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Thank you, everyone, for helping contribute to this year’s Kickstarter! It was amazing!
See you all in a week at Emerald City Comicon in Seattle!
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just order friggin’ grilled cheese and a soft serve, IT’S OKAY TO GO OFF-MENU
(unless you go to like Soup Nazi)
There’s also the secret menu.
Always order from the secret menu.
For those unfamiliar…
So, I can say that most BKs don’t carry the Ham&Cheese anymore, the rodeo burger is actually on the regular menu, and quite a few cashiers will be confused if you order “frings”. This website is partly out-dated. (Oh, Veggie Whoppers aren’t a thing either. There aren’t veggie patties that large).
Can’t she just order it without gravy?
Because, only heathens would do that, and she’s trying to get in good with her parents, not be worse off!
Or gravy’s much too spicy for her to handle.
She can order it that way. But she shouldn’t count on actually getting it that way. Unless she is preemptively a jerk about it.
Eh, leaving stuff off is usually not a big deal for most servers and kitchens–in part, because these days, they tend to assume you’re asking because of allergies (and yes, I know someone who is allergic to most gravies, because the coloring includes sulfur). Substitutions or extras are more likely to get overlooked.
Preemptive jerkiness sounds like a good way to get it with saliva…
Which is why I don’t do it.
I order substitutions a good bit of the time and get them. I like to think it’s because I’m *NOT* an asshole to the server unless s/he goes out of his/her way to give me a reason. But, yes, I know people who are seemingly proud of their ability to treat like crap anyone they perceive to be in a subservient position.
The fuck’s wrong with gravy?
Seriously! Poutine is impossible without gravy!
And Canada is impossible without Poutine!
And Ruth is impossible without Canada!
Joyce’s anti-Ruthism has gone on long enough!
Go Leafs!
I think you meant this. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/mapleleafs/
na na, if I was going to pick that arc I’d’ve gone straight here:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/sure/
You mean besides being weird meat juice?
the gravy in KFC’s Potato and Gravy is like hot yummy wallpaper paste.
Just so long as it’s not the sausage gravy from McDonalds. I worked there for four years, and it’s the most disgusting substance in the place.
We don’t replace it all morning long, just add more cans when it starts getting low, so what’s on the bottom of the vat has been fossilizing all morning long. It’s only even barely a liquid when heated, at room temperature it’s as thick as peanut butter, and made from pure fat.
And the smell gets truly awful throughout the morning, and when you (I! I always had to do it!) go to clean the vat after breakfast, it’s become foul smelling cement.
Never eat that stuff. I’d sooner drink the grease trap.
You’re implying there’s a functional difference between the contents of the grease trap and a McDonald’s breakfast.
Egg McMuffins are pretty good, but they’re easy to clone. (Use a can with both ends removed to form the eggs, butter and toast the split parts of the english muffin on the fry pan, use Canadian bacon or sliced ham, and wrap each sandwich immediately after cooking.)
If you want to make your own consistently you can try and find those oh-so-rare one egg steamer pans. Quick, easy and no messy cans to deal with.
For winter camps we made these by the dozen, with real cheese and thick cut bacon deep fried to crumbly crispness. We then wrapped them in a double layer of foil and froze them solid. In the morning drop one beside the fire with the occasional turn, while making hot chocolate or coffee. Easy breakfast with minimal cleanup.
Or you can just buy something stupid like this
http://www.amazon.com/Norpro-Nonstick-Round-Pancake-Rings/dp/B0000VLWV0/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1459467023&sr=8-7&keywords=egg+round
There’s something for errybody!
“vat” seems the most appropriate word in that context.
We used to use KFC gravy for pothole repairs.
or, like, weird meat juice WITH FLOUR
(looks at grav)
What next, claiming that sarcasm isn’t actually funny? My worldview is turned upside down!
What I want to know is who the heck could possibly not like Indian food? It’s, like, the best!
At least she gave sushi a try, so maybe there’s hope.
Damn, now I want sushi, but I just had it three days ago.
She didn’t eat it so much as stuff it down her throat with as little mouth-contact as possible.
Honestly, I can’t blame her.
Which is a strategy she may need to employ now if she’s going to live up to her oath just now.
Well, what *I* want to know is how some people are apparently unfamiliar with just how picky a picky eater really is. Joyce and 16-year-old me would’ve bonded on a spiritual level.
I once dissected and boiled a boot simply because I learned leather was theoretically edible.
The concept of being a picky eater is a strange and alien notion to me.
I’m horrified, but also genuinely curious as to how that went.
I had to get my stomach pumped because of the chemicals, but my point stands damn it.
As far as taste went? Like really bland, yet surprisingly supple beef jerky. Chewy as all fuck, though.
Oh. What kind of boot was it? I know there are still some with relatively little treatment, but anything dyed is probably best to steer clear of. Rawhide or uncured leather makes an adequate substitute for chewing gum, though.
It was brown, it went up past the ankles, and I tried to eat it. It was at least a decade ago, so I can’t really tell you more than that.
You didn’t even have alchemical powers to render the boot into something tastier, huh
‘It was brown, it went up past the ankles, and I tried to eat it.’
This is officially the best line ever. Even without being true.
… That last sentence was badly phrased… I do not doubt Tunaro’s story, I mean even if it weren’t true, it would still be the best line ever.
That is surprisingly badass.
I am weirdly impressed by this and I could not tell you why.
And this wasn’t because you lost a bet?
I’m pretty picky, or I was, but leather is on the acceptable list. It’s basically skin jerky anyway, but without the gross crunch & squish of pork rinds.
I once ate the wrapper from a Taco Bell burrito (after eating the burrito)
To be fair, it tasted better than the burrito. Probably more nutritious, too.
And filmed the event for posterity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvMCsMazcHQ
I only met one really picky eater (who didn’t have a specific condition or was, like, five) in my whole life. In my family, meals weren’t multiple-choice and if you didn’t like what was on offer, well, hope the next meal in six to twelve hours is better for you.
yep, true picky eating is when you’d rather go without food at all than try to stuff this not-food into your mouth
we usually have bread and eggs though. i have eaten a great lot of toast and boiled eggs over the years
Heck, 30-year-old me is finding Joyce awfully familiar in this regard. Most of the time I just refuse to eat around people because I’m sick of the comments about it.
For a good decade or so of my life, the list of foods I would eat was: Bread, peanut butter sandwiches, Campbell’s brand cream of mushroom soup, milk, water, beef, lettuce, peas, mushrooms, chocolate, cheetos, and sweet potatoes.
Beef had to be ground or rare. Milk had to be skim. Mushrooms had to be raw. Peas had to not be pureed, and sweet potatoes could be slatered in butter but also not pureed. Cakes, cookies, etc, were all a no.
I’ve gotten a lot less picky since I outgrew a lot of the sensory shit I dealt with as a kid and don’t have people constantly trying to force-feed me shit I hate (celery, frex, or Kraft dinner – both of which are truly gagworthy for me). For me a lot of it was less an aversion to new foods themselves and more an aversion to the pressure to try new stuff because in my household growing up, “trying” something meant “I get 3/4 of a plateful and am expected to finish it and will get guilted and bellowed at if I don’t like it.”
Amusingly, because I’m so willing to try new things now (I often come home from grocery shopping with some bizarre-looking thing and my long-suffering partner goes, “What’s this?” and I’m like, “Oh, that? It’s [weird plant], I found it at the store and thought I’d give it a try.” “Have you ever had it before?” “Nope!” “Oh. Do you know how to cook it?” “Ummm… no. But I’ll figure it out!”), a lot of people flat-out refuse to believe I was that picky for so many years, but I really was. Having the freedom to say, “No, I don’t like this, I won’t finish it.” and have it stick really made a monumental difference for me on the “being able to try new stuff” front.
I’ve managed to get mostly-freedom food-wise by my early teens (after a lot of force-feeding battles in my childhood). We’ve settled on me PUTTING STUFF ON MY OWN PLATE BY MYSELF and only being expected to finish WHAT I MYSELF TOOK. Before, there was many a battle to the tone of “DON’T WASTE FOOD DON’T LEAVE ANYTHING ON YOUR PLATE” “WHY THE FUCK DID YOU PUT SO MUCH FOOD ON MY PLATE HAVE YOU MET ME BEFORE”.
Amusingly, fatphobia and being a chubby teen helped out a lot with making my family ease off my eating habits. “I’m on a diet” is a surprisingly perfect way to explain your refusal to eat something without going into “WHY ARE YOU CALLING THIS DISGUSTING SLUDGE FOOD” territory…
I know someone who only eats cheese pizza and cheese and onion crisps. Seriously, she makes me doubt the hell out of every nutritional lesson I was ever taught. She isn’t running marathons or anything, but basically seems to have no side effects and dozens of children (well, three but were three under three at one point and surprisingly fast for objects so chubby)
My niece was a picky eater, the food couldn’t be touching on her plate, and no sauces or condiments of any kind. I innocently pointed out that it all gets mixed up in your stomach anyway. Apparently that was a bad thing to tell her.
I’ve heard that so many times, and it’s such a senseless thing to say. You can’t taste it after it’s in your stomach.
Bloomington has tons of Asian restaurants. On fourth street there is 2 Indian, 2 Thai, 2 Korean, a Tibetan, a Burmese, and a Turkish restaurant. Joyce could slowly make her way down the street to force herself to expand her pallet, but maybe that is too extremely. She could just food from the Qdoba and call it a day
And walk all the way over there when there are waffles and tacos in Read Hall? Nahhhhh.
She needs to start slower than that. First, eat something off the adult menu (other than breadsticks) at Olive Garden. Then move on to the interchangeable “generic American” restaraunts (TGI Friday’s, Ruby Tuesday, Applebees, The 99, etc). Then maybe she’ll be ready for Qdoba.
99 has chicken fingers on the adult menu!
I know, I know. I’m so jealous!
Is there something about being a fundie that makes you more likely to be a picky germaphobe? It is a trend I am noticing in my life and would seem to be backed by Joyce’s autobiographical nature.
Recent studies have found a correlation between openness to experience and being more liberal, so maybe?
Actually…now that you mention it… the people I know who are very Christian, are also really picky eaters. Huh…
Everything. Everything is wrong with gravy.
I care not for gravy either. It is, as Luzahn said earlier, weird meat juice. And I still kept my turkey slices dry during family tnxsgiving dinner.
It’s meat juice with added bits, but as additives go, salt, flour, and milk are a recipe for success. The best gravy I’ve ever had, though, was a thin, runny turkey gravy with waaay more salt than the cook intended.
I dip my turkey in cranberry sauce. Gravy is weird and nasty, and turkey needs something to give it some flavor.
my mom’s gravy chicken SCREAMS AT HOW WRONG YOU ARE
wait n/m that’s just it sizzling
Ketchup on turkey ain’t bad. Don’t drown it or anything, but just a light drizzle to keep it from being totally dry.
Just bear in mind that this is an EXTREMELY polarizing action. Some people don’t care, but others will be so horrified at this you may as well have whipped your genitalia out at the table and proceeded to rub said genitalia on the turkey.
Just try to read the room ahead of time.
To be fair, that would probably ruin the turkey less than some gravy I’ve had.
I find the same is true with apples and ketchup. It’s a unique taste and worth trying, but some people lose their minds if you do it in front of them. I’m not saying drown your apples in ketchup, but the next time you have apple slices and some ketchup on your plate or extra packets, give it a try.
I’d try it, but that would require me to put ketchup on something, and I like to avoid that when possible.
You… don’t want to put ketchup on something?
You’re dead to me.
I like tomatoes and I like sugar, but the combination just doesn’t work for me.
After switching to fried turkey I don’t know why the hell anyone would want to eat it dry.
But you guys are eating weird meat-flesh already. Gravy is basically just broth and fat with flour or cornstarch. You can even make mushroom (yum) or vegetable (meh) gravy and avoid the “meat juice” thing altogether.
It depends on what kind of gravy. Some kinds are good, but other kinds have… stuff in them. I don’t know what kind of stuff, but it’s chunky and makes me think of cat puke, and I’ve never been able to make myself try it.
My brother attempted to make gravy last night. It tasted like soggy bread and whiskey.
Interesting question. Let me answer it with another question.
What the fuck is GOOD about gravy?
Delicious meat juices with some fat? The flour’s just there to thicken it up a bit.
I can only assume those bashing it haven’t had good gravy. The stuff from a can or made with gravy powder or something like that doesn’t count.
Or if you’re vegetarian or have some strange dislike for it, that’s one thing. There are plenty of foods I dislike, but I usually can still have an appreciation for why others like them, even though I don’t.
Even as a vegetarian, I love gravy. I mean, I have to make mushroom gravy instead of meat gravy, but it still tastes great on mashed potatoes or chicken-fried veggie burger.
For a long time I thought I didn’t like gravy, because growing up I never had actual gravy. It was all packets of powder.
It’s deliciously savory and salty and combines well with soft carbohydrates like mashed potatoes.
The BEST gravy, in my experience, is made with only two ingredients: the drippings from a roast chicken (ideally a well-salted one), and cornstarch. If mashed potatoes imbued with hot, fresh chicken grease doesn’t sound good to you, then I just don’t know what to say.
What kind of horrible restaurant serves chicken fingers, but only on the kids’ menu? That has to be some kind of crime.
Yes exactly!
Maybe they have them on the adult menu, but put stuff on them? Like BBQ sauce or something?
Just looked it up and you’re right. They have BBQ and buffalo chicken fingers as both appetizers and standard entrees, but the unsauced kind is only in the kids’ section.
I don’t see why Joyce couldn’t just get a full-sized order without sauce and not have it count as “ordering off the children’s menu” though.
She probably could. Someone could tell her, if they wanted to deprive themselves of watching her try to pick something.
I’m not sure that counts as “learning to eat strange things”. After all, she has to learn how to survive in India (without defaulting to soft serve), so she can meet her sister.
Her sister?
Christi is John’s wife!
(OK that is not really a contradiction…)
Hmmm. What did Joyce say in the last panel of the striped you linked to…
Yeah, John, Jocelyne, and Becky are totally gonna let her flounder for laughs.
Well, now we know she’s Christian, I guess.
Could have moved to Deism.
Are Deist missionaries a thing? Seriously?
Yeah, Deism always struck me as pretty chill as far as proselytizing went.
“We are here to convert you to vagueness! Keep doing what you’re doing, only, you know, with less specificity.”
That’s pretty much Unitarinism and I’ve been evangelized by them.
I’ve done the same.
“Hi! Okay, so God’s like a clockmaker or an architect, and made the world. The miracle God made is, you know, the The World. That was about it. Thanks!”
“Who was at the door?” “No idea.”
Or they’re part of a secular mission that actually does useful work.
“Secular mission” is an oxymoron. They wouldn’t have called it a mission trip if it wasn’t Christian in nature.
There are those non-religious ones that go and ruin the economy so college kids can feel important, but yeah, they’re not usually called missions.
I dunno, when my dad used to work for the Inter-American Development Bank, going to third world countries to assess what areas required money for development were also called “missions” and had nothing to do with religion.
Well, unless it’s followed by “should you choose to accept it” and “this message will self destruct.”
To be fair, a staggering number of mission trips are about building houses, creating clean water, and planting food.
A decent percentage of religious missions do physical work as well. There is a growing emphasis on expanding missions to meet physical and social needs also well as spiritual needs. Of course, religious missions: Christian, Buddhist,Islamic, et al have always had an element of meeting both physical and spiritual needs.
I think to be a mission trip there has to be something physical done otherwise it is just a retreat.
The most American of religious persuasions. Founding Father approved!!
Unless, unless…. she’s recruited him to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness? They evangelise.
welp, you lost me at that last line, joyce. best of luck with the indian street food vendors
As a former extremely picky eater who visited Indonesia, I can really empathize with Joyce here.
Lol. I’m an Indian and even I have to be careful with street vendors. And God forbid she drink water that hasn’t been boiled.
yup, been there. i had a friend help me with what i should and shouldn’t try in calcutta. apparently the unlimited soup in an edible bowl from a street cart was ok, but never have water in a restaurant.
george carlin did a bit about how we were too germ-phobic, and that he would eat food that he’d found on the ground in calcutta. my friend said that he would’ve died. i pointed out that he had.
Just tell them to hold the mushrooms! And also called it. Plenty of fundamentalist Christian Indians in my area.
Mushrooms are the worst. There is no recipe with mushrooms that wouldn’t be 340% better without mushrooms.
+340%
Agreed. I don’t eat any food that digested its food externally, just on principle.
Also their texture is gross.
Yeah, the texture is awful. The flavor, though… Cream of mushroom soup is great with chicken and rice.
I have to agree there, but cream of chicken is just as good and doesn’t have weird bits in.
Mmmm… dirt flavor.
Mushrooms ruin everything but compost heaps and Mario games.
And now there are real life people as well as fictional ones on this page that hate things that I don’t understand how you could possibly not like! What the heck?
Have you guys ever had a Hungarian mushroom soup? It’s like the best thing ever!
Heck I have eaten things that were still trying to get off the plate when served. Some of them were even dead, but only just. In sashimi terms that would be “floppin’ fresh”.
Has anyone of you philistines ever had a cream sauce of chanterelles? Or have even the slightest idea of how many awesome things champignons can be used for? Pizza, sauces, casseroles, gratins, or just remove the stem, fill it with cheese your choice and let it bake in the oven. And shiitake mushrooms are probably my single favourite ingredient of asian cuisine.
And then there’re all the fungi we use to make delicious cheeses. If you’ve eaten a Quattro Formaggi pizza, you’ve eaten fungi in the Gorgonzola. Or a Rocquefort cheese… food of the gods I tell you.
And you know what else is a fungus? Yeast! That’s right, every time you eat bread, or drink almost any alcoholic beverage, you’re consuming something that only exists thanks to fungus.
So show a little respect for the éminence grise of the culinary world, oh ye of little mind and unrefined palates.
Preach it Sister/Brother/Sib!
I’m drooling just thinking about some of the foods mentioned in your comment. Time to go shopping.
I have always wanted to try Chanterelles!!
I think mushrooms are one of those things where a bad early experience can put you off them for life. A friend of mine was traumatised by overcooked field mushrooms on a trip to Russia as a young child, whereas my own first encounter was with fried button mushrooms at about 12, when I was getting more open-minded about strange flavours and textures.
I’m ambivalent about mushrooms, it depends on what you’ve put them on. Though I tend to get issues when they’re on pizza. Psychosomatic vomitting due to some bad mushrooms on a pizza I had once.
I struggled to get a taste for mushrooms as a kid. I got to the point where I was ok with them being on things, but after getting violently sick with the flu a morning after steak and sauteed mushroom dinner, something clicked in my head and just the smell of cooking mushrooms would make me sick.
It took years to get back to where I started. Cream of mushroom soup is my ultimate challenge still. But I recently tried a from-scratch one so delicious that I may be coming round on that too. 🙂
Seriously, Hungarian mushroom soup is the best.
Mushrooms are the food of gods.
My policy is that anything with fungus on it isn’t food anymore.
This. Also, have you ever seen a real mushroom house? Anything that’s been in one of those, I don’t want anywhere near my mouth.
You’re supposed to wash them first.
(That goes for all your other food too BTW. For the same reason)
Unless it’s the delicious stinkfungus commonly known as truffle, I get too off-put by the slimy, rubbery texture to care about the taste.
They’re only slimy and rubbery if you cook them wrong. The first time I made mushroom stew, my little sister looked up at me halfway through dinner and went, “Wait, I thought you were a vegetarian! Why are you eating the beef stew?”
Of course, once I told her they were mushrooms she stopped eating them. But before I told her, she apparently didn’t think the mushrooms were slimy or rubbery at all.
Disagree – but you reeeaaally need to cook them properly. I used to think I hated cooked mushrooms until I had them at a restaurant that knew they need to be lightly sauteed in butter, not fried until they’re black and hard and slimy and tough as shoe leather like my mother makes them. If your first experience with mushrooms was overcooked ones, I totally get it why you hate them on principle.
A friend of mine, who is from India was wondering if he should eat musrooms as they are not a “vegetable” as he is a vegetarian. I assured him that musrooms are not animals, but he can eat or not eat whatever he wants. The strange conversations one has when one is trying to avoid doing research.
Does he eat fruit? I mean, those technically aren’t *vegetables*… also curious about yeast/bacteria/etc.
Fruits are plants so yes, he did question consuming anything with yeast or other non-plant life such as alcohol.
“Chicken isn’t vegan?”
The children’s menu is full of nom… but I like things not on the kids’ menu, too. *has such a craving for curry right now. Damn you, Willis*
*madly craves sushi*
I got curry last night! Do it
I’d have to go up to Omaha for that….
Joyce is the restaurant version of Gaston.
“How can you read this thing? There’s no pictures!”
No one eats like Joyce Brown!
No one feasts like Joyce Brown!
No one hands chefs such thorough defeats like Joyce Brown!
As a taste-tester, she sure is AGravating!
That picky eater, Joyce Brown!
Bravo! You win one (1) internet! ^_^
She’s not very good at prevaricating!
And of course I forgot to link the comic I spent far too many minutes looking for before posting that.
Silamy’s line was more relevant anyway.
I’m betting nobody guessed that was going to be the context of that preview panel…
Yeah cant really assume anything with Joyce, I mean the smallest thing gets her mad😆
At least if they are mixed together
Let’s give her a challenge, shall we?
http://i.imgur.com/TuCs8Fz.jpg
Rice, peas, maize, and finely cut ham. All touching each other >:D
That looks delicious.
Makes me wonder if Joyce eats any sort of fried rice.
On the one hand, I’m relieved that the Brown family is not arguing yet, and John seems very chill so far.
On the other hand, the arguments are inevitable, and I simply can’t wait to get to it.
Willis is rather good at selecting innocuous preview panels that let the comment section work itself into a lather.
But things can have things on it, how else do you get mac and cheese?
She separates the mac from the cheese.
Don’t ask me how, but she can do it.
Joyce: SIR I DONT WANT CRUST ON MY BURGER
ITS A BUN ITS ALL CRUST! How am I supposed to take the crust off?
Joyce:……peel it.
Please tell me im not the only one who gets this reference?
Hush, Patrick.
No. I refute this. Plain boiled macaroni is an abomination unto good food and I will have none of it.
It is delicious. Embrace the pasta.
Or douse it in salsa. Or tuna salad. Or habanero sauce. Or cheese. Or cheese sauce. Or the cheese packets that come in the box, plus a spoonful of yoghurt. Or all of the above; I rather like ‘all of the above.’
I[ll have your portion, with a little butter melted into it, and a dash of black pepper.
Not in the case of Kraft mac n’ cheese. That she gobbled up at the family home.
I think that’s the only exception she makes to her ‘no sauces’ rule.
Mac and cheese is an entity unto itself. If you believe otherwise, you may as well just go ahead and believe in the existence of atoms and that science is true or some crazy thing like that.
To be fair if I always ordered from the kids menu, the adult menu would basically look like braille to me😆
See, that is just completely foreign to me. I was sick of the Kids menu by the time I was 10. Started ordering from the adult menu then and never looked back. Hell, half the time my 4 year old eats from the adult menu.
I’m actually quite baffled by the amount of people in the comments section echoing Joyce. Why? I truly don’t get it (or why Joyce seems to have something against sauces).
Because plenty of people have dislikes that are included on the adult menu but not the kid’s menu.
There are plenty of people who don’t like sauces or onions or salads or tomatoes or any other thing you can think of that goes on the side or mixed into a meal. Lots of people can relate to Joyce just liking simple food because they too, like simple food.
My brother went through a phase like this. He wouldn’t eat anything that was too “complicated”. Eventually we came to the conclusion that more than four obvious ingredients is what “complicated” means.
My brother subsisted on nothing but chicken fingers up until he was about 14. I’d suggest introducing him to Joyce, but he’d just be yet another poorly matched Jewish suitor.
My eldest would eat anything and then mug her dad for more of it until a switch flipped sometime in early primary. Now, as a preteen, she will only eat naked food. Burgers are OK if there isn’t too much “stuff” on them. Chicken is OK if there is no coating. Vegetables are OK if nothing she remotely dislikes is in the mix (which is most vegetables) because she can taste one tiny slice of red pepper in the entire serving bowl, like the princess and the pea. Hot dogs: only the bun, because she can’t pick the “stuff” (the seasoning) out of the meat; spaghetti: only if she can put the sauce and pasta in separate piles. If I fix a pot of stew, she goes and eats lunchmeat and crackers with pickles on the side. Also she only likes baked goods from the bakery where everything is very pale out the outside because of their equipment or ingredients or something. Homemade? Forget it.
So basically when she goes to college she is going to keel over from malnutrition and fail every class.
I think I’ll be okay. I like food.
Can I meet this girl for a food intervention?
These are actually signs of an eating disorder. Not to say that this is what’s going on, but preteen is definitely a risky time for that sort of thing. Knowing exactly what is in each food item allows you to know exactly how many calories you’re eating. Also, by not eating ‘Bad’ foods (by whatever personal standards you have) you give yourself some control. It’s not necessarily physically unhealthy on its own, but it can mean there are some things going on mentally/emotionally to talk over.
If she had just always been picky it would make more sense to just be a taste thing, but usually you get less sensitive to taste as you get older, not more.
There was a MondoMiniShows Absolute Zero parody of Marilyn Manson that supposedly proved that restaurant gravy is the work of the Devil.
omg Jocelyne.
Jocelyne rocks. That is proper sibling taunting.
You aren’t really a big sister until you’ve figured out how to bait the younger siblings into doing stuff they don’t want to do by implying/saying that they CAN’T do it. That’s Older Sibling 101.
I want to mock Joyce, but I have such deep issues with food and how it’s done, I really have no room. I would actually be a hell of a lot more comfortable with Indian food than with that diner, in all likelihood, but still. (Seriously, what is with you people? Why do you need to put bacon in everything? Its disgusting)
It’s one of the four basic food groups.
Seriously though, bacon is delicious and versatile. Though I admit we may take it a little far at times.
*Christi* I hate to nitpick [liar!].
It’s just another thinly veiled Christ metaphor a-coming.
Joyce is the one who said it this time, maybe she just got it wrong.
Joyce also said “as god is my witness”. And I’m now wondering if that may in fact have been intentional. Like, either she’s so angry she can’t keep her words straight, or maybe she misheard it when she was younger, and when she says it, people sort of assume-hear* that she’s saying it correctly.
*I’m not sure how to explain this, but sometimes when you say a colloquialism slightly incorrectly, people are expecting the correct version, and may filter what their ears just heard, mostly because they’re not paying full attention.
SHEEESH!!!!
I meant: Joyce also said “as god as my witness”.
Is there anything stupider than being wrong when you’re specifically trying to be correct?
Willis fixed it. Now you look like you’re being wrong about being wrong.
OH WELL!
I’m so wrong, they should put a picture of me in the dictionary next to the word “wrong”.
I thought that was a “Gone With The Wind” reference. Everyone on this thread under 30 can just get off my lawn .
Bunch of hippie-yippies.
So John and Christi are missionaries. Or is that the cover story that they give the parents?
I think some people have speculated mom would be racist as well as homophobic.
I’m sure she would be, but I’m curious what your point in saying so is? A lot of Christian missionaries have been quite racist.
And yet they still go abroad, how baffling.
Actually, what I’m saying is that racism is part of what they do. There have been a lot of missionaries in history–I have some family who are missionaries, and they mean nothing but the best and aren’t any more racist than your next average Joe, so they’re not all like that, but yes–there are lot of missionaries who totally disrespected everything about local culture and religion and sought to manipulate or even force them into Christianity.
My understanding of it was that it wasn’t just a thing that some of them did, it was the whole point for the first couple dozen centuries or so
Wouldn’t the first couple dozen centuries be Jews and Romans working in Germany and Norway? Well, I suppose a bunch of Romans being racist against Germanic people would make sense.
A “couple” “dozen” centuries would be 2400 years ago, so no. It would be Greeks and Carthaginians doing missionary work with a tiny little upstart kingdom called Roma caught in the middle.
If I remember correctly, the missionaries of the Jesuitt order were particularly infamous when it came to their efficiency because unlike Protestant missionaries or Catholic missionaries from other orders, they didn’t take offense by foreign temples or burn the holy symbols of the indigenous population. Instead finding ways to convince people that their old culture and traditions were compatible with Catholic dogma rather than force them to abandon their heritage.
When white missionaries went out into the same distant countries that European empires were dominating or conquering, a wierd kind of paternalistic racism was the result. “These poor benighted dark people are like children- lost children, whom we must guide with soft words and (alas!) stern discipline along the path to Christ and to civilisation. That is the White Man’s Burden.”
Albeit, racism as we know it is a relatively recent phenomenon. People just treated each other awful and didn’t need no damned excuse. 🙂
The fact his wife is probably Indian.
John and Cristi may not be racist, but mom for sure is. Carole surely isn’t going to accept and Indian into her wasp family. Which is why John is never around most likely.
Willis will trick us all, and Christi will turn out to be a white woman from a small town in North Dakota.
Or a trans-woman, or black, or the nature of their travel is not as advertised, or they are in some sort of marriage of convenience . . . the possibilities are numerous, and I’m sensing that John is hiding something about his putative spouse.
I suspect it’s more likely to be wrong kind of Christian than anything else.
Unless he’s really blatantly lying, that they’re going together on a mission trip suggests they’re at least of fairly closely compatible denominations.
John and Christi are time-travelling assassins. They’re definitely going to bag Hitler this time.
Then Willis should really do a crossover with this comic http://www.bloodsplatteredsocks.com/ .
That or we’re really reading too far into “every Brown child will disappoint (from Carol’s perspective) their Mother’.
I still order from the children’s menu. When I’m not ordering from the senior menu, that is. It’s kinda nice to have all the options.
Dang it Joyce, just order the sauces and stuff as sides.
This is actually the better tactic. Order the sauces on the side and then ignore them.
You may actually get food without stuff, since you aren’t throwing some crazy monstrous idea at the staff like eating food instead of gunk. (Not their fault, they are underpaid, overworked, and trained not to think, just do the one of a small number of set tasks.)
(And if you are being difficult, it is even more important than usual to leave a decent tip.)
And don’t get made if your special request doesn’t happen. They can be backed up and may of just made your’s on autopilot. Just ask for it to be remade, keyword: ask.
Wait, her brother seems like a nice guy but LACKS THE SOULFUL BLUE EYES! He’s a monster!
Or he hasn’t been consuming enough Spice.
Which is kinda weird, for living in India.
Eating Spice would mean he’s into shotas.
*ducks rubber mallets*
Or he’s a dude.
Counterpoint: Hank has the big blue eyes, not Carol
Yeah, but Willis tends to give the children of a couple the eyes of the parent of opposite sex.
Yeah, I was gonna say ‘his mother’s son’ but that would imply that he inherited Carol’s outlook, and I’m still hopeful that that’s not the case.
Why do I suspect Joyce eats those chicken fingers with no sauce?
Ketchup is a sauce.
“Tomato sauce” in Australia.
To be fair, I usually eat them plain, too, and I’m nowhere near as picky as Joyce.
It’s just dipping them is a pain in the ass.
I’m not even remotely picky, but I prefer chicken fingers and non-poutine french fries dry. Unless they’re really bad, then I used a ketchup/Sriracha mix about 2:1 ketchup:Sriracha. That will hide most bad breadings and sub-par meats.
East Van Ketchup!
…Yeah, I guess pouring sauce on chicken fingers instead would be the work of a monster.
Or someone who doesn’t care about getting their fingers filthy.
People who eat finger foods with knife and fork and vice versa is a whole different Internet argument.
The solution to not getting your hands dirty isn’t a knife and fork, it’s not slathering the chicken fingers in sauce.
I dip practically every finger food item, and I don’t get sauce on my fingers. Am I doing something wrong?
Read up through this conversation…it’s about pouring instead of dipping.
My only real problem with pouring sauce on chicken fingers is having to mind how much I pour to avoid the possibility of sauce dripping from the chicken fingers.
As for “slathering,” I stopped tossing chicken fingers in a plastic bag full of sauce a long time ago. (I put the leftover sauce top of fries) Not sure why I stopped, even less sure of why I started since that needlessly complicated the experience of eating chicken fingers at home.
I don’t know how I missed that. Oh, right; when I speed-read I only read every three words and defer the meaning behind what’s said. That musta been a skipped word.
Definitely *not* how you dip chicken fingers.
Dumbing of Triangle: DAY 15
http://imgur.com/ASqR83p
Joyce can’t eat, lol
Old strips still being ported: http://imgur.com/a/7FHYX
Oh Really, Jocelyne.
Jocelyn’s panel is now imperial headcanon!
Yes, I know that it makes it look like she should be spilling her drink. I do not care! IMPERIAL HEADCANON!
She’s drinking from an EMPTY FOKING CUP!
Evil Jocelyne is Evil.
Great. Now everyone is staring at me because I laughed too hard.
Worth it.
I worried about stuff like onions or broccoli or whatever, gravy I was OK with!
Usually.
Broccoli’s great unless it’s cooked poorly. It’s onions and capers you have to watch out for.
I agree with you! Got to watch out for them onions. Even in homemade food. Because my dad doesn’t use two spoons like he is supposed to and transfers onions into my share and my food tends to get cold before I even eat it with how much time I’ve had to spend picking out onion pieces.
It was “Christi” yesterday, but today it’s “Cristi”. More evidence that she doesn’t really exist!
Whose Christi?
He’s been both John and Jonathan…he has an H displacing aura.
He hasn’t ever been “Jon”, though. He just spells his nickname wrong.
(Not saying this just because spelling it with an ‘h’ makes my life difficult every time he appears in a strip, honest.)
Has he ever actually been Jonathan? As far as a I know he’s only ever been “John”, never the not-actually-the-long form.
Yeah, he was first introduced as “Jonathan”.
For a moment there I thought that was somehow the Dumbing of Triangle edition.
Okay, thanks.
My retcon sense is tingling.
Yeah, Willis fixed it already.
Shouldn’t it be “with God as my witness,” not “as God as my witness?”
SShe’ll never be hungry again, though!
+1
…although until she learns to eat strange things, that is a distinct risk.
Joyce decided to cut out the middleman by taking the role of “God as [her] witness” herself. It speeds up the swearing process.
Or “As God is my witness”. Mr. Willis probably wasn’t getting any sleep.
Nitpicking is a full-time job.
Two things fixed in record time! Mr. Willis is wide-awake tonight.
Yeah, I’ve never understood that idiom. “With” would make a lot more sense to me.
‘With God is my witness’? That’s grammatically very messy.
Oh. “As God is my witness.” I always thought it was “As God as my witness.” Which even my browser’s grammar checker seems to think is fishy.
Yeah. I mean ‘with God as my witness’ is a perfectly good way to phrase it, but the set phrase/Scarlett O’Hara quote is ‘As God is my witness’.
Incredulous Jocelyne face is best Jocelyne face!
She’s just so very emotive. Yesterday I ended up reading a bit of Family Day and the whole “Joyce, I’ve forgotten how to walk.” “UGH I’m too old for you to still be doing this!” “I think the evidence disagrees~” just makes me so very happy.
That was a fantastic strip.
And she didn’t smile a whole lot during that arc, so it was great to see a bit of Brown family life that didn’t breathe dysfunction.
The detailed eyes are really helpful for that. I’m torn between wanting everyone to have them and preserving Joyce & Co.’s great expressions.
It’s the face of someone who has had their desires in the way of food constantly overruled by the family holding Joyce’s tastes as more important the Jocelyne’s tastes.
For me it’s still the “If you mess with my sister, by God, I WILL show you why the pen is mightier than the sword”-face that does it.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/nope/
If by ruin you me breathe life into tired ol’ potatoes, biscuits, and gross turkey.
My aunt used to always make ham in addition to turkey for Thanksgiving. It was a dark year when she stopped.
Ham is the superior Thanksgiving food. I feel sorry for your dark times.
I agree
Love the commentary, Jocelyne! xD
Yeah, January’s like a decade away.
I like to believe John has medium awareness and is making a Jocelyne-style sarcastic comment. If Joyce is autobiographical, and Jocelyne makes fun of Joyce, then John can be making fun of Willis.
Does it make you wonder if he had a ‘Becky’?
Adults are allowed to order from the kids menu even without any kids? America sure is amazing.
Where is it not allowed to order from the kids menu? I mean, sure, it’s kinda embarrasing to do, but not *allowed*?
Cue someone telling me there’s actually a law against it somewhere in the world and my whole reasoning falling apart xD
Theres no law I am aware of but there may be restaurant policy regarding it. They dont want people ordering the smaller and cheaper kids meals when they would otherwise have had to ordered the larger adult meals. Obviously this isn’t universal but its a thing.
I’ve definitely seen this at places here in Canada, but I’ve heard about it in the states too.
I think the idea is that the kids’ menu is discounted to encourage parents to buy full-size meals, which doesn’t help if there’s only kids’ meals getting bought.
Look up the Round the Clock menu online. It specifies only kids eat from the kids menu.
Why wouldn’t they be? It’s just a smaller portion at a lesser price. And I know people who order from it because they have small appetites.
Hell, I know people who still order Happy Meals just for the toys.
Guilty! Of course now I can claim I was getting it for the grandkid.
Because in the restaurant business, actual amount of food is a small part of the cost of the meal. Overhead & salaries and all that are by far the larger amount. That’s why portion sizes tend to be so huge.
But people aren’t willing to pay $10 for the full size and $9 for the half size, even if that’s closer to how the cost comes out.
If everyone ordered from the kid’s menu, they’d probably go out of business. Or at least have to raise prices on it.
Order the regular meal and have the rest of it the next day. Leftovers for the win.
I’ve been in restaurants that gave me a hard time ordering from the kids menu. There are many that do that.
I just leave and don’t go. There are so many eating establishments, who cares.
I usually order from the regular menu, but sometimes smaller is fine.
edit dang it…that should be …and don’t go back.
A lot of places up here do – which is an issue for me, because I have both a small appetite and a hatred for wasting food (I travel a lot for work and usually wind up having to throw away half or more of the food I buy with dinner etc because I just can’t eat all of it – especially if I’m travelling in the States because holy crap US portion sizes are ginormous).
In my city you actually get charged an extra dollar or two for ordering from the kid’s menu.
Oh gross I’m Joyce’s future husband.
So is it Christi or Cristi?
Maybe it’s just the worst nickname ever. 🙂
Joe avatar goes well with this comment.
I can ship it.
Everyone who called it about the mission thing, give yourselves a pat on the back 😉
I love Jocelyne’s cute sass here. And tbh Joyce, I feel you. The food comfort zone is a scary place to leave!
i was particularly brave today and ordered a chipotle chicken and chimmichurri sandwich from starbucks today and it was pretty good! I was surprised to enjoy it despite being a person still getting used to having lettuce on my burgers.
you can do it, joyce.
Not trying to pry, but what country do you live in? We (I work at Starbucks) carry an ancho-chipotle chicken sandwich here in the US, but we don’t have anything with chimichurri hereabouts as far as I know. I love chimichurri.
usa. but like yeah that’s the sandwich it may just be cilantro in that sandwich cuz im pretty sure chimichurri has a bunch of cilantro in it??
i am not great at defining my senses. is it cilantro?? i have no idea. SOME SORT OF ALL-ENCOMPASSING GREEN STUFF.
Lettuce on burgers is pretty gross, though. It gets all warm and wilty and eurgh.
It’s good on a fresh, freshly assembled (not hotheld or stuffed in a bag prolongedly) burger. Crunchy and all that.
If you eat it when is freshly made, it is crunch and good.
Carrying the things home to eat is just sad.
“As God as my witness” Hehehe.
Also, Jocelyne in panel 4 is classic Sibling Ribbing. Sooo classic. She won’t stop the ribbing of Joyce until she’s dead.
So, does Mama Brown approve of her daughter-in-law? Cast your votes here!
Betting no. Voting yes. 🙂
Speaking as someone with a lot of food issues due to autism, I completely understand how Joyce is feeling.
Ditto for me and my brother. We made a deal that I eat all the vegetables and he eats all the fruit in the household.
That’s the cutest thing in the world
I’m lucky mine went in the opposite direction. Except Bell Peppers. They can go rot in a compost heap.
That’s a very productive place for them to rot!
Hence why they should go there. Let their deaths provide substance for other, more deserving, items.
There must be twelve step programs for picky eating young adults – and if not, I’ve found my new business idea.
Why must there be?
Not all adults cope well with eating almost anything *gestures to myself*.
k
My mother handled the picky young adult bs with an easy solution.
“If you don’t want to eat it, don’t: you will be ready for the next meal.” There wasn’t really enough money nor did my mother have the time to make 4 diff. meals at each sitting.
I cooked for my family with a bit more leeway. I tried to be sure that if my daughter didn’t like the meat on the table that she liked the veggies enough to make up the different. My husband and I were raised to eat what was put in front of us or go without.
That sort of training young does prepare a person to be more apt to try new foods in new sittings.
I’ve eaten squid on a stick in Japan, and rattlesnake in Pa., and street tacos in Mexico. And lived to talk about it. 🙂
Yes, I do recognize that there are people with dietary needs. I got older and found out my gluten intolerant. Makes for a whole new cook book for me. But, I find ways around where I can eat with others.
All in how you look at the world I guess.
My mom did much the same! Her classic catchphrase if we didn’t eat our dinners and then wanted something later was “Sorry, kitchen’s closed. If you’re hungry have an apple.”
The standing agreement as far back as I can remember was “You have to try one bite of everything on your plate. Even if it’s new or you tried it before and didn’t like it. You don’t have to like it now, just try one bite again.” To small me that seemed like a fair deal. It worked pretty well.
Just order whatever without the contaminants.
If it shows up anyway, send it back.
Don’t accept removal! The food item must be pristine!
Yeah, even though I’m slowly shedding my pickiness, I still have to cut something out of like half of what I order. It’s not my fault that tomatoes are an affront to the universe itself.
My mom could never understand how spaghetti sauce was delicious, but tomato slices on my burger was anathema.
My brother has a similar thing about the fact that I enjoy hamburgers, but hate meatloaf.
They are not the same thing!
It’s the same problem as mushrooms; intact chunks of the original structure ruin the mouth feel.
Raw, and only raw, tomatoes are the one thing I’m so unable to eat that I think I’d have an easier time training myself to eat various disgusting non-food items.
It’s a texture thing. I’m the same way.
Cooked and in relatively small chunks in a meal, I can stomach them. Raw tomatoes are gross.
Tomato sauce is fine. It’s hard for me to make from scratch though. Just cutting tomatoes up is enough to make me queasy.
Nothing wrong with tomatoes once they’ve been turned into some sort of sauce. Ketchup, tomato sauce on a pizza, barbeque sauce, all good.
See, that’s where I’m gonna have to disagree. I hate tomatoes in almost any form. I can tolerate them on pizza, but even then, I would prefer less sauce. Any other tomato will never come near my stomach.
Fresh home grown tomatoes are delicious. My brother and I used to go out in the garden with a salt shaker. Wipe them off on our sleeves and eat them.
Today I don’t blame kids for not liking tomatoes. They are no longer sweet, juicey and delicious. They have bred them for thicker skin to travel to the market and are now pretty much half as good as they used to be.
Heirloom strains are pretty great.
On the other hand, I particularly hate the juiciness of tomatoes.
Ha! We have similar food childhoods. Fresh tomatoes from the backyard, warm off the vine, with salt and pepper and cottage cheese. Forget popsicles….that’s the taste of summer for me. <3
Sounds awesome. My niece makes this appetizer that’s similar, but with fresh mozzarella instead of cottage cheese. It’s amazing.
Joyce is the Anti Me
Joyce grew up in a conservative family, I grew up in a liberal family
Joyce can’t stand complicated food, I grew out of the children’s menu around five.
Joyce is female, I am male
Joyce is a good person, I’m right behind Mike in manipulative ability (although I don’t really like that about myself)
But do you have blond hair that looks like a brick is hidden in it?
Sadly no, I do however look like every Robin (Batman) because they all look exactly the same, (minus the blue eyes…mine are brown)
“You too are aesthetically inoffensive.”
Hey Willis, just watched Justice League Vs Teen Titans, and I think there’s a scene that you might particularly enjoy (Shortpacked fans will get).
Joyce, your new favorite phrase is “on the side.” All the adultness of having it on the plate, while still not having to eat it at all! Unless you feel like dipping, I guess.
I didn’t know that menus have centrefolds in them.
Best part of the menu, actually. I wonder who’s on it this month?
Me.
No it isn’t.
It’s obviously Dina.
A thinly disguised expy of Mayor McCheese.
Lunchables? Harumph!
Children can have their mere “crackers.” Only the finest “toasted rounds” for grown women like Joyce.
Considering Joyce’s stance on keeping food separate, I can totally see her actually try that thing.
“It’s… it’s… it’s like someone finally understands me!”
Crackers? How droll. A true connoisseur would know that the pizza Lunchables are the crowning achievement of the Lunchables line.
As a recovering picky eater, I sympathize with Joyce. I don’t think it was until late high school/early college that I really started branching out my choices, and it wasn’t until about a year or two ago that I began accepting vegetables on my sandwich-type things.
Same here. ‘Cept I preferred bland veggies and despised almost all meat (it looked rotten and felt tough).
GUYS I FOUND A PICTURE OF WILLIS!
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/enhanced/webdr06/2013/9/16/17/enhanced-buzz-24929-1379366894-2.jpg
It’s middle-aged Harry Potter!
Oh wait, it’s Willis?
…
Well, that was embarrassing.
Are you implying that he’ll go bald? XD
Congrats to whomever called that they were doing missionary work out there
Also, onions and peppers confirmed to be worst stuff on food
Onions are of Eviltron.
Onions are a natural cold killer. My father in law ate raw onion sandwhiches and claimed they kept him from catching colds. Something did. The man never had a cold as far as I knew.
All foods have some sort of thing in them that are good for the body.
Except McDs and most fast food places. Its all proto-food. 🙂
So you’re saying onions will prevent me from calling in sick more often? Even worse..
(I have no idea if that’s actually true, but that is good to know if I ever do feel a cold coming on! Thank you)
Peppers are the best.
They are far from even good, let alone the best. I’m sorry I dont make the rules.
But…tasty poisons…
You can only really enjoy tasty poisons once, so I can’t approve of them because they lack a consistent record
The only time sweet bell peppers are acceptable is in pizza dip, with olives. In every other dish they make me gag.
Spicy peppers, on the other hand… you can put those in pretty much anything. (With different types of spicy peppers for different dishes, of course.)
Bell peppers are rarely particularly good, but I find that filling them with minced meat cooking the result makes them far more palatable.
Onions and peppers, my one
weaknessexception to general mockery of picky eaters.(Okay if they’re hidden in a sauce, but either raw on a burger or cooked on a pizza? nope nope nope, they will be removed and discarded.)
Sometimesssss if they’re cooked right onions can slip by. But usually they ruin everything they touch and must be extracted
Haha! Couldn’t agree with that first statement more. Onions, green peppers, and peanuts ruin my insides. Which makes me sad because I do find them all quite tasty.
You know what? Throw pickles on there. Can’t trust em
Nature has this wonderful way of balancing out the pickle-eaters and the pickle-haters in any given group. No pickle gets discarded when I’m around :3
A brief guide for how I spend my time on Dumbing of Age:
Reading Comic: 1% of time
Posting comments: 2%
repeatedly refreshing to see if anyone has replied to said comments: 97%
1: I’m replying partially to make you feel less sad, what with seeing a reply to your post and all.
2: Are you my long-lost twin? Because that’s what I do too!
Oh my god! I’m royalty!
OK, time to do what royalty does!
*Orders the execution of Some1 before Some1 can betray and backstab me; but it somehow fails, and Some1 escapes swearing revenge. Then he spends several years that goes by in a blink by the magic of montages, where he’s rising an army to crush my repressive tyranny to replace with his own*
It’s either that or be endlessly hounded by the paparazzis. I think the first option is more humane.
Seeing how far we’ve both fallen I go back in time and make sure you never find out were related. I then proceed to build up an underground resistance to establish democracy in your kingdom.
Please be careful: I learned from another comic that Montage(tm) is a very powerful drug which can mess up your sense of reality.
Don’t forget to hire mercenaries and/or mad scientists, at spearpoint if need be.
Speaking of the line of succession, do you sometimes not do the “II” or are there two people with Emperor Norton handles?
I am one and the same, but I use two different computers.
If Crusader Kings II has taught me anything, it’s that there is no problem a ruler can have that cannot be solved with enough murder.
And they said video games can never teach us anything!
You forgot bribing of the children and then murder.
Ahh, crusader kings 2, the game that brings out the inner evil in all of us by saying, “Hey pal, you can inherit a whole other empire. All you have to do, is plot to murder this baby and her toddler brother.”
Some1, dude, get a life! None of the rest of us do that. [pants on fire]
We must always have gravy!! Gravy is delicious!!
I agree with joyce to some extent as I’m also a picky eater, but THOU HAS SHAMED THYSELF FOR BESMIRCHING GRAVEY.
Seriously I could sit and drink a cup of that stuff and be happy (of course that would be really BAD for me so I don’t.. though I might take a sip before dumping it down the drain…)
I think it’s less that Joyce is a picky eater, and more that she has OCD…
But we really haven’t seen her do similar things like say with her clothing.
OCD doesn’t necessarily manifest in the same symptoms for every individual with the condition. For example, some people can become very meticulous about organization and cleanliness, while others with the same condition may live in excessively filthy environments because their obsessions are different.
With Joyce, the reason I say she has OCD is because we have seen that her obsessions drastically affect her daily life. She literally will not eat tacos unless they are disassembled so that the ingredients aren’t touching, even though she likes each of the parts separately. Even when she makes sincere attempts to overcome these obsessions, she is just as likely to pass out as she is to find a way to not actually confront the problem.
We see her obsessions (Food; religion; her schedule; TV shows) completely consume every single aspect of her life. She doesn’t just start something, she becomes FIXATED on it, and has to compulsively show her devotion through almost ritual-like behavior. Like with D&M, she didn’t just enjoy the show, she had to rush delivery on every single piece of an outfit so everything that she was wearing denoted her as a fan. When she started cursing, she started cursing ALL THE TIME.
pretty much my thought as well.
Seems likely. I have OCD and I can sympathize with Joyce’s situation. In that there are several types of food I have tried to eat over the past two decades that refuse to go down, boiled or fried vegetables in particular or onions in any form, but also meat that is so soft it’s almost slimy. The moment any of it hits my tongue or I notice it between my teeth, I start gagging. I suppose it’s a form of aversion.
Where the OCD kicks in is that as a result I become incredibly sceptical to any form of food where I don’t know every single ingredients or possibly end up putting 30% of my meal on a friend’s plate. In addition I’ve learned not to trust restaurant food because on numerous occasions I’ve ordered a customised meal only to have the chef decide that the meal is too plain and add ingredients that I didn’t ask for.
It’s a lot better than clogging your arteries, but that could still clog your drain.
When stuff comes with things on it, you can usually order it without said things. A boon for all the places that want to sap all life and warmth from hot sandwiches by putting lettuce and tomato on them. And an absolute necessity for places that want to ruin edible food with the vileness of mayonnaise – a sandwich with lettuce and tomato can at least be somewhat salvaged by picking off the offending leaves and slimy cold tomato slices.
So you’re a monster, got it.
I also don’t want noodles in my chili. When we moved from Oklahoma to Indiana when I was a kid, the worst part was the food.
noodles… in… chili???
Isn’t that pretty much what Hamburger Helper is, minus the spices?
Minus the chili, minus the beans (assuming you’re the type that puts beans in your chili), plus some ghastly chemical cheese imitation.
Far more like boxed mac+cheese plus hamburg.
If you’re talking about Chili Mac, I can take it or leave it. But at the risk of starting Ragnarokkageddon … mmmm, Cincinnati-style chili.
Oh shit, you got out. That being said, noodles in chili is heresy, I agree.
What manner of evil was in control there to allow such a thing?
I agree on the mayonnaise, I’ve had to stop going to Krystal’s because they changed their chicken sandwiches to having mayo by default… And even when I say no mayo I get mayo. Mayo is an abomination.
She’s from Indiana and she doesn’t like gravy?. Burn the heretic!
Death by Indian food!
Becky’s jokes to Dorothy about Joyce only eating five things make much more sense – obviously teasing Joyce about her eating habits is a bonding activity for the whole family.
Heh, Becky completely managed to change track from “Be Wacky and Offensive and be a lighting rod for her brothers” to “We can all share a joke together, almost-family!”.
Really, I’m still a bit puzzled missionaries are bothering India. I mean sure, there’s probably a few people who’d still be willing to convert, but you’d think they would find better pickings elsewhere.
The concept of missionary work doesn’t really pan out if you look at a population and say “Oh, you guys already have a religion? Never mind. Pack up the Bibles, fellas. They’re already full up on deities. “
Yeah, there are Christian denominations that want to do mission work in Canada because they don’t think the “true Gospel” is being heard here. This is despite most Canadians who consider themselves religious are adherents to some form of Christianity(Roman Catholicism being the largest denomination at 38.7 percent).
Meh, this thing really needs an edit function. That should read “This is despite the fact that most Canadians who consider themselves religious are adherents to some form of Christianity(Roman Catholicism being the largest denomination at 38.7 percent).”
Well there you go. We Catholics are of course demon-worshipping drunkards who want to fondle Mary to most Protestants.
No wonder Mary has a bad attitude in this comic, always getting fondled by Catholics
Missionaries have been in India since the 17th century. Back then they went to a lot of trouble translating the Bible into local languages, having them printed, and distributed them for free. The conversion mission was a huge flop for the amount of work that went into it. Hinduism had no concept of a Holy Book; Bibles were dismantled by recipients and the (free!) paper was used in practical ways. Nowadays missionaries here mostly run philanthropic organisations or work with local churches, it’s not so bad if you don’t have a problem with religion per se.
Of course, the Hindu culture had actually already encountered the majority Christianity’s teachings by that point through Mulsims who DID have a huge success ratio with conversion–and had divided the continent rather neatly.
Look at the border between (Hindu) India and (Muslim) Bangladesh next time you’re on Google maps. That crazy border puts the Dutch-Belgian border to shame. SHAME! Also, there were Christian missionaries in India in the days of the apostles. That’s where St. Thomas Christians come from.
Don’t want to nitpick, but India isn’t a Hindu nation in the same way Bangladesh and Pakistan are Islamic nations. We have a Hindu majority, yes, and a ruling party that espouses barely disguised fundamentalist Hinduism, but maybe that’s why it’s all the more important in the current environment to remember that India is a secular republic.
There’s also the ugly reality Pakistan exists because British people thought removing all of the Muslims from India and reverse from Pakistan would make peace easier. You know, versus the fact they’d been living together for millennium.
Yes, it always bothered me that South America was another popular destination. I mean, don’t the Catholics already have it covered?
Then I ran into the daughter of missionaries to Brazil, who tried to tell me that Catholics weren’t really Christian.
And then she tried to explain that the Baptists were the first Christian sect because the first Baptist was John the Baptist. Having a minor in history, I nearly went off on her before wisely deciding to disengage.
My Baptist church was obsessed with converting the Philippines away from the heathen machinations of Catholicism. On the plus side, I gained a life long appreciation of Filipino food from the converts and converts-turned-missionaries who would fly in and tell us how we changed their lives. We’d always throw a huge “we saved your soul!” party under the guise of a cultural exchange.
You don’t even need a minor in history. I’ve gotten demon worshipper, Mary worshipper, pagan, drunkard, cannibal… The list goes on.
Edit.. That should have a line break between those sentences.
This is kind of a misconception as there’s not only a fairly huge fundamentalist Christian community in India but it was and still is the personal crusade (not sure what else to call it) of the Reverend Pat Robertson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism_in_India Actually some of the most beautiful sermons have been done in my area by the predominately Hindu-descended Christian ministers who run Hindu-descended churches in my area.
Missions can also be digging wells, building schools, helping at orphanages, clothing the naked, etc. Its not just door to door retailing. Its also service. Though Mormons go door to door, they also volunteer for part of their day.
So you can’t go and work in a soup kitchen then have a steak dinner or work at an orphanage but stay at a tourist hotel.
As for India, many churches do mission work in Chicago and St Louis. Plenty of service opportunities there.
Gravy? It’s God’s gift to food. What would a Chicken Fried Steak be without cream gravy? What would hossenfeffer be without bechamel? I know, basically the same thing, but you know what I mean.
Yup. Gravy is goodness.
Gravy is good but for me it’s only an occasional thing. I like it but I ate it way too much as a kid which is bad times for your tummy.
Yes, this. At the least, there needs to be exceptions for stuff like mashed potatoes and gravy or biscuits and gravy. It’s one thing like mac and cheese, right?
Now I want chicken fried steak, damn you.
Yeah, I totally mad a late night trip to the fridge in the middle of reading the commments. Unfortunately it wasn’t as good as what’s being talked about.
Hossenfeffer?
Hm, time for Google Fight!
And if you start eating hosen, gravy really becomes mandatory!
I love the sass Jocelyne is giving Joyce. She’s acting as any elder sibling should.
Totally! This is a great demonstration of sibling dynamics, including the distance between John and Joyce and Becky who have a bit too large age gap to really know each other. Joceyline is such a cool big sis to Joyce and Becky, and Joyce is such a little sister to ALL OF THEM (including Becky).
Joyce is kind of a little sister to most of the cast in general.
Except for Walky, who is HER little brother.
^ Astute. (Except they also might get married, so…)
Joyce: YUCK!!!
Walky: SUPER YUCK!!!
Dorothy: Hands off the caramel.
Becky: What she said.
Billie: I’m shipping it.
Joe: I’m warning you buddy, not worth it.
Dina: Pentaceratops are related to triceratops but have five horns instead of three.
I lol’d.
THERE’S A FIVE-HORNED DINOSAUR?! PLEASE TELL ME IT HAS FEATHERS TOO!
Totally forgot just how super picky Joyce’s eating habits are and thought Joce’s side-eyed ‘Oh really’ was towards Joyce’s ‘gonna have to come out myself’ phrasing. Still not totally sure it wasn’t! She is the only one who probably was able to put together the pieces about Ethan, maybe now she suspects it was a beard both ways.
Joyce just needs to do what I do and order things plain.
It’s pretty simple to order food the way you want it in a decent restaurant. And when you can’t, then don’t come back to that restaurant.
Ordering ‘on the side’ is one way to go. Then you can chose not to eat it at all.
Super picky eaters are a real Pita if they are just being picky and it is not dietary.
I told a picky friend to try to concentrate on finding one thing she liked in a variety of restaurants. That way when she went out with me or any friends, no matter where we ended up eating, there was something on the menu she could enjoy. She tried. It took her awhile, but she did it.
Made her life more enjoyable and those of us who were her friends too. She even picked up a couple meals that she discovered she liked.
That’s the right way to do it, I think.
While a good strategy in theory, that really only works if the restaurant chooses to be able to cook the things it has on its menu. In my experience, this is very often not the case – many restaurants I have been to choose to include meals in their selection, apparently for variety sake, that were downright terrible compared to what they actually wanted to cook.
Which is how, when in London at a Italian restaurant, my friend ate the best pasta in his life, and I ate one of the most unappealing risottos I have ever seen.
Joyce continues to be me
OK, when panel 5 was posted as a preview, I thought it was gonna be much much angrier Joyce. But this…this is good.
I see Joyce still isn’t out of her picky eater phase. Good thing I’ve grown mostly out of my picky eater phase. I’d still rather not eat sushi but if I was at a sushi place, I’d at least try it.
I’m beginning to wonder whether Joyce’s ‘picky eater’ behavior might be a mild OCD.
Meanwhile, Jocelyne has heard this tune before and it didn’t happen those times either!
I agree (see also above), and have thought so for a while.
is jocelynes sass panel 4 just based on the idea of joyce eating strange food or did she catch the unintentional word play in “come out there”
No doubt on the word play and going by her surprised expression in yesterday’s comic, possibly also influenced by Joyce’s admission that she’s always wanted a sister.
Why not both?
Pffft, both? Do you think she’s a writer or something to be able to work in an unintentional word play like that?
Yes, actually. Jocelyne’s last appearance had her linking Ethan to her website.
Seriously, Joyce, January’s like 5 years from now. You’ve got plenty of time.
Just to let everyone know, there’s about thirteen million Protestant Christians in India with roughly half of their Christian population. I know because my own church (Presbytian) often interacted with the one there which has a million and a half members. At 2% of the population, that’s actually a fairly sizeable chunk. It’s roughly equivalent to how many Mormons are in the United States per capita.
Willis, you don’t like gravy either??
He won’t be going aboard the Gravy Train!!!!
YOU WILL NOT BLASPHEME GRAVY* IN MY PRESENCE, WILLIS! YOU WILL.
*Of course I mean brown gravy. White gravy can die in a fire.
White gravy is delicious, you heathen.
ALL GRAVY MATTERS
It’s kinda disgusting to my palette
You paint gravy? No wonder it’s disgusting.
Can you believe we’ve had 400 comments today just on gravy?
Actually, yes. Yes I can believe we’d have 400+ comments on just gravy ~_~
…White gravy?
Cream gravy. Basically a Bechamel made with drippings instead of butter.
The kind you’d find on Biscuits ‘n Gravy, or Country Fried Steak. Both of which, I highly recommend.
I’ve heard people call marinara sauce ‘gravy’.
I’m purposely not typing in my thoughts on them here.
In dialects, practically any sauce is gravy. It’s just different usage.
Huh. Still not typing my thoughts.
Like Willis, it may have taken me 13 years to realize it, but I am Joyce.
My cats eat their own puke, as well as rabbit droppings.
If that helps.
And the dogs are quite happy to eat what we euphemistically call “kittie treats”.
In nature, everything gets recycled. There’s still nutrition in there.
Give it time.
I relate to Joyce so hard here.
Geez, I must’ve been channeling this comic an hour ago while making the worst batch of biscuits and gravy I will ever inflict upon a hapless world.
As to all the food pickiness, it can disappear on its own when you get old enough. That is, if the childhood connection between food and asserting one’s identity goes away.
Curious: my Australian wife insists that picky eating children is an American thing because we indulge it, even encourage and reward it. And from what I’ve seen, our Australian niephews [sic] nom-ed up everything growing up, and I’ve read the same about French kids.
Not entirely. I think children tend to be picky cause of evolutionary reasons…but it is true that American parents do tend to indulge them in it, and thus they stay picky.
It is true; children are way more sensitive to bitter tastes than adults. It’s a great way to keep your kids away from poisonous alkaloids. It’s also true that your tastes adapt, though, as most people find once they go off soda for a few months.
I tend to agree with your wife that it’s a thing because it’s induldged. But my resident picky eater is British, so definitely not just an American thing!
I suspect that’s more confirmation bias than fact. “Oh, I don’t know anyone back where I came from that did X, so we don’t do it where I came from.”
I don’t know if the parents are being indulgent so much as they’re just worn down and eventually give up. It’s almost always the same story IME talking to adult picky eaters. “I hated vegetables/fruit/green anything/fish/cheese/etc etc as a kid and my parents COULDN’T MAKE ME EAT IT SO THEY GAVE UP AND I WON. I WON THE THING.”
I suspect it’s a more of a “We’re well enough off that we can afford to let some food go to waste and try a variety of different things and probably have been for a couple of generations” thing.
When you’re subsistence farming, you eat what’s available or go hungry and there won’t be another option until something else is ready to harvest.
We also have the luxury/problem of having access to lots of cheap processed food without much actual food in it. Sugary, salty, greasy and otherwise largely tasteless. Just right for many picky kids.
Proselytizing is actually illegal in India, you’d get thrown in jail for it.
Gravy on everything these days. It used to be the “Cheese” sauce, aka Kraft Velveeta. No actual cheese is used in the making of this sauce.
Milk, whey, skim milk, milk protein concentrate, water, milkfat, whey protein concentrate, sodium phosphate, modified food starch; contains less than 2% of: salt, calcium phosphate, dried corn syrup, canola oil, malto dextrin, lactic acid, sorbic acid as a preservative, sodium alginate, sodium citrate, cheese culture, enzymes, apocarotenal (color), annatto (color)
But does contain stuff that is used to make cheese…
Bahaha Joyce is definitely like my sister! She’s getting better though — once she ate *broccoli*. (It had lots of cheese sauce on it.)
…Sadly for her, Joyce definitly cannot go back on that promise now.
Wow. Am I actually the first person to notice that Joyce just blasphemed in front of her siblings? (No, it wasn’t a huge thing, but I can guarantee that if any one of them had ever done the ‘As god is my witness’ thing about something as casual as food while growing up, they would’ve gotten a knuckle-rap with a wooden spoon from mom. I really hope they pick up on it as a sign of just how traumatic the last few months have been for her….
That IS a pretty big deal, and I think the fact that they didn’t react to it might mean that
a) they are thoroughly freaked out about recent events and basically just humor her and make small-talk until they have worked themselves up for the intervention part (the fact that they meet at a silly fast-food joint that cater for their picky little sister supports that theory)
or
b) They are actually not as strict about their beliefs as Joyce thinks. After all, even her father slipped a “damned” when he talked about ToeDAD. This is supported by the “hell” Jocelyne slipped when talking to Ethan
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/nope/
I thought it was just a matter of ‘god as my witness’ being, like… the christian-sanctioned exclamation of the highest intensity and sincerity.
For even moderately conservative Christians, this would be the case. But Joyce’s household is pretty far along the curve, at the start of the series, she was arguably more conservative in her use of language than even her own father. It should jump out at them.
Jon and Jocelyn might not be as conservative as Joyce, but they have to be aware of how big a deal it is for her to invoke God like that.
How would Joyce react to something like Soylent (Not Green)?
…you know, Joyce, you could just ask them to not put gravy on whatever.
Asking for modifications to a menu item is an advanced technique that takes at least a full year to perfect.
Or maybe I’m just slightly autistic (asperger’s) and had to figure out that it was okay to ask for things like that on my own.
Oh hey, John’s a missionary in India! Good to know the ‘scum of the earth’ genes from his mom came down to at least one of her children!
Eh… I dunno. Depends on his flavor of mission work. I’ve seen mission trips advertised that are more like a Jesus-y alternative to a stint in the Peace Corp than relentless evangelizing.
So Christi is Cristi now? There goes my head-canon that John is secretly married to Christiane Amanpour.
That would definitely get him in trouble with his parents.
Gotta be honest, that’s me. (Except, you know, the boob-having part.) But yeah, I am a fiercely picky eater.
I understand Joyce perfectly here. I still look for chicken fingers on the menu at every restaurant I eat at.
Wow, Joyce really must hate Gumbo!
Because “what you gets in a good gumbo is everything.“
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr2PlqXw03Y
Never have I identified with Joyce more.
Silence, gravy-heathen!
I can’t help but feel confused at how people can eat chicken with /nothing/ on it at all. I mean I like chicken- it has good texture- but it needs either gravy or sauce or spices rubbed on it (paprika is yum) to make it worthy of being on a plate of food to me. If it’s just plain I just start looking desperately for the sauce or gravy- chicken and gravy tends to be the staple here in the UK. Just as vegetables also require additions. Thyme is good on carrots. Or parsley. (Gravy and mashed potatoes also= the best,). Having this stuff as PLAIN? Nothing on it? Not even dipping it in anything? Blech. How could you possibly eat such a thing in large quantities?
Perhaps this makes me a picky eater in the other direction? But yeah I can’t eat ‘stuff’ without ‘other stuff’. Or well I can- but it is no way an enjoyable experience. The very few times I’ve had to do this I’ve felt like I was slowly dying inside but didn’t want to be rude to the hostess as it were.
Ah, but you see, you can get away with very lightly seasoning it while you’re cooking it on, say, a skillet. Just enough to like, accentuate the flavor of the chicken, but not so much as to completely change it, like a deeper marinate or something would.
Or you can deep-fry it. Crunchy breading always trumps goopy gravy or sauce. Really the important part is chicken isn’t supposed to be goopy.
Or you can, in rare circumstances, combine two foods that are super plain and suddenly have something good going for you. Like aforementioned lightly-seasoned skillet chicken and white rice. This is an advanced technique, however, and should be done with caution.
As someone who identifies with Joyce’s picky eating and aversion to toppings on anything, I have worked hard to push my boundaries without making myself too uncomfortable. Like, the chicken and rice thing was a recent development, and it took me however many years before I dared to put american cheese on a turkey sandwich that before consisted of turkey and bread. You gotta start with safe options.
A good roast chicken, still nice and juicy, is delicious all by itself. I mean, probably some garlic & pepper & herbs on the skin and some veggies inside to help it stay moist, but that doesn’t really change the flavor of the meat itself much.
Mind you a good gravy to go with it makes it even better, but I’ve come closer to mastering the bird itself than to mastering the gravy. 🙁
I wonder if Joyce has ever been outside the US. I’m guessing the answer is no. She might want to consider taking baby steps by going to Canada before she goes across the planet.
re the blasphemy thing–when Gone With the Wind came out in theatres, some people got upset about Rhett’s “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” but no one objected to Scarlet’s “As God is my witness…”. Christians are funny that way; they get more upset about George Carlin’s 7 words you can’t say on TV than they do about “God is my witness” even though the latter is expressly forbidden by the New Testament, and the former is not using the Lord’s name in vain.
Joyce is pretty consistently the best character in the whole series. Let alone parts where one character or another says or does something that makes me like them a lot less which is something every character so far has gone through at least once, even my favourites like Amber, Danny, and Sarah, I don’t think she’s even had a bad line of dialogue in the entire comic.
I’m surprised to learn that Willis doesn’t like gravy. I would’ve guessed that he was the kind of person who could eat gravy — and nothing else — from a bowl.
Its nice that Joyce grew up in a household where she was indulged in such a way
Have we ever seen Christi?
I ask because there’s a little voice in my head wondering if perhaps Christi is actually CHRISTY (ie. male, given the direction the comic has gone recentlY).
Is this the trans brother? I’m so confused.
Jocelyne is the trans sister, yes.
Dumbing of Age, book 6: As God As My Witness I Swear Today I Will Not Eat From The Children’s Menu?
Joyce will continue to be my favorite character, and that’s not only because I eat as few things as she does. (…) It’s always lovely to go out with my parents, or my sister who only eats vegan.
Hey, did anyone else notice that if you click the space between the side of the page and the “first” or “latest” button on either side of, right beneath the strip, you get a bit of text commenting on or explaining it?
Thought that odd, was going to ask, then saw date on post.
Ugh, lunchables. The weird salami/baloney processed-to-hell-and-back meat circles are more strange and foreign to me than any Indian food could ever be.