#1) Salted caramel-I’m sure that some genius sometime discovered that by adding a touch of salt to caramel it enhanced the flavor. This has been distorted into the idea that caramel should taste salty. Caramel should be sweet. It has been perfectly good sweet for decades. I do not like it salty. Stop making it salty in everything that has caramel.
#2) Egg white only omelettes and egg dishes-Has nobody ever noticed that all of the flavor and texture of the egg is in the yolk? Why bother to use eggs if you’re not using the good part. Why not just make your omelette out of styrofoam if you want to save calories and fat? Bring back real omelettes.
#3) Whole wheat pasta-no it does not taste good. I know that a strong enough sauce can mask the flavor but pasta should not have to be masked by the sauce. The pasta itself should taste good. Put the whole wheat somewhere else but not in my pasta.
#4) Greek yogurt-stop trying to convince me that this is some new wonderful food. It’s just like yogurt only more so. All the thing I dislike about regular yogurt, the sourness, the texture, are multiplied in greek yogurt. If I liked yogurt I would like it but I don’t like yogurt and there is nothing about greek yogurt that makes it more appealing.
You all can have your trendy foods, just leave me here in the corner with my unsalted caramel, whole eggs, processed pasta and no yogurt.
How about we just stop with all the damned yogurt already?
Holy crap, there’s an ever-expanding castle wall of yogurt across the back of Zehrs that is taking valuable shelf space from much more important products, like dead cow.
My contribution: Salad greens. I want spinach and lettuce. And I’m open to the possibility of other things. But what is this insistence on throwing on these bitter weeds that taste like crap. Who wants a bitter salad?
Here’s my advice. When you mow your lawn, throw the dandelions out with the other garbage. Don’t eat them.
I’m basically with Little Nemo on the agreement on salty caramel and egg-white dishes (ick), and also on the disagreement over whole-wheat pasta and Greek yogurt.
I like the taste of whole-wheat pasta. I didn’t even realize it was an issue. Good to know, I guess.
As for Greek yogurt: I find the texture and taste compare quite favorably to what we get with “regular” yogurt. The Greek yogurt is far tastier and more enjoyable to eat, plus it has a higher protein content. I’m not at all surprised that it’s doing well in the marketplace.
As someone who has waited since 1990 - the summer of which I spent in Greece - for Greek yogurt to become widely available in the US, I have to disagree with you on that one.
Also the salted caramel. Normal caramel is way too sweet. I don’t like it. Add salt, it turns into deliciousness. They should stop making the non-salted kind IMO.
Egg white omelets and whole wheat pasta, I’m with you on. Definitely on the egg whites. Whole wheat pasta can be ok in certain things, but like you said, it has a distinctive flavor. I don’t want it in everything.
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Obsessing over sea salt or pink salt. For 99% of the dishes it’s a gimmick. Coarse salt is nothing new.
Piling up ingredients on a plate. I hate to separate them to eat in the way I want. It salso mixes the falvours.
Lquid nitrogen. It’s a bit like going to Benihana: nice tricks the first couple of times, but simply pourong liquid N on something isn’t creative.
(Maybe this one is too Peruvian) Explainig dishes in the corniest way possible. E.g.: “Green rice with chicken” : “In this dish we can feel how the chicken and the rice form a perfect marriage of loving falvuors and how the seasoning blesses the union by multiplying the sensations of taste.”
Just tell me what it is.
I disagree with all of these But of course they should be OPTIONS and not replacements for unsalted caramel, full-egg omelets, semolina pasta and regular yogurt.
In general, I’m just extremely tired of the way certain foods are fetishized: shut up about bacon, shut up about sriracha, shut up about nutella. We know already.
Having options is good. Not having options is bad.
So if someone wants sweet or salty caramel, and both are available, that’s good. If someone wants whole wheat pasta, and you can buy it, that’s good. But I hate when all the choices are similar. You can have pasta in spaghetti or penne or elbows, but it’s all whole wheat, or it’s all regular. All the canned soup is either full of sodium and fat, or else it’s all “healthy” but flavorless. And all the salads are made out of weeds. I hate those weeds, they are bitter as hell.
If you go out to eat, you can have mashed or fried or baked potatoes. Or rice pilaf. How about a side dish that ISN’T pure carbs with maybe some grease mixed in? Baked sweet potatoes are a step in the right direction, though I’d like some nice green beans now and then.
+1 on the bacon. Look, I like bacon, but it’s gotten silly over the last few years. I would have though the bacon bullshit would be dead and forgotten by now, but no.
And I actually agree with the four in the OP, although I do like salted caramel and Greek yogurt is okay, but I still prefer the more usual yogurt for most things. I only buy plain yogurt, and Greek yogurt is usually just too thick and creamy in consistency for me.
Egg white-only egg dishes are terrible, and whole wheat pasta is perhaps even more awful for little benefit health-wise. If I’m eating pasta, just give me the real stuff.
Bingo. The problem is that when a food or ingredient becomes trendy, it shows up in everything. It becomes the default. It’s inescapable.
Look, I know a lot of people like cilantro. I know it doesn’t taste the same to them, and I don’t begrudge them the non-traumatic cilantro experience that is closed to me. By all means, have cilantro in dishes that traditionally are made with cilantro, and offer it in some new combinations, too. Just don’t put it in every damn dish. Especially if you don’t mention the fact on the menu. Leave me some ground where I can stand without a little green mine on it, and I’ll hold my peace.
But the next time I find the vile herb on my pizza, or in my mac & cheese (and no, I’m not kidding about this), with no warning, I will consider it an act of war.
Inspired by the mentions of bacon in the above posts: dishes mixing bacon and chocolate/sweet desserts in any form. I like bacon, and I like chocolate, but not together! I don’t even like eating chocolate too soon after eating bacon.
Also, anything deep-fried that isn’t usually, or shouldn’t be, deep-fried.
But of course they should be OPTIONS and not replacements for unsalted caramel, full-egg omelets, semolina pasta and regular yogurt.