Do your food preferences make you an outcast in your own family or ethnic group?

[Tropicalsenior]

27 minutes ago, AlaMoi said:

my grandmother and I ate well together. 

I love your food preferences. When my grandson was little, he would eat anything and he and I loved to go together to find the different foods. And we loved to hunt out the little hole-in-the-wall restaurants and get to know the interesting people that made these things. We lived in Seattle where there were hundreds of them. He's 44 now and has a very versatile food pallet. I'm sure that he would eat hakarl.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Tropicalsenior
Spelling (log)

[heidih]

25 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

and then they ate the whole rotten mess. Taste aside, this can't be good for you. I think those people have had their brains frozen a few too many times.

No I think they live(ed) in a harsh environment and used everything and preserved everything they could to survive. @nakji is part Inuit. Don't see her around but bet she could add info. This paper is informative  https://arctichealth.org/media/pubs/295539/alaska-s-vanishing-arctic-cuisine.pdf  And yes there is a botulism issue up North. 

Edited February 23, 2021 by heidih (log)

[Tropicalsenior]

5 minutes ago, heidih said:

No I think they live(ed) in a harsh environment and used everything and preserved everything they could to survive.

Seriously, you do have to admire people that can survive in conditions like that.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

I feel like I'm suffering from anomie.   I eat just about everything, and can't remember family plate being forced down me.   Away from home, I continued an adventurous palate but to this day can't handle smoked salmon, in fact cooked salmon in any form; raw is delicious as sushi or ceviche, but cooking especially grilling that draws out oils...so indeed any oily fish regardless of how healthful they are (mackerel, black cod et al).    Iodiny shellfish.     Can't abide star anise.  

 

I am a really cheap date.    Love most of the wonderful "peasant" foods mentioned above.   Last night we had a wonderful pot of choucroute...saurkraut braised with duck fat, onions, peppercorns, juniper berries, white wine, chicken broth.   Ethereal with a couple of Polish sausage and chunk of guanciale.

 

But we all have different taste.

[Tropicalsenior]

17 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

But we all have different taste.

And there seems to be no logical rhyme or reason for all of our food preferences. We seem to be born with a natural affinity or abhorrence to certain foods. I have noticed that the way that young children are introduced to new foods does influence their willingness to  be more adventurous. But it doesn't reduce those strong likes and dislikes, be it textural, taste, or visual.

Speaking of visual, my grandmother had one of the most beautiful patches of asparagus that you would ever see. Each spring we would watch them sprout from the ground. No way was I ever going to eat those things. They were the most disgusting worm like things and there was no way to convince me that they didn't taste like worms. What I wouldn't give to have that worm patch today.

[Tropicalsenior]

3 hours ago, heidih said:

You must get them to watch East Side Sushi. A young Hispanic woman trying to become a sushi chef with major resistance from her dad. Spanish is spoken in the home so they might enjoy that part as well.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2340650/

That looks like a wonderful movie and I definitely want to see it. Unfortunately they don't speak any English so it wouldn't be much fun for them. But thank you very much.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

8 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

...there seems to be no logical rhyme or reason for all of our food preferences. We seem to be born with a natural affinity or abhorrence to certain foods. ...

I have one grandchild who will kill for chicken liver pate (Julia Child recipe); she avoids all vegetables.   Her brother will eat broccoli three times a day, literally.   Asked what he wanted for sleepover breakfast, asked "do you have any more broccoli?".   A third is a carnivore.   Just pass more lamb chops.    None of these taste match either of their parents nor ours.  

[Tropicalsenior]

2 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

None of these taste match either of their parents nor ours.  

I wonder how much of that can be attributed to the internet or to television. I've witnessed that influence in action in the 30 years that I've been in Costa Rica. The older generation, 40s and up, would just as soon stay with their beans and rice and arroz con pollo. Maybe once in a while they'll go to McDonald's or KFC but they will not venture out of their food comfort zone. The younger people are more willing to try just about anything. We have sushi restaurants all over the place now. Thirty years ago, no one would have gone to them.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

6 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

I wonder how much of that can be attributed to the internet or to television. I've witnessed that influence in action in the 30 years that I've been in Costa Rica. The older generation, 40s and up, would just as soon stay with their beans and rice and arroz con pollo. Maybe once in a while they'll go to McDonald's or KFC but they will not venture out of their food comfort zone. The younger people are more willing to try just about anything. We have sushi restaurants all over the place now. Thirty years ago, no one would have gone to them.

Good points, but these tykes are under 5.    Totally innate.  

[Tropicalsenior]

6 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

under 5.

Wow! Let's hope they stay this way.

My grandson would eat anything at 5 but he was raised in a restaurant atmosphere and had eaten in just about every type that there was.

Edited February 24, 2021 by Tropicalsenior
addition (log)

[Tropicalsenior]

14 hours ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

Can't abide star anise

This reminds me of another hated German food from my childhood. Every year my grandmother made a couple tons of springerle cookies and they were required eating.

To me, they were nasty little squares of anise-flavored plaster of Paris. Oh how I hated them! I always had visions of my teeth breaking off at the roots and even if you soaked them in something hot they still had that terrible anise flavor. To this day, I hate the taste or smell of anise. I used to tell my girls that licorice was made from everything that was scooped up from the factory floor at the end of the day just so they wouldn't ever want to eat it around me.

Christmas time did have one good point for me because she made a black German fruit bread called snitzbrot every Christmas. No one else in the family would eat it so I got their share.

[chromedome]

8 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

This reminds me of another hated German food from my childhood. Every year my grandmother made a couple tons of springerle cookies and they were required eating.

To me, they were nasty little squares of anise-flavored plaster of Paris. Oh how I hated them! I always had visions of my teeth breaking off at the roots and even if you soaked them in something hot they still had that terrible anise flavor. To this day, I hate the taste or smell of anise. I used to tell my girls that licorice was made from everything that was scooped up from the factory floor at the end of the day just so they wouldn't ever want to eat it around me.

Christmas time did have one good point for me because she made a black German fruit bread called snitzbrot every Christmas. No one else in the family would eat it so I got their share.

Hmmm. Snitzbrot/schnitzbrodt looks to be right up my alley, though I do think I'd cut down the traditional-sized (ie, industrial quantity) batch by just a tad.

[Tropicalsenior]

1 minute ago, chromedome said:

looks to be right up my alley,

Do you have a good recipe or can you find one? Unfortunately, my grandmother did not write down her her recipes anywhere. To be perfectly truthful, I'm not even sure that she knew how to read or write. I have tried quite a few recipes from the internet and could never get the bread to rise. We thought about keeping one batch so that if anybody tried to break into the house we could beat them to death with it. I finally converted the flavors ingredients to a quick bread so that I get the taste but not the texture. Strangely enough, one of the flavors in the bread is anise. If you could help me out on this I would be eternally grateful. Thank you.

[ElsieD]

22 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

This reminds me of another hated German food from my childhood. Every year my grandmother made a couple tons of springerle cookies and they were required eating.

To me, they were nasty little squares of anise-flavored plaster of Paris. Oh how I hated them! I always had visions of my teeth breaking off at the roots and even if you soaked them in something hot they still had that terrible anise flavor. To this day, I hate the taste or smell of anise. I used to tell my girls that licorice was made from everything that was scooped up from the factory floor at the end of the day just so they wouldn't ever want to eat it around me.

Christmas time did have one good point for me because she made a black German fruit bread called snitzbrot every Christmas. No one else in the family would eat it so I got their share.

 

I looked up snitzbrot and thought, gee that looks kinda good.  And then I saw that figs was an ingredient.  Stopped me cold, it did.  I hate figs.

[Tropicalsenior]

1 minute ago, ElsieD said:

Stopped me cold, it did.  I hate figs.

Never used figs, in fact, no such thing in Nebraska then. All I've ever seen used was prunes and raisins and lots of other dried fruit. But mostly prunes and raisins.

[chromedome]

3 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

Do you have a good recipe or can you find one? Unfortunately, my grandmother did not write down her her recipes anywhere. To be perfectly truthful, I'm not even sure that she knew how to read or write. I have tried quite a few recipes from the internet and could never get the bread to rise. We thought about keeping one batch so that if anybody tried to break into the house we could beat them to death with it. I finally converted the flavors ingredients to a quick bread so that I get the taste but not the texture. Strangely enough, one of the flavors in the bread is anise. If you could help me out on this I would be eternally grateful. Thank you.

I took just a quick look online to get a feel for what the flavor profile would look like. I had a pretty good idea that it involved dried fruit ("schnitz," or dried apples, figured prominently in a popular Canadian cookbook - heavily German/Mennonite influenced - called "Food that Really Schmecks"), and guessed that it was basically fruitcake made with a yeasted dough.

I had no immediate plans to try it, but I have no reason not to. I expect I'd probably add some gluten to the basic dough to strengthen it, just on principle.

[Tropicalsenior]

5 minutes ago, chromedome said:

add some gluten

That might be most of my problem. I can't get a good strong flour here. I need some of that good ol winter wheat.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

40 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

This reminds me of another hated German food from my childhood. Every year my grandmother made a couple tons of springerle cookies and they were required eating.

To me, they were nasty little squares of anise-flavored plaster of Paris. Oh how I hated them! I always had visions of my teeth breaking off at the roots and even if you soaked them in something hot they still had that terrible anise flavor. To this day, I hate the taste or smell of anise. I used to tell my girls that licorice was made from everything that was scooped up from the factory floor at the end of the day just so they wouldn't ever want to eat it around me.

Christmas time did have one good point for me because she made a black German fruit bread called snitzbrot every Christmas. No one else in the family would eat it so I got their share.

Interesting how flavors are perceived from sweet to savory.   I adore springerle and even enjoyed fennel-confit eggplant as a dessert at an outre bistrot, love braised fennel, basil, tarragon and chervil.   It is star anise in Asian dishes I don't handle.   

I made recognizable springerle several years ago from an internet recipe.    Rather fun to make and quite delicious fresh.

[blue_dolphin]

My aversion to conflict is much stronger than my aversion to any particular food.  There are plenty of foods that I'd wouldn't choose but almost nothing I'd become a social outcast over.  

As a kid, I learned the minimum amount to take of something I didn't like without causing offense, how to move it around my plate, strategically arranging (hiding) things and avoiding dinner table drama. One of my brothers was an absolute drama master, refusing to eat almost everything.  He was routinely sent to bed by my father, who then stormed off, slamming doors, leaving my mother in tears and the rest of us silently looking at each other across the table, appetites gone. 

I've continued to hone my own avoidance skills and they have served me well.

 

[Tropicalsenior]

42 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

appetites gone

Fortunately for me, eating at home was never a problem. My mother, who was a very good cook, was not German and our meals were plain old homestyle midwest. My nightmares were the family reunions and the holidays with my father's family. We never had to eat sauerkraut at home.

Edited February 24, 2021 by Tropicalsenior
Spelling (log)

[Paul Bacino]

I'd say Anchovies  for me,  nobody in the fam digs these.

 

I love to cook with them and love them on salads.

 

Hence my salt pack ones from Italy are still in an un opened can!! 

[BeeZee]

Similarly...I occasionally eat canned sardines (which my Grandfather did) but it horrifies my husband, so only when he's not home. There's plenty of traditional Jewish cuisine (see: Gefilte fish as mentioned above) that I won't eat, but I am not an outcast for turning it down, just guilted so much for "not even taking a taste" that it feels like being cast out😆

[Tropicalsenior]

3 minutes ago, BeeZee said:

canned sardines

When I was pregnant with my first daughter I craved canned sardines in tomato sauce. I bought them by the case. After she was born I couldn't stand the smell of them. The strange thing is, she loves them. No one else in my family will eat them.

[AlaMoi]

dried figs . . . whole toasted almonds . . . insert almond

toss in powdered sugar . . . try not to OD

 

DW and I both like Caesar salad - with a heavy anchovy dressing.

I save any left over anchovy for snacking on a cracker.....

 

yeah, it's just me....

[Tropicalsenior]

6 minutes ago, AlaMoi said:

Caesar salad - with a heavy anchovy dressing.

Got you. Caesar isn't Caesar without anchovies, Pizza isn't Pizza without anchovies. We're going through anchovy withdrawal here. Since the pandemic began, there have been no anchovies for sale in Costa Rica. Anybody want to send me a care package?

Edited February 25, 2021 by Tropicalsenior
Subtraction (log)