I like real fruit jam (NOT jelly) on my pancakes and french toast, gotta problem with that?
Insert Cowardly Lion “put em up, put em up” smilie here. 
Oh, man! That brings back memories. There used to be this little Korean restaurant on Fireweed in Anchorage that had the best kimchee. My roomate and I were apparantly the only roundeyes who would eat it, and we’d always get an order to go as well. The sovereign cure for damn near anything!
I was a vegeterian for about ten years. I just decided one day that I really didn’t care for the taste of meat. Later on, I decided, “hey, I would really like some chicken today” and since then have had it occasionally (and fish maybe once or twice a year - I just don’t crave it more often that that). I still don’t eat beef or pork because I never cared for them, but maybe that will change someday.
I hadn’t had any red meat since I was 12 or so until the other night. I decided to try ostrich at a local restaurant. I was offered the choice of having it rare or medium rare. I chose to order it well-done which upset both the waitress and some of the kitchen staff (who tried to convince me that it would be better cooked rarer). They were actually very nice about it and explained their reasonings for why the meat is generally cooked the way it is. I still ordered it well-done because I’m paranoid about eating undercooked meat due to seeing creepy pictures of intestinal worms in my microbiology course and knew that my paranoia would keep me from enjoying the meal.
You’re assuming I order a large Diet Coke with my fast food meal because I’m counting calories. At 5’8" and 130 pounds, underweight if anything, I assure you this isn’t the case.
I drink Diet because I loathe the taste of regular Coke. It’s got so much sugar in it, it literally makes my teeth ache. I can’t drink it, at all. If there’s no Diet available I’ll get Root Beer, orange or red pop, or water. Cream Soda’s nice for a treat.
I drink Diet because I like the way it tastes. If it had 4 times the calories of regular pop and still tasted like Diet Coke, I would still drink it and prefer it without a second thought.
Someone explain caviar to me…I think it tastes VILE! Fishy,oiley, nasty little slimy eggs…yechh! And like all expensive foods , you must eat t in a ritual fashion-on toast points with chopped hardboiled eggs, with a mother-of-pearl spoon! I can think of a great number of foods that are tastier and a whole lot less expensive than caviar!
Well, it seems Angus’s parents need a talking to if they let their son knowingly put ketchup on his hot dogs. I mean really, it’s this laissez-faire style of parenting that is ruining a generation of children.
Athena—Well, our experiences differ it seems. Like I said, I do love me some dessert wines, but for everyday drinking, I definitely prefer dry to sweet. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sweet wines, just like I said there’s nothing wrong with roses. There’s no reason to be prejudiced when it comes to wine. 
It’s just that from what I’ve noticed (and my tastes bear this out) dry wine is much more flexible than sweet wine. When I drink wine, I drink or split the whole bottle. I couldn’t do this with a sweet. I could easily do this with a dry.
[QUOTE=ralph124c]
Someone explain caviar to me…I think it tastes VILE! Fishy,oiley, nasty little slimy eggs…yechh!
[QUOTE]
Actually, fishy, oily, wonderful slimy fish eggs … It’s a case of everyone has their own preferences. I love the taste (and especially the texture) of beluga. It’s just divine. Other caviars, less so. OTOH, I really dislike fois gras. Greasy, slimy, tateless goo.
NB I also love a really good chili cheese dog. No accounting for taste 
[url=“http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_095.html”]As to the ketchup issue, our beloved master weighs in:[/url
[QUOTE=Tapioca Dextrin]
[QUOTE=ralph124c]
Someone explain caviar to me…I think it tastes VILE! Fishy,oiley, nasty little slimy eggs…yechh!
:eek: You haven’t had good foie gras then. Prepared right, it’s absolutely heavenly.
Gooseliver foie gras with black truffles…oh…to die for. How could you call it tasteless goo? Heathen! Better still (in my opinion) is simply lightly seared goose liver… To. Die. For.
Duck liver now, there’s some good eatin’ - 'specially with just a shaving of the aforementioned black truffles.
"What’s the point of eating wings so hot they burn at both ends? "
For some that IS the point! Peace.
well, i raised some eyebrows eating catsup on my vieners when I was there in feb=)
I relented and just used sweet mustard after that…though the sweet mustard is better on weisswurst=)
Dunno if you’ve already tried this, but if you like spicy Thai food, try something like a sweet Riesling with it–it works really well.
I’m a converted beer snob. Used to be, I’d drink about anything. That was before I lived in Europe for many years. I can’t go back, nay, I won’t go back to light beer swill.
I’m a food snob in that I absolutely refuse to eat in fast food or chain restaurants unless I have no other choice. Nothing worse than bad food served poorly by people who just don’t give a shit. Part of my aversion is due to the rapid demise of home-grown restaurants, which is just criminal.
Ok, you’re not a vegan, and you eat fish, dairy, and eggs, so you’re not a vegetarian, either. But you do eat bratwurst. What does that make you, a poseur?
I assume from the earlier location discussion that you have tried Spike’s Junkyard Dogs?
Hmmm…I will give it a try. Normally, I stay away from wine when eating spicy. (And I like it spiiiiiicyyy. As in, as hot as the locals eat it. Every time I walk into a Thai or Indian place I have to swear up and down to them that I know what spicy means. Often this will still require a return trip because they nevertheless try to go easy on me.) Anyhow, usually I quaff a beer with really spicy food, seeing how I really can’t much appreciate a decent wine with my mouth ablaze, but I like your idea of a crisp sweet white wine to pair hot & spicy with.
I think what Susan is trying to say about the vegetarian belief system is the same thing I generally tell people: I don’t care about what you eat or don’t eat, so please don’t tell me about it. I don’t give a rat’s ass why you don’t eat meat, or how many grams of carbohydrate you had in your breakfast, or why you only eat/drink one certain variety of something, or why something just has to be prepared in a certain way, or anything else about your diet. I’m not going to ask, so please feel free to shut the fuck up about it and let me eat my lunch in peace.
And therein lies the key: if you don’t ask me, i will make no effort to annoy you with my reasons. I’m not interested in converting people, and i don’t really care whether or not they know about my own vegetarian philosophy.
The problem is that some people do ask, and then get all offended or defensive when i give an honest answer. If you ask me why, i’m not gonna sugar-coat my reasons just to assuage your sensibilties.
Well, I hope that you feel the same way about people who “care about wine a bit too much” and that all wine tastes like Arbor Mist, because to be honest, I’m a little sick of the perception that somehow an appreciation of fine wine is a symbol of sophistication yet beer drinkers are inching their way towards the trailer park.
Yes, I definitely take my beer seriously, but I hope I’m not being a snob about it. There was a time when I was out with my friends, and since there was nothing but macros available (Budweiser, Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller Light and Amber Bock) I refused to drink, and I regret that a bit (though I try not to support A-B in any way, mostly because they’re responsible for the completely fucked up Non-Intoxicating Beer Act here in WV, and I don’t want to give the bastards a penny). But if you offered me an MGD and a Heineken, I’d take the MGD in a second. The MGD, ice cold, is tolerable and good enough as a lawnmower beer, but the Heineken is actively awful, with that goddamn lightstruck flavor (which deliberate or not is definitely NOT a sought-after aspect of brewing.) I’m definitely a craft beer guy for sure, but after a phase of a Big Beer Bias, I’ve come back to enjoying the qualities of a good lager (and as a homebrewer, would definitely love to make one if I could fine some cold-fermenting space).