As a child, I would have preferred edamame, which I’ve never tried yet, over liver.
Children have different tastes. I remember my mom handing me a green ball saying, It’s an olive, try it.
Not bad.
I just looked, edamame is described as sweet, nutty flavor.
If you get it shelled and the hull off the bean and get it cooked, you’re gonna be real hungry. I suggest a snack while you wait.
It didn’t taste nutty to me. Or sweet. Sorta tasted like grass clippings smell.
Pleasant, maybe. Not what I want for dinner.
But, hey, if you like it go for it.
I know it’s used in dishes like salads.
I know it’s a PITA to prepare.
I know it’s not worth the trouble or the price.
I know it’s not readily available, here.
I know my grandkids would not eat it.
(They love chicken livers)
This is a HUGE observation and deserves further amplification. Well done!
The current social flail about pronouns, gender identifications that are non-binary, and all that related stuff is in a similar place today socially as veganism was 30 years ago. Setting aside for a moment the amplification possible by both honest social media and dishonest disinformation-spewing social media. Which is rampant now and was absent then.
My point:
When your interest in something is a) one in a million, and b) life-alteringly important to you, it looms large in your character and shows up in everything you do unless you need to hide it to avoid persecution. See ordinary garden variety homosexuality in the 1980s, veganism in the 1990s, and the non-binary sexual orientation stuff today. Suddenly it seems to ordinary folks that a small contingent of very noisy people have burst on the scene from nowhere and they’re not taking “no” for an answer.
Fast forward a few years and once your interest is recognized by a hefty fraction of the populace as at least legit, if not to their taste, your own need to play an offensive form of defense goes way down. At the same time, once the interest becomes more mainstream, the number of people who practice it at least somewhat (or feel safe enough to practice it more openly) goes way up. Providing strength in numbers.
Such as the attitude of ordinary gays or vegans today; at least those fortunate enough to live in non frothing-red reactionary states/counties.
Please understand this analogy is about the degree of social pushback and the attitudinal and behavioral differences between practitioners of whatever, believers of whatever, and True Believers®™ of whatever. There is no attempt here by me to equate the voluntary personal choices involved in carnism/veganism with the involuntary inherent psychological contours of anyone’s individual experience of gender.
It’s an analogy; don’t stretch it until it either breaks or chokes you.
I know a couple vegans who are fine and don’t try to shove it on anyone else or vocally judge people for their diet. At most, it’s the soft sell of “You like that casserole, huh? Did you know it’s 100% vegan?”
I know another couple who were very militant about it, basically insultingly so. “So I see you’re letting your kid eat a hotdog huh? Even though meat consumption raises your risk of cancer by X%? I guess you’d rather just let him get cancer than quit murdering animals…”
Needless to say, I don’t actually talk to the latter people any longer. So that solved that.
My kid is American. You may not regard her as such because she might appear “Japanese” to you. But she has eaten edemame and tofu all her life. She’s a young adult now. She used to take rice cakes and seaweed as a snack to school and other kids wanted to try it. It wasn’t until she got to middle school until idiot kids with idiotic parents started tormenting her about her food.
You have to be carefully taught to hate foods because they are weird and foreign. Kids are not born that way.
I’ve tried edamame a few times - seemed fairly similar to broad (fava) beans to me. Soybeans aren’t generally cultivated here in the UK, so I’d tend to eat broad beans instead. They’re delicious.
Thank you so much for pointing this out! I’ve always thought that kids tend to eat what they’re taught to eat by their parents.
Parents who enjoy a wide variety of foods have kids who are exposed to more than chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. And those kids end up being adventurous eaters, and appreciate all types of foods. My son, as a toddler, loved broccoli and carrot sticks as snacks. Sure, he also likes chicken nuggets, but as an adult, he still enjoys and appreciates all types of cuisine.
Don’t underestimate the importance of developing a child’s palate early in life.
I love garbanzo beans.
This is not about your kid.
Or my grandkids, really.
It’s about what you can obtain that’s healthy and cromulent in your life.
I wanted to like edamame. It’s very good for you. Finally found some in Little Rock. Not exactly a place I grocery shop, it’s far away.
It’s a great veg for diabetics.
I tried very hard to like it. Nope.
Maybe if I had eaten it since childhood like you say. Again, was not available or even heard of in middle America.
I knew soy beans. Used to play in bean fields.
It was animal food. I thought.
I imagine I grew up eating things you didn’t. Want some crawfish, Cajun style? Suck the heads, the gunk in there is good for you.
Try that on a 3yo who’s never seen one.
My kids used to love Brussels sprouts, until they encountered children’s entertainers either on TV or at parties, who introduced them to the popular kids meme about how they are ‘yucky’.
Soybeans are grown as animal food because they are fed to animals. There are some interesting and tasty products made from soybeans, but no vegan I have ever met is suggesting that you stop eating meat and eat animal fodder crops instead.
It’s true that a vast amount of land has to be cultivated with fodder crops in order to sustain the meat industry, but they’re not saying you should eat silage or whatever is currently fed to cows, in the same way that they’re not saying you should live in a barn and sleep on hay - only that it would require a fraction of the cultivated land to provide nutritionally-equivalent plant-based food of other kinds
I don’t think I have ever met a vegan. A few vegetarians, yes.
One of my nephews dated a girl who was a vegetarian. They came over to return a tool I’d lent him. I was grilling burgers and she said they smelled so good. I jokingly asked if she wanted one and she said yes!
I explained that they were beef. She told me she’s a vegetarian but occasionally has a burger. That girl put away a half-pound medium rare burger like nobody’s business.
They do taste good!
It kind of sounds like that is your entire reasoning. You didn’t like it, and you imagine your kids and grandkids wouldn’t like it, so no one would. But there’s plenty of counter evidence that you are willing to ignore, and I don’t see any way to convince you otherwise. So let’s just leave it at that.
BTW, I love edamame and tofu, but was never served it growing up.
I NEVER said no one should like it.
I said precisely the opposite.
Eat what you like.
Again, you enjoy, eat and savor everything you like.
But don’t piss on my foot and say it’s raining. I tried to like the stuff. I wanted very much to like it. Didn’t work. So I’ll eat what I like.
How about “Did you know you can get rid of the ‘soap opera effect’ on your TV by turning off motion smoothing?”
Remember some people’s opinions on food are facts that everyone needs to respect. What they notice within their small circle is the real truth and everyone else is just lying themselves.
If they say no one would voluntary eat edamame or tofu, that means no one would. You can’t question them.
And I’m sitting here wondering if my kid would eat edamame. We’ve got the frozen stuff in the freezer. It might pass muster because he likes crunchy.
Myself, I like it just fine, but my husband is allergic to soy, so that rules out a lot of vegan options in cooking us dinner.
Moderating:
Let’s drop the edamame/tofu hijack now. Please make sure you’re discussing the actual topic with future posts. Thanks.
People think Nukes are the Ultimate Weapon.
Nope. It’s Bacon.