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I often buy items I don't intend on eating because of the jar/bottle.

My parents received a gift of 3 bottles of something -- oil? vinegar? I forgot -- because I really liked the way they nestled into each other to make 1 large round bottle. They looked lovely on their own, but looked awesome together, so I HAD to buy all 3 of them. My husband grumbled because this was a gag gift that we ended up spending $60 on.

My all time favorite bottled item is salmon from Japan that's been smoked and then shredded until it's almost like powder. It was a gift from a family friend. It was so moist and tasty, excellent over hot rice. I'll never forget that flavor ever.

I like pickled okras a lot - the one with the state of Texas as a logo. Oh, Trader Joe's roasted red peppers, as well as artichokes.

We threw away 3 HUGE (could fit more than a 1/2 gallon of liquid), filled jars of pickled cukes, pickled mushrooms, and olives from the same import store minus one of each item that we tried. It wasn't rotten, we just weren't fond of the flavor and texture after the first bite.

Oh - and my friend has a great one. She went to a restaurant and because she's one of those people who doesn't like meat that tastes anything like anything, she always has to ask if it's chicken breast (yay, tasteless!) or like, thigh meat (boo, flavor and a reminder that this was once an animal!). So she says to the waitress, "Is this chicken in this white or dark meat?" And the waitress stares at her a second and says, "white." This cannot be good, I thought.

The food comes, and it's straight-up thigh meat. So she calls the waitress over and says, "Sorry to be a bother, but can I change my order? You said this was white meat, and it's not."

"It's white meat."

"Um... not to be difficult, but it's not."

"Yeah it is. It's CHICKEN. CHICKEN is white."

"Um..."

"Chicken's white, beef is red, and pork is brown."

Oh dear.

My sister-in-law turned down a nice juicy (deseeded!) slice of watermelon on a hot hot day. She claimed it would make her have to pee, and she had a five hour drive ahead of her. I looked at her, confused, as I watched her gulp down a super huge iced coffee. She replied--Surely you must know that there's a lot of WATER in watermelon. That is why they call it that--WATERMELON--it makes you pee...a lot! Can't have that! Over the years that one has been a source of never ending amusement...

I can't count the number of times I have heard people order Chicken Tikka Marsala.

My grandfather firmly believed you could not eat dairy in the same meal with steamed crabs. Ice cream was forbidden for dessert.

My husband's family has the same belief about drinking milk with spaghetti.

@bareneed - probably not the story I should have read considering that I still have half a jar of Marmite in the fridge...it may stay there for quite a while now:-)

@coolname - my MIL says that she is allergic to MSG on every possible occasion. However, she buys and uses things like onion soup mix, boil-in-bag rice with a seasoning packet (which she uses) and Knorr beef bouillon cubes on a regular basis, without any problem. We're not talking about naturally occurring glutamates here, this stuff is laden with MSG, but oddly enough, it doesn't seem to affect her one bit. I find this kind of selective allergy rather mysterious, but what do I know.

I have a friend who says that she "doesn't like sauce." ANY SAUCE at all. She also says she "doesn't like -------" about absolutely any food she hasn't tried before. (So basically, her food repertoire is limited to foods she tried as a child.) It's INFURIATING.

(Also, coolname - the natural glutamates in those foods aren't equivalent to the huge quantities of artificial MSG that is added to foods. It's completely realistic that someone could be sensitive to MSG while also being able to eat naturally savoury foods.)

I'm sittin in a diner eating breakfast with a friend of mine.....after I salted my breakfast,he said that all that salt was gonna kill me.....all the while he was sittin there smokin a cigarette....DUH !!

I'm an assistant meat manager at a large grocery store and it always makes me laugh when a customer asks me for "lean bacon".

my boyfriend will not eat cold food.

My best friend in high school was making dinner for her family (probably for the first time). She called to ask "is the meat supposed to be green?"

The checker at the grocery store as she's ringing up my purchases: "You must have very happy bunnies or very happy horses."

Huh? Bunnies? Horses?

It took me a moment, but I realized she was referring to my purchase of a 5-lb bag of carrots.

Someone told me once that St Agur cheese turned poisonous after it had reached it's best before date......I guess they thought that there must have been a tiny timed-release poison pellet in there or something. Who knows?

Oh, and once when I was waitressing many years ago, a customer claimed to be allergic to bones, so could only eat meat off the bone. It was apparently OK to be cooked on the bone...still trying to figure that one out.

My grandmother always insisted that her beef be cooked well done. When it was a rib roast, she always had to have the end cut, grilled if it was at all pink inside. It was kind of dirty pool, but her last Christmas I made rib roast, medium rare. She had macular degeneration and was almost totally blind by this time. So, I cut the end cut (probably medium) for her and cut it into bite sized pieces when I made her plate. She said it was the best tasting, juiciest, and tenderest rib roast she'd ever eaten. Sorry, but... DUH.

Oh, and she was allergic to apple skins, but not the flesh.

@Stufsocker- My father has allergies to certain fruits when raw but not when cooked. He's also allergic to untoasted almonds, but toasted is fine. There's something about breaking down enzymes during cooking that prevents the reaction, which is quite severe.