They should switch to the Juices of Sappho. Oops, I mean, the Juice of Sapho. Otherwise known as Caffeine. Enough of that stuff, and you’ll get your IBS (or some unreasonable faxmachine-ily) back.
(for riff purposes, i’m guessing the caffeinated juices of sappho would be…tea? lady grey, maybe?)
i feel like even the ‘spice’ themed places might have a ‘mild’ option or like the sauce on the side so you can control the amount (tho i’d rather it have taste too rather than being a ‘kick’ for those challenge places but i guess i just don’t like vinegar? based sauces, i’ve had like korean? wings with like spiced/sauce that was alright,if a level or two higher than i’d prefer). i just don’t like the places that’s like “level 1 to 5” and like “Level one (wimp!)” as a condescending kinda thing
Although maybe something ‘spicy and sweet’ might be good, i’d be interesting in a ‘spicy ice cream’ although i don’t like ‘sweet and meat/savory’ together as a combo, did try some mexican chili? chocolate friend brought back as a souvenir that was pretty good
I always recommend sriracha or crystal for people starting out. It’s got the spicy taste without the heat. Spicy ice cream is also good because the chill of the ice cream counters the heat so you get the feel but it goes away quickly without torturing you.
Spicy ice cream sounds like a total betrayal to me. I use the ice cream as an escape from the cheap heat at certain places, so combining the two is like putting roller skates at the bottom of a walker.
Once, for a chili cookoff at his work, my partner and I made chili ice cream. We created 2 different recipes. They both showcase a ribbon of jalapeno jelly. The Mexican chocolate base went really well with it.
Everyone brave enough to try it, loved it.
Yeah, that’s Indiana. Any non-specialty place, despite their “Spicy!” or “!Caliente!” name, is going to have several non (or very, very low)-capsaicin options.
And if they’re anything like Michigan you have a 50/50 chance of their “Hot and Spicy” option that tops out their list of how spicy their offerings get being in fact milder than tobasco sauce or being undiluted ghost pepper.
Thing is, most places that serve spicy East Asian or Mexican food feature things like burritos and stir-fry. All of these would be unacceptable even without spice, as they still entail different types of food not only touching, but deliberately co-mingled.
For the autist in need, “crab” Rangoon is a good neutral ground. It’s typically just a crispy shell with cream cheese inside, at least ’round Little Egypt.
“I’m looking for real Stilton. It is not a banned substance, Sebastian. Look, I’ll level with you. I do Stilton now and then. I can handle it… I know it’s the bugs, that’s what cheese is: gone off milk with bugs and mold. Cows and bugs together have a good deal going down. Why can’t people grasp this?”
I think it’ll come. For me, when I realized I didn’t have to justify *why* I disliked any particular food, it got way easier to try things to find what worked.
I’m approaching my 40s and still can’t stand anything spicier than cheese Doritos. I, too, would walk right past those two shops, as I am woefully underequipped to withstand Mother Nature’s chemical warfare.
It took me a very long time to get around to trying pizza. (Not “almost 40 years” long, but I think I didn’t dare until my early teens.) Because its sauce is red, and red is the color of several spicy sauces.
Joyce may well have already had a food breakthrough, if pizza is an option to begin with. I wouldn’t hold my breath expecting more.
My mom’s averse of anything hotter than a steamed carrot, so I only realized what I was missing when I started ordering take-out and cooking for myself.
Now I find it disappointing when a restaurant says something’s “hot and spicy” but it turns out mild. (I’m looking at you, local Chinese restaurant. General Tso’s Chicken isn’t supposed to just taste like duck sauce!)
on a college students budget? …ah, right i guess jen’s parents are rich but idk, but idk if they’d be concerned if she bought like 400 bucks worth of food/whatever would be an unusual amount for a regular college students
unless they literally never check/care unless she spends like 5k in an hour or think it’s some party/networking/catering thing
The dining hall cards at my university were literally like “swipe as you come in, eat as much as you like from as many stalls as you like, do not take any off premises OR WE WILL KNOW”
My undergraduate university had the stay & eat as long as you like style. I lived off campus, but I knew people who would swipe in for lunch, do their classwork, and then eat dinner on a single ‘meal swipe’
Mine was also similar to that. If you lived in the dorms, you had to have a meal plan, and all the meal plans were unlimited for the dining halls (meaning number of times you could go). When I lived off-campus senior year, I’d sometimes do what Mano said, go to one (you could pay to enter if you didn’t have a meal plan) and then stay for multiple meals.
I also learned which ones you could reasonably lie your way into getting in for free.
Welp, I guess if Joyce ain’t gonna get sex ed by watching (with one eye closed) while Walky and Dorothy go at it, then she can get some ed by watching Joe and Jennifer go at it. Girl’s gotta get some learnin’ somehow.
honestly when i was younger i used to eat pizza w/o the sauce (can now tho still not that fond of tomato and occasionally put ketchup on fries but would prefer the ‘seasoned’ fries or so)
i do like peperoni, i wouldn’t mind eating it by itself but we don’t rly buy those/make our own ones, tho i have seen like ‘pepperoni snacks and cheese’ wraps/sticks’ tho
We have a place here that does cold cheese. So any slice of pizza and then when they take it back out of the oven, they throw a handful of the mozzarella on top of it. So good
EVERYTHING is wrong with a plain cheese pizza. And by “everything” I mean it doesn’t have pepperoni, beef, Italian sausage, bacon, anchovies, onion, green peppers, black olives, green olives, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers, spinach, artichoke hearts, and feta.
(It’s really hard to get most places to make a good pizza these days. Most don’t have the anchovies, you have to bring your own. And they whine about “too many toppings”. Fools.)
That sounds amazing. I’ve never encountered it to try, though. Was it roasted garlic flavored, or raw garlic flavored? They have pretty different flavors.
The closest I’ve come was after arguing once that garlic improved anything, the ice cream I happened to be eating at the time was pointed out as an example of something that it would not in fact, improve. Being a stubborn little shit, I immediately grabbed some garlic powder and sprinkled it on top, fully prepared to lie about how good it was.
…. Dude. Garlic Butter Pecan ice cream was actually pretty fucking great. Not something I’d eat every time, but I’ve repeated it multiple times in the following years.
It’s one of the most normal interactions going on today. It smells like the calm before the storm…
So of course this is going to be the scene where Joyce reveals the photo of Jennifer’s breasts sent via Dorothy.
I’ll say this as an autistic person who still a picky eater for the most part,
spice is good, but not *excessive* spice
the latter is basically like a cupcake which is 90% icing when you bite into it — more than anything it’s a sign you’re trying to cover up bad cooking XD
When I was a kid, the icing on cupcakes was my favorite part, so I wanted to save it for last. This meant I took off the baking cup paper and held the cupcake upside down, inevitably getting at least some of the frosting on my hand, usually a fair amount.
i think it also depends on the kinda spice rather than the heat aspect , cinnamon is tech a spice i think, tho i wouldn’t put it on meat/a bbq but a ‘spicy hot chocolate’ does sound appealing
innuendos aside, those spicy sausage links are good lol
Oof cannot disagree more on the “lots of spice is used for covering up bad cooking” but it’s very possible we’ve had different experience with foods and the surrounding culture. The worst foods I have ever eaten came from people afraid of using spice.
re: worst foods from people afraid of using spice,
no kidding! lotta white folk whose food I tried defs go too far the other way, using just about ZERO spice on stuff which wound up tasting like cardboard :/
my point more like lots of spice can be great, but not to the point to which it *masks* the flavor of what it’s put on instead of complementing it
The fucked up thing is, I’ve cooked food without any spices or other seasoning, including salt, and it’s turned out perfectly flavorful with plenty of texture. I don’t know what other people’s excuse is if they’re incapable of making a good meal without a bunch of extra powder.
Not even ketchup on the hamburger? I’m a little surprised at not even ketchup, even for Joyce. Midwesterners put ketchup on _everything_. Or so I have been led to believe.
I’m in that nice, sexy middle spot between “no ketchup ever” and “all ketchup always”, where a little bit of it is nice sometimes, like if I want a burger with all the trimmin’, or a hot dog, maybe some fries, I can have that and be satisfied with about a 5cm circle of the stuff and then not eat it again for another few months. Most times, I prefer a nice barbecue, curry, ranch, or mayo.
She does actually like ketchup and mustard (and nothing else), but that’s not necessarily something Jennifer knows, and plain hamburger was her idea…
On the other hand, like Joe says, this is a new place. She might not trust its condiments on a burger. I would bet two nickels that Joyce has only one, maybe two brands of ketchup or mustard that she considers acceptable. Lots of burger places probably have Suspect Ketchup and Suspect Mustard.
This is such an incredible relief to be thinking and talking about after the last few days that I cannot even orz
I just suddenly had a brain wave about, like, the most basic hamburger on the menu at McDonalds. I feel like I’ve heard people order that as a plain hamburger, and they didn’t mean without the ketchup & mustard it comes with.
I am a big fan of soft-serve ice cream. I have sensitive teeth (from years of not brushing them regularly), so any desert item – especially ice cream – that can bypass my teeth entirely is a wonderful thing.
Jennifer now has two friends better than Raidah. That happened very quickly and very easily. Selling your lunch soul to Joyce ain’t that bad a deal either. Get even one more person in on this and that matches the number of friends that Raidah has ever had at one time.
People who just are friendly and sociable, without an expectation that you’ll give them the combination to your father’s giant cartoon vault of money that he definitely has.
When I was in college we didn’t have soft serve. What we did have was the test kitchen for Baskin Robins. Periodically we got asked if we tried certain flavors of ice cream and what we though of them if we did, or why we didn’t.
When I was young we had to go out to the lake, chop the ice, then milk the cow for cream. After that we would walk down the street and get some Baskin-Robbins or Dairy Queen.
Used to do that. Good stuff. Much better if the vanilla is real. The artificial vanilla flavor (made from petroleum or beaver goo) leaves an aftertaste.
That’s entirely reasonable. Some days, I crave the float like the children crave the mines. Other days, I hate the cursed things for feeling like sweet plastic to drink.
We all do that tho, not just English speakers there are phrases just like it in other languages bc the human desire to say bread bread (or more specifically, “bread but it’s specifically another country’s bread”) is universal.
Sorry, I’m a “he/him/his” but I’m also cis and for many years wore a beard down to my chin, so the only time I get misgendered is when I’m deliberately using my female on the phone. I’m truly sorry for misgendering you.
It’s okay I wish we had pronoun fields on here! I bet Willis would implement it if there was a plugin…
Imma see if I can send them a message on BlueSky to ask what the comment section uses, I don’t think it’s WordPress… might be able to make a plugin if one doesn’t yet exist.
I do agree that people getting pedantic about tisanes versus tea gets a little old. I truly don’t care, do they want the hot beverage I’m offering to make for them as my guest or not?!
ill get an iced oatmilk chai in the dead of winter in michigan I CARE NOT FOR WEATHER AFFECTING MY ABILITY FOR A SWEET COLD TREAT!!! thats girl code mah boi
I went to college on top of a hill in central Vermont thirty years of global warming ago. There was a creemee machine in the cafeteria. We used to make enormous foot-plus-tall creemees and take them outside to eat them. Because when it’s 10 below, you can eat a foot-tall creemee before it loses structural integrity.
(“Creemee” is local dialect for what flatlanders call “soft serve ice cream”.)
tbf sometimes ice cream is the best in the cold too
inb4 it’s somehow a 4d chess move for alice to see joyce being picky/neurotic with foods and billiefer tolerating/being willing to be seen with joyce (not that ppl should be entitled/care about what their friend eats too)
Fun facts about Ice Cream and Finland. While my ancestors were on the edge of the Viking culture, we don’t quite have the amazing lactose tolerance of our Scandinavian cousins. Finns do love ice cream though, and for the maybe 20% of us who are intolerant, these days almost every kind of ice cream is also available as a lactose free or low-lactose variant (+ the non-dairy stuff).
It’s not all good though. For historial reasons, Finnish ice cream tends to be made from heavy cream, rather than milk like Italian style gelato. I greatly prefer gelato myself, which is not optimal in this country.
@ npgz whatever works, i feel like some orange chicken takeout might be too ‘sticky’ tho i don’t mind the concept of orange/and ctirus flavoring with chicken, maybe more of a thin coating or in a container ‘popcorn chicken’ style but i’d still prolly be eating on the inside/in a room/building versus like having a hot cup of soup while out in a cold unless you had to keep moving/didn’t have a choice or so/on a rush/walking home from getting it
I vibe with Joyce on this one – those spices can bump off. Black pepper is already spicy enough as it is, and was good enough for the Romans way back when, we don’t need to bring capsaicin into the mix.
i like pepper on eggs tho i wouldn’t consider it particularly spicy, not that i really use a ton of it either unless the taste is overpowered by the salt since i also put a bit of soy sauce on the yolk
but specifically because as a 7 year old I made a “pepperup potion” that was just an entire pepper shaker and water and ever since I’ve had a supernatural sensitivity
I once had to spend a week in a hotel that had decided 1) vegetarian food was inherently bland and 2) the solution to this was to just keep throwing jalapenos at it.
I’m also autistic, and god dammit some times there’s literally nothing that even approaches looking appealing in the dining hall. Get that soft serve Joyce, good for you.
This is exactly why I didn’t do the dining hall for myself. I have texture issues and am a bit picky, so I figured there’d be a solid 50 to 60 % of food in there I wouldn’t like or be able to eat. Instead, I spent my freshman year with a nice mini fridge, a microwave, and made due! … It was rough, I won’t lie. Got easier when I moved to an actual apartment instead of the dorms and was able to have an oven and stovetop to work with.
As an autistic person this is relatable. Every time I go to a new restaurant I see if they have one of a few foods I like best, such as chicken nuggets/fingers or pizza with some meat on it.
I never understood picky eaters, despite being neurospicy myself. Hell I even ate natto a couple of times and liked it. The only foods I had problems with were the ones with slimy textures like boiled okra, and fermented tofu.
Okay, so you DO understand “picky eaters” who, in this case, are just “autistic people with food avoidance” because there are things you have a problem with, also. Just imagine that instead of a few things which are easily avoided in your culture, you had aversions to staples in your culture, or to the idea of ingredients touching, or to things which aren’t a certain color.
As an autistic person with serious food aversion, I’m not “picky” because it’s not a thing I’m “picking”. It’s a part of my disability, and I really REALLY struggle with it. I wish I could eat differently, I force myself to try and include foods where I can, but my food aversion is one of those things that emotionally dysregulates me faster than almost anything else.
TL;DR – I think a little empathy for people who struggle with something would go a long way for you in understanding people who cannot eat things you find easy to eat.
From my experience, one of the hardest things about having food texture issues growing up is that my aversion was seen as being a brat. There were many a meal times where I was forced to sit at the table for hours until I ‘ate everything’ on my plate, and there were a few times my mom would get so frustrated by my refusal to eat certain foods that she scooped a spoonful of food up, forced it in my mouth, and still expected me to chew and swallow that food.
These experiences aren’t something I chose to do ‘for fun’ or just to be difficult. If I could have easily chewed and swallowed that food, I would have avoided a lot of trouble and drama, as well as other physical things. I’m mainly commenting to back up what Nymph has said. For example, my best friend has major difficulty with the texture of her clothing, and so whenever I’ve picked out clothing related gifts I’ve done my best to either keep that in mind or, if not able to pick out a texture I know she likes, give her the money or a giftcard so she can choose for herself based on going to the store and doing a touch test.
I imagine as a kid, it would be hard to explain a texture-based food aversion as well. Like, solid enough for a kid to say a food is “yucky” or such, but if ingredient-wise it’s similar to things they enjoy, but they don’t know how to describe that it *feels* wrong…
It sucks how autism often comes with language difficulties to, when even without that, a kid could struggle to describe a lot of sensory issues.
That’s also very true, plus as a child they don’t tend to know the vocabulary to describe what exactly is so wrong, or feels so wrong. Now that I’m an adult I can better describe why certain textures feel wrong, or at least describe the texture better to others. Doesn’t mean they’ll always necessarily ‘get’ it, because they don’t experience it, but I’ve also had people reply with “oh okay. Yeah, if *insert food here* felt/tasted like that to me, I’d struggle to eat it too.”.
It’s a shame to look back and reflect on lots of struggles with children that just wind up being seen as being difficult. I notice it a lot more whenever I go to grocery stores or riding an airplane. It makes me wanna grab certain parents and shake them. “Your child isn’t trying to be difficult on purpose, he’s been cooped up in an enclosed space for hours with his ears popping. He’s tired, and overwhelmed, and yelling at him isn’t going to help”.
This is one of the great things for me now being an adult who often works with kids. Like, I had a student who was bothered by the sensation of writing with a pencil. At first I thought it was just a preference when he asked for a pen, but one day when I couldn’t find a pen available for him and offered some pencils, he said that the scratch of pencils bothered him. So then I understood how much being able to use a pen helped him, and I was able to talk to him about how to explain it to other adults in the future (schools are unfortunately full of adults who like to insist kids use certain things to write).
In previous years, he had been pretty disengaged in school, and it was sad to think how people not understanding this simple thing could have contributed to that. He really did want to try at school, and he could do that better when he wasn’t having a bad sensory time.
I had the same re: pencils in school. I could not handle the scratching sound of pencil on paper, which meant that I wrote as lightly as possible to avoid the sound, which meant I got bad grades because I was writing too light.
As soon as I was allowed to use a pen… I still got bad grades because I was supposed to do math and science in pencil still and I used pen.
Raw tomato makes me literally gag, which prevents me from successfully eating food that has it as an ingredient. Which sucks because it’s a very nutritious and common component of many hamburgers, salads, etc. I appreciate my good fortune in not having the same problem with more foods, and stand in solidarity with all people who have food aversions, whether they’re ND or not.
Also, whatever the opposite of solidarity is for all the presumptuous busybodies in the world who will hear someone ask for vegan/gluten-free/whatever meals, and respond by slipping the thing in anyway. Don’t mess with someone else’s food, ya weirdos! Even if you think they’re “just” picky!
I’ve always considered it ironic that my vegetarianism — which many people also consider being a “picky eater” — so often forces me out of my food comfort zone, as in “Well, I guess I’m having the one thing on the menu with a V against it.”
My first choice, if available, is always vegeburger or veggie pizza, though. Unless it’s Impossible Burger — I find its “realism” disturbing. (My third choice would be “very mild curry” if I trusted anyone except the makers of Tesco tinned vegetable curry to know what “very mild” means.)
Becoming vegetarian really made me a more adventurous eater. I feel more comfortable now with going, “Okay, as long as it doesn’t have meat in it, I’ll try it.” (Though some things I don’t like have unfortunately been treated as frequently vegetarian alternatives– like mushrooms and eggplants.)
But I was never a particularly “picky eater” anyway. I feel very lucky that I didn’t get that particular autistic trait.
Joyce is missing out. Most of the newer food courts at IU are considerably better than when I went to college. I’m particularly fond of the one in the Student Union, though the Tudor Room is slightly better.
One of the few high points of my peripatetic childhood was exposure to many different cuisines, most of which had at lest one dish I loved. I couldn’t always get the same dish after I left that country, which really bummed me out sometimes.
People do go to that level of hyperbole with Joyce and food already, though. People with food aversions in real life are also subjected to this by people. That’s why I find it doesn’t work well as a joke.
I ate very similarly to Joyce all through childhood and college (and still do, a bit) and it bit me in the ass more than once when it made me severely deficient in several nutrients and I needed doctor intervention.
Right? Yeah, a lot of the fiber is in the skin, and I can imagine Joyce not eating that part, but there’s still a decent amount of all the other stuff in the flesh of the potato.
Also, she might have some nutritional deficiencies (lots of people do), but in terms of getting enough to prevent scurvy… potatoes would be a good step, and then a couple other foods she probably eats would get her there.
Skin-on mashed potatoes are amazing if you can adjust to the texture difference.
A baked potato is even easier! For bonus points, cut up broccoli in a cheese sauce to pour on top.
(My favorite “easy” veggie to add is baby spinach, which is a lot more mild than regular spinach, and doesn’t mess with flavor much. I like adding it to instant ramen to improve the nutritional content of a thing I eat too much of anyway >.> )
Yeah, this is a very… “carbs are evil” attitude that isn’t at all reflective of reality. Potatoes are a great staple and you can get a lot of the most vital nutrients from them.
”carbs are evil attitude”? I literally have a degree in biology, and on a physiology course we did go through sources of nutrition. If you rely on potatoes for vitamines that will not end well.
And yeah, Adept, I figured from when you said you were a biologist, but even the nutrition information that medical doctors are taught is kinda… famously fatphobic and inaccurate. And that’s as much about what they’re not taught (such as how to recognize symptoms in fat patients, or the importance of checking basic information like “weight limits” on medications before prescribing them) as it is about what they are, and it contributes enormously to the lower quality of medical care that fat patients receive across the board.
Don’t feel bad for believing what you were taught, but “potatoes are nutritionally worthless” is a very common misconception and just not true.
I never said potatoes are nutritionally worthless. I like potatoes, and think they are a better staple than rice or wheat (pasta). I mostly think that because potatoes are less energy dense than rice and has useful soluble fibre.
I wish to point out that I commented on how Joe should try to get Joyce to eat vitamins, to which there was a reply that she probably eats potatoes. One last time, eating potatoes will not fix things if you are missing vital nutrients. Eat enough (like a third of a kilo of boiled potatoes per day) and you might get the vitamin C you need and avoid scurvy, but that is not all an 18 year old student needs.
Aquila: How is it, exactly, that Joyce doesn’t have scurvy?
Steamweed: I’m guessing she eats potatoes. Or drinks orange juice. Or tea with lots of lemon. Limeaid slushies, maybe. Possibly eats bananas.
Adept: Potatoes? What besides starch is one supposed to get from potatoes?
As you can see, the topic was specifically scurvy, aka vitamin C deficiency.
You did, above Steamweed, try to start a conversation about vitamins more generally, but you then replied to Steamweed, who was only talking about vitamin C sources, and then you asked what benefit potatoes could be to anyone.
I get that you didn’t mean to say potatoes only provide starch? But you did. So that’s what I and others responded to.
Also: nothing wrong with eating lots of rice either. Rice is the biggest staple in the world and it does not appear to cause any health problems (for anyone who isn’t allergic, etc) anywhere else in the world. So I am skeptical of claims that it’s bad for Americans, either.
@Li: Though historically rice as a staple has usually been brown rice, right? Which is healthier than white rice in most ways. Much like whole wheat vs white flour.
@thejeff — nnnot really? White rice has been around for a long time, since at least 8000 BCE, judging by the existence of milling and husking tools. White rice seems to have been popularized by Confucius. Highly polished rice was an important ingredient in sake.
Like yeah, brown rice is more nutritionally dense, but white rice as a staple (and a part of every meal to the point where the Japanese word for ‘meal’ also means ‘rice’) is still pretty dang old. A lot older than our modern fear of carbs.
Honestly the demonization of rice specifically smells like Sinophobia to me. See also: MSG (link is to an article about the racist origins of “MSG Syndrome”).
A degree in biology doesn’t make you unbiased or universally aware of nutritional data from every food. Source: my biology degree and me googling to make sure I remembered potatoes actually being nutritionally decent.
Sure, but that’s moving the goalpost quite a bit. You asked what she was going to get from potatoes other than starch and I answered. They are a reliable source of vitamins. It’s silly to suggest I said anything like “they will solve autistic food aversion”.
Relying on any single food for nutrients will leave deficits, no one is arguing otherwise, but there is a lot more than starch in potatoes. They are not an unhealthy food.
You didn’t say they’re nutritionally worthless, but you did say “What besides starch is one supposed to get from potatoes?” and then doubled down when people pointed out their actual nutritional content. It’s okay to admit you were wrong you know.
I don’t wanna imagine the Charlie horses you get lol. Potatoes are decent sources of potassium, especially if you’re someone like me who cannot stand the taste of banana.
Not quite sure how she’s gonna get adequate Vitamin C from a potato though lol
Honestly, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if she did have an issue with a severe-ish vitamin deficiency at some point in her life, because I feel like I remember Willis mentioning something about their own childhood…?
But it’s also not inevitable for folks with food aversions, we just gotta find options that provide the vitamins we’re deficient in or multivitamins that we can stand (ideally both, food’s almost always a better source). And we can STILL have soft serve ice cream for lunch sometimes, as a treat. :3
Life is about finding the places that understand what “plain” means. And for no particular reason, understand that there is a difference between a hamburger and a cheeseburger. Also, very importantly, that “burger” is short for the former.
I enjoy the subtle differences in Joe and Jennifer’s faces. Jennifer is exasperated at Joyce going with literal vanilla and Joe’s like ‘that’s my girlfriend, isn’t she awesome’.
I expect, “doesn’t trust them to make it plain” applies to everything on every menu. She picks the sausage off of pizza, so fennel is to spicy. It’s not even a question of finding food with no chili pepper.
On the other hand, you can order food to pick something off and not eat it. For example, if you like the impression the pickles make in the cheese on a cheeseburger.
I know this is going to be a weird comment but like…as an autistic person I read stuff like this a lot and feel this kind of…incredulity that people would find Joyce’s behaviors endearing and love her…like I don’t have the food aversion but other stuff I guess. But I really appreciate this comic and seeing someone who I relate to in a lot of ways being appreciated and loved by other people because I feel like a massive annoyance to people all the time even if they tell me otherwise. Like it really hits home in a lot of ways. Like I’ll have these thoughts like Joe is not going to want to put up with this for long, but it’s 100% my own projected anxieties. I dunno. Don’t even know what I’m saying here. Keep it up. Roll tide. lmao
I absoLUTELY find my partner’s “annoying” autistic traits endearing, and we have been dating since 2019.
Like. Those quirks are just part of who she is. Sometimes they mean I do a task in a specific way that’s different from how I’d do it if I lived alone, but it’s literally not a big deal. It’s not harder, it’s just different, and it matters to her while it doesn’t matter at all to me.
Meanwhile when my ADHD makes me fail to do something that I feel embarrassed about, she laughs in this affectionate way that makes me feel very seen and not like a weird burden.
(And when I do something that strikes her as Maybe Autistic, she raises a knowing eyebrow; when she does something that strikes me as Maybe ADHD, I do the same.) (So probably we are in fact AuDHD4AuDHD, but we don’t have a perfect overlap of symptoms, so we COULD still annoy each other… we just kinda. Don’t. We get frustrated with ourselves and a teeny bit exasperated with each other, and we make sure that we each know it’s okay.)
(It’s not 0% work, but it’s also not difficult. Neurotypical people can absolutely manage it, with just a lil bit of effort.)
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“The Spice! She knows about The Spice!”
“The spice must flow…away from Joyce.”
The Spice extends life. The Spice expands consciousness. Without it, there is no irritable bowel syndrome in the Empire.
They should switch to the Juices of Sappho. Oops, I mean, the Juice of Sapho. Otherwise known as Caffeine. Enough of that stuff, and you’ll get your IBS (or some unreasonable faxmachine-ily) back.
(for riff purposes, i’m guessing the caffeinated juices of sappho would be…tea? lady grey, maybe?)
Look at those blue eyes.
I like spicy food. Joyce is missing out.
i feel like even the ‘spice’ themed places might have a ‘mild’ option or like the sauce on the side so you can control the amount (tho i’d rather it have taste too rather than being a ‘kick’ for those challenge places but i guess i just don’t like vinegar? based sauces, i’ve had like korean? wings with like spiced/sauce that was alright,if a level or two higher than i’d prefer). i just don’t like the places that’s like “level 1 to 5” and like “Level one (wimp!)” as a condescending kinda thing
Although maybe something ‘spicy and sweet’ might be good, i’d be interesting in a ‘spicy ice cream’ although i don’t like ‘sweet and meat/savory’ together as a combo, did try some mexican chili? chocolate friend brought back as a souvenir that was pretty good
I always recommend sriracha or crystal for people starting out. It’s got the spicy taste without the heat. Spicy ice cream is also good because the chill of the ice cream counters the heat so you get the feel but it goes away quickly without torturing you.
Start with ghost peppers. They’re called “ghost” because the heat fades and quickly.
Now that might get mean /hj
It would definitely be mean to give a ghost pepper hj.
Serrano bj’s are pretty fun
Are we thinking of the same bj’s?
Yes. Just maybe not the same “fun.”
Depends whose fun it is…
9-:
And here I thought Altoids beejs were racy…
Spicy ice cream sounds like a total betrayal to me. I use the ice cream as an escape from the cheap heat at certain places, so combining the two is like putting roller skates at the bottom of a walker.
My walker has inline skate wheels under it at all 4 corners. It really helps me have a smooth stride.
Japan has created some quite weird ice cream flavors. I am told shrimp ice cream tastes the most like what you’d expect.
(I’m pretty sure this is a case of the weirdness being on purpose, too, so I don’t feel bad calling it that 🤭)
I always say start with Japanese curry because that’s sweet, and you can slowly introduce spice to it.
I think what Joyce wants is the bland option.
Once, for a chili cookoff at his work, my partner and I made chili ice cream. We created 2 different recipes. They both showcase a ribbon of jalapeno jelly. The Mexican chocolate base went really well with it.
Everyone brave enough to try it, loved it.
Yeah, that’s Indiana. Any non-specialty place, despite their “Spicy!” or “!Caliente!” name, is going to have several non (or very, very low)-capsaicin options.
And if they’re anything like Michigan you have a 50/50 chance of their “Hot and Spicy” option that tops out their list of how spicy their offerings get being in fact milder than tobasco sauce or being undiluted ghost pepper.
My FIL once asked the very tame Indiana Mexican restaurant if they had a milder salsa. They said, Uh… no?
Mom and Pop type place? I love the places that have their own salsa recipes.
Thing is, most places that serve spicy East Asian or Mexican food feature things like burritos and stir-fry. All of these would be unacceptable even without spice, as they still entail different types of food not only touching, but deliberately co-mingled.
For the autist in need, “crab” Rangoon is a good neutral ground. It’s typically just a crispy shell with cream cheese inside, at least ’round Little Egypt.
You’ve overlooked how disgusting all rotten milk products, including cheese, are.
The best cheese is the moldy cheese.
(And now I’m craving a nice Stilton.)
“I’m looking for real Stilton. It is not a banned substance, Sebastian. Look, I’ll level with you. I do Stilton now and then. I can handle it… I know it’s the bugs, that’s what cheese is: gone off milk with bugs and mold. Cows and bugs together have a good deal going down. Why can’t people grasp this?”
(Lenny Henry in Chef!)
Why would you put rotten cheese in your crab Rangoon? That’s just silly, let’s not invent things to be wrong with our food.
Well NOW what am I going to do on a Saturday?
loveloveLOVE your gravatar, Taffy!
“What did you just say?? ‘Chai tea’? Chai MEANS tea, bro! You’re saying ‘tea tea’ who says ‘tea tea’ do you like milk milk in your coffee coffee?”
And that AFTER the whole “ATM machine” and “PIN number” between Miles and Spot…
I don’t think you meant to respond to me.
No that is a relevant response it is a quote from the character in the profile pic, it’s from the second spider verse movie.
Ahhhhh okay that makes so much sense now. Thank you.
I don’t know when but a new world will open up for Joyce when she overcomes her food barrier.
If. If she overcomes it. There’s sadly no guarantee that she will.
I think it’ll come. For me, when I realized I didn’t have to justify *why* I disliked any particular food, it got way easier to try things to find what worked.
I’m approaching my 40s and still can’t stand anything spicier than cheese Doritos. I, too, would walk right past those two shops, as I am woefully underequipped to withstand Mother Nature’s chemical warfare.
It took me a very long time to get around to trying pizza. (Not “almost 40 years” long, but I think I didn’t dare until my early teens.) Because its sauce is red, and red is the color of several spicy sauces.
Joyce may well have already had a food breakthrough, if pizza is an option to begin with. I wouldn’t hold my breath expecting more.
It literally doesn’t matter. If she is happy with it, she is happy with it.
I never said it mattered. Nor was I dismissive of her preferences. It’s fine if she doesn’t like spicy food. I didn’t know I had to clarify that.
My mom’s averse of anything hotter than a steamed carrot, so I only realized what I was missing when I started ordering take-out and cooking for myself.
Now I find it disappointing when a restaurant says something’s “hot and spicy” but it turns out mild. (I’m looking at you, local Chinese restaurant. General Tso’s Chicken isn’t supposed to just taste like duck sauce!)
Hang it there!
Well if she doesn’t like spice then she just missing out on something she wouldn’t enjoy.
I like to be able to taste my food without most of the taste being horrible burning.
Psh, the true way to do it is to order from every place once so you can sample and judge them for future meal planning purposes.
on a college students budget? …ah, right i guess jen’s parents are rich but idk, but idk if they’d be concerned if she bought like 400 bucks worth of food/whatever would be an unusual amount for a regular college students
unless they literally never check/care unless she spends like 5k in an hour or think it’s some party/networking/catering thing
Everybody enrolled as a student more than likely has a pre-paid meal plan, which should cover most of the food sold in the dining halls.
They have to pay for their off-campus outings to Target and Galasso’s out of pocket.
The dining hall cards at my university were literally like “swipe as you come in, eat as much as you like from as many stalls as you like, do not take any off premises OR WE WILL KNOW”
They never knew.
I’ve visited one of those. Most campuses I’ve been to, though, had cashiers.
My undergraduate university had the stay & eat as long as you like style. I lived off campus, but I knew people who would swipe in for lunch, do their classwork, and then eat dinner on a single ‘meal swipe’
Mine was also similar to that. If you lived in the dorms, you had to have a meal plan, and all the meal plans were unlimited for the dining halls (meaning number of times you could go). When I lived off-campus senior year, I’d sometimes do what Mano said, go to one (you could pay to enter if you didn’t have a meal plan) and then stay for multiple meals.
I also learned which ones you could reasonably lie your way into getting in for free.
I am liking the dynamic right now, honestly.
God, imagine if Joe of all people ends up being a good friend for her right now. You know, that’d track, actually.
as long as jen doesn’t chug an ’emergency’ flask and try to make out with him lol
They’re friends, they can make out. Maybe bang once.
Only after she bangs Joyce, first, because then Joyce would allow Joe and Jennifer to bang because that would be fair, in her mind.
Welp, I guess if Joyce ain’t gonna get sex ed by watching (with one eye closed) while Walky and Dorothy go at it, then she can get some ed by watching Joe and Jennifer go at it. Girl’s gotta get some learnin’ somehow.
Joe’s friendship game is pretty on point these days, wouldn’t surprise me.
Their shoulders are touching. Scandalous
You can’t go too far wrong with a plain cheese pizza.
honestly when i was younger i used to eat pizza w/o the sauce (can now tho still not that fond of tomato and occasionally put ketchup on fries but would prefer the ‘seasoned’ fries or so)
i do like peperoni, i wouldn’t mind eating it by itself but we don’t rly buy those/make our own ones, tho i have seen like ‘pepperoni snacks and cheese’ wraps/sticks’ tho
I dated a girl who always ordered her pizza without cheese. the way the sauce gets caramelized was yummy
Cheddar cheese on pizza. My school used to do that.
We have a place here that does cold cheese. So any slice of pizza and then when they take it back out of the oven, they throw a handful of the mozzarella on top of it. So good
EVERYTHING is wrong with a plain cheese pizza. And by “everything” I mean it doesn’t have pepperoni, beef, Italian sausage, bacon, anchovies, onion, green peppers, black olives, green olives, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers, spinach, artichoke hearts, and feta.
(It’s really hard to get most places to make a good pizza these days. Most don’t have the anchovies, you have to bring your own. And they whine about “too many toppings”. Fools.)
The ice cream is cardamom flavored.
ICE CREAM VINDALOO!!!!
I’ve never even had prawn.
Green curry ice cream. Yummers.
Ever had garlic ice cream? I have. It tastes about what you’d expect garlic ice cream to taste like
Corn ice cream is better.
None of you will ever see heaven
Yeah, we are approaching smoth peanut butter on Glazier’s red hotdogs leve of interesting.
That would of course be sea urchin ice cream.
Seriously yummy stuff!
I would definitely try that
Cardamom ice cream is a traditional flavor, like in Pakistan and Scandanavia, not some experimental novelty.
I mean I knew basil gelato is a real thing but garlic ice cream? Oh dear.
I take you’ve been to Gilroy CA for the garlic festival?
That sounds amazing. I’ve never encountered it to try, though. Was it roasted garlic flavored, or raw garlic flavored? They have pretty different flavors.
The closest I’ve come was after arguing once that garlic improved anything, the ice cream I happened to be eating at the time was pointed out as an example of something that it would not in fact, improve. Being a stubborn little shit, I immediately grabbed some garlic powder and sprinkled it on top, fully prepared to lie about how good it was.
…. Dude. Garlic Butter Pecan ice cream was actually pretty fucking great. Not something I’d eat every time, but I’ve repeated it multiple times in the following years.
Jalapeno ice cream is a thing.
Jalapeno jelly, too.
Friendship forged through the fires of roasting Joyce for being adorable.
And Billie knows Joyce well enough to actually be her friend too
I’m actually referring to her and Joe in this case. This was the most normal ass interaction she’s had with another human being in quite awhile.
It’s one of the most normal interactions going on today. It smells like the calm before the storm…
So of course this is going to be the scene where Joyce reveals the photo of Jennifer’s breasts sent via Dorothy.
I’ll say this as an autistic person who still a picky eater for the most part,
spice is good, but not *excessive* spice
the latter is basically like a cupcake which is 90% icing when you bite into it — more than anything it’s a sign you’re trying to cover up bad cooking XD
I’ll take all the spice. Pump the intensity into my veins.
When I was a kid, the icing on cupcakes was my favorite part, so I wanted to save it for last. This meant I took off the baking cup paper and held the cupcake upside down, inevitably getting at least some of the frosting on my hand, usually a fair amount.
Now I’m not as big on the icing part. Ah, age.
icing / frosting is good, but not so much when a lot is there to compensate for the cake underneath being burnt or dry as a pilot biscuit :/
i think it also depends on the kinda spice rather than the heat aspect , cinnamon is tech a spice i think, tho i wouldn’t put it on meat/a bbq but a ‘spicy hot chocolate’ does sound appealing
innuendos aside, those spicy sausage links are good lol
re: “cinnamon is a spice but doesn’t go on meat”
sure it does!!!
Ohio’s chili is beanless and has cinnamon, it’s fantastic!
Cinnamon can be quite good on certain meats. Pork loin does great with a touch of cinnamon powder before searing it.
Ceylon cinnamon and cassia cinnamon aren’t the same thing.
Cinnamon is often one of the ingredients used in the seasoning for jerk chicken. Though it’s one among many and not a central spice for it.
Oof cannot disagree more on the “lots of spice is used for covering up bad cooking” but it’s very possible we’ve had different experience with foods and the surrounding culture. The worst foods I have ever eaten came from people afraid of using spice.
Capsaicin is a flavor enhancer, it doesn’t cover up anything.
I get so annoyed by the “you’ve burned out your taste buds” people. They’ve almost never even used theirs.
re: worst foods from people afraid of using spice,
no kidding! lotta white folk whose food I tried defs go too far the other way, using just about ZERO spice on stuff which wound up tasting like cardboard :/
my point more like lots of spice can be great, but not to the point to which it *masks* the flavor of what it’s put on instead of complementing it
The fucked up thing is, I’ve cooked food without any spices or other seasoning, including salt, and it’s turned out perfectly flavorful with plenty of texture. I don’t know what other people’s excuse is if they’re incapable of making a good meal without a bunch of extra powder.
You probably use actual vegetables besides potatoes.
I know that I personally can make good meals without spices, but I need spices to make great meals.
Just go all the way and give me the 100% icing cupcake. Less waste that way.
SOFT. SERVE. ICE CREAM.
got staaaaaaaaaaars in his eyyyyyyyyyyes
… and she draws me kissing other guys
(very sure that’s not the song you were going for but it’s where my mind went
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzJbz9qSsd0)
Not even ketchup on the hamburger? I’m a little surprised at not even ketchup, even for Joyce. Midwesterners put ketchup on _everything_. Or so I have been led to believe.
ketchup is a solid maybe for me on burgers
imma mustard kinda girl myself :9
ketchup is red like the satan, it wasn’t allowed in their house.
She doesn’t mix cheese and meats “just in case” too.
Sometimes it’s nice to have food that tastes like its individual ingredients, rather than just tasting like ketchup.
No filthy red ichor for me, thank you.
I’m in that nice, sexy middle spot between “no ketchup ever” and “all ketchup always”, where a little bit of it is nice sometimes, like if I want a burger with all the trimmin’, or a hot dog, maybe some fries, I can have that and be satisfied with about a 5cm circle of the stuff and then not eat it again for another few months. Most times, I prefer a nice barbecue, curry, ranch, or mayo.
*steal*
*run*
I’ve used it for so many years that I no longer remember who I stole it from.
She does actually like ketchup and mustard (and nothing else), but that’s not necessarily something Jennifer knows, and plain hamburger was her idea…
On the other hand, like Joe says, this is a new place. She might not trust its condiments on a burger. I would bet two nickels that Joyce has only one, maybe two brands of ketchup or mustard that she considers acceptable. Lots of burger places probably have Suspect Ketchup and Suspect Mustard.
This is such an incredible relief to be thinking and talking about after the last few days that I cannot even orz
OH WAIT.
Wait, plain hamburger might just be “without cheese”.
Jennifer and Joe might be thinking that just ketchup (or just ketchup and mustard) is plain enough to call plain.
Without cheese or any other non-condiment toppings… wouldbe reasonable to think Joyce might get the condiments on the side at a new place.
Yeah, true!
I just suddenly had a brain wave about, like, the most basic hamburger on the menu at McDonalds. I feel like I’ve heard people order that as a plain hamburger, and they didn’t mean without the ketchup & mustard it comes with.
I am a big fan of soft-serve ice cream. I have sensitive teeth (from years of not brushing them regularly), so any desert item – especially ice cream – that can bypass my teeth entirely is a wonderful thing.
*Dessert. I wouldn’t be pedantic about it if were someone else’s post, but since I wrote it, it will bother me forever.
To be fair, soft-serve ice cream is also a wonderful desert item, as long as you can finish it off before it melts
To be fair, spice is also a desert item. Just ask Herbert.
and you don’t need to worry about finishing it off before it melts, because once it melts, it can flow.
And it _must_ flow.
Fear not; we will not desert you for your dessert misspelling.
My main problem with soft serve ice cream is that it melts too fast. And then you’re stuck with ice cream soup.
Mmmm ice cream soup
*squints* Yup, it’s vanilla.
is it? that would make sense tho it kinda looks blue on my screen lol XD
The blue is the shading of the shadows on the ice cream, I think.
Jennifer now has two friends better than Raidah. That happened very quickly and very easily. Selling your lunch soul to Joyce ain’t that bad a deal either. Get even one more person in on this and that matches the number of friends that Raidah has ever had at one time.
See Jennifer isn’t it nice to interact with people that aren’t pretending to tolerate your existence for weird social climbing?
People who just are friendly and sociable, without an expectation that you’ll give them the combination to your father’s giant cartoon vault of money that he definitely has.
When I was in college, I would occasionally make combos of hot chocolate with soft serve ice cream in the dining halls.
When I was in college we didn’t have soft serve. What we did have was the test kitchen for Baskin Robins. Periodically we got asked if we tried certain flavors of ice cream and what we though of them if we did, or why we didn’t.
When I was young we had to go out to the lake, chop the ice, then milk the cow for cream. After that we would walk down the street and get some Baskin-Robbins or Dairy Queen.
I had coworkers drop a scoop of vanilla into their coffee. It did seem pretty good.
Used to do that. Good stuff. Much better if the vanilla is real. The artificial vanilla flavor (made from petroleum or beaver goo) leaves an aftertaste.
Soft serve ON the cheese pizza.
dessert pizza to a whole neew level
I’ve had apple dessert pizza, which at that restaurant was like a really shallow apple pie without a top crust.
That sounds horrible. I’d try it if someone offered it, but it sounds horrible
My parents getting food anywhere.
Me, I’ll have the flaming burger with extra hot sauce.
And add jalapenos!
Sure, for the crunchy texture, might as well.
Then thin slices of reaper for a bit of heat.
Joyce it’s freezing cold outside.
They’re eating indoors. You can tell from the walls and ceiling.
I have an idea about a beverage she could combine it with to make something that’s lukewarm.
Root beer?
Root beer floats are still cold, I’d say. Also, there are textures in a way I like, but I feel like Joyce wouldn’t.
That’s entirely reasonable. Some days, I crave the float like the children crave the mines. Other days, I hate the cursed things for feeling like sweet plastic to drink.
My root beer floats end up more like root beer flavored ice cream. Mostly soft serve. With root beer flavor added.
pumpkin spice latte perhaps? :9
The dining halls at my college didn’t have pumpkin spice lattes dispensers, but boy, if they did…
Hot coffee or chai tea would both go well with vanilla soft serve!
What did you just say?
I laughed IRL.
Also PIN number and ATM machine…
Oh that lol.
We all do that tho, not just English speakers
there are phrases just like it in other languages bc the human desire to say bread bread (or more specifically, “bread but it’s specifically another country’s bread”) is universal.
I blame the boxed chai I’ve bought before that labeled itself this way, and the “contains-no-actual-tea” chai packets I’ve bought
You know, he’s right. They are good with vanilla soft serve. Coffee is better, but chai is also good.
If you mean me, I’m a “they”
Sorry, I’m a “he/him/his” but I’m also cis and for many years wore a beard down to my chin, so the only time I get misgendered is when I’m deliberately using my female on the phone. I’m truly sorry for misgendering you.
It’s okay
I wish we had pronoun fields on here! I bet Willis would implement it if there was a plugin… 
Imma see if I can send them a message on BlueSky to ask what the comment section uses, I don’t think it’s WordPress… might be able to make a plugin if one doesn’t yet exist.
Only thing better than chai tea is chai-flavored tea.
I actually once had a conversation with someone who objected that chai is NOT tea because to be tea it has to be made from the tea plant.
(They felt the same way about herbal teas.)
I sympathize but I just think the boat has absolutely sailed on calling these hot-water-and-plant-drinks anything other than “tea”.
Chai is made with “the tea plant”. It just has other ingredients in addition to that.
I do agree that people getting pedantic about tisanes versus tea gets a little old. I truly don’t care, do they want the hot beverage I’m offering to make for them as my guest or not?!
ill get an iced oatmilk chai in the dead of winter in michigan I CARE NOT FOR WEATHER AFFECTING MY ABILITY FOR A SWEET COLD TREAT!!! thats girl code mah boi
Meanwhile I’m excited for cold/rainy weather to assist me in enjoying a hot beverage.
yeeeeessss! <3
honestly hot coffee on a rainy morning is perfect, add lightning and I'm in heaven ^^
I went to college on top of a hill in central Vermont thirty years of global warming ago. There was a creemee machine in the cafeteria. We used to make enormous foot-plus-tall creemees and take them outside to eat them. Because when it’s 10 below, you can eat a foot-tall creemee before it loses structural integrity.
(“Creemee” is local dialect for what flatlanders call “soft serve ice cream”.)
Also we would keep ice cream on the window sill, because there wasn’t enough room in the freezer in my dorm fridge.
Who you calling “flatlanders” you short mountain state person?
tbf sometimes ice cream is the best in the cold too
inb4 it’s somehow a 4d chess move for alice to see joyce being picky/neurotic with foods and billiefer tolerating/being willing to be seen with joyce (not that ppl should be entitled/care about what their friend eats too)
The Russians and the Finns eat the most ice cream.
…or did 20 years ago. I wonder if the Russians can still afford it.
Fun facts about Ice Cream and Finland. While my ancestors were on the edge of the Viking culture, we don’t quite have the amazing lactose tolerance of our Scandinavian cousins. Finns do love ice cream though, and for the maybe 20% of us who are intolerant, these days almost every kind of ice cream is also available as a lactose free or low-lactose variant (+ the non-dairy stuff).
It’s not all good though. For historial reasons, Finnish ice cream tends to be made from heavy cream, rather than milk like Italian style gelato. I greatly prefer gelato myself, which is not optimal in this country.
In the cold is pretty much the only time I eat frozen things tbh. Feels right.
I like this a lot. It’s just cute and pleasant.
Seconding this!
A nice cooling unspicy strip after 3 Booster appearances.
All the stinging buttholes were getting tiresome.
I mean, you didn’t have to stuff nettles up there. That was your own fault. We did warn you.
But it’s the authentic webcomic comments experience!
Well, ya got me there. I recommend a blend of Dove unscented body wash and apple cider vinegar for after, though.
Hey, sounds like a good lunch to me!
why even go to college if yo ucan’t indulge in ice cream for lunch
eh, when it that cold outside I’d rather get a mountain of Panda Express orange chicken :9
@ npgz whatever works, i feel like some orange chicken takeout might be too ‘sticky’ tho i don’t mind the concept of orange/and ctirus flavoring with chicken, maybe more of a thin coating or in a container ‘popcorn chicken’ style but i’d still prolly be eating on the inside/in a room/building versus like having a hot cup of soup while out in a cold unless you had to keep moving/didn’t have a choice or so/on a rush/walking home from getting it
And cereal for dinner!
I vibe with Joyce on this one – those spices can bump off. Black pepper is already spicy enough as it is, and was good enough for the Romans way back when, we don’t need to bring capsaicin into the mix.
i like pepper on eggs tho i wouldn’t consider it particularly spicy, not that i really use a ton of it either unless the taste is overpowered by the salt since i also put a bit of soy sauce on the yolk
A little Jalapeno goes a long way, but Chipotle is the gift of the gods.
I find pepper spicier than most spices
but specifically because as a 7 year old I made a “pepperup potion” that was just an entire pepper shaker and water and ever since I’ve had a supernatural sensitivity
@bogey hopefuly you didn’t have to do anything that’d make your parents have to take you to the hospital and overpay on bills or so lol
i feel like that’d give you more of a tolerance/immunity? than hyper sensitivity but i gtuess it depends lol
I once had to spend a week in a hotel that had decided 1) vegetarian food was inherently bland and 2) the solution to this was to just keep throwing jalapenos at it.
I’m also autistic, and god dammit some times there’s literally nothing that even approaches looking appealing in the dining hall. Get that soft serve Joyce, good for you.
it’s worse when it’s also ‘cutesy/quirky’ names as menu items that don’t explain a goddamn thing on what it could possibly be lol
This is exactly why I didn’t do the dining hall for myself. I have texture issues and am a bit picky, so I figured there’d be a solid 50 to 60 % of food in there I wouldn’t like or be able to eat. Instead, I spent my freshman year with a nice mini fridge, a microwave, and made due! … It was rough, I won’t lie. Got easier when I moved to an actual apartment instead of the dorms and was able to have an oven and stovetop to work with.
As an autistic person this is relatable. Every time I go to a new restaurant I see if they have one of a few foods I like best, such as chicken nuggets/fingers or pizza with some meat on it.
I never understood picky eaters, despite being neurospicy myself. Hell I even ate natto a couple of times and liked it. The only foods I had problems with were the ones with slimy textures like boiled okra, and fermented tofu.
Personal taste is personal taste.
“The customer is always right _in matters of taste_.”
People often forget that phrase’s final four words.
Okay, so you DO understand “picky eaters” who, in this case, are just “autistic people with food avoidance” because there are things you have a problem with, also. Just imagine that instead of a few things which are easily avoided in your culture, you had aversions to staples in your culture, or to the idea of ingredients touching, or to things which aren’t a certain color.
As an autistic person with serious food aversion, I’m not “picky” because it’s not a thing I’m “picking”. It’s a part of my disability, and I really REALLY struggle with it. I wish I could eat differently, I force myself to try and include foods where I can, but my food aversion is one of those things that emotionally dysregulates me faster than almost anything else.
TL;DR – I think a little empathy for people who struggle with something would go a long way for you in understanding people who cannot eat things you find easy to eat.
From my experience, one of the hardest things about having food texture issues growing up is that my aversion was seen as being a brat. There were many a meal times where I was forced to sit at the table for hours until I ‘ate everything’ on my plate, and there were a few times my mom would get so frustrated by my refusal to eat certain foods that she scooped a spoonful of food up, forced it in my mouth, and still expected me to chew and swallow that food.
These experiences aren’t something I chose to do ‘for fun’ or just to be difficult. If I could have easily chewed and swallowed that food, I would have avoided a lot of trouble and drama, as well as other physical things. I’m mainly commenting to back up what Nymph has said. For example, my best friend has major difficulty with the texture of her clothing, and so whenever I’ve picked out clothing related gifts I’ve done my best to either keep that in mind or, if not able to pick out a texture I know she likes, give her the money or a giftcard so she can choose for herself based on going to the store and doing a touch test.
I imagine as a kid, it would be hard to explain a texture-based food aversion as well. Like, solid enough for a kid to say a food is “yucky” or such, but if ingredient-wise it’s similar to things they enjoy, but they don’t know how to describe that it *feels* wrong…
It sucks how autism often comes with language difficulties to, when even without that, a kid could struggle to describe a lot of sensory issues.
That’s also very true, plus as a child they don’t tend to know the vocabulary to describe what exactly is so wrong, or feels so wrong. Now that I’m an adult I can better describe why certain textures feel wrong, or at least describe the texture better to others. Doesn’t mean they’ll always necessarily ‘get’ it, because they don’t experience it, but I’ve also had people reply with “oh okay. Yeah, if *insert food here* felt/tasted like that to me, I’d struggle to eat it too.”.
It’s a shame to look back and reflect on lots of struggles with children that just wind up being seen as being difficult. I notice it a lot more whenever I go to grocery stores or riding an airplane. It makes me wanna grab certain parents and shake them. “Your child isn’t trying to be difficult on purpose, he’s been cooped up in an enclosed space for hours with his ears popping. He’s tired, and overwhelmed, and yelling at him isn’t going to help”.
This is one of the great things for me now being an adult who often works with kids. Like, I had a student who was bothered by the sensation of writing with a pencil. At first I thought it was just a preference when he asked for a pen, but one day when I couldn’t find a pen available for him and offered some pencils, he said that the scratch of pencils bothered him. So then I understood how much being able to use a pen helped him, and I was able to talk to him about how to explain it to other adults in the future (schools are unfortunately full of adults who like to insist kids use certain things to write).
In previous years, he had been pretty disengaged in school, and it was sad to think how people not understanding this simple thing could have contributed to that. He really did want to try at school, and he could do that better when he wasn’t having a bad sensory time.
I had the same re: pencils in school. I could not handle the scratching sound of pencil on paper, which meant that I wrote as lightly as possible to avoid the sound, which meant I got bad grades because I was writing too light.
As soon as I was allowed to use a pen… I still got bad grades because I was supposed to do math and science in pencil still and I used pen.
Raw tomato makes me literally gag, which prevents me from successfully eating food that has it as an ingredient. Which sucks because it’s a very nutritious and common component of many hamburgers, salads, etc. I appreciate my good fortune in not having the same problem with more foods, and stand in solidarity with all people who have food aversions, whether they’re ND or not.
Also, whatever the opposite of solidarity is for all the presumptuous busybodies in the world who will hear someone ask for vegan/gluten-free/whatever meals, and respond by slipping the thing in anyway. Don’t mess with someone else’s food, ya weirdos! Even if you think they’re “just” picky!
I’ve always considered it ironic that my vegetarianism — which many people also consider being a “picky eater” — so often forces me out of my food comfort zone, as in “Well, I guess I’m having the one thing on the menu with a V against it.”
My first choice, if available, is always vegeburger or veggie pizza, though. Unless it’s Impossible Burger — I find its “realism” disturbing. (My third choice would be “very mild curry” if I trusted anyone except the makers of Tesco tinned vegetable curry to know what “very mild” means.)
Becoming vegetarian really made me a more adventurous eater. I feel more comfortable now with going, “Okay, as long as it doesn’t have meat in it, I’ll try it.” (Though some things I don’t like have unfortunately been treated as frequently vegetarian alternatives– like mushrooms and eggplants.)
But I was never a particularly “picky eater” anyway. I feel very lucky that I didn’t get that particular autistic trait.
I don’t think I could ever be a vegetarian. Most vegetables have textures and tastes that I can’t stand.
So does Joyce get the ten bucks because they were both wrong?
Ten imaginary bucks says Caliente had the photo reference.
I would have been wrong too. https://indiana-dining.nutrislice.com/menu/forest-dining-hall
:-O
Here’s your ten imaginary bucks.
Joyce’s face in the last panel is so cute
Joyce is missing out. Most of the newer food courts at IU are considerably better than when I went to college. I’m particularly fond of the one in the Student Union, though the Tudor Room is slightly better.
The food service my college had has been ruled to be unconstitutional to use in prisons, on account of being cruel and unusual punishment.
This is part of the reason we’d just have foot-tall creemees for dinner.
Well, I cannot account for most schools, but I found the IU ones to be far better than my personal experiences would suggest they should be.
Getting yourself a nice sweetie treatie is so legit though, woman after my own heart <3
One of the few high points of my peripatetic childhood was exposure to many different cuisines, most of which had at lest one dish I loved. I couldn’t always get the same dish after I left that country, which really bummed me out sometimes.
Soft serve? That ain’t lunch, considering what Jennifer and Joe had.
A chicken sandwich is just a chicken nugget with more breading
Joe little smile at the last panel is just… adorable.
He liiiiiikes her!
Let’s talk about Joyce’s food like we talk about relationships.
“Oh God, Joyce is going to die of nutritional deprivation!”
That’s just talking about autistic traits the way we talk about relationships, and that happens plenty from what I’ve seen.
No, she NEEDS nutrition.
She will DIE without it.
Weird.
I think Charles Phipps is joking.
It’s falling flat for me too bc alas we have indeed gotten Discourse TM on Joyce’s food preferences before.
But yeah I think just a joke.
Yes, it is a joke.
I am comparing her food preferences to the ridiculous hyperbole that people go on about characters.
“Booster is a psychopathic Hannibal Lecter manipulator! They are the evilz.”
“Sarah is the Wortz!”
And so on.
People do go to that level of hyperbole with Joyce and food already, though. People with food aversions in real life are also subjected to this by people. That’s why I find it doesn’t work well as a joke.
Fair enough.
I suppose trying to parody the comments section was a risky proposition to begin with.
Vitamin pills and chewables exist. She’ll be fine.
I ate very similarly to Joyce all through childhood and college (and still do, a bit) and it bit me in the ass more than once when it made me severely deficient in several nutrients and I needed doctor intervention.
How is it, exactly, that Joyce doesn’t have scurvy?
Flintstones multivitamin chews?
I often wonder about that. Joe needs to get her some vitsmins at least.
I’m guessing she eats potatoes. Or drinks orange juice. Or tea with lots of lemon. Limeaid slushies, maybe. Possibly eats bananas.
Potatoes? What besides starch is one supposed to get from potatoes?
/biologist
Potatoes actually have a ton of vitamins and fiber??
Right? Yeah, a lot of the fiber is in the skin, and I can imagine Joyce not eating that part, but there’s still a decent amount of all the other stuff in the flesh of the potato.
Also, she might have some nutritional deficiencies (lots of people do), but in terms of getting enough to prevent scurvy… potatoes would be a good step, and then a couple other foods she probably eats would get her there.
Skin-on mashed potatoes are amazing if you can adjust to the texture difference.
A baked potato is even easier! For bonus points, cut up broccoli in a cheese sauce to pour on top.
(My favorite “easy” veggie to add is baby spinach, which is a lot more mild than regular spinach, and doesn’t mess with flavor much. I like adding it to instant ramen to improve the nutritional content of a thing I eat too much of anyway >.> )
Yeah, this is a very… “carbs are evil” attitude that isn’t at all reflective of reality. Potatoes are a great staple and you can get a lot of the most vital nutrients from them.
”carbs are evil attitude”? I literally have a degree in biology, and on a physiology course we did go through sources of nutrition. If you rely on potatoes for vitamines that will not end well.
Good thing nobody says anything about rallying solely on potatoes for vitamins.
What Jeremiah said.
And yeah, Adept, I figured from when you said you were a biologist, but even the nutrition information that medical doctors are taught is kinda… famously fatphobic and inaccurate. And that’s as much about what they’re not taught (such as how to recognize symptoms in fat patients, or the importance of checking basic information like “weight limits” on medications before prescribing them) as it is about what they are, and it contributes enormously to the lower quality of medical care that fat patients receive across the board.
Don’t feel bad for believing what you were taught, but “potatoes are nutritionally worthless” is a very common misconception and just not true.
I never said potatoes are nutritionally worthless. I like potatoes, and think they are a better staple than rice or wheat (pasta). I mostly think that because potatoes are less energy dense than rice and has useful soluble fibre.
I wish to point out that I commented on how Joe should try to get Joyce to eat vitamins, to which there was a reply that she probably eats potatoes. One last time, eating potatoes will not fix things if you are missing vital nutrients. Eat enough (like a third of a kilo of boiled potatoes per day) and you might get the vitamin C you need and avoid scurvy, but that is not all an 18 year old student needs.
But… that’s not what you were replying to.
As you can see, the topic was specifically scurvy, aka vitamin C deficiency.
You did, above Steamweed, try to start a conversation about vitamins more generally, but you then replied to Steamweed, who was only talking about vitamin C sources, and then you asked what benefit potatoes could be to anyone.
I get that you didn’t mean to say potatoes only provide starch? But you did. So that’s what I and others responded to.
Also: nothing wrong with eating lots of rice either. Rice is the biggest staple in the world and it does not appear to cause any health problems (for anyone who isn’t allergic, etc) anywhere else in the world. So I am skeptical of claims that it’s bad for Americans, either.
@Li: Though historically rice as a staple has usually been brown rice, right? Which is healthier than white rice in most ways. Much like whole wheat vs white flour.
@thejeff — nnnot really? White rice has been around for a long time, since at least 8000 BCE, judging by the existence of milling and husking tools. White rice seems to have been popularized by Confucius. Highly polished rice was an important ingredient in sake.
Like yeah, brown rice is more nutritionally dense, but white rice as a staple (and a part of every meal to the point where the Japanese word for ‘meal’ also means ‘rice’) is still pretty dang old. A lot older than our modern fear of carbs.
Honestly the demonization of rice specifically smells like Sinophobia to me. See also: MSG (link is to an article about the racist origins of “MSG Syndrome”).
A degree in biology doesn’t make you unbiased or universally aware of nutritional data from every food. Source: my biology degree and me googling to make sure I remembered potatoes actually being nutritionally decent.
Decent, but far from fixing extremely picky eater issues.
Sure, but that’s moving the goalpost quite a bit. You asked what she was going to get from potatoes other than starch and I answered. They are a reliable source of vitamins. It’s silly to suggest I said anything like “they will solve autistic food aversion”.
Relying on any single food for nutrients will leave deficits, no one is arguing otherwise, but there is a lot more than starch in potatoes. They are not an unhealthy food.
Also thank you! And RAD.
I wonder how many other cool degrees we’ve got in this comment section.
I haven’t attended university since the pandemic turned my life upside down, I but I got 3/4 of a physics degree if that counts :)
That DEFINITELY counts
and here I just thought you were the cool person makin’ video games 
You didn’t say they’re nutritionally worthless, but you did say “What besides starch is one supposed to get from potatoes?” and then doubled down when people pointed out their actual nutritional content. It’s okay to admit you were wrong you know.
Thank you.
Like, “what do they provide besides starch” isn’t technically “potatoes contain no nutrients”, but the implication was pretty strong?
I don’t wanna imagine the Charlie horses you get lol. Potatoes are decent sources of potassium, especially if you’re someone like me who cannot stand the taste of banana.
Not quite sure how she’s gonna get adequate Vitamin C from a potato though lol
By eating something else?
Smash cut to Joyce eating orange. 5 nearly identical comments about how she’s depriving herself of valuable niacin or whatever.
D is also an issue
The sun exists.
Joe is right there, willing to give her plenty of D.
Ba dum tsss.
Potatoes do actually contain vitamin C. One medium-sized russet potato contains about 17g of it, or 35% of the daily allowance.
This doesn’t make french fries a great source of vitamin C, but it’s still present in a good ole baked potato.
“allowance” sdjflksj I meant intake orz
Why would she have scurvy?
Honestly, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if she did have an issue with a severe-ish vitamin deficiency at some point in her life, because I feel like I remember Willis mentioning something about their own childhood…?
But it’s also not inevitable for folks with food aversions, we just gotta find options that provide the vitamins we’re deficient in or multivitamins that we can stand (ideally both, food’s almost always a better source). And we can STILL have soft serve ice cream for lunch sometimes, as a treat. :3
No notes, this is good.
Joyce Brown: Defying Expectations By Being Incredibly Milquetoast
Joe’s fucking face.
Life is about finding the places that understand what “plain” means. And for no particular reason, understand that there is a difference between a hamburger and a cheeseburger. Also, very importantly, that “burger” is short for the former.
I never order burgers these days except at gourmet burger places because they actually pay attention to what you say you want and don’t want.
I hope this lunch do better to Jennifer, because nobody deserves to be the third wheel.
I enjoy the subtle differences in Joe and Jennifer’s faces. Jennifer is exasperated at Joyce going with literal vanilla and Joe’s like ‘that’s my girlfriend, isn’t she awesome’.
It’s a draw; no one wins the bet. Maybe they should switch to a bingo card format.
Soft serve ice cream. Is Joe describing her food or Joyce?
…
…
Nah, joke’s too easy.
Awwww, I love Joe’s face in the last panel. He truly does find her food traits endearing.
NGL this is me when I go somewhere new and I don’t know what is a safe food and what isn’t.
“Ice cream isn’t a lunch food!”
“Says who?”
Someday she’ll be among the capsaicin junkies… but that’s still very far away.
There’s something extremely cute about this trio being here like this.
I expect, “doesn’t trust them to make it plain” applies to everything on every menu. She picks the sausage off of pizza, so fennel is to spicy. It’s not even a question of finding food with no chili pepper.
Joyce’s eyes narrow as she looks at the menu at “Worry Free” with suspicion.
She picks the sausage off, yes, but then she eats it separately from the rest of the pizza. Otherwise, she wouldn’t specifically ask for it that way.
“Ingredients were created separately. That’s not God’s doctrine, it’s just mine.” — Joyce Brown, a few years ago
(This is not a direct quote probably, but I did my best from memory haha)
You may be right about eating it separately. If she does, it’s in a Becky scene. Either at Galasso’s after their fight, or when they go home and eat out with John and Jocelyne.
Not the second one, but I’m pretty sure soft serve is autobiographical now
On the other hand, you can order food to pick something off and not eat it. For example, if you like the impression the pickles make in the cheese on a cheeseburger.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/picked/ fennel not too spicy (the scene is easy to find, because of the folger’s christmas siblings)
Here you go:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/broughtcher/
So yes, I assume she likes both the lingering aspect of “there once was sausage on this pizza” and the sausage itself.
chicken sandwich was a terrible bet
if you don’t like spicy food you don’t trust the spice place to have non-spicy chicken
get it together jennifer!!!
Truly love Joes little smile in the last panel.
I know this is going to be a weird comment but like…as an autistic person I read stuff like this a lot and feel this kind of…incredulity that people would find Joyce’s behaviors endearing and love her…like I don’t have the food aversion but other stuff I guess. But I really appreciate this comic and seeing someone who I relate to in a lot of ways being appreciated and loved by other people because I feel like a massive annoyance to people all the time even if they tell me otherwise. Like it really hits home in a lot of ways. Like I’ll have these thoughts like Joe is not going to want to put up with this for long, but it’s 100% my own projected anxieties. I dunno. Don’t even know what I’m saying here. Keep it up. Roll tide. lmao
I absoLUTELY find my partner’s “annoying” autistic traits endearing, and we have been dating since 2019.
Like. Those quirks are just part of who she is. Sometimes they mean I do a task in a specific way that’s different from how I’d do it if I lived alone, but it’s literally not a big deal. It’s not harder, it’s just different, and it matters to her while it doesn’t matter at all to me.
Meanwhile when my ADHD makes me fail to do something that I feel embarrassed about, she laughs in this affectionate way that makes me feel very seen and not like a weird burden.
(And when I do something that strikes her as Maybe Autistic, she raises a knowing eyebrow; when she does something that strikes me as Maybe ADHD, I do the same.) (So probably we are in fact AuDHD4AuDHD, but we don’t have a perfect overlap of symptoms, so we COULD still annoy each other… we just kinda. Don’t. We get frustrated with ourselves and a teeny bit exasperated with each other, and we make sure that we each know it’s okay.)
(It’s not 0% work, but it’s also not difficult. Neurotypical people can absolutely manage it, with just a lil bit of effort.)
Joe is so fond of her look at his little smile
“she might not trust them to actually make it plain” joyce we are the same man