boundaries. If you really think something looks so repulsively bad that it's all you can do to control your gag reflex, then politely decline. But if you're adventurous, experimental, or you're just never one to turn down a free sample, then recognize proper etiquette when you try a food you don't like (or even hate). It's REALLY rude to stomp about and spit out the food in outraged disgust as if someone just tricked you into drinking a cup full of pee. It's just food. Grow up and grow a pair. 

Constructive feedback is always helpful ("that has a little too much salt for my taste"). I've even had people try cheese and say "oh that's just not my thing" and thank me for the sample. Also okay. A food producer can gauge a reaction to a product by a combination of helpful feedback and a measure of sales. My damage is with people who I've seen try samples of cheese, then proceed to act like they're going to hurl all over the floor, forcing their friends to console them while they "walk it off" as if they had just taken a shot of bottom-shelf tequila. If it's a particularly pungent or stinky cheese, then before I cut the sample, I'll warn people, especially if they seem like they have no clue what they asked for. Yet I've seen ridiculous performances happen even with milder cheeses. I've also heard similar stories of idiocy from other food vendors.   

At farmers markets, often the person who made the food for you is the person standing right in front of you. Even cheese stores have carefully selected the best products to put on your plate. Would you go to someone's house for dinner and behave that way?  It's nourishment that many people need and don't get, and it was proudly hand-crafted or selected just to make you happy.

Now, if there is a food safety or quality issue (unrelated to your particular taste) and you think it's really going to make people sick, of course let the vendor know (discreetly). You can make your feelings about a product felt by just not buying it anymore. You're even free to leave and discuss your opinions in a more appropriate manner with your friends and other acquaintances. Artisan food producers should be able to tell they're making a crap product when nobody buys it. Everyone is allowed to think a food is disgusting or too expensive (that's another one that drives me crazy -- people blow money on instant gratification snack food from the prepared vendors and then verbally chastise me for a six dollar piece of cheese). If that's the case, then just don't buy it. Clearly the rest of the market disagrees with you if the vendor is successful. Rude and melodramatic samplers do nothing but make both the vendor and the other customers who enjoy the product feel uncomfortable and as if they've done something wrong. In fact, they've done nothing wrong. The only person in the wrong is the idiot who never learned any manners. 

Of course, I don't lash out at the person in return when this occurs. I'm not their mother. And mine taught me not to be rude. I keep my internal monologue, which usually comprises the comments I've made above, internal because to attack a lack of manners with my own rudeness is hypocritical and counterproductive. All I can do is calmly offer them a palate cleanser or platitude about personal taste, or I just wait until they leave. Maybe I could do more, but my thoughts are this: I can't tell them how to behave. These are grown ass people. That ship has obviously sailed for them.

Blue cheese: Gross? Potentially. A torture device? No.
"I just want to be a friend to your belly," says the stinky blue cheese.
Rule of thumb: treat food you don't like as if it were an ugly baby. Be polite, don't act horrified, especially not while the parents are standing right there.