How about we list the foods – or, to be precise, ingredients or flavours – that we dislike? I have been a very picky eater for most my life, but recently I have begun to love a lot more food (saliently almost all vegetables). I think I have come a long way so that now there are very few foods I dislike (though a small number of ingredients at the top preclude the enjoyment of a lot of dishes [saliently Indian and Mexican cuisine]). As you can see, I think one could generalise that I am more sensitive to bitterness and other sharp flavours than most. Here are the food items I most dislike in order of distaste (beginning with most disliked):
1. Spiciness
2. Cilantro
3. Peppers
4. Alcohol
5. Grapefruit
6. Chocolate
7. Liquorice
8. Sweet potatoes
9. White mushrooms
10. Coffee
I'm with you on 2, 3, 5, 6, and 9, and I think that 8 and 10 are acquired tastes (*don't* acquire the taste for coffee... it's SO good and SO painful for people like us).
ReplyDeleteBut I think you need to work on liking spice. It's central to my cuisine because it gives you a way to eat healthy when you're out of time. Basically, you start some rice, then sautee onions (the way you do whenever you're cooking any meal), throw tomato and eggplant in there, then throw in anything else from the fridge you want to eat, can use up all the veggies you want. Then throw in whatever spices you have that go together, and the more spice you can pack in the better. Yes, this is curry, but I don't always have curry spice, so I just throw in cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cumin, paprika... whatever I have that goes together. Then add some sweet- orange juice, honey, syrup, brown sugar are all good- and you're done. Put it with the rice and you have a filling, delicious meal (not just bland boiled or fried veg), and it's healthy, and it works on a non-profit diet. Throw in fish or another protein and you can basically eat this morning noon and night... which you will be, because you made ten servings. Spice aids digestion (hearsay, but in my experience it certainly feels better after you've eaten, which is for us a big thing), and adds soo much to your repertoire. Saying you don't like spice is like saying, "I like music, just not percussion".
To be clear, I dislike spiciness, not spices. I'm not sure if any of the ingredients you listed are spicy, but many of them are spices. So did you think I meant spices? If so, rest assured that I can handle spices (though admittedly I never use them and am not overly fond of them). And I don't like curry for that reason; it's always too spicy, and if not then it has too many perfumey tastes. Plus, spiciness is apparently bad for Crohn's flares. I think I like more subtle tastes and minimal ingredients. Italian, French, and English food are maybe most suited to my taste. But thank you for the suggestion all the same, and perhaps I will learn to like such things eventually. (by the way, sorry, but I had to adjust the order upon further inspection [which will negate your numerical references])
DeleteYou do too use spices, Alexander! You like thyme, rosemary, oregano, basil, and za'atar, for example.
DeleteMy list:
ReplyDelete1. Beer
2. Coffee
3. Bell peppers
4. Anise/black liquorice flavours
5. Bleu cheese or cheeses with a very moldy rind that can't be removed (I think my mold allergy makes them taste so bad to me)
6. Milky beverages (unless frozen, as in a milkshake), especially if citrus or alcohol involved.
7. Pancakes (except those from Clinton St. Bakery)
8. Radish
9. Turnip
10. Cottage cheese
Alex, your list is a list of many of my favourite flavours. (Except for the white mushrooms, I only like them when they're raw).
ReplyDeleteI dislike:
1. Blue Cheese (it always tastes like a chemical to me)
2. Black Olives (usually; but ones that are brown are okay)
3. Pretzels
4. Custard
5. Whipped cream
6. Aspertane-sweetened anything
7. Onions when cooked on pizza (don't know what it is, but they ruin pizza for me)
8. Most danishes
9. Vanilla ice cream (I don't understand what anyone sees in this)
10 Creamsicles
Haha, I like tonnes of the things that you lot don`t! Most of the things I don`t like I`m working on trying to like, or at least accept. I hate when a dish gets ruined because of some small ingredient that I have a particular aversion to, when if I could just learn to tolerate that ingredient I`d be much happier. However, here are some things I can`t successfully deal with at the moment:
ReplyDelete1)beets
2)black liquorice (but I LOVE black liquorice flavoured things, like black jelly beans or sambuca. These may actually be anise flavoured things.)
3) Olives (but I`m working on liking them)
4) Most pickles (but also working on it)
5) The mould in blue cheese (I want to learn to like this but it tastes like nail polish remover and liking it may never be possible)
6) Angel hair pasta/vermicelli
7) Thousand-year egg
8) Canned bamboo shoots
9) Sage (in anything other than very small doses)
10) Baby corn
But things from the above lists that I really like are spiciness, cilantro, peppers, grapefruit, sweet potato, white mushrooms, coffee, (some) beer, milky beverages, pancakes, radish, whipped cream, onions on pizza, vanilla ice cream, and creamsicles. And many of the others I still like, I just don't REALLY like them. Weird!
ReplyDeleteThousand-year egg for the uninitiated.
ReplyDeleteWurg... wish I hadn't been initiated! There's no order to these:
ReplyDeleteOver-cooked beef (which I still remember and resent decades after)
Rosewater-flavoured desserts (common in Indian cuisine)
Thousand-year Egg (a newfound and as yet a purely visual hate)
Pickled Egg (I've joined the ranks of those who maintain an eternal barely-touched pickled egg jar, as the result of an experiment while Lins and I were partying, I think)
Barbeque Sauce
White Mushrooms
Cilantro
Over-use of Cinnamon
Olives
Poor-quality marshmallow snacks
Christmas cake would once have been on there... but I'm sure I've told the story a million times before of my family avoiding a christmas cake for years, only to finally spontaneously eat it one summer and find it heavenly. Loves: beer, coffee, fennel, capers, GARLIC, scorched popcorn, cheese, cava, spiciness.
Who d'ya would make the most compatible couple of our friend group based on nothing but taste?
oh man, ditto to the poor quality marshmallow!!
ReplyDeleteI can't *believe* you people don't like olives! What's wrong with you?!
(Yes, I said I don't like the black ones, but the green ones are Heaven with a pit!)
ReplyDeleteLindsay: Olives are tooooooooooooooo salty! And have a weird ulterior, garbagey taste. I honestly don't understand how anyone could naturally enjoy them.
ReplyDeleteJulia: are we picking a couple based on food taste likes or dislikes? I tried looking at the lists but there aren't any two that are more or less the same as each other that I can see. Evgeryone's list seems to be a combination of two other people's lists with a few unique things thrown in.
And: can anyone explain to me why everyone hates white mushrooms but not other mushrooms?
1. That thousand-year egg looks amazing! The image makes me want to try it. Looks like a Martian delicacy.
ReplyDelete2. Olives are delicious! I love at least the green kind. I don't remember if I like the dark ones. They might be too intense.
3. White mushrooms (and portobellos but less so) are gross. I don't know why. It's like this earthy rubbery subterranean taste. Oyster mushrooms, chanterelles, and morels, however, I mostly like (and sometimes love, like in the case of oyster mushrooms and garlic butter bruschetta at Pizzeria Libretto, one of the best things I've ever eaten).
Caroline: Agreed! Each of us seems equally alike and unlike the next. And with the white mushrooms, I have the same feeling as Alex- they're spongy, and tasteless, and they brown really easy. To me they're like a leaf or a piece of paper that gets on your fruit or something and gets in the way of your bite. Morels or oyster mushrooms cooked in butter on toast... damn, so good. They have a more velvety texture, and strong savoury flavours. Mushrooms are one of the best meat-compensation foods.
ReplyDeleteLins: It's some combination of being too salty and being oddly... marine. Like oysters or sardines.
Olives = garbagey + marine = trash gyre
ReplyDelete"trash gyre"... I love that! it's almost beautiful.
DeleteAre you suggesting that olives are harvested from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
DeleteI'm not not suggesting it.
DeleteThe tastiest trash gyre your garbage can buy!
ReplyDeleteHow do all you "Canadian" people know about thousand year old eggs? Do you all have Chinese relatives I don't know about?
ReplyDeleteI had it at a dinner party once.
ReplyDelete