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

[Wilfrid]

Stella, why is scrapple conceptually repulsive?  I can see you might not like it, but are the ingredients all that different from what goes into a lot of ground-meat-based products?  Bits and pieces of pigs, essentially, just as commercial burgers are usually bits and pieces of cows, and so on.  And I will take a good slice of scrapple over a Big Mac any day.

[oraklet]

buttermilk is the worst of them all.

then comes yoghurt

and all the other cultivated milk produce - most of which i can  and will use in cooked dishes.

the reasons for disliking food may, of course, be different. the obvious one is association with a more-or-less traumatic experience. but the hidden reason may be that your immune system reacts, not by making you vomit, but by making you dislike certain things. and i believe that immune systems are highly individual, and can even change over the years. complicated stuff.

i love red peppers, and my wife likes it once it is cooked, but she's somehow allergic to it (as her father and her grandmother). makes her sick. my sister loves shrimp as well as mayo, but the combination will make her vomit. i don't know where that takes us. is there a scientist out there among you?

[researchgal]

Just thought of another one.  Fish steaks, like salmon steaks that have that spiny bone in the middle--gross me out!  But I'll take a fish cheek any day...

Also:

Head cheese

Mortadella

Egg salad

[LaurieA-B]

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.

Some weeks ago I ate at Sripraphai in New York with friends, and I insisted on papaya salad despite my friend's insistence that he hated papaya.  Fortunately he loved the salad (so did I), which is made with shredded unripe papaya that tastes nothing like ripe papaya.

The best thing I don't eat is, without a doubt, SHRIMP.  I know it's the best because so many of my friends and family love it.  They greet it with cries of delight.  I, however, cringe.  I don't know why, and I have tried to like it.  Something about the shape, and the texture...  ew.

A year ago I was visiting relatives in England.  My cousin cooked an elaborate, delicious meal for Matthew and me.  The first course, though, was shrimp cocktail (cold salad shrimp with pink cocktail sauce).  My cousin is one of the sweetest people in the world, so I told myself: by God, I will eat these shrimp.  I chewed.  And chewed.  And chewed.  Ate an enormous bowlful.  Since then I REALLY don't like shrimp.

Fortunately Matthew loves them, so he gets all my shrimp (just like I get his avocado).  When I get together with my in-laws, I'm the only one who doesn't eat the shrimp.  And yet they're the ones who are Jewish.  ??

[Blue Heron]

Laurie...I can't believe that you don't like shrimp!  It's one of my favorites.  Actually, my hubby just barely tolerates them.  Give him a choice between boiled potatoes and shrimp and he will choose boiled potatoes everytime (& I get his shrimp).

note to self:  don't bring anything with shrimp or avocado to any PNW eGullet potlucks.  

[stellabella]

Stella, why is scrapple conceptually repulsive?  I can see you might not like it, but are the ingredients all that different from what goes into a lot of ground-meat-based products?  

Well, I guess I should have added the Big Mac, which I also don't eat, to my list.

It's not that I don't like scrapple--it is a food for which I have many warm feelings of nostalgia, because it was so central to my childhood summers in Delaware.  I ate a A LOT of it.  But to me it is conceptually repulsive because it is SCRAP--and I would argue that sausage isn't necessarily scrap.  It seems to me that scrapple emerged from a desire not to waste the last remnants of the pig carcass, after it had been hacked, steamed, boiled, skinned, beyond recognition.  There was so little left to work with at that point, and it looked so horrifying, that the obvious solution was to add several bags of corn meal to the mess to hold it together.

Scrapple also tends to leave an unforgettable taste in themouth for many hours after it has been ingested.  Why?

I am interested in the number of people who don't eat shellfish--to diverge slightly while not going off topic completely--does anyone avoid certain foods for religious reasons?

[Teeitup]

Lima Beans, Tripe, and Blood Pudding come to mind.  Also came across some roasted rats in Africa that didn't appeal to me.

[Blue Heron]

Welcome, Teeitup.  I noticed this is your first post.  (are you a golfer by chance?).

Yah, the roasted rats don't sound so good, but according to Survivor show, they aren't too bad (I think they were starving, however).  I'm also with you on the blood pudding and lima beans thing.  

Would love to hear some of the foods you ate on your trip to Africa, if you get a chance.

[helenas]

oh, the tagine thread reminds me: i can't stand even hint of cinnamon in any savory (and most sweet) dishes...

that's just not right.  cinnamon is the secret ingredient in everything.  i bet you've had cinnamon, loved it, and didn't know it.  you are crazy.

Ok, maybe i'm crazy, but i'm not alone: just found out ( as i was looking for pizza rustica recipe) that Marcella also has an aversion to cinnamon

[tommy]

Ok, maybe i'm crazy, but i'm not alone: just found out ( as i was looking for pizza rustica recipe) that Marcella also has an aversion to cinnamon 

insanity loves company.

[Kim WB]

Dark chocolate. and things sprinkled with cocoa powder. I love milk chocolate, however.

[spicegirl]

I have stopped eating French food since last year.

I cannot eat that food for the government of that country is not doing enough to stop the violence against Jews, Arabs and other ethnic people.

I love French food but cannot support that country in any way.

I miss it.. but I have responsibilities for my people.

[Jinmyo]

[wawairis]

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)

John,

That's amazing! I hate lobster mainly because of it's looks too! I'll eat the meat is it's removed from the body, but I'm not going to sit and pick at an animal that looks like a giant cockroach.

I also intensely dislike brussel sprouts. Bleagh!!

[stagis]

I'm agreeing with Soba Addict.....all food is good food :) However - one recipe lives on in memory: It was a '50 Best Sushi Rolls' or something like that. A little 5x5 book, with most of the rolls being accessible and good, if a little off the beaten track, like the Steak and Onion Roll, or the Sauted Scallops Roll (both excellent, by the way).

This recipe called for NUTELLA!!!!! *squirm* *shudder* It just didn't work - and I like Nutella!!!

[John]

Two things that make me gag; butter and onions. I can stomach things that contain butter such as cake. It disgusts me to see it melted on toast or corn on the cob. Especially lobster. Onions disgust me almost as much. I wished I liked them only because of the number of times I've ordered no onions on my sub or hamburger only to discover later that it was put on. Same with toast at a diner.

[Jinmyo]

Butter? Onions?

If you are comfortable discussing it, John, what is it that you find "disgusting" about melted butter? I suppose that Keller's butter-poached lobster would be especially alarming? What about butter that has been incorporated as in a sauce, or even on popped corn? Is it the taste? Or how melted butter looks?

As for onion, does this hold true for cooked as well as raw onions? What of their ubiqitous use in stocks? Again, is it the taste? The texture? The aroma? The look?

What of scallions? Shallots? Garlic?

Is there some connection between these two items?

[Saffy]

I am one of those people that will eat just about anything and like most things. But Cilantro/corriander just makes me want to run to the nearest bathroom and wash my mouth out with soap.. it would taste better!

There is nothing I hate more than ordering something WITHOUT Corriander to see those offensive little green sprigs sitting on my plate tainting the rest of the dish.

Tamarillos are another .. even the smell makes me feel ill.

Lastly and fortunately this is not the kind of thing that you have to eat too often. Crocodile steaks.. they are truely disgusting.. like chewy old smelly fish.. bleh

[John]

Jin,

With butter, I don'y really know why I hate it. Just the appearance and greasiness turns me off. I've hated it since I was a kid. With onions, it's just the taste and smell. Doesn't matter whether they're cooked or raw. Another is spiced ham. Just hate the appearance.

[mamster]

I've disliked buttered bread all my life and haven't gotten over it even though I have no problem with melted butter, or cinnamon toast, or butter cooked in anything, or pretty much any other ordinary use of butter.

Well, I don't like it on French toast, but that's the same thing.