Parsnip.
Beer. My partner doesn’t care for it but I love it. I know tons of people love beer but I totally get the people that don’t. It’s kinda very different from most drinks!
I mean, even within beer there’s a huge variation in flavors.
Fair! I guess I mean traditional old school “beer” when I say it, but even that has some variation too
Dobradinha: Brazilian caipira stewed beef intestines with beans. Really goes all the way with emphasizing the jelly texture
Chicken hearts: we eat them by the dozen but IME gringos don’t like them much
Chicken feet: love them plain caipira style but dim sum style is even better, especially the more spicy onesI had a friend turn me on to chicken hearts when I was heavy into grilling and love introducing people to them. Super easy to grill too. Season, skewer, throw them on, done. Chicken feet though??? Idk, hard for me to get behind knowing they’ve been treading through dirt their whole lives, or worse.
Marinating the hearts with limes and herbs is super good, too.
Yeah, feet turn a lot of people off because of the dirtiness and how messy they are to eat. Here’s more info: they are basically pure gelatinous skin with some juicy tendons, you eat them with your hands (at least in my family) to really get in there, and they taste however the broth as a whole tastes (I can’t imagine having them roasted)
It’s not about the food but about the time of enjoying the taste of it
I like big dishes in the morning. Like really salty, savoury and messy
I routinely wake up, smell an imaginary scent of a whole dinner (hallucinations) and proceed to eat it as first thing in the morning
Cauliflower soup. It tastes amazing to me, but it really does smell like farts
Durian. Apparently it’s absolutely disgusting for some people.
I love durian stuff… gf refuses to kiss me for 2 days afterwards but its worth it every time
I had heard about it, so of course I had to try it when visiting Malaysia. It was alright.
To me it tastes good but I cannot enjoy it because of the smell.
Blue cheese.
Totally agree especially with fruit cake
Omg yuck please tell me you didn’t try that
I did indeed it is glorious
I love blue cheese. Not sure about the fruitcake. But I’m intrigued now.
I love how funky it is. who knew moldy cheese could add so much to a dish?
I think most cheese is “moldy”. Like isn’t sharp cheddar aged with the moldy edges cut off?
I’m not a cheese expert but I’m pretty sure most cheese is aged and has some level of “mold”.
I think blue cheese is just special in that the process just results in chunks of pieces that contain the mold from the aging process?
Total speaking out of my ass. Correct me please. This is speculation and a question not an answer.
Liver and Onion, anchovies, chunchullo, whitebait, blood and tongue sausage… generally these fall in two categories:
- Food that has a particularly strong flavor that clashes with what people are used to, and
- Food that is made from the parts of an animal that is not “meat” and therefore has an unfamiliar texture.
They’re wrong on all accounts - taste is acquired, and people should at least try food out of their comfort zone - but considering that it took 20 years for me to even consider trying shrimp (which still isn’t my first choice, but I like it now) I can understand.
Vegemite on toast
I’ve never tried vegemite, but I’m very curious to try it
The trick, if you ever do, is to ignore the way Aussies have it. It really is an acquired taste, and Aussies lather it on thick. But when first starting out, the best way to do it is to spread a large amount of butter (or margarine) on toast, and then over the top of that spread a very thin coating of Vegemite.
yeah, I heard you’re supposed to put it on thin. I didn’t know about the butter, though. thanks for the tip!
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ooh! I do crafting occasionally! I might look into its uses to see if I could apply it artistically.
I’m a fan of Marmite. It is so divisive that it stands in linguistically for divisive tastes: “it’s a bit Marmite.” So I get it.
I use miso these days. It’s a similar salty umami flavour to Vegemite. Miso and butter on toast is tasty.
tofu
I used to eat tofu to be vegan. I didn’t like it much but I put up with it. 1-2 years later and I’ve acquired a taste for it. Now I can eat it cold, fried, baked, etc. It does need some sort of sauce to be genuinely good to me, but it requires a lot less effort than it used to.
My go-to is usually: cubed, marinate briefly in sesame oil and soy sauce (or brine for neutral flavor), then laid out on a pan and baked for 15 or so in the convection oven, which makes it crispy. I use these in various dishes, but theyre also great as-is.
Literally everyone Ive prepared it for likes it, even the ones that “hate tofu.” Because tofu doesnt really taste like anything.
My kids who are most assuredly not vegan like tofu, I think because it was never a substitute anything for them, just an ingredient I use. Ma Po tofu, kimchi jjigae, miso soup, they love it. The youngest even loves the soft silken tofu in miso or seaweed soup, I don’t like that kind.
Yeah I think too many vegans try to pretend it’s chicken or steak. It’s just not. It is its own thing.
mmm, I could go for some crispy tofu with hot sauce right about now
Uni:
I really want to try uni someday! I’ve yet to see it on the menu where I live
I’ve had sea urchin once, at a fishmarket in Tokyo. It’s definitely an acquired taste.
I can barely remember what it tasted like, just that my friend and I each had one and immediately concluded that we didn’t need another. Very different from most sea creatures at least. I expected a mussel, but it was much softer in texture and much stronger in taste.
We ate them plain, but I kinda want to give them another try with some other stuff to dampen the impact.
Black licorice.
mmmm, I love the black licorice jelly beans.
Salmiakki!
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Salt that bad boy and you got a party going on.
Quince cider. It’s tart in just the right way.
There’s a related plant whose name in Estonian directly translated to English would be something like “unquince” (as in undead). It’s so sour and I just love the juice they make of it. Makes cider too dry imo though
Mustard
I really like olives, but I totally get how they’re not for everyone. I also love capers and seaweed.
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They’re great with smoked salmon. Put a little smoked salmon, a squeeze of lemon, a few capers, and maybe a sprinkle of fresh dill on a crostini or cracker. They’re also nice in pasta sauce.
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Yep, I just eat them straight. If I’ve bought the really big kind, I sometimes cut them into halves or quarters.
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they go well in sauces and savory dishes. I’d describe the flavor as a very robust and meaty olive.
They’re a little pop of salt and acid, so go really well with, eg, oily fish. I make a warm smoked mackeral salad which would be a bit meh without the capers.
