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I have a picky eater, too. His picky eating has not served him all that well out in the world as the world is always serving up things he "can't" (won't) eat.
And he has not gotten better. He would eat more things put in front of him as a toddler than he will eat now.
Most annoying/mystifying? Cheese is right out. Which means most pizza is out. Fruit, no. Fruit flavored anything? Definitely not, which meant never eating the popsicle handed out for a snack at summer camp.
-sigh-
As for spouses, I have managed to pry a few mushrooms into my husband's mouth. That's about it for dramatic transformations there. But then, he will eat sushi and I will not. Go figure.
i'm laughing about always ordering the same thing, because i am so guilty of that! a few months ago i was headed to a meeting at my old office and stopped to satisfy a craving at my old favorite burrito place. i ordered my usual, and the server recognized me -- i haven't worked near there in 5 years.
2 of my sisters were notoriously picky eaters as kids -- hot dogs, mac 'n cheese, mcdonald's hamburger absolutely plain -- but they have recovered. my daughter could live on cheerios and mac 'n cheese, and has, but she'll eat a lot more stuff now. it was a slow, two-part process for all of them: [1] the "just take one bite" cajoling with family, and [2] being exposed to more and different food with friends (aka, peer pressure).
my daughter's pickiness was actually kind of funny, because her caretaker in toddlerhood was chinese -- so she would scarf down rice and shredded pork or fried rice in addition to the old american standbys. and she always liked certain japanese foods, like eel. never would something like a pineapple pizza cross those lips, though!
she started getting more adventurous in elementary school -- her school was very diverse and emphasized cultures, so they had yearly "international days" with food of various countries, and classes celebrated every holiday you can imagine with potluck lunches or ethnic treats.
now she is 18 and eats pretty diversely, although she may never try mexican food besides plain quesadillas, or much in the way of vegetables and fruits.
I also like certain things, and will happily eat them every night for ages -- good when you cook for one.
And though I'll *try* anything, I don't end up liking a lot of it. I definitely order my favourite things at restaurants most of the time -- it's my favourite for a reason. (This is very common.) I don't know where I range on the picky scale, though. I often feel I am very picky, but probably not as much as I think I am. As a child, though, I was very very very picky -- I got better.
Seriously, I think one of the best ways is to wait till they're in high school and going out with friends who like to eat more foods, and wait till they're shamed into trying new things. (Not by their friends, necessarily, but by their insane teenage emotions.)
Ours are getting better, though the oldest is still pretty picky and one of the twins will eat ANYTHING. That's just luck.
We've tried to involve them in the cooking (doesn't always work, but MAN do I have great sous-chefs) and also to treat it as an adventure and part of traveling.
I don't really have the answers but I'll confess that the 1st time we gave them calamari we did it at PF Chang's and called it Chinese french fries and only later did we tell them they were calamari lovers. Dishonest, but now they beg for it.
Anne, your "Chinese French Fries" thing cracks me up!
When my mom really wanted me to like sushi, she would take me with her and I could pick whatever on the menu sounded good, and she'd promise to eat as much of it as I did. The only cooked food at the Japanese place was teriyaki or fried shrimp, both of which I hate, so I snacked on California rolls until I felt brave enough to try what my mom had. Although once she was eating a philly roll (which has cream cheese, obviously, and it looked good to me), so I asked "what are the little orange specks on the outside?" To which she replied, "Just seasoning." After I ate one and proclaimed it good, she told me it was fish eggs.
This is all to say that I have nothing productive to add, since I'm the most adventurous of my three siblings. I do have your tendency to order the same thing over and over, especially Thai food and pizza. Why get anything else if you know the best combination is onion, mushroom, and jalapeno? It drives my husband a little crazy, since he's the kind of person who wants to order a new thing, every time.
I am really picky. So is my husband. So are our kids. Well, one of them, at least, to an extent that sounds a lot like you as a child, Phantom.
My parents served me a wide variety of foods every day of my life, and it did NOTHING to make me less picky. I just learned to swallow food while holding my breath or to surreptitiously spit it into a napkin. So I hold no great hopes that my son will one day embrace more foods. But I hope so -- how long can one subsist of a grain and dairy diet?
"Chinese French Fries"?! ROTFL!
I am not a picky eater nor are three of my chidren (though there are things they certainly don't like). One of my children, very picky, but is also a people pleaser so she sucks it up and eats what is put in front of her. This didn't start until she was 11 or 12. Bert was the world's pickiest eater as a child- his mother had 5 meals she would cook because that is what "little Bert" would eat. His sister said it was torture. He eats better now, though still wrinkles his nose at vegtables (but will eat small amounts of them). I will eat anything but chicken. So I have little sympathy for picky eaters. I think I may have just glowered Mallory and Bert into trying new things.
Phantom, I have read a ton of taste is genetic. My only picky child's tastebuds resemble her birth family's more than ours. Though she eats a much wider variety of foods than any of her birth siblings.
I'm sute its hard to find a balance between being introduced to new foods and creating issues with food.
"No thank you" helpings worked at our house. It was essentially one bite that was tried with no grimacing or complaining, but you didn't have to eat anymore. After awhile of being introduced to the same foods over and over this way they did learn to like some of them, but not all.
I order the same stuff eating out all the time. I don't get to go out enough, and I want to eat what I love. And I am so not picky.
Aside to KathyR, I also went through a no-cheese phase in early elementary school, to the total frustration of my Italian afterschool sitter, who made me cheeseless pizza. I don't know what set me off to hate it or how I got over it, but I did. Now I can't get enough cheese. 
I think I would categorize my childhood home as in the "please try one bite" camp; also preached was the idea that a well balanced meal has a lot of colors. As a result I fell in love with artichokes at age 5, but I've never liked okra.
When Taxman and I got married, he used to take a package of mini muffins and a Snapple to work every morning for breakfast; now he takes a yogurt and a banana. He lived at home and his mom (who I love) serves chicken or meat five nights out of seven. She overcooks vegetables or doesn't use the fresh variety. He claimed that he didn't like mushrooms or broccoli (out of a can, and cooked to olive drab, respectively). But now he eats both, along with tofu, homemade veggie burritos, vegetable soups, and all kinds of fish. There are still a couple of things he won't touch (sadly, artichokes among them), but he's applied the "I'll try anything once" rule many times since we've been together.
As far as Miss M, we've never been concerned with her weight, so if she picks at her dinner one night, it's not a big deal. She's allowed one "treat" (cookie, ice pop, etc) a day, once that's gone she can only have fruit for dessert. She doesn't like a wide variety of veggies, but the ones she does she'll eat every day, so we keep them around. She's not into trying new things at the moment, though--and she used to eat things that she doesn't anymore--I think it's the age. But she would also be happy to eat pasta for every lunch and dinner if I allowed it...I just don't.
When I first met Joe, he ate nothing but pizza, nachos, and mac 'n' cheese.
This was the menu he made up for last week:
-Bean, Seitan, & Ancho Chile Stew
-Jamaican Curried Vegetable Patties
-South Indian Green Gram, carrots, rice
-Kun Pao Tofu, broccoli
-Smothered Tofu Country Captain, Rice, Carrots
So, y'know, there's hope!
I should add that this transformation took about seven years and lots of nagging.
See, I can't eat the same thing more than once. It drives M crazy. I come very close to making 365 different recipes each year. Sure, some of them are fairly similar (A quesadilla is a quesadilla, even if one version has black beans and zucchini and another black beans and corn), but I am always drawn to new recipes.
If we go out to eat? I always, and I mean always, get the special. I can think of only one meal I ordered over and over again, a to die for chocolate brownie sundae (and yes, it was a meal all by itself).
Which is perhaps why I get so fretful about my family's lack of interest in trying a different food every night.
I think your bar is set just right, by the way.
p.s. -- what didn't work? my mom's "clean plate" rule. we all got adept at hiding food in the trash [a major reason we all still love napkins today], and let's not talk about what lurked in the space behind the refrigerator [located by the kitchen table], ok? things got easier after the dog arrived. the dog would eat Anything, and cats are pretty worthless when it comes to canned green beans.
#1 Son was the average picky three year old until he was visiting his grandparents once and they offered him oatmeal, which he would not touch at home; the trick was they described it as "Three Bears Porridge." I give them full credit for his thoroughly adventurous palate, because after enjoying "Three Bears Porridge" he went on to eat Thai Coconut Milk Soup for lunch.
The other big factor for my younger two--having same age cousins who are so picky they are rude about it. Neither of mine wanted to play on that team, and it made them willing to try more foods, particularly at special occasion meals.
I'm just glad I didn't manage to screw up a good thing once it came my way. My food issues are manifold in the other direction, and I'm grateful they didn't inherit my compulsions.
I have NOTHING to add, having popped out of my mother as a huge person and a diverse eater, except this (for kathy a) : my cat would fight you for canned green beans (french style only).
go figure.
I was the child who never age a vegetable of any sort without gagging. Now I love them. Well, most of them. All three of the girls will eat absolutely anything you serve them, and will love mostly everything, but I am not sure why. I know that with Older Daughter, I presented everything as if I just knew she were going to love it, and she did. But that may have been coincidence. Also, I froze vegetables for her to teethe on-she'd put a frozen green bean in each little hand and gnaw on them to soothe her gums. Younger Daughter came to me at age three loving all foods. I don't know why. Gigi is somewhat pickier, but still likes most things. But she would be totally content to eat steak and white rice every meal of every day if we would serve it.
I don't know how you expand another person's eating repertoire.
Well, Phantom, *your* eating repertoire sounds pretty damn good to me.
I've was never picky as a kid, except in regard to what I called synthetic foods, meaning anything dyed strange colors or filled with goo (yes, a snob from the moment I left the womb).
But I'm perfectly content to live on the same foods repeatedly, and to order the same damn thing every time I go out to eat. Or to always order the thing that has squash. Or beets. Or mushrooms.
As for apples, there was a time when I was eating 5 a day, and 2-3 a day now is not unusual. I never have tired of them, but your mention of "The Orchard" makes me wonder how long I could go on *just* apples.
Phantom,
This is my first time commenting after a long time reading. Having read this entry and followed the links, I can't offer you any advice on picky eaters, but apropos of your account of attempts to get medicine into Baby Blue at various times, I offer this story, entitled "Paging Dr. Pavlov," of my mother's efforts to get a similar radioactive pink liquid into me.
I was prone to ear infections as a toddler. Like any young person of sense, I rejected antibiotics at first sight. During those times when my father was out earning money to pay for those antibiotics, my mother had to wrestle me alone. Her solution? She sat on me. No, not really, but she would maneuver me into a supine position, straddle me, trap my arms between her legs and my body, then, with the dose already prepared, she would hold my nose, pour the stuff in, make sure I swallowed it, and then let me go. After a few rounds of this, it got to the point that when she proclaimed it was time for my medicine, I would lie down on the carpet of my own free will, arms at my side, and wait for the dose.
I feel a sense of comfort and order when my diet is shaped by season or availability. It doesn't excite me to find a new, exotic food in the store, but it does excite me when my favorite summer squash appears at farmers' market in mid-summer.
You are waaaaay ahead of most of the rest of us! This is a GOOD thing. I aspire to it. Basically, yet again, Phantom, you are my hero!
My brother and I were kind of picky eaters when we were kids. No tomatoes of any kind. No mushrooms. No beets (although we were forced to eat those). No cooked cauliflower (also forced; they tried forcing the tomato issue but it didn't work). No broccoli. No tomato sauce, out of a can or homemade, with or without meatballs. No salad dressing. I only like fish if it was white flesh, plain or maybe with a little butter. My brother only ate fish sticks.
But we also NEVER EVER ate ethnic food. (except Mexican but since my mom is Mexican it wasn't ethnic as far as we could tell). The first time I had Chinese food, in 6th grade with a friend's family, I fell in love.
And gradually as I grew up I learned to love many of the things I refused to eat as a kid. Except beets and broccoli. Won't touch em. Broccolini, yes. But not those big florets.
I don't know what changed, but I do think it has to do with ethnic food- so many new flavors and ingredients and tastes, once you take the plunge it's easy to get carried away. I adore cauliflower and okra in Indian cooking. Had okra been presented to me as a child, I would have rejected it faster than a speeding bullet, which okra kind of resemble, actually. I love cabbage in Chinese and Ethiopian/Eritrean cooking. And I like coleslaw on top of my pulled pork sandwich. Whereas as a child I thought coleslaw was some evil conspiracy.
Learning to cook helped too- I like reading cookbooks. I love dreaming about the great recipes I can try. How to futz around with things. I like cooking, new things as well as old favorites.
Now we come to favorites. I absolutely order the same favorite thing at the thai or indian or chinese. I see nothing at all wrong with that! 
C.S. Lewis (Prince Caspian): "And it makes matters worse if there is nothing but apples for breakfast and you have had nothing but apples for supper the night before."
Also Prince Caspian: " . . . and even a supper of apples (though most of them felt that they never wanted to see an apple again) seemed better than trying to catch or shoot anything."
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit): "I could eat anything in the wide world now, for hours on end--but not an apple!"
These unadorned quotes worked better when I thought they would appear right after Jane Dark's post!
Loving everyone's food stories. I tend to order the same favorite thing at restaurants, partly as you said because if I love that dish, that's what I want. I was probably day dreaming about it when I picked the restaurant. But also because when I'm in a new restaurant I have a bad track record with ordering something I just don't like. I'm not picky! I just know what I like!
Snuggly Girl likes variety. She complains that we always order the same thing when we order Chinese food, and it is once a month or less. But she does eat it (which of course is why we keep ordering it). Of course at most other restaurants she always orders the same thing -- "Chicken Fingers French Fries, please!"
YT, I'm chuckling at your green beans for teething. We did that just a month or so ago for Snuggly Girl's new front teeth -- one of them was really sore and a green bean seemed like just the right shape. Plus she could eat it when it melted. But it got soft pretty quick.
Off-topic: Much as I love Aaron Neville, I may go insane listening to the inane theme song for the Little People. Must they repeat it 10 times in half an hour? AAAAaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!
I've always been an adventurous eater, which makes me unique in my present household. Everyone else, including the cat, is pretty picky.
The interesting thing is that the Mermaid Girl has almost exactly the same food aversions that RW had *as a child*. Many of the foods MG won't eat--tomatoes (in any form except ketchup), mushrooms, fish, anything vaguely seasoned--were foods RW hated too as a kid, even though she likes many of them now. Which makes me think that a big part of it is genetic.
I know you're supposed to offer a kid foods many times, but MG doesn't have weight issues (in either direction) and seems pretty healthy, so we don't push it much. We do make her go get her own dinner (including some protein) if she doesn't like what we're having, and she's getting pretty good at making peanut-butter sandwiches.
"I feel a sense of comfort and order when my diet is shaped by season or availability. It doesn't excite me to find a new, exotic food in the store, but it does excite me when my favorite summer squash appears at farmers' market in mid-summer."
This is how I ate all through my childhood in AsianCountry. Even so, I hated all vegetables till I was 10 and my parents decided it would be a fun project to grow our own vegetables and fruit.
Genevieve, I still loved them!
My mother had a pretty standard repertoire that she presented on a rotating basis, and she expected us, for the most part, to eat it. I've always liked to eat, and so it wasn't much of a big deal, but there were a few things she forced on my that I still cannot stand: raw carrots and mushrooms especially.
So when my kids were born I vowed to offer them a wide variety of foods, with no pressure. I assumed that they would learn to eat a wide variety of foods. Wrong. Each one of them developed distinct preferences. Unexplainable preferences. Some of the preferences changed over time, but I remember meals of pasta plain for some, with sauce for some, with butter for another, etc.
They did all develop pretty broad tastes as they got older, but I'm not sure it was from anything I did. I know that the Kid broadened his tastes when we were in seminary b/c we ate out with other people frequently (either in the refectory or in restaurants) and they often influenced him to try new things. But there were some places where he always had the same thing, b/c as you say, he was just so happy to have that one thing, and I have things like that too.
I think there are a lot of individual differences in how we react to food, and you've hit on some of them. They probably relate to personality as well as history and context.
And honestly, compared to one kid I know, Baby Blue's diet is quite varied...and that kid is 9 years old. And his parents are quite adventurous eaters.
Also, banana rum ice cream? How did she even decide to taste that one? Does it look like vanilla?
I'm very picky. I get the same things at restaurants all the time, and I won't eat grapes or olives because they look like eyes! But since I've come to England, I've expanded my horizons a bit. It's funny because the things I eat as "normal boring food" now kinda surprise my family - and they're things they'd never eat. Hummous and pittas. Smoked salmon and cream cheese. Cereal with yogurt instead of milk. Also, since coming here, I've had pate, various exotic birds and fish and meats, and numerous vegetables I've never had before. It's a nice change.
It's hard to be adventurous, but starting slowly helps.
Laughing at Kathya's hiding food...I used to hide the carrot sticks my mother made me eat. I would take them before dinner to "get it over with" and then hide them or throw them away. Once I hid them under my mattress. Surprisingly, my mother never said anything about it when she found them.
And that was me with the hidden carrot sticks--don't know why it suddenly came up anonymous!
When I first married my wife there was a host of things that she wouldn't eat; yogurt, shrimp, most cheese, okra, onions, etc. But slowly I showed her the way to tasty food, and now she likes almost everything that I like, except for raw onions, she will go out of her to not eat those.
I know many of y'all are vegetarian, but for those who aren't, I used Songbird's mom' (MIL's?) trick to expand #2-Son's (the autistic) meat choices beyond highly-processed pork products (read: pepperoni, sausage, bacon). I inquired one evening when serving salmon if he'd like some "one fish two fish red fish blue fish," expecting him to opt for the mac-n-cheese on the table because he didn't eat fish. Imagine my amazement when he said yes, and imagine all our growling stomachs when he asked for more and I had only made enough for two adults and his older brother... Pot roast became "rare who roast beast." I think meatloaf was "who-hash." Of course ham and eggs were added because of Sam-I-Am.
Now #2 is 5'8", weighs 150 lbs, and eats more for dinner than anyone else at the table, including his father.
Adventurous eating is a good thing, although it's hardly required for a happy life (Mr. Blue being a great example of that). I think it's way more important to have healthy relationship with food than to have adventurous eating habits (how you reconcile your food habits with the rest of the family's is another matter, of course!). You're taking the kids to farmer's markets, you're getting them to understand and appreciate where food comes from and how you can cook and prepare it, you're helping them see that regular meals are a way to feed their bodies and make time to connect with their families. That's all good, and in the long-term, very healthy and sustaining. As adults (or in two years, or five, or ten), they may well broaden their palates. But you're setting them up well now anyway it goes.
I believe I used to tell my mother "I'm not picky, I just like what I like" ; ) My repertoire has expanded (esp in the fruit/veggie side of things) as I've gotten older. I'm probably still afraid of trying certain new things- wonder if there is any correlation btwn reluctance to try new foods and reluctance/fear/shyness/introversion in other areas.
My husband is a very adventurous eater and has had a bit of an impact on me. I had never eaten asparagus before, we ended up having it on the menu for our wedding b/c I liked it so much.
kids: basically treated and offered food the same as they started solids and as toddlers. One is picky one is adventurous, although when she hears her brother reject foods she tends to do so as well 
That said, I think even my picky one does ok, reminds me of me as a kid. And so I'm confident that as he grows older he'll pick up some new things.
On the more extreme side were my cousins who had very very specific likes and dislikes (and a mother who tended to all of these- mind you neither of them had a weight concern as baby blue does). One would not eat a bagel if the butter was not smooth on top and other idiosyncrasies like that. As adults I know they've both widely expanded what they eat and I think most of the childhood weirdness has gone away. IMO they were pretty extreme and it is rather amazing that they are so flexible now. So I'd say things could change for LG and BB. How to do this, dunno.
I heard a theory that children have more sensitive taste buds than adults and can detect nuances of flavor that we cannot. And therefore some tastes and/or textures are unpleasant for reasons that we would find unfathomable.
Perhaps your whole family has even more sensitive nerve endings in your mouths than most?
Liz, I fully believe in your theory about kids having more sensitive taste buds than adults. I was reading through all the comments waiting for someone to suggest it.
I was an extremely picky eater as a child, but have made a full recovery in adulthood. I like trying new things, but do return frequently to special favorites. Comfort food isn't limited to mac&cheese. I never had Thai food until college, but my favorite noodle dishes definitely qualify now. Except that I haven't had much look cooking them at home, and I can throw together a mean mac&cheese.
I can vividly remember the terror I felt when I was expected (or thought I might be expected) to try a new food, or eat a food already on my (very long) veto list. I'm not an adventurous eater today, but I've mostly outgrown that real fear of new foods. It's only as an adult, though, that I've learned to enjoy salad, seafood, Thai spices, and many other staples of my current diet.
So, no - I don't really think there's much you can do to turn a picky eater into an adventurous one. And I really love your theory that a conservative palate confers a survival benefit. (Gotta remember to use that one on my mother.)
There's an interesting few paragraphs in a book I'm reading, about picky eaters. I thought of you when I read it. If you're wanting more stuff to read I can scan it or type it up for you. If not, well, not.
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