For me, the food that had to be the most disappointing was roasted chestnuts. My wife and I were in Prague on our honeymoon in December after Christmas that year. We saw a street vendor selling little paper packets of roasted chestnuts.
So after hearing about chestnuts roasting over open fires, and about chestnuts in general, and seeing this dude roasting his over a charcoal fire, we thought that this must be something we had to try. So a few koruna later, we had our own packet of hot chestnuts. We let them cool off to an edible temperature and dug in.
They were godawful. Bland, starchy and mealy, and what flavor they did have wasn’t particularly great. They were so mealy that they sort of crumbled and infiltrated every part of my mouth with tiny chestnut pieces that I had to then rinse out with some beer. I guess the best thing I can liken them to would be a really mealy, but hard potato.
I made the mistake of trying them again in Budapest, figuring that maybe that guy in Prague got a bad harvest or something. Nope, just as terrible.
Good call on roasted chestnuts! I was around them in Budapest across five winters, and I never grew a fondness for them, except as a scent of the season. They always smelled great, but were just a bland, mealy mess like a vaguely nut-flavored drier version of a potato. The Hungarians were also into their chestnut purée flavored desserts, and I never warmed up to those, either.
I’ve had caviar some years ago and was completely underwhelmed. Last summer though, my brother and I were visiting “the old home stead,” Santa Barbara, and I tooks us to Bouchon, which had been recommended. There, as a starter we had the Warm Pan-seared Foie Gras and while it was tasty enough, and certainly rich, the one experience will probably be enough.
If you’re not a seafood fan I can see why. The taste of a properly done scallop is pretty subtle. Subtle but sublime. When I was watching Ratatouille I noticed we saw a lot of dishes with raw scallops in them. I figured they were extra proud in how that model came out.
Now I really like sauerkraut. On hotdogs, with kielbasa with pirogues on ruebens. Hell I’ll have it as a side dish.
So it was one thing I was excited to try when in Germany for 3 weeks. Everywhere I had it (at least in Bavaria) it was mushy, and a little sweet and otherwise tasteless. I’ll take the American version any day.
Oh, and watch out for real schnapps. I’m used to the flavored stuff.
And I’ll second deep fried ice cream. I think they dunked it in liquid nitrogen before frying. Ever see ice cream break?
I’ll second In & Out burgers. I was anticipating something extraordinary and instead got a tasteless patty. That and their stupid ‘secret menu’ means I’ll never go back.
Another one for me was an Australian dessert called pavlova that a neighbor made. Perhaps it just wasn’t made properly, but crunchy, tasteless meringue with a bit of fruit was less than thrilling.
DesertDog knows what’s up! The seared foie gras (which is usually finished in an oven) is probably my favorite preparation, particularly when it’s being plated with some kind of acidic fruit to cut all that richness (FAT) in your mouth so it isn’t cloying. Washing it down with sips of Sauternes helps too.
I totally agree about scallops re: their subtlety, which often baffles me because when people say they “don’t like that fishy taste” of fish, I immediately want to recommend scallops as they don’t taste like fish.
For me, what grabs me every time I eat seared sea scallops is their minerality and their oceanic echoes of flavor. They should remind you of the ocean, and not in a “plastic patch double the size of Texas” way either.
Speaking of Australia, a long-time ago I had a co-worker from Melbourne, who swore Vegemite was so awesomely good, I just had to try it. I figured, what the heck - may as well try a jar of the stuff, and you do what?, spread it on toast? OK, thinks me, I can have it in the morning with breakfast.
O.M.G. Horrid in every way! Salty, bitter flavor and the texture of watery toothpaste. Looks like runny shit. I could barely get past the first bite, much less the first serving, or the first jar. Threw it away and complained to my co-worker thinking I was being played. Nope. just a regional taste, I guess. Never again.
I don’t like pavlova, but it’s ridiculously popular. Maybe your friend bought a meringue and topped it? Store-bought meringue is not like the “proper meringue” it’s meant to be, which is crunchy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. It’s still yucky, even when done with the proper meringue, but it’s better than a hard meringue from the shop. It’s incredibly sweet. blerk.
Vegemite is an acquired taste, but many who try it overseas just slather it on like it’s jam instead of thinly. Even we couldn’t eat it laid with a trowel. (I get a different type called Mighty Mite, it’s nicer than vegemite…)
That reminds me of when I was a kid and they brought out this spread called Koogle. Chocolate, nuts, what’s not to love, right? I saw it on tv, thought ‘wow!’, pestered my mum into buying it and it was revolting. It was only on the market for a short time, everybody else must have agreed.
Qadgop, aren’t you the person who loves very old cheddar cheese?
Earlier this year, my neighbors went on vacation to Wisconsin and Michigan and I fed their cat while they were gone. They returned with some 12-year-old cheddar that they purchased in Mt. Horeb, a town they LOVED, and offered me some. I ate a sliver about the size of my big toenail, and not only was the taste way too strong for me, it also had a weird gritty texture and kind of sank to the bottom in my stomach. So, I probably won’t have that again.
And IMNSHO, commercial buttermilk is meant for cooking, not drinking. I’ve heard that homemade buttermilk, the by-product of homemade butter, is delicious. Maybe that’s what he drank?
My old pastor’s wife said she always had terrible morning sickness when she was newly pregnant, and Krispy Kremes are one thing that she still cannot eat, all these years later. (Another, from a different pregnancy, is pepperoni pizza.) After several people said they were the same way, not from pregnancy but instead overindulgence, she did admit that she’d eaten several, because she was hungry and KKs are not very big.
And then there’s this. I sure wouldn’t want to clean up afterwards, that’s for sure.
My opinion of them? They’re OK, but not the best thing I’ve had in my lifetime.
Most of the posters in here commit the fallacy of trying a single sample with NO quality control, virtually all using the product in the wrong way, then complaining it is not ambrosia.
.
You might as well have heard of the wonders of Kobe Beef.
So you buy a McD big mac (its beef, right?), and complain that it really isn’t that great.
Tell us, please do, how you approach it. How many restaurants do you book and attend to try something? If you don’t like it, how do you manage to keep going and keep going and keep going until you have a statistically significant sampe size? How much does it cost for you to employ your own personal qualify control co-ordinator? Please, please, tell us. We inferior beings need to know.
Not so much the food itself as finding out what it was. I’d been reading mentions of cuscús or couscous as if it was some sort of exotic food. Turns out the basic ingredient is just pasta maravilla by its Northern African name.
When I moved out East I was excited to try funnel cake, but for some reason I get scrapple confused with funnel cake (some odd brain glitch). My first funnel attempt, a friend took our orders for a festival booth run, I ended up with disgusting innards rather than delicious funnel. Now I ask “which one is the dessert, not the meat?” before I order.
