Today's word is one that I think a lot of my former housemates would use to describe me, if any of them spoke or even had a passing interest in Icelandic! It's matvandur, which means "fussy" or "picky" when it comes to food. And that's definitely me!
I don't eat seafood and hate the smell so much that I can't even stand to be around when it's cooking (much to the chagrin of my piscivorous college housemate Jamie). I don't go for jelly doughnuts or most pies because I don't like the juxtaposition of gooey fillings with pastry crusts. I prefer to eat my ginger snaps after they've gone stale, and I panic when the sauce from my main course oozes onto the side dish. And I'll never eat breakfast after noon. But as difficult as I may sound now, I actually used to be much worse; when I was younger, every day was a struggle for my mother because I refused to eat almost everything. My carrots had to be crinkle-cut, my meats unseasoned, and I wouldn't eat a chicken nugget that wasn't shaped like a dinosaur. And forget about trying to give 5-year-old Anthony potatoes, mushrooms, beef, onions, Chinese takeout, or anything outside of mom's usual rotation! I've moved on from that, although I do still maintain that food is intrinsically more delicious when it's shaped like a stegosaur. Yet despite this progress, I don't think the day will ever come when I can't accurately be described as a matvandur maður.
Although it's possible to be fussy about things that aren't edible too, like clothes or movies, matvandur can only be used to describe someone's eating habits. To describe someone who's more generally picky, you should use words like vandfýsinn or kræsinn instead.
WORD SUMMARY:
matvand/ur, matvönd, -t (adj): picky, fussy (about food)
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