Foods you just don't understand.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@67java89

For me, it’s garlic. I just don’t get it. My impression of garlic is that is was never meant to be eaten, but somewhere along the line people started eating it. Nothing about the smell or taste of it appeals to me. Definitely a good food to ward off vampires.

The stuff is magic as a flavoring agent in so many foods though. I am not aware of people religiously eating raw garlic in a cult-like atmosphere but in proper amounts it is one of the top ten essential seasoning/flavoring agents known to man. Even peasants like me can afford it.

The only thing I can think of that I cannot possibly imagine contemplating the usage of garlic on a particular food is sugared breakfast cereal, especially with Capn’ Crunch with Crunchberries. Capn’ Crunch with Crunchberries doesn’t need a damn thing.

[Acsenray]

What I don’t get is this thread. What is the OP getting at? I could happily live the rest of my life on just the stuff listed in this thread. There are a few things listed in this thread that I don’t really like (grapefruit, cooked carrots, frozen brussels sprouts, durian, powdered potatoes, and canned peas). There are a few things I could take or leave (potted meats, gefilte fish, natto, cottage cheese, artichokes, pimiento cheese). There are a few things I’ve never had, so I don’t really know what to say about them (lupini beans, hakarl, brains, lutefisk). Pretty much everything else is on the scale from “like” to “love” (Belgian waffles, chicken wings, wasabi, ham, tapioca, eggplant, lobster, crab, liver, garlic, broccoli, licorice, Twizzlers, mint, raw oysters, canned creamed corn, okra, jerky, chili-spiced foods, mushrooms, fresh brussels sprouts, caviar, maple syrup, black olives, pork ribs, smoked foods, mayonnaise, ricotta cheese, menudo/mondongo, haggis, limburger and other strong-smelling or blue cheeses, chili peppers, anchovies, capers, grits, jello). There are also foods that I would be reluctant to try, most probably in the category of insects; I avoid alcohol for my own reasons, but I have no doubt that I could learn to like it.

In no case, however, do I fail to “understand” or “get” any of these foods. I see no reason why there shouldn’t be someone who would like to eat just about anything that can be eaten. In absolutely no case does any foodstuff make me think “I don’t understand it.” Anything that contains any quantum of digestible calories/moisture/bulk or perceptible aroma/flavour/texture can and will be eaten by some human being somewhere. There’s absolutely no mystery to that and there’s nothing not to understand.

So this thread is nothing more than a “foods I don’t like” thread because the OP doesn’t pose a rational question.

[salinqmind]

Veg-All canned vegetables (shudder). Canned mixed vegetables are, as duly noted, bad eats, but the Veg-All brand brings the bad to new levels.

Cherry flavoring. I love fresh cherries and will happily fork over $5 and up a pound. A fresh cherry pie is a wonder. But that artificial cherry flavoring they put in everything - candy, yogurt, jello, soft drinks, Kool-aid, even vitamins, makes me retch. It tastes fake and cheap and should be used only in cough syrup for kids. It has no business being injected in real food or drink.

When I was a kid, I couldn’t bear the idea of chowing down on any kind of sausage, especially coarse ground - I’d pick it apart, taking out any gristley fatty bits, looking at it too long - yuck! But I got over that.

[devilsknew]

@salinqmind

Cherry flavoring. I love fresh cherries and will happily fork over $5 and up a pound. A fresh cherry pie is a wonder. But that artificial cherry flavoring they put in everything - candy, yogurt, jello, soft drinks, Kool-aid, even vitamins, makes me retch. It tastes fake and cheap and should be used only in cough syrup for kids. It has no business being injected in real food or drink.

Strangely, I like artificial cherry and think it can be used strategically and in combination with real cherry to incredible effect. Artificial raspberry, on the other hand affects me much as your aversion. Blue Raspberry also has the honor of violating my color spectrum prejudice in conjuction with my tastebids.

[Mahaloth]

Scalloped Potatoes
I adore mashed potatoes, french fries, baked potatoes, and potato chips.

Scalloped makes me want to puke. They are just disgusting to me. I just don’t get them.

[Sakuma_Drops]

I can understand most regional and culture-specific foods from the standpoint of “you grew up on it, so you think it tastes okay.” There are countless foods like this; I know folks from Minnesota who really do appreciate well-made lutefisk (to the point where they will make it for a special dinner occasion), and I had a Canadian friend in college who was from the Prairie Provinces and adored “Rocky Mountain oysters”. I can’t fathom eating either of these foods, but they might not fathom eating okra or pimento cheese, which are the sorts of foods that I was brought up on. (FWIW, I do find the goopy pimento cheese sold in the huge tubs to be disgusting, but well-made [with not so much damn mayo kthx] it can be marvelous, especially on burgers :D)

What I think are the truly incomprehensible foods are things that people clearly eat just to show off, like the Deadly Blowfish Sashimi in Japan. My sister has a great book full of foods like this called Extreme Cuisine. While some of the foods in it are probably more along the lines of “cultural staples you just don’t get” such as durian, there are some others that are pretty inexplicable no matter what the context. My personal favorite is this “special” cheese that is found on Sardinia which is desired to be rotten to the point of being infested with maggots. And people still eat it. For years it was illegal to sell it, and obtaining it required a black market source. It is apparently considered an aphrodisiac, and failing that, you can maybe impress your buddies if you eat some (especially if the maggots are still wiggling )

[DummyGladHands]

Mutton, nope, can’t even get it in my mouth. Love all lamb except stewed lamb-same gag reflex to that.
Cantaloupe-love honeydew, can’t do cantaloupe
Graham Crackers
Tangerines
The 2 above may have something to do with puking a mixture of same on a long train ride when I was 7.
Sushi–but I can eat (and have) 3 or 4 dozen raw oysters–make no damn sense.
Brussel Sprouts-love cabbage, but I always get a bitter one of these little buggers.

[devilsknew]

I would probably have great difficulty ingesting those salted and fermented seaslugs that Zimmern ate in Samoa.

[Darth_Nader]

A lot of these are acquired tastes. Black olives, sure. Wasabi? Very much. But how could those who hate all canned vegetables be able to function in my adopted home state? It’s all about the Ro*Tel, and y’all are missing out.

Shellfish, I’ll never get. “Look, I found a rock full of snot! OOH! Better eat it, quick!”

[Sitnam]

Gooey duck.

[tumbleddown]

@Lasciel

Also Gefilte fish. Just… no. Not as bad-sounding as rotten fish, but still.

Good gefilte fish is really just a fishcake, or perhaps a fish sausage. Commercial gefilte is scary, especially the stuff in the jaw, but a homemade gefilte, good white fish, carrot, onion, good flavor, that can be some good eats. (And of course the reason for gefilte fish is because separating out the bones from a whole fish on the sabbath is prohibited in Jewish law, so gefilte was created for celebratory meals.)

@salinqmind

Cherry flavoring. I love fresh cherries and will happily fork over $5 and up a pound. A fresh cherry pie is a wonder. But that artificial cherry flavoring they put in everything - candy, yogurt, jello, soft drinks, Kool-aid, even vitamins, makes me retch.

I don’t consider it cherry, I consider it red flavor. Much like fake grape is purple flavor. They’re just too fake to be considered fruit. I still don’t care for them much, but by rebranding them, it helps with the cognitive dissonance created by the unfulfilled expectation of cherry or grape flavor.

My “why is this a food” is most anything in the category of offal, but especially chitterlings. I understand how it became a food, and the economic issues that caused people to need to eat every possible part of everything that they had. But people who live in the 21st century who have solid houses and cars and economic resources and yet still willingly eat pig intestine, which smells exactly like what was inside of it during the pig’s life, confound the hell out of me. You don’t need to eat that! Stop eating that! It’s disgusting! It was very recently literally full of shit!

[pulykamell]

@Sigmagirl

Chicken wings. I like chicken. There just isn’t any meat there. Yet not only do people actually order whole baskets or platters of these things, there are restaurants and chains of restaurants devoted to cooking and selling parts cut off the chicken that are 90% bone, 5% skin and 5% meat. They develop special sauces and special rubs and famous methods of cooking them so people can gnaw out the little edible shred hiding behind the gristle, when they could have just ordered some damn chicken. The wing is for making soup with.

No, no, no. Chicken wings are for those of us who love crispy chicken skin. I don’t know what kind of chicken wings you’re eating that are 90% bone, but (for me), chicken wings are the perfect ratio of skin to meat. If you don’t like chicken skin, however, the wing ain’t for you.

For me? Peeps. That people actually like these things baffles me.

[Taomist]

(Frozen baby brussel sprouts are easily found, now, and are quite good. I just nuke them; doesn’t overcook with just a few minutes; add some butter/garlic/lemon pepper and voila, yum! I still don’t care for adult ones, though. )

Yeah, some of the stopgap foods gross me out too, as well as strong alcohol.
And BEER; what’s with people claiming you can learn to like beer? WHY WOULD YOU?! There are tons of ways to get soused without forcing yourself to ‘get used’ to something that is just godsawful. (I understand liking beer; I don’t understand the concept that it’s ok to force it when there are other options. Ditto for foods; pigs knuckles? Really ? wtf…)

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Sakuma_Drops

My personal favorite is this “special” cheese that is found on Sardinia which is desired to be rotten to the point of being infested with maggots. And people still eat it. For years it was illegal to sell it, and obtaining it required a black market source. It is apparently considered an aphrodisiac, and failing that, you can maybe impress your buddies if you eat some (especially if the maggots are still wiggling )

OK, I just added Casu Marzu to my list. That sounds horrible!

From the Wiki link: Casu marzu is considered to be unsafe to eat by Sardinian aficionados when the maggots in the cheese have died. Because of this, only cheese in which the maggots are still alive is usually eaten, although allowances are made for cheese that has been refrigerated, which can kill the maggots.

And then: Those who do not wish to eat live maggots place the cheese in a sealed paper bag. The maggots, starved for oxygen, writhe and jump in the bag, creating a “pitter-patter” sound. When the sounds subside, the maggots are dead and the cheese can be eaten.

The only thing going “pitter-patter” after I eat some cheese better be my sphincter!

:eek:

[MrDibble]

Casu Marzu is one of those foods that come under the category of “macho foods”, like testicles or really hot vindaloo. I can understand why they exist, makes perfect sense. I wouldn’t want to eat them unless I had to, but I can entirely grok the why.

This is not the case with American Cheese/ “cheese food product”. I mean, it’s made from perfectly adequate American cheeses, albeit the scraps, and then they do…that…to it. Why, for Hastur’s sake? I get the “government cheese” angle, but people seem to actually* seek the stuff out* when not on welfare.

[Patty_O_Furniture]

@MrDibble

American Cheese/ “cheese food product”

Can you link to the product in question? Are you talking about something like Cheez Whiz? The only thing that comes to mind is regular american cheese.

[Ephemera]

Cheese food products.

Government Cheese was damn delicious. I grew up eating it, and it made awesome grilled cheese.

@devilsknew

Strangely, I like artificial cherry and think it can be used strategically and in combination with real cherry to incredible effect. Artificial raspberry, on the other hand affects me much as your aversion. Blue Raspberry also has the honor of violating my color spectrum prejudice in conjuction with my tastebids.

I wonder if starving or going hungry for a while would throw your luxurious prejudice out the window?

[Lasciel]

@tumbleddown

Good gefilte fish is really just a fishcake, or perhaps a fish sausage. Commercial gefilte is scary, especially the stuff in the jaw, but a homemade gefilte, good white fish, carrot, onion, good flavor, that can be some good eats. (And of course the reason for gefilte fish is because separating out the bones from a whole fish on the sabbath is prohibited in Jewish law, so gefilte was created for celebratory meals.)

The ones I’ve had must have been commercial then - they were at a retreat, and they tasted like nasty slightly-off-fish sausages, AND they were all gritty in my teeth (I guess that would be the bones?) Dunno, but it seemed like a waste of perfectly good fish to let it go slightly off and then grind it all up like that. It was pretty much the same year to year, so I always figured that was what it was supposed to be.

My “why is this a food” is most anything in the category of offal, but especially chitterlings. I understand how it became a food, and the economic issues that caused people to need to eat every possible part of everything that they had. But people who live in the 21st century who have solid houses and cars and economic resources and yet still willingly eat pig intestine, which smells exactly like what was inside of it during the pig’s life, confound the hell out of me. You don’t need to eat that! Stop eating that! It’s disgusting! It was very recently literally full of shit!

Hehe - I love it when people actually know how to spell that the correct way. Now my question is whether you can pronounce it right also?

I will eat them in gravy on Thanksgiving, because it’s a family tradition, but I try not to actually eat any lumpy bits. Otherwise, it’s up there with tongue, livers, spleens, and whatever those bricks of grey mystery-meat substance are in the aisle with the sausage meats.

[Ephemera]

I genuinely like liver and beef tongue. Chitterlings (chitlins) taste exactly like what they are, though. Pass.

[Patty_O_Furniture]

@Hades

Cheese food products.

Well that has got to be one of the tackiest things I’ve ever seen. Is “summer sausage” code language for “sausage that has so much sodium nitrite in it that you don’t need to refrigerate it… ever”?