I won't eat... What are your food limits?

[maher]

I have eaten a lot of things.. I just dont know if I am capable of bringing myself to eat.. Iowa swinging steak, i.e rock mountain oysters, or bull balls as they are also called. 

Can anyone provide an account of eating them.

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they taste just like chicken.... no, seriously, like anything else, their quality is more a function of the freshness and quality of the cooking. in terms of texture they are closer to liver than anything else, and in taste sort of a cross between sweetbreads/liver and, well, beef!!

too many people just saute them and serve them as more of a novelty food, but they are pretty good braised with a good red wine and onions.

[Catriona]

I can't eat raw onion. I don't understand why you'd ever do it.

It's bizarre how often they're used in salads. Again, total lack of comprehension.

[Simon_S]

Things I don't eat are generally more down to texture than to flavour. I can't cope with slimey. There are 3 flavours I just can't warm to, however -- celery, cucumber and cloves.

I'm not sure if there's anything I wouldn't eat for survival, though.

Si

[NWKate]

Okrah- sorry, I just can't eat something that beats me to the swallow!

Kate

[christine007]

Organ meats, bleck. Pate. Caviar.

Yup, I'm a cheap date.

Also, cannot stand turkey, for no reason at all.

[phlox]

Baked beans, especially the kind from a can. The gross, mealy texture with the slimy, overly sweet sauce. EW. I'll eat brains, bugs, stinky cheese, pretty much any vegetable, but not baked beans.

I'm also not a big melon fan. It's not to the level of total revulsion, but I just can't bring myself to like them, and it bugs the crap out of me that 80% of any fruit salad you buy is chunked stinking melon!

[shellfishfiend]

There is not much I won't eat—I figure someone's eaten it before and lived to tell the tale so it must be okay.

e

I do, however, refuse to eat english peas. I know people say there is a huge difference between fresh and canned, and there is, but I dislike both types.

Growing up, my mother, convinced that she could trick me in to liking them if she hid them under my food, quickly discovered that I have a nose for the things and could sniff them out before she sat the plate down in front of me.

As luck would have it, or maybe it was fate, I married a man who also hates english peas (and it is just about the only thing he wonn't eat.)

We are a pea free family

[Jenny McClure]

Caviar, I have tried it so many times. I just don't get it!

Marrow, really don't get it.

Mayonaise, shudder.

Avocado.

Anything grape flavoured.

[tino27]

I thought that this link might be an appropriate addition to the conversation.

Anyone game?

[dividend]

Salmon caviar. Ugh. It's a texture thing for me. Soft, plasticky bubbles that randomly burst under my teeth, filling my mouth with intense, mucousy fishiness? No thanks. Tried it once at a sushi place, and I could feel my stomach heaving.

It sort of baffles me to see the experiments around here using sodium alginate to replicate this texture. I think the results of that would skeeve me out as well.

[H. du Bois]

Brains. Because of what I read about central nervous system tissue after the BSE crisis, not due to an aversion to offal per se. Although kidneys aren't something I'd willingly eat again.

[KOK]

I can't eat raw onion.

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Ditto to raw onions. One bite will ruin a meal for me. Of course fried onions are another story

Thanks,

Kevin

[MissAmy]

There are a few things I don't care for particularly, but will eat if very hungry or at someone else's home.

There are only two things in the world I WILL NOT EAT, not matter what the circumstances. Those two things are: raw tomatoes and refried pinto beans. Raw tomatoes taste like dirt and squish unpleasantly in your mouth. And yes, I have tried fancy home-grown heirloom ones. Still gross, ya'll. Refried pinto beans have the worst texture in the history of man kind. How people eat those things I will never understand.

[Megan Blocker]

CILANTRO.

[duckduck]

Buttered popcorn jelly beans? Surely you jest, Daniel! On my coffee table at all times is a candy bowl of Jelly Belly's with an extra scoop of buttered popcorn! Those and the peanut butter are my favorite ones. I've tried durian and wouldn't go back for it again. Not fresh anyway. The durian popsicles they have at a local bahn mi joint are not bad. The rotted shark I don't think I'll ever go for. The fetal duck egg? No on that too. Bourdain swayed me away from that when he said something like it's not too bad once you get past the beak and the feathers. I don't think so. Nope, not for me.

[ludja]

Sheena, you can have all my marinated raw crabs (my korean friends still keep insist I try one). I agree with you on milk. I cannot drink it even if it chilled, warmed or spiced. I do however eat tons of cheese. 

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I love all dairy products, but I really dislike warm milk. Hot chocolate, fine. But if it's just plain milk it needs to be chilled, not warmed up or even at room temperature.

Before the scare of mad cow disease my mom used to cook calve's brains occasionally. She loved it as a special treat and you could get it at the regular supermarket from time to time. I tasted it once but decided I really didn't want to have it again. I would eschew tasting Rocky Mountain Oysters as well.

I have a pretty adventurous palate towards most offal but there might be some other things I would prefer not to eat.

[kristin_71]

Anything cooked by that asshole Bobby Flay.

ouch! Have to agree though (about the food) his food does not do a whole lot for me either. Doesn't seem to interesting.

liver and onions.

cream herring this is a cultural thing we have in my family only at Christmas, still I cannot eat it. Smells awful.The texture is difficult to get past.

[judiu]

Baked beans, especially the kind from a can.  The gross, mealy texture with the slimy, overly sweet sauce.  EW.  I'll eat brains, bugs, stinky cheese, pretty much any vegetable, but not baked beans.

I'm also not a big melon fan.  It's not to the level of total revulsion, but I just can't bring myself to like them, and it bugs the crap out of me that 80% of any fruit salad you buy is chunked stinking melon!

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Me, too. Don't have a gall-bladder, so melon, like unpeeled bell peppers repeat to beat the band! Don't know why, but they do! I mean for WEEKS!

Edited September 22, 2006 by judiu (log)

[PaniniGuy]

There are probably a number of things I'd never eat if I KNEW what they were. But many things can be sneaked by depending on preparation.

Except kidneys. There is no way you can sneak a kidney by. I'm not touching it. I've smelled them being cleaned and cooked. No way. Don't care how much Keller likes his offal, he can have all the kidneys in the world far as I'm concerned.

Btw, kudos to the person above who nominated "Cincinnati chili". It is vile, but if you pretend it's more a mangled bolognese sauce than chili, it suddenly becomes more palatable.

[Ondine]

I have a few guidelines for things I wouldn't eat.

I won't eat anything that isn't delicious enough to be worth the trouble, that is alive as I eat it, or that is likely to make me ill (as in food poisoning).

Under the first category falls things like brains or marrow - I find the bland fattiness too insipid to be worth it. I also find the flavour of most insects to be uninteresting, and the pesky legs and wings get stuck in your teeth.

Under the second falls (barely, I admit) things like live sashimi or balut. I'm quite happy to eat something just-killed-and-still-twitching, like lobster sashimi. I won't eat wriggly cheese! And raw oysters sometimes show up here too.

The third category is the largest. I won't eat whole raw animals, like raw oysters, as I really don't like eating uncleaned digestive tracts. This residual discomfort means I tend not to like eating tubey innards like intestines. I also tend to be wary of fermented high protein food like shiokara, stinky tofu or natto - the smell seems to tell me instinctively that the food is hazardous. Strangely, fish sauce doesn't seem to trigger this. I avoid drinking milk, though, not due to the taste but due to a learned aversion to the lactose-intolerance bloating I get.

I must admit to not liking rubbery food textures too - stuff that you chew and chew, and minutes later it's still there sticking to your teeth. Things like stomachs, or raw squid.

Am I just intellectually rationalising my dislikes, do you think?

[miladyinsanity]

I don't like offal. I really don't like offal.

[Milt]

I don't like offal. I really don't like offal.

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I gather that you feel offal is awful.

[Megan Blocker]

I don't like offal. I really don't like offal.

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I gather that you feel offal is awful.

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Ba-dum ching.

[goshi]

cilantro. I loathe...no that's too kind, i would fist-rape in anger (whoa I gotta cut back on the espresso's) cilantro.

Yes I have the recessibe gene that makes cilnatro taste like mildewy..but now that it is rising in popularity, bad chefs are tossing it in everything like it is garlic.

Just the other day at Grand Lux (the "higher end" Cheesecake Factory) it was in the disgusting Bloody Mary Mix (wtfreak?) and on something called a shrimp pizza.

If I could murder an herb it would be cilantro. I would rather drink milk from a used jock strap than eat cilantro!

I HATE CILANTRO! CILANTRO IS EVILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cathrynapple]

yeah, cilantro just tastes like SOAP to me.

i won't eat biscuits and gravy. gross. or twizzlers.