I’m a bit of a foodie. This might come across as deeply ironic, seeing as I’ve long had an eating disorder, however some experts hypothesize that anorexics and bulemics are some of the more food-obsessed people out there. Somehow this computes, as while I’ve met a lot of anorexics, I’ve never met one that actually didn’t give a shit about food. Generally speaking, apart from the obvious control issues we have about food, we’re willing to give a kidney for our favorites.
While growing up we had a lot of ready meals, and that was my favorite kind of thing. Boxed macaroni and cheese? Brownies from a Betty Crocker mix? Vegetables you boil in a bag? I’m in. As an adult I simply followed suit – I was shit at cooking, didn’t want to do it, and as a consequence if it was complicated it sailed past me.
When I moved to Sweden I struggled. Not only because I was pretty raw at this whole cooking thing, but because you couldn’t buy ready made food, it had to be made from first principles. Add on top of that the complexity involved in trying to understand just what the translated food ingredients were, and it made for some spectacular cooking failures. But I persevered – it was that or eat my ex’s meatballs (yes the Swedes eat them, and in great quantities) all the time, or be subjected to his reindeer and pea concoction, which was 1/3 reindeer, 1/3 peas, 1/3 black pepper.
I’m not much of a black pepper fan.
So I learnt to cook. I learnt how to cook…really well. I’m not a bragger in most instances, but I can cook. And not only that, I love to cook. Mind you, I don’t want to do it every day and I’m fortunate in that aspect as Alastair is also a very keen (and very good) cook, but I do like to try new things out.
- Sanguinello is the greatest orange juice in the world
- bananas are evil and must be destroyed.
- whenever I open a yogurt I lick the lid
- quinoa is something that I often actually crave.
- same with chickpeas, which we boil, skin, and then I can eat my weight in them straight out of the pan.
- and I go through sheaths of edamame, which is bad as they can be bad for you in high quantities.
- actually let’s just say I love all legumes and pulses, apart from kidney beans, which are evil and must be destroyed.
- if you make a chocolate shake, it cannot be made from chocolate ice cream. That is weird and wrong. It should be made from vanilla flavored ice-milk with skim milk and chocolate sauce. There is reasoning behind it, I just don’t know what it is.
- my favorite fish is monkfish. I despair that it’s on the endangered list.
- I love salted movie popcorn so much that I sometimes debate going to a movie theatre just to buy some. I have yet to do this, although that’s only a matter of time (this is not the same for sweet popcorn, which is evil and must be destroyed).
- although I am a veggie (and I do eat fish, which actually makes me a pescatarian but I feel like a real twat saying that) I stopped eating meat both for fluffy bunny reasons and as a way to limit my food intake. That said, I honestly have never liked pork or beef anyway, and even if I reversed my decision to eat meat, I’d not go back to eating pork or beef as I never liked the taste (although ironically, I used to love a good bologna sandwich. Arguably that wasn’t meat.) I do miss turkey and the triptophan-snooze post Thanksgiving. I don’t think turkey misses me.
- avocados belong on everything
- if it’s a fairly disgusting looking or sounding seafood, chances are I love it. Squid, octopus, mackerel, oysters, all the way down to anchovies and whitebait – I love them all. Apart from eel, that is, which is evil and must be destroyed. I used to also classify hush puppies as seafood of the must be destroyed category, but then I learnt that they aren’t seafood at all. I’d blame Long John Silver’s for the confusion, but really it’s down to my own ineptitude.
- I cannot stand overly hot/spicy food. Blowing my tongue off puts me right off of food. The bad news is, even mildly hot things are too hot for me. The babies eat food spicier than I do, and Alastair always has some natural yogurt on hand to mild down the curries he makes me, which he always aims for “Super Wuss Mild” and still it’s often too hot for me.
- I am a new convert to mustard. It happened a few years back and now I actually (no exaggeration here) am known to plan meals around mustard. A condiment is dictating our palate here, people. And not just any mustard – while Dijon is brilliant in pastas and wholegrain rocks a salad or fish meal, it’s Colman’s English mustard which owns my heart. French’s mustard is sacrilege. Colman’s is my truly beloved. The irony to the Mustard Situation is that while I cannot take hot, spicy food, I can eat me some mustard and I can eat it far hotter than Alastair can.
- I adore curry. We have it (homemade) every Sunday.
- and often with our homemade curries, we have homemade naan, chapattis, or flat breads.
- and actually, I love baking breads. Last weekend I made lavender-honey bread (beautiful), English muffins (didn’t turn out well) and a large savory mushroom-courgette (zucchini) bread.
- I used to think maybe I was loving cooking and eating food enough to be posh, but then I learnt I hated truffles. My posh card has since been revoked.
- I love corn on the cob, only I can’t eat it off the cob. It’s a throw-back to my days with braces, I simply can’t do it. I cut the corn off the cob and eat it that way, while everyone else laughs at me.
- I hate milk, except in coffee, where it is a must. Speaking of coffee, I drink a lot of it. I also occasionally treat myself to a skinny latte with a shot of some sicky sweet syrup at Starbucks. I always feed bad doing it, as I feel it’s a poncy order. Anyone who orders poncy (“I’ll have a double decaf-caf skinny wet soy latte.”) is an asshole.
- speaking of liquids: Dr. Pepper, root beer and cream soda all are evil and must be destroyed.
- I love salads. I do not love dressing.
- I am not a dessert girl. I don’t like chocolate, cream, chocolate cream, whipped cream, cakes, biscuits, tiramisu, jelly (Jell-o), steamed puddings, Christmas cake, or anything like that (including banoffee pie, which is evil and must be destroyed) and yes, I think there’s a very good chance that I know they’re so bad for me that I talked myself out of them years ago. Still, what’s done is done. If those are your ideals, I’m not the girl for you. I will, however, race you to the cheeseboard and I will trip your ass to make sure I get there first.
- If it’s a weekend, and the breakfast does not include eggs, then there had better be a good god damn explanation as to why. I’m an egg girl. I’ll eat eggs in any shape or form (including the English runny scrambled eggs). I used to loathe runny eggs and now I adore them. I’ll even eat quail eggs, duck eggs, and once I had a scrambled goose egg. Tasted like chicken.
- I eat my baked potatoes with salsa on them. I picked that up in Texas and never put it down again.
- it’s almost physically impossible for me to eat a sandwich and crisps (chips) without putting the crisps in the sandwich. I give it a miss if I’m in a work meeting. Anyone else is subjected to my Allison like lunch behaviors. Crisps are best in salted form only, and salt and vinegar crisps? Evil and must be destroyed.
Go on then – any peculiarities in your food tastes?
-S.
4NGSUQQV7GXQ
avocados are evil and must be destroyed!
have you tried sea urchin? BLECH. Was like fish flavored pudding to me. I could barely swallow. Husband, of course, pronounced it one of the best things he had ever consumed. Whackadoo.
I like to put Doritos on my sandwiches, even PBJ. Deal with it.
My mom was a home ec teacher, so, naturally, I went off to college unable to cook or sew! Because she did both for her job, we ate out most meals, and she was thrilled when I got a job as a waitress and got an employee discount.
My husband is a fabulous cook, as my waist line will clearly show. And he has taught me to cook.
I love to bake. Always have.
Avocados belong on EVERYTHING.
I will also eat salad without the dressing if I don’t like what is available.
If I wasn’t actually trying to get fit and lose weight I’d be eating chocolate for every meal. And mandarin oranges. That would be it.
Mushrooms? Evil and must be destroyed.
Peas? Evil and must be destroyed.
Green Beans? Evil and must be destroyed.
Chocolate? Evil and must be destroyed.
I do love bananas and salt & vinegar chips, though just not together.
I love to bake and I enjoy cooking, but I don’t really make anything fancy.
The only thing we ever put potato chips on was liver sausage (the Oscar Mayer stuff, not that less-processed Braunschweiger that came from the deli counter) sandwiches. No wonder I spend all of my time thinking things are just not fatty or salty enough.
My weird food things are probably numerous, but there are 3 main ones: 1) I cannot drink anything that has been brewed. No coffee, no tea, no beer. They all taste like water that has been contaminated to me. *Shudder* 2) I love corn, but only on its own. If it is mixed into anything else (soups, stews, salsa, salad), it literally makes me gag. And I do not have a sensitive gag reflex. 3) I do not like for my food to touch on my plate if it is not meant to touch. Therefore, even though I might like to dip my pork in my applesauce, I don’t want the pork soaking up apple while it waits for me to eat it. I cannot mix gravy (or any vegetables) in my mashed potatoes. I like pasta and sauce, but I feel the sauce should be stored separately for leftovers. Eureka! It’s not about the touching, it’s about the absorption of flavor!!!
Ahem. Anyway, that’s my food weirdness.
“… are evil and must be destroyed.” Win!
Where are you on the marmite situation?!
Any chance you could share the lavender and honey cake recipe? I am a huge fan of lavendar, there is little i won’t add it too!
Abs x
I also hated mustard until I turned 25, then all of a sudden I love brown spicy mustard, and can slightly tolerate yellow mustard.
I love all forms of tomato except sun dried tomatoes, which are evil and must be destroyed.
I like milk but only with certain food (pancakes/waffles, doughnuts, peanut butter, cookies, or any chocolately thing) and it MUST BE super cold. Like, I put two ice cubes in it to make sure it’s cold enough.
I’m funny about fish. I cannot cook it at home. If I saw it raw, I cannot eat it cooked, even when I know I was careful and safe with it. I will eat fish that other people cook for me though.
And yes, chips do belong inside a sandwich. Especially PB&J.
Ohh, I eat everything!
Except cooked carrots, boiled potatoes, yams, swedes, sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin (I appear to have a deeply ingrained prejudice against the colour orange), chicken skin, skate, anything sweet-and-sour, corned beef, greengages, gooseberries, raspberries, most apples (except Cox and Braeburn), vinaigrette, eel, those goat cheeses with the weird chalky texture, large tomatoes (no problem with cherry tomatoes), and skin on my hot-chocolate or whatever makes the whole thing poisoned and undrinkable.
But apart from THOSE, I eat everything.
Bananas are evil and must be destroyed.
Water chestnuts, jicama, and other terra cotta food products are evil and must be destroyed.
Food that is not meant to touch MUST. NOT. TOUCH. If they touch, the touchy part must either be eaten first or completely discarded, as it is tainted. TAINTED. I will fork-stab anyone who pushes my foods together. Ask my father.
Black pudding is evil and must be destroyed.
Also, it is okay to lick a pair of pretty new shoes.
I had an aunt who was severely anorexic (her heart finally gave out-she was 38). It used to piss my grandfather off when they would take her out to eat, because she would order a ton of food; appetizers, desserts, extra sides-the works. She would take about two bites of her salad and be done.
I loathe cooking, baking-all of it. I do it because I have no choice-nobody else is going to do it and we can’t afford to eat out every night, not to mention how unhealthy that is. Growing up on ready made meals myself, I know its much better to cook from scratch, so 90% of the time that is what I do. I’m good at it as well-my mom, mother-in-law, and both of my grandmothers are/were excellent cooks/bakers. I still don’t like doing it, so to keep my interest I often try new recipes-and pretend I have my own cooking show and talk to the non-existent camera (but only if I’m really bored).
I’d rather bake, because I like sweets. Yet even then I only do it because the kids enjoy it.
The truth is I like a lot of things and will try anything once. Hot/spicy foods ruin a meal for me, and like you even a mild spice is often too much. I love milk, ice cream, bananas, yogurt (I lick the top too!), oranges, green beans, carrots, most meat, but could really give or take fish. I’m working on that one.
a – I too love to dip things as per my choice-there can be no unmitigated soaking. Not ok.
May-I have tried every single pumpkin recipe under the sun, and can firmly state thus: I hate pumpkin. HATE.
abs-I can’t do Marmite. I’ve tried. Can’t. But the lavender recipe is here: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/259008_bake-lavender-honey-bread-with-vanilla-cinnamon-honey-butter-for-easter I made it in a round loaf, it was absolutely gorgeous.
I’m allergic to most raw fruits – bananas were the first that I discovered, so I hate them. They’re squishy and gross anyway.
I only like fish raw (sushi or pickled herring). I love shellfish.
I don’t believe in fluffy cheesecake. It’s wrong.
I love spicy. Dad started training me with pickled jalapenos when I was maybe 7 or 8.
I like my milk 2%, my coffee black, my tea white with two, my Coke diet, and my beer Anchor Steam.
And only my mother’s fried chicken is really, truly delicious.
Yes to avocados on everything and no to spicy stuff, altho’ I do love that green hot stuff you get on your platter of sushi. And, sadly for you and Ms. Pants, I do love bananas – and desserts as well as meat. And my food often touches without me cringing – altho’ we try to serve Ms. Pants stuff that runs into each other just to see her go crackers. We’re a nasty group of family that way. Shellfish – evil and must be destroyed. And licking new shoes is way good for ya.
This is hilarious to me… Especially because I thought I was alone with the corn on the cob. I stopped eating it off the cob for the same reason, but love fresh corn on the cob. I purchased a corn cob cutter, it’s great! My family thinks I’m ridiculous but it’s better than getting corn in your teeth!
When I eat shredded wheat that has the frosting on it I crunch it with frosting facing in, it tastes better that way.
I’m not much for cakes but if there is one I’ll eat the cake part and not the icing, I hate icing. It’s too sweet.
Most meals (especially dinner) I’d prefer a bowl of cereal. I love so many kinds. My husband thinks I’m crazy when I pick up 4 or 5 kinds at a time.. but I rotate. I love Kix, cheerios (have to have a bowl each day), corn flakes, honey comb, shredded wheat (blue berry), special K, special K red berry, crispix, ect.. I think you get the idea. I think I remember you mentioning in the UK they don’t have the same cereal selection, I’d have to have it somehow shipped over!! I love it!
Okay, I think I’ve shown how odd I am now!!!
Meredith
Sweet with savoury is good. Oh who am I kidding? It’s the best thing in the world EVER (see below).
I avoid filter-feeders at all costs (I could say something about marriage and relationships here, but I shall refrain) (which means all shellfish are out, unless they’re cooked to within an inch of their little shelled lives – again with the marriage slurs). Though I love prawns. *snicker*
Rare, just-shown-it-to-a-candle-and-it’s-still-twitching meat. Particularly venison, though I’ve had goat, too. Favourite meat is pork. I eat trotters and ears, btw.
Those straw mushrooms you get in Chinese food – I am a sucker for slimy and gelatinous foods. Gelatinous rice balls? Like eating a saggy ball sack? Oh yes.
Oh and my personal squick-everyone-else-out is fish & chips, cheese and maple syrup. Everyone went green, I got happy. Hey, you wanted weird ;)
Favourite vegetables are pumpkin / butternut squash, courgette, aubergine and runner beans. Oh I eat loads of lovely tomatoes, too. Oh and peas fresh from the garden.
Sweet popcorn is evil and must be destroyed. Stilton is the great love of my life. If you figure out how to make a good crumpet, please share. They don’t fit into the budget at the moment. I really wish I’d read this earlier in the evening.
Must try the lavender bread.
Marmite is lovely but I do accept it is not to everyone’s taste.
Sweet popcorn on the other hand – how can you live without popcorn balls?
I once was an hour and a half late to watch DVDs at a friend’s house because I was too busy making popcorn balls.
Almost forgot-I love salty movie popcorn more than going to the movies themselves. Last Christmas, the local theater sold plastic buckets of corn, and then for the next few weeks you could come in anytime and get it filled up for free. The beautiful part is the theater is in the mall, so needless to say I spent many an afternoon, while the kids were in school, sitting in the food court eating as much free popcorn as I could.
Water chestnuts must be destroyed. I hate those things! BLECH!
Tomatoes? Ew. Now give me pizza, spaghetti sauce or ketchup (not all at once, please!), then I’m fine. I’m weird. I know.
Butter makes everything better.
Since I’m a carnivore (sorry), I like my meat to be medium rare. Growing up, my dad’s idea of meat that was done was something resembled (in size and in hardness) a lump of coal. I often thought I’d chip or tooth, or maybe get lucky and find a diamond inside if I cracked one open.
Mashed potatoes are good with butter, salt and pepper, or gravy. Baked potatoes must have sour cream and butter. I like to dip my fries in mayo.
Mushrooms are most welcome in my house.
I grew up in a house much like you did and as a result, am still quite hopeless in the kitchen today. I can follow a recipe though so maybe there’s some hope for me after all. Would you consider sharing a curry recipe or two?
OK. I pretty much good with most of the things you labeled as evil and demanded their destruction.
With the exception of Dr. Pepper and Root Beer. I would fight to defend them from your destructive wish!
Then again I absolutely loathe yogurt (it is evil and must be destroyed) so maby we can do a trade?
Celery I despise. What is up with this negative calorie nightmare. It’s stringy and cheap and it just tastes awful. Anytime my Chinese food comes loaded with it I discount that as a cheap, bad place and will probably not return.
Sweets are so yummy, I’ll take all your rejects and then some.
I’m coming over for dinner Sunday night. Thanks. I’ll bring wine. Oh wait, I live way too far away. Damn.
You may ban me after I post my lists, since we’ll disagree on just about everything foodwise (except the chocolate shake part. I don’t know about how you make it, but using chocolate ice cream is definitely cheap and cheating. And the sweet popcorn. Very evil.)
Evil and must be destroyed?
- Pineapples (particularly canned)
- Grapefruit (I’ve actually puked things that taste better)
- Lima beans
- Fruit cocktail
- Peas (exceptions made if well mixed in, or snow peas in Chinese food
- Raspberries and raspberry flavored things
- Corn mixed with anything. Must be eaten as a separate entity
- Ketchup on anything other than french fries, onion rings, tater tots, fishsticks, or mixed in meatloaf. No other exceptions allowed. Eat it on eggs in my presence and I might have to hurt you.
Made of heaven?
- Honey mustard
- Sushi (especially freshwater eel. Sorry, Shannon.)
- Peanut butter on saltines
- Salsa on my eggs (particularly in breakfast burritos). No, it’s not even close to ketchup. Don’t start with me.
- My mom’s spaghetti
- My wife’s fried chicken (especially boneless)
- Sweet pickles
- Large Hero sub, fully involved (the works), from Firehouse Subs. Mmmm, just planned tomorrow’s lunch.
More evil food:
anything flavored with anise
fennel
dill
I don’t understand people that don’t like chocolate. It just doesn’t compute with me.
I agree with avocados. I can eat buckets of them.
French fries have to be dipped in honey mustard, or something. Preferably not plain ketchup or like, ranch dressing. I like a sweeter dip or dressing for them. I’ll do a mix of mustard, ketchup and mayo, though, if nothing else is around.
I hate milk, except in coffee/ tea, or cereal. Or unless it’s got so much chocolate syrup in it, that it’s practically a solid.
Pancakes must be first soaked in enough butter to cause an instant heart attack. My process is as follows: melt half to one stick of butter, dump on pancake, followed by 1/4 cup of syrup. Watch people stare at you in awe as they stand by with a defibrillator.
Egg Nog? Evil and must be destroyed. But not before it’s tortured, mercilessly.
Hot Dogs? Evil and must be destroyed. (same goes for bologna and all other meats that are lips and assholes)
Raisins? Evil and must be destroyed. (most other dried fruit is ok, oddly)
Any sort of octopus, squid or other slimy sort of shit like that is evil and must be destroyed.
same goes for hot foods. Can’t do spicy.
Also? I will totally pull your hair if you trip me. I will make it to that mother fucking cheese plate first.
Evil Rob has discovered a love of cooking, and I want to encourage him as much as possible. This does mean some meals are a lot hotter than I like, but hey— I don’t have to cook.
I like baking but I don’t do it because there’s too much and I feel obligated to deal with it. I’m looking forward to the part where the kids are old enough to attack the baked goods.
My toddler son loves curry. That’s just weird and cool.
I used to be a picky eater. I think that’s partly because I didn’t like some of the things my mom cooked— she was not the greatest cook (oddly enough, she’s gotten much better now that she doesn’t HAVE to all the time. See me encouraging Evil Rob, above, because I don’t want to end up hating the making of food.) Of course, now that I’ve dealt with various kitchens, I’m surprised she can cook at all in the monstrosity that we grew up with. Almost NO counter space, and what little there is is too low, almost covered with cabinetry that is also too low, and covered in fifty + year-old laminate (ICK). Bad, bad ergonomics.
Now I am NOT a picky eater and might even be called adventurous. At least, when somebody else does the ordering. Weird how these things happen.
As for weird food things— I still occasionally get cravings for ramen. As in the 25¢ Maruchan packages of dried noodles with the overly salty soup mix. On that note, I’ve found the best way to have a meal like that is to follow it up with a juicy piece of fruit, preferably an orange or a mandarin.
Anything made by Kraft foods particularly their plastic cheese
Movie popcorn
Tofu
Cool whip – the most evil food on the planet.
Canned frosting
Root beer – smells like Germoline.
I don’t eat most fruits, especially summer fruits due to seeds and texture. Cannot stand bananas, the smell and texture just makes me wanna gag. Can’t stand eggs unless they are in cake, however I am partial to the crispy bits off my bfs omelette. I hate fresh or whole tomatoes of any kind, however I will eat tomato based pasta sauces. Garlic sauce belongs on everything. Chocolate milk must be made from Oboy or Nesquik, its a childhood thing. I’m a pussy when it comes to trying new things and it takes a huge amount of persuasion to get me to eat anything. One thing I would kill for are english pork and apple sausages. The sausage you get out here should never ever be called sausage, its just sacriledge to the real thing.
OK, so to address the following points from loads of very valid comments:
1) French fries/chips can never be eaten naked. Them, not me. I don’t drown my food unless it’s one of those bad boys.
2) lima beans are also evil and must be destroyed.
3) Stilton is fabulous. Tried Cambezola? The only one I won’t eat is St. Agur, too salty.
4) I also stress out over leftover baked goods (same applies to home-grown veggies). For this reason I take it to work or nursery, and am known as a stress baker.
5) When I used to eat meat, I liked it medium rare. Not sure what (if anything) it says about me.
6) I like having my hair pulled, Statia-bring it!
7) I will definitely trade the root beer for yogurt. I’m all about compromise.
I agree with many of those things. Quinoa with balsamic vinegar is fantastic. Pretty much everything with balsamic vinegar is amazing, which is probably a throwback to my ED days since anything that had fifteen calories or less per serving was okay to eat. Curry – nom. I bought a great big bag of garam masala last year and lost it in the move, which is a tragedy. Chickpeas – yes. With cous-cous, nutterbut squash (yeah, nutterbut, I’m six years old at heart), and stewed tomatoes. Mustard I could give or take, except hot pretzels without mustard are like life without avocadoes. Avocadoes just slightly edge out tart frozen yogurt (incidentally the hip new trend that I adore like no other trend, except maybe when leggings came back in style) on my top five foods list. Edammame. Soy bacon. Soy bacon on an okra-brown rice veggie burger with avocado and Major Grey’s chutney. Cereal. Morning does not start without cereal. Preferably Kix or Cheerios (six years old, as I said) with soymilk, which I call smilk because, see parentheses. Lychees. Frozen blueberries and peaches. Fried anything with ketchup, which until recently HAD to be Heinz 51, but then I discovered some obscure organic brand at the diner nearby and it was love at first onion ring. Portabella mushrooms, except when someone decides a portabella on top of rice pilaf is a suitable vegetarian option. Guacamole, which yes, is avocado, but still.
Diet soda. My vice. I was clean until I moved home, and then it was like a chain smoker lapsing into old habits. And coffee, preferably Bosnian style or Lion brand toasted coconut Kona. Jaffa cakes. I kill for Jaffa cakes. I pester my friends if they go to Europe to bring them back. I could care less if they were turned to mush in a suitcase.
I have to go find a snack now.
1) pickles any variety – evil and must be destroyed.
2) cheese and mayo sandwiches – guiltfree pleasure of childhood and cardiac arrest sandwich of adulthood.
Love to cook, love to eat. Have a diet coke addiction of epic proportions, and believe it pairs well with everything from breakfast to dessert. Will seroiusly try any food once, unless it is offensively stinky. Won’t eat mayo on a sandwich but will eat it if it is part of a sauce. Have tried to love blue cheeses but I can’t, except on one particular burger where it is mixed with gruyere and smothered in carmelized onion and bacon marmalade. Do love truffles and found one of my most fave dishes of all time to be homemade potato chips with truffled cheese sauce. Will only eat my mother’s amazing meatballs and cannot imagine ever ordering them in a restaurant because why? Not a milk drinker or a coffee drinker except after a heavy restaurant meal.
I have plenty of food issues! Too many to list really, but I’ll highlight a few:
1) I can’t eat meat off the bone. Chicken legs, ribs, anything that requires teeth on bones? Not happening.
2) All meats that I do eat must be examined closely before biting into because if it chews weird in any way it will put me off the whole rest of the meal and may take me a couple of days to get over. Seriously.
3) I love apples, I have to peel and cut them up though because I can’t stand biting into them.
4) I love the taste of bananas, I had the squish of bananas but I eat one a day anyways to try to pretend I’m eating healthy. I have the same taste/squish problems with a lot of fruits.
5) Love the taste of yogurt, but eating it makes me gag. Something about the texture just kills me!
6) On the other hand, I love milk and sometimes if I’m cooking something that has milk in it I’ll pour myself a glass to drink and it makes me oddly happy in a nostalgic kind of way.
What the hell? You don’t drink Dr. Pepper? And you grew up in Dallas? Does not compute.
1) I can’t stand ketchup unless it’s with crunchy tater tots or onion rings. People who put it on burgers or god forbid scrambled eggs make me gag. I’ll grudgingly eat french fries with honey, bbq sauce, A1, HP sauce or even dipped in a Wendy’s Frosty, but not ketchup. I really don’t get the obsession with fries – though I would happily devour an entire bucket of sweet potato fries.
2) I like salty/sweet combinations – sea salt sprinkled on chocolate chip cookies, junior mints mixed in with hot popcorn, sour cream and onion potato chips smashed up and eaten on very high quality vanilla ice cream.
3) I hate any kind of artificial fruit flavoring – banana, strawberry, whatever. If it’s fake it tastes terrible to me. Especially fruit flavored sodas and candy. Blech. However, I just realized I love Fresca. So um, perhaps that’s not truly fruit flavored?
4) The spicier the better. I used to make jalapeno and pineapple smoothies when I was pregnant with the boys. Curries that make my nose run because of the heat? Wonderful.
5) I love meat, but I don’t do offal. I feel like I have a moral obligation to eat it if I’m going to eat meat, but I just can’t go there. I’d like to be vegetarian, but I really love the smell of slightly charred meat. Meanwhile, that same smell makes my husband gag.
6) I love Ovaltine but am not a fan of chocolate syrup. I’m sort of a freak like that.
7) I’ll eat mayo in extremely small quantities but nothing makes me gag more than seeing a sandwich with it just oozing out of the sides. Gah. A close friend who was bulimic used to eat tons of mayo as she said it helped coat her throat when food came back up. That turned me off it in a hurry.
8) I love bananas – but only when they’ve just turned from green to yellow. Once they’ve got a single speck of brown on them, I won’t eat them. Love overripe plantains though.
9) Things I was forced to eat a ton of as a child that I simply will not eat now on principle: white bread, goulash, swiss steak, fideo, and anything made out of canned cream of mushroom soup.
10) I never liked cereal until I was almost 30. The secret? My husband puts a spoonful of chunky peanut butter into the bowl before he pours the milk in. It’s delicious.
1) Brown Soda is digusting: Coke, Pepsi, Root Beer, Dr Pepper, Pibs, Dandelion & Burdock, bleck.
2) No fruit in my dinner! No applesause with Pork, Cranberrys with turkey, Chicken with apricots – Seriously, why do we need to put jam in with meat. Sweet & Sour – vomitosis
3) Ketchup in a packet makes me want to peel my skin off… however mayo, mustard in packets A-ok with me.
4) I won’t order anything off a menu that is spelled incorrectly.
5) I won’t order anything that someone else has already ordered and get mad if someone chooses the same thing as me. I’m slightly territorial like that.
6 Favourite sandwich: Cheddar cheese, Picked beetroot and salad cream. OMG want some NOW!!!
I’m with Statia on the chocolate thing. My favorite dessert ever: a Dairy Queen blizzard with chocolate ice cream & Reeses Peanut Butter Cup and chocolate chips mixed in. So to recap: that’s PB & choc mixed in some frozen choc topped off w/ more choc. I’m thinking about leaving work early to stop by DQ. :)
I used to be the pickiest eater EVER, but my pallet is expanding thanks to the Super Model Mrs. Solomon. I wish I ate healthier, but the truth is I should probably invest in some home/car defibrillators. :)
I LOVE to have my hair pulled. I trade back rubs for hair pulling. Gets rid of a headache better than a pill!
Oh, and any kind of bean is evil and should be destroyed. But cheese, a good sharp chedder cheese is heavenly.
A Texan who doesn’t love Dr. Pepper?! I think your southerner card might have to be revoked…
Mayo is evil and must be destroyed.
Miracle Whip is evil and must be destroyed.
Salad Cream is an evil abomination and should have never been invented.
Nor should have vegemite or marmite.
And who the fuck looked at a raw oyster and said “I’m soooo putting that in my mouth.”
And my mom up there– she’s totally not kidding. They do try to arrange shit on my plate so that it all runs together. Or they ask me how I can eat a casserole or stew cos everything touches. (Because it should–it’s ingredients.)
We definitely agree on eggs. I can eat them any way and any time; preferably 3 times a day!!
I hate to cook and only learned because I had to feed my family.
I do not eat raw tomatoes. If a mistake is made, and my sandwich has tomato on it, it must be remade, not have the tomato scraped off. Yet, I love Italian food. Cooked tomatoes were an acquired taste; I didn’t try ketchup until college (and still don’t like it).
I have been known to make chocolate pudding (box, on stove) just for the skin that develops as it cools (but I must eat while still warm).
I like spicy food, but it has to have flavor. Any idiot can pour in enough peppers so that the paint peels when you exhale, but a good flavor with a kick is OK.
Avocado belongs on everything
Brussels sprouts are evil and must be destroyed. The pieces should then be burned, and the ashes buried in the ocean. I really hate them
Here’s an oddity for you, should you ever decide to go back to turkey: My mom used to make us something with the Thanksgiving leftovers that I always assumed was normal, but the first time my wife saw me make one she freaked out. Then she had a bite and was hooked. I just call it the Thanksgiving Sandwich.
It’s pretty simple. Just take two slices of bread and put a layer of turkey (cold, salt & pepper to taste), a layer of stuffing (also cold. Trust me here), a layer of jellied cranberry, some mayo, and voila!
The best thing to do with a perfectly ripe avocado is to split it in half, whack the pit out with a knife, fill the hole with balsamic vinegar, sprinkle the entire thing with salt, and then eat it out of the peel with a spoon. Delightful.
Melody, I believe I love you.
Okay, here goes:
1. Desserts. Like you, when it comes to desserts, I am a cheese girl, not a big fan of anything too sweet (although I do love me some banoffee pie on occasion. It’s too sweet to eat more than a slice though.) I have literally confused waiters in french restaurants into trying to speak to me in English (despite the fact that I speak passable french) to make sure that I, as a little 10-year old girl, did actually want the cheese plate. Yes, please. That chocolate torte is for my sister.
2. As a caveat to desserts, this is my weirdest food thing: I am perfectly fine with eating, say, a chocolate bar. But I abhor chocolate *flavoring*. This means that while I will eat a square of chocolate (as long as it isn’t hershey’s. I am such a picky sweet-eater) I will not eat any kind of frosting, chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream, chocolate pudding, chocolate syrup, or anything like that. The two exceptions to this rule are brownies, which are dense enough to satisfy the “i need real chocolate” thing, and hot chocolate. I also won’t eat dark chocolate, and chocolate on fruit is something I like the idea of, but not the actual execution. (I should just pack it in and not eat chocolate.)
3. I eat my baked potatoes loaded plus salsa, or with butter and chili. Also, I eat my scrambled eggs and omelettes with salsa too. I picked this habit up in Arizona. It’s fantastic.
4. Speaking of salsa, I have a deep and abiding love for all hot/spicy food. I order Thai curries hot. I just love it. It’s rare that I can’t eat something because of heat/spice (as in, it’s happened once) as I tend to just power through the heat even if I know it’s something I’ll regret later.
5. I love curries and rice. Any kind: Indian, Thai, Chinese. I could live off this for the rest of my life and be totally happy. (And of course, naan. Preferably garlic-butter naan.)
6. Garlic and salt belongs on/in everything.
7. I love aniseed and anything aniseed flavored (licorice, fennel, aniseed balls, pontefract cakes) and must have fennel in my veggie soup or it doesn’t taste right.
8. I always miss some type of food I can’t get. I love crisps in all the british flavors, but you can’t get them in America, period. They’re just not available, at least in my town. When I’m in Britain, I always miss some type of food from America. In France, I miss being able to buy grated carrots for my salads and not “carottes rapées”, that nasty carrot-lemon salad they like. We ALWAYS make this mistake and forget it’s gross, and then we’re stuck with the container of it.
9. Speaking of lemons, I’m similarly picky about lemon. I will drink lemonade (although my favorite kinds are the ones that don’t taste all that lemony.) But I do not like lemon in my food if I can taste it. Lemon-parm spaghetti is right out, as are lemon muffins, lemon icing, lemon in soup, lemon in my grated carrots, etc. Mostly lemons are evil and must be destroyed.
10. Food from farmer’s markets is always better than supermarket food; sterilized milk is nasty.
11. Speaking of open markets, rotisserie chicken is always better from an outdoor market; fish and chips in newspaper outside is inherently better than fish and chips on a plate indoors; waffles and french fries in a cone outside in Belgium are fantastic; paella outside in Spain is amazing (although one of the most difficult things I’ve ever tried to eat). I love (good) outdoor, street-vendor food.
12. I too love pretty much all kinds of seafood. I spent 5 years in Hawaii and all kinds of weird seafood is amazing.
13. I love coffee with all my heart. However, if I drink it when I’m tired, I just feel sick. Also, I drink all kinds, but I prefer it iced. I never put any sugar/sweetener in it.
14. I despise most kinds of tea. Black tea especially. I drink iced tea that’s so flavored/sweetened that it doesn’t taste of tea anymore. I will drink jasmine tea when I’m sick or I just need something warm/pleasant/very mild. I picked THAT habit up in China.
15. I love Dandelion and Burdock. I don’t know why. But that’s another thing you can’t get here. This makes me very sad. I also have a deep love for cream soda/italian soda, although I often forget about this love when I’m in a place that I could get good cream soda/italian soda from, and order Diet Coke (my usual soda).
16. I love and adore mustard. French’s is an abomination, but my sister won’t eat anything else. In our house, we always had a tin of Colman’s for emergencies; a bottle of French’s for my sister; a bottle of imported Dijon for my mother and I (we’d bring it back from France, great stuff); and the fan on to disperse the fumes, because my dad’s allergic and even the smell makes him nauseous.
17. Although I’m not veggie, I don’t like most meat, with the exception of fish. Chicken or roast turkey is fine; I actually dislike the taste of smoked turkey, honey-roasted turkey, most pork, i have to be in the mood for beef, and I really, really don’t like lamb. This is apparently weird.
18. I don’t like any kind of mushrooms or truffles.
19. Bell peppers raw are an abhorrence. I cannot handle them. I will eat them cooked or roasted, but even then I have to choke them down.
20. I used to love asparagus but now have to force myself to eat it. Also, I hate green beans, but I love snow peas.
21. Despite the fact that they don’t have a lot of flavor, I hate cucumbers with a burning passion. And pickles.
22. There’s probably a lot more. I love most food, but there’s a lot of peculiarities with it, too.
I like me my cheese. I’ll take a dip over a dessert any day Off the top of my head my friend’s sister in high school used to dip her McDonald’s fries in ice cream? Why I don’t know. I love mayo on my fries. I picked this up working at McD’s in my teen years. Lima beans? Ick. Avacado? Yummy.
I find it funny that my son has more of a spicy palate than his dad!
Also, despite the fact that I don’t have a lot of a sweet tooth and rarely eat the things I bake, I love baking. And although I can cook and I’m decently good at it and love to eat what I make, I really hate cooking.
And even though most people can’t tell the difference, I love Camembert while I only tolerate Brie. Sadly, Brie is what’s imported here. You have to snoop around the ethnic-foods stores to find Camembert, and then it’s really expensive compared to Brie, which makes me extremely sad.
I feel like I should add more things to my list.
I love curries but I hate the taste of curry powder. So you can see this is confusing, and why I am nervous to try new Indian and Thai foods unless I’m with someone that I can ask. Because the staff just think you are stupid for even asking “does this curry taste like curry powder?”
I hate hot tea, but love iced tea. It can’t be sweet, though and must have lemon in it, preferably with the lemon squeezed over the ice, and then the tea added.
I like sushi but not raw fish. I love the combination of rice, seaweed, and soy/wasabi. But I just think fish are disgusting creatures, and it’s just a matter of time before everyone else gets a bad piece of raw fish. So I eat a lot of veggie rolls and cooked rolls, or ebi.
Eggs are awesome, but scrambled is my least favorite way to eat them. I like them with runny yolks. Eggs Benedict is heaven on a plate, but the yolk has to be runny and mix with the hollandaise.
Mayonnaise is wonderful in most cases, but Miracle Whip is Satan’s semen.
Dill pickles or spicy pickles are great, sweet pickles are disgusting. Although one restaurant we used to go in Dallas served spicy sweet pickles and they were really good. I could eat those all day.
OK, this could go on forever. Everyone has weird food things, it seems.
I think you should share with us some of your favorite curry dishes, maybe even these delicious sounding breads. I am horrid in the kitchen. We have recently given up meat and I have yet to master a bean dish the 5 year old will eat besides black beans and rice.