Freshly-ground pepper. Unless the whole flavour of your dish specifically depends on pepper (e.g. pepper steak) or using very old, low quality pepper, it doesn’t make a difference.
You have obviously been using old, low quality pepper your entire life. The flavor difference is so profound that fresh-ground and pre-ground could be considered separate spices. One of them with flavor.
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You should update the OS in your crystal ball.
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I’m not saying there’s no difference, I’m simply saying that, good-quality, fresh pre-ground is so close that unless a very peppery flavor is specifically what you’re going for, you wouldn’t notice.
I’d love to see a blind taste test on this, that a sprinkle of (non)fresh-ground pepper on a dish can be detected. My money would be heavily on No, as what happens in the wine world were truly-blind taste test are an embarassment to experts.
This is what I immediately thought of when I read the title.
Hmm, I don’t think of Tobiko (which I love) as caviar. I think of it as one of many cheap fish roe that aren’t especially hyped.
I’ve had decent sturgeon caviar. I like it. And there’s no way I will pay $500 an ounce for it. It isn’t as good as cheap tobiko. THAT’s what I was thinking of when I thought of caviar being over-hyped.
Hmm, yeah, lobster is much better if a healthy live animal is cooked for your meal. And they are delicat creatures who don’t usually stay healthy long after they are removed from their ocean home. I am very fond of lobster, and never eat it outside of New England/Eastern Canada.
Also, the Maine lobster is much tastier than the various other species of lobster. I once had a fresh South African “lobster tail” lobster in South Africa, and it wasn’t much better than the flash-frozen think you might get at Red Lobster.
Second this. It tastes and smells a bit like dirt. Most food tastes better without it. I have had it used well in mashed potatoes, but this is defintely an over-hyped food.
This is due to careful breeding. Of the corn.
When I was a kid it made a difference. Corn has an enzyme which converts the sugar to starch, and it acts fairly rapidly once the cob is picked. (And more slowly when the cob is still living on the corn stalk.)
Then scientists discovered some varieties of corn that were deficient in that enzyme. First there was corn that got starchy more slowly, and now there is some super-sweet corn that completely lacks that enzyme and never gets starchy, and honestly, is sweeter than I like to eat.
Corn still gets old like any vegetable gets old, but most commercial corn sold for fresh eating will stay sweet for at least a few days, and the whole “get the pot boiling first” thing is no longer neded.
Didn’t think of that, but have to concurn. I’ve had it twice, both times at a Chinese wedding banquet. Once it was a pleasant enough soup, with “noodles” floating in it that were actually the shark fin. (cartilage) The other time I didn’t care for the seasoning and it wasn’t even a pleasant soup. In neither case was there anything special from the sharks fin. The fin has almost no flavor. The texture is interesting, and nice enough, but nothing I can get super excited about. I have no idea why it’s such a huge deal.
Heathen! There are few foods as divine as good foie gras. Or even as mediocre fois gras. I like other liver, too, although I can do without “chopped liver” that mostly tastes like raw onion or boiled egg.
If I ever invite you to supper, please TELL ME THIS, preferably before I start cooking, so I can make something for you to enjoy. I like my guests to enjoy their food, and I really don’t want anyone to feel ill form my cooking.
I agree. The difference really is night and day. Freshly ground pepper actually tastes and smells fruity in addition to having that peppery heat. Already ground pepper tastes musty and like not much of anything. Definitely no fruity taste to it at all. I mean, like you said, the difference is profound. It’s not even close.
It depends on what type of peppercorns you use. Cheap old peppercorns taste pretty much like pre-ground pepper when they are ground. For that matter, if you grind good fresh peppercorns, the ground pepper will taste fruity and exciting for several days.
It’s really just that fresh pepper tastes better than stale pepper, and whole peppercorns stay fresh longer than ground pepper.
I think you’re getting closer to the point. Most peppermills get filled and don’t get refilled until weeks or months later were any freshness advantage is lost.
The whole spice still retains its fruity flavor for quite a long time vs the preground product. We’re talking at least months. I have some peppercorns I bought about six months ago and they’re still quite pungent vs the preground stuff I have in the giant spice bottle. One whiff and you can tell which is which. Whole spices like peppercorns, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, etc., retain their flavor for months. I’m sure it must diminish some, but it’s not noticeable to me after six months, whereas already ground spices are pretty obviously different.
Most spices are only harvested once a year. So every spice is going to be several months stale at certain times of the year.
Whole peppercorns keep quite well if you keep them in a dark dry place.
Not once in my life have I tried pepper that’s worth a damn.
LOL, I so understand what you’re saying! I used to throw lots of dinner parties and enjoyed doing it until around the early 2000s, when it became a minefield. In a large group, one would be vegetarian, another vegan, another gluten intolerant, another wouldn’t eat pork for religious reasons, another lactose intolerant, and someone else just hated tomatoes. I stopped throwing dinner parties and now invite only one or two couples at a time, always asking ahead of time if there are particular dietary considerations of which I need to be aware.
Even then, I can get it wrong: Had a couple to dinner a few months ago, complied with all requests, including the one where the husband didn’t like chocolate. So for dessert, I made a strawberry mousse. Turns out he didn’t like strawberries, either, but hadn’t mentioned that. :smack:
In the situation of a large dinner party, I’d just try to avoid wheat without a fuss. In the situation of a small, intimate dinner party, I would absolutely let the host/hostess know ahead of time. I appreciate your point! And you’re very thoughtful.
As others have said, sushi. I don’t hate it. It’s not disgusting. I can eat it, but why?
I also don’t get the preference for white chicken or turkey meat over dark. The dark meat has much more flavor. In the same vein, I don’t get the preference for bland fish over fishy tasting fish. I want to be able to taste my food.
I’m sorry. I’ve tried to like them but I can’t tolerate them unless they’re cooked to a pulp and mixed in with other things. It’s a texture thing.
A thing which has had so far only one, glancing, mention: asparagus. I suspect that as with lobster and caviar – both discussed in this thread, and both of which I like, though not to fanaticism-point – asparagus’s “luxury” image has it held, sometimes, in exaggeratedly high regard.
I don’t hate asparagus; just find it rather dull, with a pleasant but somewhat faint and insipid taste – and for me, it’s usually rather tediously chewy. My brother, a foodie in a big way, adores asparagus – he’s welcome to my share too. Though in general, he’s a big fan of vegetables, and I am mostly “meh” about them.
I like asparagus soup; in fact (this perhaps marks me out as a thoroughgoing prole food-wise) there are several foods which I like better in their made-into-soup form, than in their original same.
I’m not the hugest asparagus fan, but I’ll say this- truly fresh asparagus is a very different beast from what you get in the store, or at most restaurants.
We have a little asparagus patch in the backyard, and fresh asparagus is literally kind of sweet. It’s hard to really describe, but you get more of the “fresh” notes that all really fresh vegetables have, and there’s a noticeable sweet taste as well as the normal asparagus flavor.
Also, if it’s chewy, it’s old as shit; the fresh stuff isn’t chewy at all- it’s very, very tender.
I like to wrap fresh asparagus in prosciuto, give it a spritz of olive oil and lemon, and grill it lightly until its just heated through and tender. Yum! :o
We seem to have come kind of full circle – with the OP having nominated prosciuto as his most-overrated foodstuff !
I do feel, re last couple of posts, that my brother’s asparagus-passion is perhaps more about the idea, than the reality which usually ends up getting eaten.
As for sushi, I really started enjoying it in Hawaii, but in Japan itself is where we found some wonderful stuff. Amazingly good.
Maybe I just haven’t had good sushi. Every time I’ve had it it’s like “meh”.
I was going to say something like this. Except all supermarket asparagus is old. It starts to get stringy and loses that fresh sweetness within a day of being picked.
I like supermarket asparagus. But it’s nothing compared to the stuff I’ve picked and eaten fresh out of the garden.