There used to be a very high-end B&B a couple of blocks from where I was living on Hawai’i Island. Someone posted a Yelp or similar review complaining that they served canned pineapple for breakfast.
I’ll never know for sure, but my guess is that the pineapple was fresh and had been cut with one of those coring devices that produces perfect rings that are virtually indistinguishable, shape-wise, from canned pineapple slices. I sincerely doubt the B&B was foisting canned pineapple on their high-paying guests. More likely, the fresh pineapple was really juicy, the rings looked perfect, the irate consumer had no idea that fresh pineapple can look exactly like canned, and they were “eating with their eyes” rather than noticing that the pineapple was more delicious than a canned slice ever is.
There is a pasta recipe that I make that has what I call “the good version” and then “the cheap version”. The good version uses Parmagiano-Reggiano, fusilli pasta, and fresh chopped parsley. The cheap version uses grated Parmesan, rotini, and dried parsley flakes. The cheap version is acceptable, but the good version is awesome.
I’ll eat anything if it don’t crawl off the plate.
…or move too fast.
There’s a lot of snobbery among fig growers, who covet and exclaim over rare varieties that have just the perfect combination of jammy berry goodness and seed crunch, pay hundreds of dollars for a cutting and disdain common types of figs. I’ll eat and appreciate any well-ripened fig, especially if the tree is highly productive (100 “ordinary” figs beat out two gourmet fruits anytime).
I saw some cooking competition show once, can’t remember which one exactly, but one of the contestants made something using truffle oil as an ingredient, and the chef judges excoriated the person for it. One of the judges said it’s not even a real food item.
Apparently most truffle oil is artificially flavored, so it’s disdained by most chefs. But I drizzled some on a shrimp and artichoke risotto I made last night, and it was delicious. It adds a flavor I really enjoy, artificial or not.
Would I prefer real truffles? I’m sure their flavor is superior, but I ain’t about to pay over $100 for a golf ball-sized truffle. Maybe if I was to have a dinner party I’d spring for the real thing. Plus I’d have to find a specialty source online, can’t just run to the local Kroger for real truffles.
On the one hand, calimari is either food of the gods, or it’s shoe-rubber. I’ve never found any in between.
Tomatoes might also be in this category: A fresh, home-grown tomato is amazing, but don’t even bother with most of those red things sold in grocery stores. I will admit to some middle ground, here, though: Grape tomatoes are an acceptable substitute when the good ones are out of season, and there are a few home-grown varieties that aren’t as good.
On the other hand, good pizza and good chocolate are nearly as heavenly, but you have to try really hard to make bad pizza or chocolate.
I hear you on the Hawaiian pineapple. The fruit grown in Hawaii is intensely perfumed, flavorful, sweet, tart, delicious. The stuff from Costa Rica is almost tasteless.
There’s one supermarket near me that carries Hawaiian-grown pineapple, and I always buy one if I’m shopping there so that I can remember how good it is.
Kimchi, although it’s not exactly a scale of quality or authenticity so much as just sort of strong preferences.
I LOVE kimchi. I grabbed a jar of it on a whim one day and now can’t live without it. I’ve never had the “real” stuff buried in the ground by a Korean grandmother or anything- just store bought and the stuff I’ve made myself from recipes found on the internet. I imagine if I ever do get to try proper authentic family-recipe kimchi, it will blow my mind.
Anyway, number one on my list is the kind you get from the international food store. The store itself is kind of far away and in a sort of inconvenient location, but I’ll make the journey for the kimchi. The right balance of spiciness and fermenty-ness. I love it.
But the kind from Walmart is second on my list. I have a whole mental ranking all the way down to the jars I got off Amazon once, which were okay, but mushy.
On the other side, there’s oranges, which I find to be a gamble. There’s nothing better than a really good orange or tangerine- sweet, tart, and juicy. But if you grab three apparently-identical oranges, it seems that two of the three will usually be pretty tasteless.
Sushi is absolutely in this category. It’s not snobbery, it’s the fact that sushi made in a high-end sushi bar by an experienced traditional Japanese-trained sushi chef is a completely different food from the inferior stuff, not comparable at all. The same applies to sashimi. I can’t think of any other food where quality makes such a huge difference that the inferior stuff shouldn’t even be called by the same name.
My grocery store has the sushi made on site next to the deli counter. It’s cool because I was able to request they make some inari. Yum! I also like to go the schmancy sushi places, too.
One nice thing about living in Hawai’i is that the close relative of sushi, the poke bowl, is available just about everywhere. The thought of buying sushi in the grocery store is pretty horrifying (except in Singapore, where I did it regularly) but I’ve rarely met a poke bowl I didn’t like here, and have bought poke in any old grocery store many times. In fact the Foodland down the street from where I volunteer, which is definitely a middle-to-low-brow kind of place, is a local favorite for good poke.
The only time I bought poke in a grocery store here and didn’t like it was at Costco.
Ooohhh, yes. I visited Maui recently with a friend who goes every couple of years, and he persuaded me to try some poke from his favorite place. We pull up, and it’s…a liquor store. With a poke bowl counter off to one side. But it still turned out to be everything he promised!
I’ve tasted Petrus. I drink Black Box Malbec.
I’ve had Gold Medal beers that have been aged in Gold Medal bourbon barrels. I’ve been known to drink Mickey’s.
There’s a bottle of Pappy in the back of the liquor cabinet. This week I was pouring Tin Cup into coffee mugs around a campfire.
OTOH, I won’t go below El Jimador or the like in my tequila, not even as a mixer. (Confession: I ran out of El Jimador, so the margarita in my hand was made with Don Jose Reposado.) I’ve also eaten at world-class steakhouses, and have gotten rather spoiled. To the point that I’ll order the chicken instead if I’m not at one of my favorites (Delmonico, CUT, SW Steak, Bazaar Meat, STK).
About 20 years ago, I was in NYC for a business trip. My wife and I went a few days early to do some touristy stuff, then she flew home the day the conference started. When I got back to the hotel that night there was a chocolate truffle on my pillow, with a note my wife wrote on hotel stationery. She said she was window shopping around Rockefeller Center and had gone into this chocolate shop to buy some fancy chocolate. “I only bought two”, she wrote, “because they were $50”. I just about had a heart attack, then realized there was more on the other side: “…a pound.”
It was really good chocolate, and I still have that note.
I thought of another thing - ice cream. Premium ice creams are amazing! I’ve had a few store-brand premiums that are quite good, too. There are very few brands, tho, that I don’t like at all. With enough hot fudge, any brand is acceptable!
I would like to be a tea snob, but I find that, with enough cream and sugar, I can drink just about anything. (Except for Russian-style teas, which are terrible with cream, but excellent with lemon.)
I’m a food snob. Not with everything. I enjoy mediocre bread and chocolate just fine. And I find almost any coffee can be rescued with enough half&half.
But a good home-made fruit pie is sublime, whereas most grocery-store pies taste like corn syrup. I really like a good burger made of fresh ground beef, gently handled and seared with a nice crust. But I won’t eat most fast-food burgers.
I’m intrigued to learn that some truffle oil is “fake”. I despise “truffle xxx”, and feel like someone has added nastiness to the fries, or whatever. I wonder if I’d like an actual truffle.
