What's the BEST thing you DON'T eat?

[stefanyb]

But there is one thing and thats HONEY......eeeeek.  Even if some gets on my fingers I'm repulsed.  If I can taste it, I gag.

Honey? What could possibly be so repulsive about honey? Most of the others I can understand,even if I don't share the loathing, but honey?

Tony, I'm not saying its rational (of course, bee saliva does sound pretty repulsive).  Thats why I started a thread about food preferences and whether or not they are inate or learned.  I don't really understand it at all.  But I know it (honey) when I taste it, yech!

[stefanyb]

Over the years I've learned to like most foods that I once hated: cilantro (I am a cilantro convert--love it now--used to think it tasted like soap), fennel, cumin (overcame that by simply living in Texas for several years)--but, the one thing I cannot stand (though I try it every year or so) is PAPAYA.

I actually tried it recently--yep, still blechy.

I don't get it, mangos are my favorite fruit and I love most all tropical flavors--can't do papaya.

Cool,

There are many varieties of papaya.  Some taste more like vomit than others.  I find the Mexican ones are more vomity than say, the domestic ones.  I suggest you try other varieties (or not).

[Degustation]

Well Nina, at least the presentation that you described seems a lot more appetizing than the sheep's head dish that my ex-boyfriend had ordered when we were in Tunisia. Picture a complete sheep's head skull presented on a plate...intact with the brain and eyeballs.

[Wilfrid]

I was served a sheep's head, entire, in Barcelona once.  I wasn't expecting it, because I knew little Spanish back then.  It had simply been cleaved (cleaven?  cloven?) straight down the middle.  Teeth, brains.  However, no eyes.  I have yet to eat an eye.  I expect the chef plucked them out for a nibble while he was charring the head briefly - it came burnt on the otuside, but otherwise quite rare and bloody.

[cakewalk]

Thanks Nina.

Sheep's head is part of the Rosh Hashana meal for many Sephardi Jews. I remember a friend of mine (from Morocco) telling me that his mother made it every year. I did not ask for details! I found this little explanation on the web:

"The sheep's head symbolizes our hope that we may become "like the head, and not the tail." Traditionally, the sheep's brains were removed and served as part of the meal (Claudia Roden writes in The Book of Jewish Food that brains and other types of offal were very popular in many Sephardic communities.)"

[tommy]

It had simply been cleaved (cleaven?  cloven?) straight down the middle.  Teeth, brains.  However, no eyes.  I have yet to eat an eye.  I expect the chef plucked them out for a nibble while he was charring the head briefly - it came burnt on the otuside, but otherwise quite rare and bloody.

and this to you should fall under "What's the BEST thing you DON'T eat?" topic.  hmmm.

[Wilfrid]

No, indeed.  You have to thumb back through the posts to see how we got here.  I can't remember....

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...slumps on keyboard...

[JSD]

Things I detest:

Lima Beans

Canned Peaches

Canned corned beef

gatorade or any "sport" drink

Things I love:

cilantro

fennel

melon, especially cantalope

fresh tomatoes, still warm from the sun - many don't even make it in the house. they're consumed in the garden.

Some of those other things (sheep eyes) certainly sound vile and remind me of Sophomore Biology.  Not something I'd even think of eating

[Suvir Saran]

Pitter,

I wish I had the answer.  But if I in my grandmas kitchen in San Francisco, she can get away with feeding me most anything.

I think she spoiled me.  She peels the fruits, cuts them into bite sized pieces and as I finish them, more are ready. Maybe that freshness and the kindness that comes laden with such love has a magic that makes the moment far superior to any other.

That lack of magic makes eating fruits for the most part quite mundane.

She never serves berries to me in the same way. And so, I am able to eat them without remembering her specials ways.

Not sure what makes it different for you.

[cabrales]

With all respect to Jinmyo, I dislike water chestnuts very much.  However, I do not consider them (i.e., the water chestnuts) to be tasty food that I do not eat because they are not tasty in the first place.   :confused:

Jinny -- Consider the above post.  

[mikey]

Raw tomatos alone (on a sandwich or chopped in a salad is fine)(I had roasted tomato w/dinner last night-go figure)

raw celery

coffee

wine as a beverage(God help me, but my taste buds won't allow me to enjoy it)

Bring on the cantaloupe!

[Steve Plotnicki]

I think anyone who doesn't like raw tomatoes has to have a palate deficiency. It is surely one of the world's greatest miracles. Especially big, beautiful beefsteaks. How can you like pie and not tomatoes?

[Jinmyo]

cabrales, okay.

[stefanyb]

gatorade or any "sport" drink

Thats okay, you don't have to include that because technically its not food, its nylon.

[jhlurie]

Hey, gatorade is great if you are REALLY REALLY thirsty and forget that water is also thirst quenching!

This is a hard topic.  The things that many people think are best (like Mushrooms) I don't think are best, so how can I answer that?

Seriously... I'd have to say Lobster.  I know why its supposed to be good, but its just a big insect. (okay, please don't waste your time with all of the "you don't know what you are missing posts--I've heard it)

[jhlurie]

I think anyone who doesn't like raw tomatoes has to have a palate deficiency. It is surely one of the world's greatest miracles. Especially big, beautiful beefsteaks. How can you like pie and not tomatoes?

I can almost understand this dislike.  I don't like the texture of the pulpy part of Tomatoes, which effectively means that I don't eat them raw.  But I'll eat them in almost anything, especially salsa or a brushetta, because that pulpy goop is usually not there or somewhat absorbed.

What about tomato pie?

[Jinmyo]

Perhaps tomato concasse is the way to go, jhlurie. Generally, I prefer roma to beefsteak tomatoes because of the lower pulp/seed ratio. But any great fresh tomato is a wonder of balanced flavours and textures. Acidic but sweet, firm but soft. And salt, basil, EVOO, fresh mayonnaise or anything of that nature added to it escalates the rush.

By the way, I know what you mean about lobster. Bugs. Crab? Bugs. The bugmeat is otay in various applications. But I can't get into smashing their buggy exoskeletons and sucking the bugmeat out just because there's melted butter around. I'd rather dip crusty bread into the butter. But take the bugmeat away from the bibs and jointcrackers, clean it up, and start playing around with mushrooms or greens or sauces or crispy things and the bugs do things other things don't do.

[tommy]

I think anyone who doesn't like raw tomatoes has to have a palate deficiency.

i'll take that into consideration.

How can you like pie and not tomatoes?

i hate raw tomato pie, that's for sure!

edit:  no jhlurie and i are *not* the same person, although we sometimes think of the same inane stuff, and then take the extra step of actually posting it!

[ngatti]

I'm ashamed to say it but...mayonaise.  I find it slimey.  Although I can get down small doses of my own homemade.

Nick

[Brija]

I hate liver, even the smell of it! I don't like green beans, parsley or asparagus - I can eat them, but do not, if I can avoid them. What I can't understand is pineapple on pizza (too sweet, I think) or vegetable soup in which the veggies are cooked in milk. And though I love fish, I hate coalfish/saithe (I'm not sure of the name) if it has been frozen in blocks. Those grey squares look appalling and the taste is what I imagine wet paper might taste like. They made us eat those at school, so no wonder not many children liked fish.

As for learning to like foods that one dislikes, I used to hate cheese - cold cheese like on sandwiches, but not hot, like on a pizza or in other dishes - but forced myself to eat it (because I also hated milk and thought I had to get some calcium from somewhere). Now cheese is one of my favorite foods/ingredients. But this may have worked only because I did like cheese in some form.

[Mao]

There are some things that seem to make it into Chinese food that I can't stand:

water chesnuts (capable of ruining any Chinese dish)

sea cucumber

those mutant dwarf thingies that resemble corn

And also kidnies, thanks to a teenage summer spent in the UK, where I was being forced to eat various and vomitous kidney pies.

[Rachel Perlow]

So now I just tell them, when asked, that I am allergic, and that eliminates the often persistent pestering. (Is that redundant?)

A little. It is also alliterative.

Bamboo Shoots - {deleted stuff} I love bamboo shoots and water chestnuts.

All these cute Kaola Bears deprived of their food. Maybe that's why they are on the endangered spcies list

I think you are thinking of pandas. Pandas eat bamboo, Koalas eat eucalyptus. Also, pandas live in China, Koalas live in Australia.

[JSD]

OK, I'm married to someone who doesn't like fresh tomatoes or cantalope - two of my favorite things.  He actually prefers watermelon (ther's a reason it's called WATERmelon, because it's watery tasting).  I'm the only one in this household who likes chocolate ice cream.  Honestly, sometimes I feel like I'm living amongst aliens..

[cakewalk]

Guava. Disgusting things. The smell alone is enough to make me gag, it's so overpowering.

[AdamLawrence]

Wilfrid,

My lover had the same problem with Tomatoes.  His ex-lover was Italian and eating fresh mozzarella with basil, olive oil and aged balsamic changed him.  

Today, he loves tomatoes and also avocados, another thing he could not eat

Oddly, same story here. Lucy, my wife, used to loathe raw tomatoes. Couldn't stand them. Would pick bits of tomato out of otherwise acceptable dishes. But last summer, she suddenly discovered a taste for them. Not just a tolerance, but an actual craving. Now, if we need an accompaniment to a dish, she'll usually suggest a tomato salad. We can't completely explain this Damascene conversion, but it appears to have been caused by insalata tricolore. When we were in France last August, she ate tomatoes for almost every meal. I'm not investigating too closely - I don't want to break the spell.  

Adam