Watching old episodes of Worst Cooks, and I apparently missed Season 2 when it aired. In one episode, they made them all make a side dish with something they hated, and I was surprised to see several of them pick Brussel Sprouts, which is really one of my favorite vegetables. So much so that I grew a ton of them this summer.
I guess if I had to choose something I hated, it would be eggplant. Love it in baba ghanoush, but cooked whole like in eggplant parmesan, it doesn’t matter how much marinara or cheese you put on it, I get the gag reflex. As far as meats, liver. Again, I like pate, but the idea of liver and onions is enough to make me want to throw up. When we were kids, dad used to make it all the time, and I still remember sitting at the table, chewing one tiny morsel forever and drinking a half a glass of milk to try to swallow one bite of liver in the hopes the milk would just sweep it down, but my throat would close after the milk I would end up spitting it out after drinking the milk. The funniest thing is that Devon and Seth loved it, as well as dad, so we had it a lot. Why is that funny? Devon and Seth have both been vegetarians now for 20 years.
Other than that, the only other thing I can think of that will make me ill is the mere smell of Southern Comfort. I attribute this to an experience about 25 years ago that involved vomiting through my nose underneath the bleachers at a HS football game. If someone so much as orders a shot next to me at a bar and I catch one whiff of it, I go pale, start to sweat and feel queasy, I get a metallic taste in my mouth, and those glands underneath my tongue start watering like when I used to get carsick as a kid. Just foul, foul stuff.
Any foods that the mere mention of them make you ill?
*** Update ***
Tammy is learning the hard way that puppies get into everything:
According to Tams, she apparently left the closet door open, Charlie engaged in her butt ribbon redecorating, and Samantha came in to make sure Tammy understood she was not at all responsible for the shenanigans.
Brian R.
Mandarin oranges. Makes me gag every time.
Jay C
Lima beans.
Never got behind them…
ReflectedSky
Kiwi.
I like most fruits and vegetables. (Love eggplant — I think they’re not salting it to remove the bitterness when you eat it, John.) But Kiwi has a slimy, yucky texture that the flavor doesn’t compensate for.
moonbat
Fried liver has to be the tops. I’d feed it to the Chihuahua under the table and even he’d gag!
Scott P.
Liver is yummy and tasty. Brussel sprouts make me sick.
Emdee
Melon. Want to like it, but nearly gag every time. It’s like styrofoam soaked with watered-down store-brand kool-aid substitute.
mai naem
okra ewwwwwwwwww the little hairs ewwwwww
Can’t see how you could pick eggplant? Stick an eggplant in the microwave. fork it a few times, stick it in for like five-seven minutes, peel it, mash the meat, up stir fry it with chopped onions, salt and cayenne pepper to taste.
danielx
Oddly enough, Brussels sprouts, although it may have been the way mom cooked them. I was once told I couldn’t leave the table without eating one, and I sat at that table for two hours. (I think I was ten at the time.) After that, mom arrived at a new house rule: everybody could pick one thing they didn’t have to eat. For me, Brussels sprouts, for my sister, cooked carrots, for mom, bananas. For my dad it was liver, but we all hated liver so that was okay.
That Other Mike
Mushrooms. They taste and feel like they’ve been grown in shit. Oh, wait…
Greg
In my family Brussel Sprouts are known as “Little Green Balls of Death” and they are made once a year, for Thanksgiving dinner, because my dad likes the things, and they’ve always been traditional for that meal. No one else touches them, and making fun of him and them is an annual topic of dinner conversation that night.
Egg Berry
carrot and raisin salad with mayonnaise – shudder.
scav
Water Chestnuts. No matter how small they’re chopped.
BethanyAnne
Asparagus. Not Food.
Spaghetti Lee
I don’t want to come off of a xenophobe, but I can’t stand the smell of lots of Chinese food, especially the pan-fried vegetable dishes: I’m OK with stuff like beef & broccoli or orange chicken. There’s a large contingent of Chinese foreign exchange students in my dorm who cook it every night, so maybe it’s just overexposure.
Spaghetti Lee
I always did like my veggies as a kid, though, except for the really weird ones.
Skippy the Wondermule
Elliot Gould
oh, wait, sorry, that’s the actor who makes me sick to my stomach (MASH excepted)
Elliot Goulash then
BethanyAnne
I think it was this blog that taught me how to cook Brussels. Quarter ’em, and sorta caramelize them with pine nuts and olive oil. Yummy.
rob!
If I lived in a world that only had tuna fish, I would start digging up bodies for sustenance.
S. cerevisiae
Agree on the Southern Comfort, for very similar reasons. I can’t do raw onions on anything, but over the years I have become more tolerant if they are the sweet kind. I think it was because growing up all we could get were the really strong yellow ones, which dad loved and could eat like an apple.
handy
Yeah liver is teh suck
Constance
Okra.
jeffreyw
Mmm… roasted sprouts.
Suzan
malt balls. Even the smell of a malted milk shake. Too many one Halloween when I was about 7.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I have taken a tiny accidental bite of an olive once before spitting it out. Bleh.
handy
Also I can’t stand the smell of tilapia. That is foul.
erlking
Raw sea urchin–it’s like brine-soaked Nerf that gets bigger in your mouth the more you chew.
Also, too–Jack Daniels and Molson Golden. Two very drunken nights put paid to both those accounts back in the 80s.
Rita R.
Egg salad. Don’t like hard boiled eggs or mayonnaise, so you put them together and it’s not a good scene. I can’t even look at it.
As for Southern Comfort, I have friends who have the same problem with it for the same reason. I think it was one of those alcohols teenagers guzzled because it’s sweet.
Bubblegum Tate
Brussels sprouts
Pretty much any organ meat
Bivalves (yeah, I said it)
Asparagus
All disgusting
SiubhanDuinne
Anything involving peanuts or peanut butter (smell/taste)
Lima beans — I don’t like the texture of most beans and peas but have learned to eat them politely, mostly. But just can’t do it with limas.
Liver, kidneys, tripe — pretty much any of the visceral organs.
I’ve never been able to drink either Coca-Cola or bourbon since a high school party which featured warm bourbon and cokes. Many many many warm bourbon and cokes. It was 55 years ago but the vomitous memories linger vividly.
TooManyJens
@scav:
I hate those damn things. Everybody says, “How can you hate them? They don’t taste like anything!” My point exactly. I hate the texture and there’s no flavor to make up for it.
KG
The smell of bananas can make me sick. Some time as a kid I decided I wasn’t going to eat much (or any fruits or veggies, there were exceptions like corn, peas, and potatoes). So mom figured the best way to punish me when I fucked up royal was to eat an apple or banana. The smell of a banana will still turn my stomach.
And yes, I’ve gotten better about veggies, sort of
BC
Pinon nuts (okay, I grew up in New Mexico). Ate too many one Christmas long time ago, still can’t face them.
Mark S.
I’ve never liked eggplant. It’s more the texture than the taste. Same with rhubarb.
When I was a kid, I remember totally gagging when I tried to eat a prune.
Kevin
Amazing…My deceased mother was one of the world’s worst cooks, and I’ve loathed liver all my life. She once cooked eggplant and it tasted exactly like liver, so it ranked equally as a food I despised. However, every girlfriend I’ve ever had was also a great cook; and thanks to them I quite like eggplant. Re. liver and drinking milk to try to get it down; in my mid-teens I threw up the liver back into the milk glass, and never had to eat liver again :-)
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh yeah, and Suzan reminded me. Malt balls, definitely. I remember sitting through a movie next to someone eating a box of them and I was getting more and more nauseated.
MGB
Vegetable-beets I can’t even be in the room when they are cooking. The smell alone makes me gag a bit.
Meats-organ meat, more specifically, chitterlings-they smell like shit, literally. Every damn Thanksgiving, they sat at th table, always in front of me, because everyone else at the table like them. Me, I did everything I could to avoid smelling or looking at them.
MonkeyBoy
Liver,kidneys, and I presume most other organ meats.
Lamb is fine but mutton is way too gamy.
Plain eggs are gaggingly sulfurous. I can eat things where they are ingredients but I can’t eat a hollandaise made with whole eggs while one made with just yolks is good.
I used to hate frozen peas and lima beans (and probably still do) but fresh peas are delicious and am looking for fresh lima beans to try.
phantomist
Peppermint schnapps and that red haired guy on CSI Miami.
FridayNext
John: You described every liver meal at my house to a tee. My mom loved liver and onions. We loathed it. The smell of cooking it stank the house up for days.
But you got it all. The chewing, the milk, the gagging. The only thing you missed was the cutting of the meat into small bits to rearrange to create the illusion of consumption.
I would gag just seeing her put that crap in the shopping cart.
Live for me fershizzle. Also mushrooms and brussels sprouts and for some reason pistachios.
Redshift
I like almost any food, but I don’t care for Brussels sprouts (but don’t hate them.) I think the only food in the inedible category was some aged meat I had once in a Swiss restaurant. One bite, and some primitive part of my brain said “that’s rotten, don’t eat it!”
piratedan
cooked spinach…..
SiubhanDuinne
@Egg Berry:
Yeah, that’s just wrong.
It’s funny, I will cheerfully eat handfuls of raisins fresh from the little red cardboard box, but I have no use for raisins as an ingredient. In anything. I’m looking at you, rice pudding.
karen
Oh, liver, so much. My mom thought that bacon cut the flavor, but it didn’t. It just made the bacon inedible. I’ve never once served yucky liver to my family, and never will.
Kitty
Creamed soups. I keep trying but I just can’t do it.
The Other Chuck
Canned peas. Fresh peas I love, frozen ones I can deal with, but oh god canned peas are vile.
As for liver, I make it a point to not eat organs whose job it is to filter out nasty stuff. Kidneys are off my list for the same reason.
Spaghetti Lee
I like lots of veggies that tend to get a lot of hate-carrots, peas, beans of all sorts, broccoli, etc. I only take mushrooms or green leafy things under duress, and onions are a no-no unless well hidden.
For meats, I’ll agree with whoever said ‘no internal organs’ up there. Also, nothing that used to have tentacles or a shell. I’m also not really a drinker and don’t like the smell of most liquors.
I come from stock, incidentally, that will pretty much eat anything. I was at a family reunion at a restaurant once when I was younger and my grandpa ordered a bowl of chicken hearts. I was mortified. And he can’t stand potatoes of any sort, which I think is just unfathomable.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
turn the beets around.
i just really really don’t like anything about them.
Comrade Mary
@Spaghetti Lee: Do you think it’s the sesame oil that gets you? A university housemate (white, not Asian) used to douse almost everything he ate in ounces of the stuff, with the result that I could barely stand being in the same house, let alone kitchen.
But I like sesame oil now, as well as fish sauce, as long as it’s just a sprinkle in a dish.
Eggplant? I’ve had amazing broiled eggplant “steaks” with cheese and tomato made by other people, but I made a decent version only once. I can choke down eggplant to be polite, but I don’t enjoy it.
Raw oysters were something I expected to hate, as I’m picky about seafood, but I really loved them the one time I had them.
FridayNext
@SiubhanDuinne:
I have this vague recollection Bill Cosby back in his stand up days used to talk about his mom hiding raisins in his food and hating it. Back when he talked about his days in Philly with his brother Russell et al.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
I’m a hella picky eater, but one thing that is sure to make me gag for sure is green pepper. Just the smell of them cooked is sure to make me feel ill. Any other peppers, fine. I hate how they taste, but fine. Green peppers…sure gag reflex.
Redshift
I’ve been lucky in that I’ve been able to avoid organ meats almost entirely. I’ve occasionally looked at the dishes involving tripe in Thai or Ethiopian restaurants, just for the authentic experience, but then I think better of it.
Comrade Mary
@rob!: Oh yeah, the canned stuff is brutal. Gagarrific. But tuna sashimi with a little rice and soy? Divine.
JasperL
Just thinking about eating liver makes me gag. As a kid, green peas did the same thing, but I’ve since learned the problem was the canned, mushy food-like “peas” my mom served, not the actual vegetable in its normal state.
I don’t get the brussel sprouts hate. Seem pretty harmless to me. We usually just cut them in half and drizzle with olive oil and salt/pepper and bake them for a bit, sometimes with potatoes and broccoli for a mix.
scav
@TooManyJens: Thank you! It is EXACTLY the texture. Tiniest little wet gritty blaah. We have similar friends. And I love Chinese so I spend hours with the menu, hunting and always have to field the exact same question.
Mark H
@Suzan: Couldn’t come up with anything until I read this. Plus candy corns.
Little Boots
yay, john.
oh, cooks.
well, okay, that’s okay I guess.
PeakVT
For better or worse, my father proceeded me as a picky eater, so I’ve never even tried most of the things people routinely hate.
TheMightyTrowel
@BethanyAnne: or with pork product of choice (CHORIZO!) and garlic. Num num num.
ETA: my stomach churner: mayonaise. All mayonaise. It’s the colour/texture/smell. Anything that looks or feels too much like mayo has the same effect (eg English custard). The stuff is basically spreadable you know what without the fun.
Xecky Gilchrist
@rob!: If I lived in a world that only had tuna fish, I would start digging up bodies for sustenance
Right there with you, and with everyone who can’t abide eggplant or organ meats. And @mai naem:
okra ewwwwwwwwww the little hairs ewwwwww
= LOL and true.
Otherwise, happy with most anything though I’ve been vegetarian long enough that I’m starting to find meat kind of gross.
Redshift
@SiubhanDuinne: Ms. Redshift has the rule “raisins ruin everything they touch.” This means she’ll eat raisins plain (since they’re not “touching” anything else), but not as an ingredient.
reality-based
Siubhan – you beat me to it. Rice pudding -oh God, no. (epic battle of wills with my Grandma over this when I was 8 – I lost, had to swallow a spoonful, threw it right back up.
Also, glorified rice. (That may me a North Dakota thing – they serve it here with sweet cream dressing, pineapple, etc, – -ick, ick, ick! Basically, any sweet rice thing, either hot or cold.
Also – although this is proof of my sanity – I hate the smell, the taste, and the texture of Lutefisk – and up here, it appears on the Christmas table of my Norwegian-descended family every damn year, like Death.
The funny thing is that I LOVE baccala, the dried salt cod that the Norwegians sell to everybody in Southern Europe – it’s really good, but for some unknown reasons, the Norwegians think it tastes even better AFTER you soak it in drain cleaner. (“Lutefisk” means “Lye fish” – and yes., they really do.
TaMara (BHF)
Let’s start with Balsamic vinegar and make a long list from there.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I was told I’m a super-taster, which means I have more taste buds – though I think it’s more than just that. This means that many foods people love are overpowering for me. Broccoli, liver, red onions, dijon mustard, anything with seaweed – these are all things I can taste a drop of in any dish and are overwhelming.
On the flipside, I can taste the most subtle, wonderful flavors other people can only dream of….new potatoes are indescribable. Blueberries, coffees, apples, spinach, grille d onions, the list goes on, all have complex, delicate flavors.
And I can taste a recipe and pretty much down to the ingredient tell you what is in it, to the amazement of friends when we’re at restaurants. It’s always fun when I run across an ingredient I’ve never had. Filé being one in most recent memory.
Now mushrooms – love the flavor but the texture, ewww.
Dave
I blame one of those “finish off the keg” Sunday mornings for an aversion to pumpkin seeds that has lasted for nearly 20 years.
Little Boots
john, if you could tell the left one thing, what would it be?
Spaghetti Lee
@Comrade Mary:
Could be. It’s got this bitter, sharp sort of smell, smells more like something I’d dust my cabinets with than eat. Another factor in my bias may be that I’m a big fat guy who likes big fat food and vegetable stir-fry just leaves me hungry. To me it tastes like all the heartiness has been fried right out.
Canuckistani Tom
I cannot stand tomatoes. The smell of a raw tomato will trigger a strong urge to hurl.
SamR
I hate eggplant b/c once I ate eggplant parm and had a piece of eggplant stuck behind my jaw for two days. Eventually had to go to a dentist. Awful.
Little Boots
@Little Boots:
other than don’t drink southern comfort.
which is really a bit parochial.
HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist
OMG, the livers judgement fits me to a tee. Can’t stand entrails and viscera of any kind unless it’s churned into pate or sausages. However, for me there are no bad vegetables (just like no bad dogs), only badly prepared vegetables. Okra is one poster-child for horrible vegetables, but I’ve had it as a pakora in such a way that I would kill for it. Rutabagas is another hated vegetables, but my mother-in-law makes it in such a way that I love it. Same with turnips.
Jay C
Oh, and since we’re including potables, I’ll volunteer ouzo/raki/anisette on the “gag” list. An ex-girlfriend & I once got a bottle to cook a Greek dinner with: she sipped, I guzzled about half the bottle, and ended up with the worst hangover I have ever experienced: two entire days in bed, and only able to stagger miserably on the third. Thirty-plus years later, I still can’t stand that “licorice” odor….
trollhattan
Lutefisk. Okra. Peanuts. Buckwheat. Pickled herring. Canned anchovies. Candied ginger.
Sorry, I gotta…
Oh yeah, seconded on the sea urchin (uni) above. Like eating iodine and bile.
Comrade Mary
@Spaghetti Lee: Yeah, that sounds like sesame oil to me.
Ever had Chinese pork dumplings? Those are hearty and addictive.
Spaghetti Lee
Of course, if any of you want to see just how bad it can get…http://www.cracked.com/article_14979_the-6-most-terrifying-foods-in-world.html
Bubblegum Tate
@Jay C:
That’s Fernet for me. Which is unfortunate, as Fernet is pretty much the official drink of the SF Bay Area DJ community.
Spaghetti Lee
@Comrade Mary:
I’m honestly not a big fan of pork. Like a lot of people here, I’ll attribute that to a badly-cooked plate of pork chops when I was younger. I like a lot of Chinese beef and chicken dishes though.
pragmatism
Roasted Brussels sprouts good. Boiled = bad. But mostly I’m like a sewer drain. If something gets near the grate, it’s goin down.
John Cole
@Little Boots: Treat this election like your life depends on it, because it does.
Comrade Mary
I can tolerate heart and liver undisguised (liver is much better as a paté, while whole heart is — chewy), but I don’t think you could ever get me to eat a kidney.
Tripe looks awful, but it’s possible that some culture (non-Anglo) could make me try it.
I really am a picky eater. Can’t eat any canned fish, only really love halibut, and can finish off salmon just to be polite.
Most strong cheese are beyond me. Don’t even try to make me eat bleu: medium old cheddar and the various mild cheeses are my comfort zone, although sheep’s milk feta is nice cooked, but not raw in a salad. Feh-ta!
PeakVT
@Canuckistani Tom: That’s an unusual dislike. I’ve had a lot of raw tomatoes that I couldn’t stand, but a good one hits me as hard as any other raw fruit/vegetable can.
Spaghetti Lee
@trollhattan:
What I want to know is how sea urchin got on mankind’s collective menu in the first place. You fish something out of the sea that looks more like a weird rock than an animal, the same thing that poisoned your uncle to death a while back, and think, ‘yeah, I’m gonna have this for dinner tonight’?
dogwood
I don’t like cilantro. Tastes like soap to me.
scav
@Spaghetti Lee: Or, for that matter, artichokes. Explain that one.
ETA: seriously, let’s just boil this thistle, take it apart and see what’s in there?
Little Boots
@John Cole:
I agree.
the presidential, I’m not worried.
everything else, I’m a little worried.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
For me, it’s tequila. A bad night of chasing it with beer and throwing up a lot. A real lot. Three years later, a friend bought me a shot, I ran to the bathroom and tossed it up within minutes. Ten years later my wife made me a margarita, I took two sips and set it aside.
The mind forgets, the stomach remembers.
ETA: Beets. Urggh. Mom made ’em, I pushed ’em around the plate.
Bubblegum Tate
@Spaghetti Lee:
I wonder the same thing about oysters. It looks like a sneeze in a seashell. The first person to eat it has to have been dared.
SiubhanDuinne
@reality-based:
Now see, I love plain rice pudding (also tapioca, yum) but as soon as somebody craps it up with raisins, I go right off my feed.
@Redshift:
I am henceforth adopting Mrs. Redshift’s rule as mine own.
handy
@Comrade Mary:
Well for me the tripas they serve in the taco trucks doesn’t cut it either. I love Mexican, and have even enjoyed some of the more “adventurous” fare like cabeza and lengua.
But stomach–yeah I’ll pass.
trollhattan
@Spaghetti Lee:
No kidding. It’s like a sea-dwelling artichoke–who the heck though “I’ma gonna eat me one of those!”?
The Dangerman
I like everything, including Brussels Sprouts and Liver. I can’t think of anything that is immediately DQ’d (perhaps beets; that shit’s nasty).
I went to China about 20 years ago and ate everything offered as it was translated for me…
…with the notable exception of scorpion. I have no idea what part of a scorpion might be edible or if my translator brain cramped on me.
handy
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Kids, don’t try this at home.
gnomedad
Newt Gingrich Promises $1.50 Large Pizzas Nationwide
trollhattan
Holy moly, I forgot fried pork rinds (Chicharrón). If you’re eating them you’re definitely drunk–and if you’re that drunk they’re definitely coming back up at some point.
Glarrrgh.
handy
@Spaghetti Lee:
I had uni at a sushi place once. It’s basically snot. Tastes and looks like it.
Little Boots
@John Cole:
you’ve actually talked about this before. the left is complacent about some things, the right keeps fighting. I dunno. I think we have some things pretty much sealed up, but when it comes to the local and state stuff, we can get very lazy.
Comrade Mary
@Bubblegum Tate: They taste like the sea. Very, very delicate. I’m amazed I liked them so much, because, yes, snot and seafood are way low on my list of edibles.
Raisins: I used to be active in a medieval recreation group, and feasts often mixed fruit and flesh. I remember hosting one event where we roasted an entire pig on a spit, and rounded things out with a rather bland barley and veggie stew. Not one of our best cooking events, but we were still toasted because “There were no raisins in the meat! Huzzah!”
handy
@gnomedad:
GO NEWT!
What’s more American than pizza? Amirite or AM I RIGHT?! A vote for pizza is a vote for freedom.
suzanne
I’m a vegetarian, and I can’t deal with Brussels sprouts. Just. Cannot. Do it.
Looking at raw meat makes me gag. Sorry.
protected static
Parsnips. And cantelope. Texture’s all wrong for that kind of sweet, and even the sweet’s kind of wrong. My dad grew up poor, so organ meats were a no-go in my childhood. I’ve been gingerly working my way through them as an adult, but haven’t tackled kidney or relatively-unprocessed liver yet.
On the beverage front, gin, sophomore year in college. Twenty-odd years later, and I’ve only recently begun being able to tolerate the smell of juniper.
MonkeyBoy
@Spaghetti Lee:
Probably the way many things become foods. In this case if you see a sea otter eating urchin and are very hungry then it would be worth trying.
scav
So, clearly, the take away for the younger among us is to be very very careful what you get sick on because you may have to avoid it for a good long while. Overdo stuff you won’t miss.
Little Boots
@scav:
and never trust Omnes, who hates the Numa.
You’ll understand when you’re older. god willing.
Spaghetti Lee
After browsing this thread, I think I’ve come up with a good set of rules, for me anyway:
1: Nothing that used to have a shell, exoskeleton, or tentacles.
2: Nothing that could be followed by the word ‘failure’. (Heart, liver, etc.)
3: Nothing you’d see on vacation marketed more as a ‘cultural experience/local tradition’ than ‘food.’ (Haggis, lutefisk, casu marzu, etc.)
4: No vegetables that start with a vowel.
Jager
Sloe Gin, like you a high school experience. Any oily, greasy fish, actually any fish that smells like fish. (Tonight I cooked, sauteed a nice tuna steak with rosemary.) I hate fishy fish because my best friend in grade school was Catholic and I ended up eating at his house almost every Friday, his Mom was a shitty cook and they bought cheap fish.
danimal
Ever since I worked at a pizza joint where the fresh mushrooms plus three days became slimy and smelly, I just can’t handle the fungi.
p.a.
boiled eggs. it’s the smell. was fed liver as an infant: low red cell count. don’t remember it, but haven’t touched it since.
Martin
Nothing for me. I did have a rum aversion for about 5 years, for reasons mentioned above by many others. There are a number of things I don’t care for – fried liver and brussels sprouts are on that list, but if I’m a guest at your house I’ll eat them, clear my plate, and thank you for the lovely meal. I’ve eaten bugs and all the organ meats I can think of at least once – yeah, those too. Food doesn’t give me the heebies.
Jimbo316
I’ve worked most of my career in SE Asia, especially Indonesia (I knew Obama’s mother, Ann Soetoro, as she was known; a real charismatic person). Anyway, after so many years living there I still could never get next to durian (tastes like baby vomit, and it contains cyanide in small quantities) and frankly jackfruit is like an overly sweet version of okra in my opinion.
Otherwise, SE Asia fruits, vegetables and Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian cuisines are wonderful.
And then there’s Egypt, also lived and worked there. Egyptians can grow many temperate, sub-tropical and tropical cultivars (all in the Nile Valley) because of their geography (it actually gets cold there in Winter), which is why they are critical to the European food chain (and, hello, why supporting Democracy there is so important). As one of many Americans who have lived and worked there, it is important to remember that many Egyptians, especially small entrepreneurs in Cairo are actually American citizens and many of them are liberals from NY/NJ/MD, etc.
In general, both Indonesians and Egyptians like Americans (I speak both languages). It’s important to understand history and culture. Iraq was the center of the Caliphate for hundreds of years and had an an ancient history before then, as everyone knows. Similarly, with Egypt, of course.
Saudi Arabia has no history except for the people of the Hijaz, who are not the Saudi nomads that are fanatical and xenophobic by tradition. Likewise, Afghanistan and northern Pakistan have long been fanatical and xenophobic for thousands of years. Talk to Alexander the Great about that.
The US intrusion into Afghanistan was never going to be anything other than “Red Dawn” in South Asia. Yes, I am very well acquainted with our aid program, which is doing great work but fundamentally it is still trying to take a 10th century, rural, severely patriarchal culture and wrenching it into the 21st century. So, we now have really cool solar-powered street lamps in Afghan cities (under which students do their homework) and solar-powered rural health clinics and micro-hydro generators for rural electrification.
We still face awesome drug trafficking and a huge system of widespread corruption.
Oh shit, you all know this from the media. As a development guy, it pains me but we really need to pull this plug and let the Afghans figure it out for themselves. Really!
The southern Pashtuns are a bit like our Southerners, die hard fundamentalists; maybe there needs to be an amicable divorce (in both cases).
TaMara (BHF)
This reminds me of when Kirk Spencer laid out a bunch of posts for me on what he called nasty bits.
Testicles
Head cheese
And more…but FYWP will only allow me 2 links before it throws me in moderation.
PeakVT
@Spaghetti Lee: When you’re really hungry, a lot of things probably taste good, or good enough. We’re pretty damn lucky we aren’t so desperate that we have no choice but to eat everything we can get our hands on.
Rita R.
@reality-based:
Love baccala too. My (Italian) family also eats the air dried, non-salted version called stocco. We have it once a year on Christmas Eve because it’s so expensive, but it’s delicious, even tastier than baccala. That soaked in lye thing sounds scary.
@Bubblegum Tate:
Is it really? I didn’t know it had gotten trendy. I knew Fernet as what the adults used to put in their espresso when we were kids. Which I never got, because it amounted to making something bitter even more bitter.
TaMara (BHF)
More from Kirk:
Tongue
Bone marrow
Joel
Can’t think of too many things that I hate, food wise. Tripe is probably my first choice; it’s tough and rubbery and lacks any decent flavor. I haven’t (knowingly) eaten brains and I probably imagine that I wouldn’t like those either.
I love brussels sprouts and can only imagine that people don’t like them because they’re cooked poorly. Try roasting them with a little oil, salt and pepper.
Another thing I hate would be non-food things that people eat like wheatgrass.
The Dangerman
@TaMara (BHF):
You remind me of “No, Steve, don’t eat that”.
http://www.thesneeze.com/steve-dont-eat-it/
pseudonymous in nc
Wrong type of dog.
I have a real problem with the texture of mushrooms, even more than the taste. There are a few I can enjoy (morels, especially), but not the standard button/bello or cep.
Suffern ACE
After working in one of those Steak and All-You-Can-Eat-Salad bar places as my first job, I can’t eat a baked potato unless I’ve made it myself and scrambled eggs-like the kind that comes with a fast food breakfast sandwich.
freelancer
@Little Boots:
Get moar worried.
Just cuz.
Little Boots
@freelancer:
yeah, there’s nothing wrong with being worried. hope everyone turns out and makes an effort.
but I’m just not, about that.
but about the rest of this country, yes, very.
so much happens below the presidential level, and nobody gives a damn until it’s too late.
Death Panel Truck
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik: I love green bell peppers.
Cream corn. The most vile food on the planet. Looks like baby vomit. Not fond of oranges, either. I’ve eaten exactly one in my entire 49 years. My mother wouldn’t let me leave the table until I ate one.
But I love grapefruit. Can’t eat it or drink the juice because it reacts with the diltiazem I take.
As far as hooch is concerned, if you hate Southern Comfort, you’d really hate Yukon Jack.
S. cerevisiae
I do like to watch Bizzare Foods, Zimmern has eaten most of the stuff on that Cracked.com link. It’s funny that he did a MN show and ate at a couple places I know in Grand Marais. He had some fried whitefish livers, which my dad liked to cook up. I liked them if they were crisp, but everything is good if you fry it in bacon grease.
Don K
Well, for a long time for me it was pizza. When I was 7 I had pizza about the same time I was coming down with measles. I suppose my 7-year-old brain connected pizza with getting sick, so for about 10-12 years although I loved bread, tomato sauce, cheese, and various toppings separately, the thought of pizza made me want to vomit (really tough in elementary school when lunch about every third Friday was cheese pizza). I also had a thing about liver when I was a kid. I had to douse it liberally with catsup and worcestershire to make it at all edible. Carrots were only edible with lots of butter and brown sugar, and beets weren’t edible at all. Other than that, I was fine with veggies.
As an adult, I’ve gotten to like beets and carrots, and calves liver is wonderful done medium-rare with a butter and balsamic sauce. I’ve had fresh-killed baby octopus in Korea (still wriggling!), and marinated jellyfish in Japan, and loved them both.
For me, I guess it’s the various concoctions women would put together for church suppers in the 60’s. Jello molds! With fruit cocktail! And coconut! Casseroles with Campbell’s Cream of anything soup.
BGinCHI
I love liver but I could never stomach Santorum.
reality-based
@Rita R.:
yeah, the lye thing is scary – but until this thread, and the “who was the first guy to eat a sea urchin, and why?” posts, the WHY of lutefisk never occurred to me.
I mean seriously – how did this come about? Norwegians looking at racks and racks of luscious drying cod, or salted drying cod, and Ole says “Hey! You know what would go great with this stuff? LYE!”
OK, so you can make lye pretty cheaply from wood ash – but again, WHY?
– and I gotta try that stocco stuff. Do you soak it, like baccala?
rammalamadingdong
Nothing nastier than eggs, I don’t care how they are prepared or what you mix them with. The smell – ugh. I can’t believe people wake up in the morning put that in their mouths. Egg sandwiches -hurl.
Booda
Cantelope. Smells like trash.
Carrots. Ugh. Cooked or raw.
My orange food boycott ends there…
Bubblegum Tate
@Spaghetti Lee:
That’s a great list. I’m gonna have to borrow those rules.
Michael
This might be weird, but yogurt. Something about it makes me gag just thinking about trying it, despite my girlfriend’s best efforts.
Hate olives. Squid, octopus, and urchin too.
Other than that, I’m pretty much an omnivore. Don’t care for beets generally, but they’re edible and I actually make a pretty tasty roasted beet soup.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Spaghetti Lee:
1. No exoskeltons? You miss crabcakes, don’t wanna do that.
2. Can’t fault your reasoning (organ failure) on this one.
3. Agreed on cultural food. “Tapas” meant swallowing octopus and feeling the suckers as they went down. Urggh.
4. No vegetables with a vowel? Not broad enough. You still allow beets and brussel sprouts. Can’t have that.
freelancer
@Bubblegum Tate:
In college, I took a food science course that was all kinds of enlightening. From that, and the research we were presented, I came to 2 concrete conclusions:
#1 Don’t eat raw oysters. (They are nature’s sewage filters at the bottom of the food chain and eating them without cooking them is not much different than slurping up fecal matter, biologically speaking)
#2 Most of the time you call out sick or you think you have “the common cold”, you don’t. It’s probably a mild case of food poisoning.
handy
@Michael:
I can see that. I mean, personally I like yogurt. But I can see that.
Spaghetti Lee
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Well, if I added ‘starts with B’, that would leave broccoli out, which I actually have always liked, along with baked beans. But you make a compelling argument.
Cacti
Tuna noodle casserole.
I get queasy and my throat clenches just from thinking about the smell of it.
Steeplejack
@TaMara (BHF):
You can do three links, I think, although if you reply to someone the reply link counts as one of the three. That has tripped me up sometimes.
CaseyL
Arriving at the foodie party a little late…
Can’t eat gristle, of any kind. I get cold chills all the way down to my toes. So, many many years ago, my first time having dim sum I did that rite-of-passage thing, ordering the chicken feet. Lifted them to my mouth, teeth just barely touched ’em and all my sensors went off screaming “Gristle! Gristle! This is nothing but gristle!” and that’s as close as I got to even tasting the things.
Sea urchin – can’t stand it because, as others have pointed out, it’s basically flavorless snot.
(And yet, I adore oysters on the half-shell and will happily go through a dozen in no time flat, with nothing on them but some fresh-squeezed lemon juice.)
I am another one of those people whose taste buds are genetically programmed to interpret cilantro as “soap.” Can’t even stand the smell of the stuff.
And while most organ meats give me the willies (let me tell you about the time I lifted a lid on a gently steaming pot on the stove to see what was in it and saw a half-boiled calf brain, because my dad loved boiled calf brain, and I had old horror movie nightmares for, like, a week) I am very fond of chicken liver. Esp. East Coast Jewish-style chopped liver, which my grandmother used to make and hers was the Best Ever.
Rita R.
@reality-based:
Shouldn’t the information on the why of it have been passed down from your Norwegian ancestors? ;)
Yeah, it has to be soaked. But some fish stores — at least the one where we get it — will sell it pre-soaked. Costs a little more, but worth the convenience. If you do go looking for it, I’ve seen it called stockfish in English. But your best bet might be an Italian neighborhood, if there’s one nearby.
PeakVT
Here’s an article that combines the tonight’s two main topics, frothy substances and food.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Booda: Orange? My oldest, when starting to eat solid food only liked the following:
Carrots
Peaches
Squash
Macaroni
(I know I’m forgetting some)
He actually turned Boehner colored until his diet expanded!
Fwiffo
I can’t believe people are actually serious when they claim to like brussels sprouts. Eggplant too. With few exceptions, I can’t even wrap my head around enjoying green vegetables. They don’t even taste like food.
Steeplejack
Fish sticks. Haven’t eaten one in
yearsdecades, but when I encountered them as a kid, at home or school, I had that same “drink a gallon of milk to choke down a single bite” reaction. Ugh. Even today a fast-food “fish filet” sandwich gives me pause.Booda
Anyone ever tried salmiakki? It’s a Finnish candy/liqueur. I went to a party with a Finnish friend and her co-workers from Nokia. I didn’t want to be rude, so I accepted a shot to try and be festive. Big mistake. Immediate hurling ensued. Tasted like licorice cough syrup with a tablespoon of salt added. Horrific.
Joel
@Rita R.: Lye isn’t really a big deal. It is a strong base but it has no buffering capacity, so you’re not exactly chugging drano (main ingredient: sodium hydroxide) when you eat lutefisk. Or pretzels for that matter, which are traditionally soaked in lye before baking.
Comrade Mary
@Steeplejack: Would dipping the fish sticks in custard help?
freelancer
@Booda:
What is up with that? What is the origin for the taste for licorice? It’s fucking wrong every way you come at it, and the only reason Jägermeister is at all tolerable is that if you make it a bomb into redbull, it ends up tasting more like Dr Pepper and less like the syrup made from European Death Concentrate.
Joel
@reality-based: Lye is a preservative, just like vinegar. One basic, the other acidic. My personal feeling is that sour acids tend to be a little more pleasing to most palates whereas the typically weirdly salty, bitter flavor of bases (think baking powder) is usually a good indicator of bad things.
Yutsano
Mayonnaise. Never liked it. Ever.
Green peppers. They taste like raw garbage. Oddly enough I love chiles and coloured peppers. Green makes me gag.
Liver. The thought of eating some animal’s garbage dump makes me retch.
@CaseyL:
This is true. I personally witnessed this Saturday. :)
Martin
@freelancer: Jager is Vicks Formula 44, with slightly more alcohol.
Booda
@brother shotgun: so maybe boehner is just a big fan of squash and cantelope? Even so, it’s so much more fun to picture him drinking bourbon in his tanning bed
Martin
@Yutsano: Green peppers aren’t my favorite either. They have a lingering flavor for me that almost nothing can overcome. I put some on pizza and after breakfast the next day I still know I ate green peppers in the last 24 hours. From what I understand, not everyone is as sensitive to the aftertaste. But red/yellows – they don’t linger. No idea why the difference.
Martin
@Rita R.:
Olives have to soak in lye as well, so most people are pretty intimate with it.
Joel
@Martin: Probably because green peppers are just unripe peppers (that’s why they’re cheaper).
BGinCHI
@Yutsano: Jesus, if you don’t like mayo I’m really worried about you.
What the hell do you dip your
frenchfreedom fries in? You’re also barred from the world of aoli.Bubblegum Tate
@Rita R.:
Well, I’ve been DJing in the Bay for close to 15 years now, and Fernet’s been the DJ’s drink of choice that whole time, so I’d say it’s beyond being a trend and more a part of the culture (I’d never even heard of it before I moved out here). Last year, some friends of mine made a song called “I Drink Fernet” (set to the tune of Michael McDonald’s “I Keep Forgetting”–skip ahead to about the 1:00 mark for the start of the song). Unfortunately, I was sick the day of the video shoot and missed it, which I’m still kinda bummed about.
BGinCHI
@Martin: Republicans are soaked in lies too, but they’re tasty with a nice bechamel sauce.
Plus Chianti, naturally.
Mnemosyne
I can’t eat cruciferous vegetables — no broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, none of it. I can sometimes eat cooked cabbage, but it has to be well cooked. They’re just too bitter for me.
I love love love asparagus, even if it does make me pee funny.
asiangrrlMN
Kiwi and water chestnuts are two foods I don’t like. And, the one that people always question – bacon. I like it crumbled in things, sparingly, but not by itself. I love liver and FRIED okra, on the other hand. Go figure.
Steeplejack
@Comrade Mary:
I only like raw oysters. Don’t like them cooked in anything. Used to live in Mobile, AL, for seven years and had easy access to fresh oysters in season. I had a colleague on the newspaper with whom I watched Monday Night Football. I would bring the beer, and he would bring a couple of Mason jars of fresh-that-day oysters from the boats at Bayou la Batre. We’d have the oysters on crackers with a little horseradish/ketchup sauce.
Cacti
Sweet pickles are another food that I’ll reflexively spit out if ever I accidentally ingest it.
Srsly, whoever thought it a good idea to load pickled cucumbers down with sugar ought to be punched in the man or lady parts.
trollhattan
@Martin:
Can’t argue. Green bell pepper and canned black olives belong nowhere near pizza. (Yellow and red bell pepper and not-canned olives, okay.)
Don’t get me started on canned pineapple on pizza.
Spaghetti Lee
@Comrade Mary:
Did actual medieval people even eat raisins? Seems like they’d be hard to come by in 12th century England.
BGinCHI
@asiangrrlMN: Fried okra with cornmeal is especially good.
Where the fuck is Jeffrey on this thread?
Cacti
And head cheese.
How on Zeus’s green earth can anyone eat that shit?
Steeplejack
@Comrade Mary:
Ugh. One of the reasons why “English cuisine” used to be considered an oxymoron.
Yutsano
@Spaghetti Lee: Grapes were not uncommon, and I can’t imagine Italian nonnas letting grapes go to waste on the vine. So the thought of preservation by drying is not outside the realm of possibility.
trollhattan
Hah, new doggie pic at the bottom of the post is a hoot. The little
shittroublemaker seems completely unconcerned being busted with the goods.A good night’s work in Dogland.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, I don’t like fish. Any fish. Once in a great while I’ll have some tuna in a nicoise salad, but I don’t like any other fish.
BGinCHI
@Mnemosyne: Same with Mrs. BG. Deep character flaw. Raw fish is one of the great foods.
Spaghetti Lee
I’ll also throw out a special hatred for pizzas with too much tomato sauce. I like pizza, but too many pizza places seem to just slather it on, and the sauce is nasty, all bittersweet and slimy (probably some cheap-o commercial way of making it with inferior ingredients). If we’re talking about foods making you physically ill, I’d put that near the top for me.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: ZOMG NO SALMON?? I would seriously DIE!!
Of course I HATE oysters. So there you go.
TheMightyTrowel
@Yutsano: I’m totally with you on the mayo (see above) stuff squicks me out.
Spaghetti Lee
@Yutsano:
Well, Italy, sure, but I was thinking more the northern areas of Europe. It could well be I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, which is why I’m eager to learn.
Mnemosyne
@BGinCHI:
If I have to go to a sushi place, I get teryaki chicken. Or, since this is California, vegetarian sushi.
No fish. In fact, nothing that lives in the water at all. Though I have discovered that seafood restaurants almost always have really good steaks on the menu, and I love me a good steak.
asiangrrlMN
@BGinCHI: Groan. I so want that. Yes, where the hell is jeffreyw?!?
@Steeplejack: YOU! Yes, you! Hiya. How you be? I love raw oysters.
ETA: I hate mayo, too.
Spaghetti Lee
And while I do like the taste of broccoli, looking too closely at broccoli romanesco always makes me wonder if I’ve stumbled into some sort of non-Euclidean dimension: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brassica_romanesco.jpg
Jager
My Gram used to make Lutefisk a couple of times a year, my dad would sufer through it by putting on mashed potatoe and swamping it in butter and then pepper the hell out of it. My sis and I were thinking what good Norskis should do is deep fry lefse put it in a taco rack, fill it with lutefisk, top with butter and sell it at the Minnesota State Fair. Damn tasty, ya know, then, you betcha
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
Salmon is one of the worst offenders. It practically screams, “Look at me, I’m a fish!”
Swordfish wasn’t bad when G gave me a taste of his. It tasted like a tuna that had eaten a steak. But I still couldn’t eat a whole slab of it.
TheMightyTrowel
@asiangrrlMN: MY PEOPLE! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE! (all my family inhales mayo like it’s oxygen….)
trollhattan
@Yutsano:
Friends who did the summer pilgrimage to work in the Alaskan canneries usually took a loooooong time before they could face salmon again.
Me, I love the stuff now but growing up in the PNW it was so cheap it nearly qualified as poverty food, so was kinda looked down on. Took care of that, didn’t we?
Comrade Mary
@Spaghetti Lee: England used to make wine, back when it was warmer, although the little ice age starting in the 16th century was a bit of a downer. Anyway, we were a pan-Euro/pan-Asian recreation group covering the times of Roman colonization to 1600. We could even sneak in tomatoes and potatoes very occasionally with a good Raleigh backstory. (“Hey! Isn’t that Raleigh over there?” sneaks in tomato sauce).
Anyway: Egg and Raisin Custard (ca. 1545)
Rita R.
@Joel:
So the lye isn’t the active ingredient in the cleaning products it’s in? I had a — I guess incorrect — association in my head of lye being a corrosive substance. And now that you mention pretzels, I think I do remember a Good Eats episode in which Alton Brown made pretzels and used lye.
trollhattan
@Rita R.:
Oh, lye is sodium hydroxide aka drain cleaner. [I see as noted a jillion times above]
asiangrrlMN
@TheMightyTrowel: Mayo is yucky. Gimme mustard on my sammie, and I’m a happy grrl.
Comrade Mary
Earlier: Apple-Raisin Pudding (15th century)
Meanwhile, the Dutch liked raisins with their chicken.
trollhattan
@asiangrrlMN:
Only time I demand it is for dipping artichokes. wife.gov makes her own, so no scooping out of giant jars. I do love aioli.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I lurve just about any mustard out there. I don’t really have a favourite, but I do use them for different things. Ketchup is nom too. Xiexie to your people for that one!
Mayo is evil and must be destroyed.
Comrade Mary
@Yutsano: I have been known to put cilantro (or dill weed) in my mayo. Deal.
Rita R.
@Bubblegum Tate:
That’s great! And a rap song no less. lol The “Fernet About It” T-shirt is clever too. My late grandparents who always had Fernet on the table for coffee would have found the whole idea funny. I like it. :)
trollhattan
@Rita R.:
One of the ingredients in Drano liquid, FWIW. It will eat the finish right off your countertops (EVEN GRANITE!) When I was a kid we made helium balloons using powdered Drano and aluminum foil in water.
http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~safety/MSDS/DRANO%20LIQUID.htm
asiangrrlMN
@trollhattan: OK, it does go nicely on asparagus. And, yes to aioli.
@Yutsano: I don’t eat the ketchup, either, but it’s not evil.
@Comrade Mary: CILANTRO! That’s the other one I loathe!
Bnut
Ok,computer help time. I have been having internet issues the past few weeks. The Ethernet port on my motherboard apparently died, as directly plugging in the modem or router gives no signal, and under device manager the Ethernet device is offline. So, I bought a wireless USB adapter, which seems to only want to connect only intermittently with the router. My Ipad and phone both connect to the wireless network with no problem. Both the router and wireless card are new top of the line N+ devices. I’m thinking my 4 year old MoBo is dying on me. Any advice?
fasteddie9318
Beets are the only fruit/vegetable that can get a reaction out of me, but it’s more of a “need to spit this crap out” reaction that a “going to hurl” reaction. There is some seafood that I just don’t like–not a big fan of most shellfish apart from crab, for example–but I can eat them no problem if I need to. Meats, on the other hand…anything outside of chicken, turkey, cow, and pig and I’m probably going to barf. One bite of lamb can make my stomach do backflips. Goat, same deal. I won’t even try things like rabbit or even bison because my reaction to lamb is so automatic and so intense that it totally scares me off from trying new meats.
Yutsano
@Comrade Mary: Aioli is tolerable. And on very rare occasions I will eat flavoured mayo (chipotle is tolerable) but the white shit straight up? Not even Nigella can get me to go there.
@Bnut: Retirement?
HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist
Alright, looking up and down this thread, I have to say to all the haters of various kinds of vegetables, fruits, or seafood — if you had a bad experience, chances are the preparation is to blame over the ingredient itself. My first experience of an urchin tasted like it came from a urinal, but after a few years I tried it again at a better quality venue and it had the most lovely briney flavor of the sea. So for what it’s worth, keep an open mind (and be mindful of who’s preparing it)…
Spaghetti Lee
@Bnut:
Take my advice with a grain of salt, as I’m not very good with computers, but I had a similar problem with my laptop a while back (couldn’t connect to the internet through any wireless network, or with a cord), so I took it to the help-desk guy and he said my P-List files were corrupted. He deleted them and restarted the computer and it worked fine. He deleted a very specific sequence of them and not all of them, so probably don’t try it on your own, but if you’re seeing a tech guy maybe bring that up.
Comrade Mary
@asiangrrlMN: Don’t worry! While I would gladly share liver and okra with you, I won’t force any cilantro on you.
(Seriously, this thread has made me so hungry that I just sliced a few cocktail tomatoes and mixed them into some mayo with black pepper and cilantro. OM NOM NOM.)
Gemina13
I was a sick baby and toddler–pneumonia at 18 months, measles at 2, hernia surgery–so when I took a dislike to solid food and stopped eating at 3, my mother panicked and filled the pantry with Gerber’s Baby Slop.
Ironically, GBS gave me my first tastes of one of my favorite foods and the food I can’t eat. Gerber’s peach baby food was remarkably close to the taste of an actual peach; I can remember it now because it was just that vivid. The other can held liver, which Mom hoped would relieve my anemia. All she had to do was hold the spoon to my lips, and the smell made me projectile-vomit all over the living room carpet.
Bnut
@Yutsano: I have not yet begun to fight.
Yutsano
@fasteddie9318:
Rabbit has a remarkably similar flavour and texture to chicken. So much so that they’re almost interchangeable. Bison is very much like beef but not quite as strong. It’s also incredibly good for you. I recommend trying both if you can manage it.
@Bnut: Sigh. Dawgs. :)
Comrade Mary
@Yutsano: Yes, straight mayo is maddeningly bland and needs green herbs or garlic to work.
Joel
@Rita R.: Lye is the active ingredient in many cleaning products and it is caustic (corrosive in some contexts). But then again, glacial (pure) acetic acid is also corrosive, but we consume the diluted form (vinegar) all the time. In fact, “white vinegar” is made by diluting high concentration acetic acid down to ~5% in water. This is because it’s cheaper to distill malt vinegar and dilute it than it is to make something like white wine vinegar from scratch.
Anyhow, like they say: It’s all a matter of degree.
asiangrrlMN
@Bnut: BNUT! ::hugs:: I have no computer help – just wanted to say hey.
@Comrade Mary: I should eat brekkie. Mebbe. Don’t feel like getting up.
@Gemina13: Another liver-hater?
Anyone but me LIKE liver?
Joel
@trollhattan: Those would be hydrogen balloons.
Bnut
I would give guys my recipe for smoked mayo, but you have to ask nice. Also, maple mustard…
PeakVT
VICt… oh, whatever.
asiangrrlMN
@Bnut: ::smile sweetly and flashes a bit of cleavage:: I would LOVE your recipe for maple mustard, sweetie. ::bat bat::
ruemara
I love salt cod, salted herring, roast or pan fried brussel sprouts, used to hate okra, but I realized that family members just can’t freaking cook. It’s pretty hard to find something I won’t eat. BUT. Tripe=NO Carrots=blech (but I can force them down and make them taste good even to me, but it’s still carrots) Bananas (ripe soft ones, well, any ones)=NO Cilantro=ick Cow feet=NO Sweet relish=tehsuxxors Commercial Mayo=blech homemade is the bomb. Mexican food=blech especially tamales, god that is nasty. And menudo. and that chocolate sauce thing. just awful. The only mexican food I eat is ceviche and nachos.
is it just me or are the new female components of the Daily Show nearly always needing at least 1/2 bottle of bourbon to be mildly amusing?
andy
Hey! The Globe sez Mittens just won the caucuses in AMerican Samoa! Now Veritas can out and playezz???
Yutsano
@ruemara:
You’d love Peru.
Nachos were invented on a border town with Texas.
Martin
@ruemara:
Yeah, they’re not there yet. Sometimes it just takes a bit of time to settle in. But then too, Sam Bee set a pretty high bar.
peggy
Tequila- long ago New Years Eve
I remember it as a three day hangover, but is it physically to be hungover for three days? Maybe only two.
Rita R.
@Joel:
Got it. It’s a matter of how much and how diluted. And I guess I should have paid more attention in chemistry class.
andy
Tee hee:
Bnut
@asiangrrlMN: There we go. Ok, we need a good spicy mustard, but nothing with a grain, should be smooth. On low heat, add 1/2 cup mustard and the same of maple syrup. Whisk it well, then add maybe 2 tbs white wine. Let it reduce very slowly, then throw in a teaspoon of cayenne. Cook for a few minutes, take off the heat and let it cool in the fridge. Throw that shit on some buns and add a good brat. Or use as a glaze for a ham.
reality-based
@Joel:
well, you would be -eating lye, that is – if they didn’t soak the fish in fresh water, after the lye – So Rita made me curious about origins and all, below from Wiki:
===============================
the first treatment is to soak the stockfish in cold water for five to six days (with the water changed daily). The saturated stockfish is then soaked in an unchanged solution of cold water and lye for an additional two days. The fish swells during this soaking, and its protein content decreases by more than 50 percent producing a jelly-like consistency. When this treatment is finished, the fish (saturated with lye) has a pH value of 11–12 and is therefore caustic. To make the fish edible, a final treatment of yet another four to six days of soaking in cold water (also changed daily) is needed. Eventually, the lutefisk is ready to be cooked.
(snip)
The origin of lutefisk is unknown. Legends include the accidental dropping of fish into a lye bucket or sodden wood ash containing lye under a drying rack. Another claims the practice enabled storing fish outdoors. Cold temperature acted as a preservative and the lye deterred wild animals from eating the fish.[citation needed] However, using lye to soften a hard, indigestible base is used to prepare other foods such as hominy.
snip
….from skeptics of lutefisk comparing it to everything from rat poison (which has a hint of truth to it, because of the traces of nonstandard amino acid lysinoalanine found in lutefisk due to the reaction with lye)
===================================================
see? Lye, AND rat poison! YUM! (sorry for long post on a topic that only interests lutefisk survivors! )
Martin
@andy: Wait, 70 people chose 9 delegates? There’s only a total of 1100 delegates, and the guest count of a small wedding chose 1% of them?
That’s fucked up.
asiangrrlMN
@Bnut: That sounds reeeeeallly good. Now, if I just had someone to make it for me. Sigh. Thanks, Bnut!
ETA: Brekkie time.
@reality-based: See see see?!? I knew there was a good reason I never tried the lutefisk at St. Olaf!
The prophet Nostradumbass
I have a microSD card that has spontaneously decided that it is “Read Only”, or not readable. My computer won’t do anything to it, in either Mac OSX or Windows 7 (Read Only), and my phone and Nook won’t even recognize that it’s inserted.
Does anyone have a suggestion?
MonkeyBoy
Lye is used as a cleaning compound because it turns fat/grease into soap which will dissolve in water.
In making lutefisk you have to limit the time of lye processing or else you wind up with what is called “soap fish”.
Spaghetti Lee
@Martin:
I think the total is significantly higher than that. 1,144 is the “50% + 1” number of delegates Romney keeps tossing around as what he needs to win, so the actual number of delegates is somewhere in the two thousands, I’d assume.
But you’re still right on principle. I didn’t really know how the caucus system worked before this primary season, but I’m liking it less and less.
Martin
@Spaghetti Lee: Oh, right, it’s around 2,300. But still. Of the 70 people, 1/8th are delegates. California turned out 2 million voters in the GOP primary in 2008. It’ll be less this year because we’re not a Super Tuesday state, but that would have given us 250,000 delegates, to maintain proportion.
trollhattan
@Joel:
Yup, my bad. Helium won’t go “boom” and hydrogen, with encouragement…
It’s amazing we survive our yoot.
p.a.
maybe I missed, but has no one mentioned holiday fruitcake? yech. it’s so bad, even moistening it with rum doesn’t help. also, meringue. it effin’ air. it has no taste, and it either collapses into nothing in your mouth or congeals into gloop. and the only thing banannas are good as is bananna. no bananna bread, bananna pudding, bananna cream anything…
Martin
@trollhattan: Did you see the Mythbusters where they made a bubble tower out of methane gas and then lit it?
Gotta try that some day.
trollhattan
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Are you inserting it directly or via an SD adapter? (I’d try another adapter if you’re using one.)
Unless you’re retrieving files, a fresh format in whatever you can get to recognize it would be my suggestion. This sometimes happens to me with digicams, but I don’t use micro cards in them, just SD and CF.
Anne Laurie
@Jimbo316:
‘Amicable divorce’, conventional wisdom ran, was for the very rich and the very poor: It only stays amicable as long as both parties feel they can survive just as well without the ex-spouse, which means both sides have either no resources to fight over or enough resources they don’t need to fight. The die-hard Confederates — or, rather, the oligarchs in charge of the post-war South — didn’t want to give up their access to all those sweet Northern resources & nifty new industries, especially since they figured they’d just re-institute their individual baronies through vote fraud and intimidation. I don’t know enough about Afghanistan to know how exact the parallel is…
trollhattan
@Martin:
Oh lord, that actually worked! (Now where can I get a tank of methane? What am I saying?)
Martin
@trollhattan: Uh, under your barbecue. Nat gas is mostly methane. Get an old regulator, a fine water sprinkler like they show in the video, some copper piping and a soldering iron. Solder all that up to the regulator, screw it onto the tank, open her up and you’re there.
I would probably make a pretty good terrorist if I was so inclined.
Oh, don’t try it with propane. Propane is denser than air, so it sinks. That’s going to have a different outcome when you light it. Make sure it’s nat gas which is lighter than air and will take the combustable up and keep it from concentrating.
Warren Terra
Is anyone else seeing the turnout in the Hawaii “Caucus” (actually run more like a primary, apparently)? 22% reporting, and not even 750 votes cast. I know the Republicans have no chance in Hawaii in November, but the Republicans have a fair chance to win the Senate seat; the party is a force in Hawaii. But apparently they can’t be arsed to turn out to decide among these three clowns.
Martin
Happy pi day! I made a pie for the office.
/geek
harlana
Frothy wins MS and AL. could it be otherwise?
harlana
Frothy says government is “irresponsive”
MonkeyBoy
@trollhattan:
I have a long air hose so I would just tap into the natural gas in my basement and run it outside.
(I know HD sells this type of hose by the foot and you really don’t need any fancy high pressure rating so an appropriate length and a few fittings/valves should be fairly cheap)
DON’T try this if you don’t know how to do plumbing and don’t know safety precautions for natural gas.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@trollhattan: I have tried both direct and via an adapter. My computer will not let me format the card, or modify anything on it. It says it is “Read only”. It will let me look at what is on it. There is no read-only/RW switch on the card. I have tried the card in my Mac (OSX and Windows 7; “read only”), and in a Nook Color (no SD card inserted) and an Android phone (no SD card inserted).
This is very frustrating.
Djur
Eggplant? Asparagus? Mushrooms? Olives, the literal food of the gods, for chrissakes?
If anyone came for a meal at my house with that kind of sick hangup, I’d let them have Friskies with the cat.
I had a boss once who would go to Mexican places and order tacos “no tomatoes, no onions, no cilantro”. I wouldn’t even sit at the same table with that pervert. I’ll accept the cilantro because I know there’s a genetic component, but anyone who won’t eat onions is a monster.
joel hanes
Many of you must have grown up a bit more affluent than I. Some of our meals were less delicious than others, but if Mom made creamed chipped beef on toast, or fishsticks, that’s all there was to eat until the next mealtime. The idea that she might prepare alternate dishes for a child who disdained the common fare was never breathed, much less entertained.
Fortunately Mom never made tripe nor brains. I can eat either of them at need, but not with pleasure.
People who hate brussels sprouts have probably been traumatized by not-fresh ones, badly cooked. Like many of the members of the cabbage family, sprouts start to turn bitter and flabby as they get stale. Match that with half-boiled preparation of whole sprouts and you have an unappetizing dish. Fresh brussels sprouts were a revelation when I first encountered them, after I moved to California.
Liver, too, is too often very badly prepared. Chicken and turkey livers should still be quite tender; if they’re tough, they’re way overcooked.
The OldWest Cafe in Sanger TX makes bang-up fried okra rings. You want to order a plate of fried okra, and a plate of mixed onion and jalapeno rings, and a nice cold beer.
Ruckus
Sausage McMuffin. Actually any McD food.
Got food poison on the morning of an event, early 90’s. Linda Blair had nothing on me. Then 2 days of 104 fever. Did I mention it was July in NC? It occurred to me that dying was not an out of the question solution. Continuously occurred.
Now driving by a McD the smell almost makes me gag.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
Grandma used to slip in rabbit in place of chicken and granddad never knew even though he hated rabbit. She got a great giggle out of it every time. Pretty big practical joker that one.
Ruckus
@joel hanes:
Sounds like my house. You ate what was prepared or else. So I hate all the normal hated foods and coffee. Brussels sprouts, liver, however I could eat braunschweiger sandwiches so it may have been in the cooking. Mostly everything mom cooked was great and the others in the family like what I didn’t but some things are just not meant for me to eat. Love the smell of fresh coffee brewing but the taste just doesn’t work for me no matter what I do to it. Enables me to drive right by a Starbucks or Pete’s without even a care.
MonkeyBoy
@joel hanes:
There is a difference between not particularly liking some food and gagging or throwing up if made to eat it.
You seem to be of the “buck up and just damn eat it” school. While I don’t particularly enjoy asparagus I will eat it even though its nasty smell later comes out in my piss, while just the smell of liver cooking drives me gagging outdoors.
If I were starving I guess I could eventually learn to eat liver though I would think that starving someone to make them appreciate liver would count as cruel punishment.
Native Americans and poor people throughout US history have, to survive, eaten such things as crow, raccoon, possum, bear, wildcat, etc., and meat that was in the process of spoiling, though I haven’t heard of any current people who really like such meats and I would guess most would have problems choking such down.
priscianusjr
I used to hate liver when I was a kid (although strangely I always liked cold chopped liver mixed with fried onions and chopped egg), but when I grew up I came to genuinely like liver. Same with lamb. — Water chestnuts do absolutely nothing for me, but I can eat them — I like bananas when they’re still firm and just a little sweet, but once they start getting more than few flecks I can eat only a few slices before I start feeling over-full and queasy. Really ripe, they practically make me gag, but then they can be baked into banana bread, which I do like.
Ever since I was four years old — I have not been able to drink plain milk, it makes me gag; but if it’s mixed with something then I can drink it. I love milk shakes, especially malteds.
I love a lot of the things many here hate: brussel sprouts, mushrooms, parsnips, green pepper (cooked). Of course you can ruin anything by cooking it badly. I love sour cherries, bitter orange marmelade, dark chocolate.
I’m not wild about beets but they are fine with a little lemon and salt. What I hate are pickled beets, pretty much any sweet pickles, relish (but love sour pickles and other lactic-acid foods like sauerkraut, shalgam suyu, ume). I dislike white or cider vinegar or any salads in which it is a prominent ingredient, sweet salad dressings,or salad with raisins and cut up apples (although I do like apples and raisins). I’m OK with malt vinegar. In fact I love the taste of malt, including malt balls. I don’t care for lima beans or canteloupe, but butter beans are fairly close to limas and I like them, and there are melons that look almost exactly like canteloupe but are delicious, so I suspect those two are just the end result of bad American horticulture.
I like cooked dill in soups but have a very low tolerance for raw dill.
In general I like Chinese food but a lot of American Chinese restaurants make many dishes disgustingly sweet.
I also don’t like most wine or spirits; it’s that tannic acid taste I don’t care for, but if the wine is a little sweet (not cough-syrup sweet) I might like it. And I can drink fruit brandies (like slivovitz), sake, a few others. Hate blended scotch but kind of like straight malt. I like the taste of rum but more than a little bit makes me feel really bad.
RedKitten
Mustard. I loathe mustard with the heat of a thousand suns. I can’t even bear to have a dish near me on the table — the very smell of it makes me feel ill. You stick one teaspoonful of mustard in a large recipe, and I can taste it.
The same goes for olives. Bleck.
R-Jud
@RedKitten: Olives and baked beans. I can’t look at them.
Ozymandias, King of Ants
Always salt or blanch eggplant before cooking–it exudes too much water if you don’t. And unless you’re going to cook it long and (somewhat) slow, peel it.
Other than that . . . sweet pickles are evil.
JPL
Tammy’s life has forever been changed, in a good way.
Decades ago, someone made hamburger helper while I was recuperating from the flu. Because of that experience, I stay away from processed food stuff.
The Golux
Huge eggplant fan here.
Grilled eggplant with pesto. That is all.
Tim F.
Olives and Rolling Rock.
Thunderbird
Sauerkraut. Just typing that made me gag. I rush to change the channel every time the Arby’s Reuben ad is on. I don’t even have to smell it, just the mention of the word makes me want to puke.
Brian
Tequila
Omnes Omnibus
@TheMightyTrowel: Mayo is simply wrong. As far as the rest of my list: the squash family (except in pie), eggplant, turnips and rutabagas, pickled herring, cooked spinach, cooked celery, and over-cooked carrots.
Also too, pineapple on pizza is an abomination.
Hewer of Wood, Drawer of Water
@Kevin: Amazing – you and I could be brothers. My mother certainly cooked the same way as yours. She would boil vegetables until they were nothing but a smelly pile of mush, then boil them some more. And like you, it took a girlfriend who could cook to be able to stomach anything other than carrots and corn (but not creamed corn – oh god that’s awful)
Uncle Cosmo
I love les petits choux (brussels sprouts) steamed & drizzled in beurre–the price is all that keeps me from having them every week–& couldn’t understand why so many people hated them. Apparently it’s a genetic thing!
As for eggplant, it helped get me into my primary residence of 25 yrs now–the RE agent & I stopped in unexpectedly & the missus was sauteing melanzana in olive oil & fell all over herself apologizing for the smell. “What’s to apologize for?” I replied. “This smells like home to me!” (The European travel posters on the walls didn’t hurt either. I replaced theirs with my own…)
40 years ago in grad school at Cornell I was boarding at a frat house on a meal plan that included all but Saturday lunch & supper & Sunday supper–& I would slide down into town with a housemate who had a car every weekend to have the liver&onions special at the State Diner. Yum!
Now the one thing I cannot at this moment stand is ground turkey. I’ve tried cooking it several times & no matter how long I cook it or how determinedly I season it, it still tastes as if it arrived from the store in a Clorox-Windex marinade. Eccccch!
virginia
Don’t much care for eggplant either, unfortunately, and really don’t care for pumpkin and sweet potatoes. Love liver with onions. With you on the dislike for Southern Comfort. Love love love creamed chipped beef on toast. Off to look up a recipe on that score. First-world problems, no?
Those doggies are just too too cute. Adorable.
Campionrules
I see someone else mentioned ‘glorified’ rice. That shit is probably the worst thing ever invented – still have trouble eating canned pineapple due to too many North Dakota church potlucks. Hurl.
Glaukopis
Carrot juice. I like carrots, cooked or raw, but the smell of carrot juice makes me ill. Can’t be near V-8.
drew42
Wow, this post was a little eerie to read. I guess certain types of food-hate are more common than I thought.
The taste and texture of eggplant also triggers my gag reflex. The only time I can tolerate it is in Indian dishes where it’s cooked and seasoned beyond recognition. But my wife loves eggplant parm — and she’ll order it at restaurants even though she knows I hate even being near it.
The first time I ever threw up from too much alcohol was Southern Comfort. That was over 20 years ago, but even now the smell makes me sick.
And just for the record, brussel sprouts cut in half and fried with garlic is one of my favorite vegetable dishes.
drew42
One more note on eggplant:
The worst food experience I ever had was a couple years ago. We threw a BBQ party, lots of pigging out, drinking, etc.
One couple arrived late, and brought a vegetarian lasagna loaded with eggplant. Everybody was stuffed, so in order to be a good host I took a rather large piece. I ate the whole thing, talking and acting like nothing was wrong, while every ounce of my body was trying to reject what I was putting in.
By the end, I was drenched with sweat from the effort to suppress my gag reflex.
dexwood
Jell-O. Can’t stand it, I don’t care what color it is or what has been added to it. It was always at every family function throughout the 50s and 60s – our house, my Aunt’s house, or my Grandmother’s house. Following back surgery in 1978, I was on a liquid diet in the hospital. They kept bringing me fucking Jell-O. I refused to eat it and kept telling them not to put it on my tray again. On the third morning of my recovery, in comes the tray with more Jell-O. I threw it against the wall. They didn’t bring me Jell-o again.
The smell of Cuervo tequila makes me react the same way, Mr. Cole. St. Paddy’s Day, 1989 was the last time I ever had a shot of the stuff.
Craig
Blackberries and raspberries. I can take a little raspberry _flavor_, sometimes, but the things themselves: ick. I hate the texture, the flavor, just everything about them.
I’ve been working on liver for a while now. I have friends who enjoy liver, and I cook it for us once a year or so. I’ve gone from spitting out the first bite to eating about two ounces of it. So I may be nearing a breakthrough. I do believe in acquiring tastes when I can: I didn’t like my first cup of coffee or my first Negroni. But liver’s been a struggle.
I agree with you on Brussels sprouts: they’re fan-freaking-tastic. I’m probably going to go buy some tonight. Love those things.
Montarvillois
No grits for me.
kerFuFFler
I suppose no one mentioned canned green beans because no one in their right mind even serves them anymore. Truly nasty things, and the baby food version of green beans or peas are unspeakably foul. Just part of a campaign to help kids develop a distaste for veggies from infancy.
brettvk
This thread was entertaining but makes me a little sad. I’ve lost about 90-95% of my ability to detect smells and most of my sense of taste has gone with it. I had a fairly wide experience of food for someone living in the whitebread Midwest and will eat just about anything except black licorice candy. My best friend is a primitive skills guru so I’ve tried some unconventional stuff too, like teriyaki wood rat (tastes like teriyaki). But it’s all pretty much substance now, not flavor. I’ve lost a few pounds over it but I’d take them all back, double, to be able to taste chocolate and rare steak again.
Nutella
There are a few things I don’t like but only two that are so disgusting I won’t go near them:
Flavored coffee. I can’t even stand the smell of it in someone else’s cup.
Sea urchin. The second time I tried it was at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Lyons and it was still outrageously disgusting.
Ruckus
@dexwood:
The smell of Cuervo tequila makes me react the same way,
Like a lot of things we put in our mouths preparation is everything. Good tequila tastes and smells much different. Really good, well now… Southern Comfort. It’s Karo Syrup with a kick.
I’ve been forced to eat oyster dressing for thanksgiving dinner and that was almost a bite too far.
Kirk Spencer
Wow, way late to this party. And I’m afraid I can’t really contribute. I can’t think of a food I hate. I’ve got a few I’d rather not eat given a choice, but have eaten them more than once because I was hungry or being polite or, well, you get the idea.
On the other hand, as Tamara noted above, I’m quite aware of things that stop people cold. Pig snout soup, for example. (It’s easier if someone chops up the snout, but I’ve had the whole thing in the pot a time or two.) Head cheese always seems to be a winner, as does blood sausage. Oh, and I learned that a lot of people will leave the room if you serve chitlins.
But I can’t think of a food I hate.
dexwood
@Ruckus: I strongly agree. I love the smell and taste of a good tequila, Casa Noble Anejo, for example. A fine sipping experience in my opinion. In ’89, however, in my town, choices were limited, especially in bars. These days, I do my sipping at home.
asiangrrlMN
Just came back to say puppehs are adorable and saw people talking about tequila. ::shudder:: I got violently ill of tequila back in the day. Can’t stand it.
pk
Feta cheese. Smells like vomit.
Ann Marie
My Mom used to serve organ meats fairly often because in those days they were inexpensive. I loved kidney and heart, but still only managed to gag down liver. While she was generally a good cook, she did have the bad habit of overcooking vegetables and then adding a cheese sauce, especially with the cruciferous veggies. Decades later, I still can’t stand the smell of broccoli. I’ve been told it’s good if cooked properly, but I just can’t bring myself to try.
Plantsmantx
@ReflectedSky:
Aside from that, he could try something other than the “Black Beauty” type eggplant. Japanese and Italian types have little to no bitterness.
They’re purty, too:
http://www.seedsavers.org/Items.aspx?hierId=28
I find it impossible to eat canned spinach and any processed meat like sausage, etc. which contains chicken.
lovable liberal
A good friend of mine has the Southern Comfort aversion, also from high school. I haven’t gotten the full story from her.
For me, a beet tastes like a mouthful of dirt.