Do you have a Culinary Regret?

[Daddy-A]

Perhaps that there were not better cooks in my family. Other than that I have no regrets.

Every culinary nightmare I may have had to endure in my life has brought me to where I am today, so how could I regret them? I was always an adventurous eater, so I didn't pass on anything put in front of me. Grandma didn't have any "secret" recipes, so there were none to learn.

I know that's not in the spirit of this thread ... but I guess I'm pretty lucky.

A.

[FabulousFoodBabe]

If I could have the same life I have now, I might regret a few things.

Definitely, believing that women who love everything about food, from mundane prep tasks to quantity cooking to a beautiful final product, are destined only to be housewives with enormous families (don't yell, people, I come from a very weird place in the world). When I meet young women with that type of interest and focus now, I really encourage them (and their parents) to consider a culinary career. I doubt I'll ever be a great chef -- I'm not sure how many more years I want to spend on my feet -- but I haven't ruled it out.

I just remembered this -- I had a nice-sized catering/gourmet to go business many years ago. I regret not learning how to cost recipes properly! Within the first few days of Culinary Math at the CIA, I realized that I'd been making a calculation incorrectly, which probably cost me 1.5-2%. I literally yelped when I realized that!

[Rebecca263]

I have 2 regrets that come to mind immediately. Firstly, kiddle and I only ate one meal at Muriel's during our New Orleans trip in April. Admittedly, kiddle DID order almost the entire menu, and we had left overs and fun with the management (the kitchen had to meet the big eater, who turned out to weigh only 120 pounds). Secondly, eating 6+ ounces of caviar right before New Year's Eve a few years ago. There was no New Year's Eve for me, and no accompanying fun for the next 4 days and nights. To this day I am leery of eating more than a few nibbles of the stuff in one seating, a pity! And I am a gluttonous girl. Such self control is difficult!

[NYC Mike]

I came this () close to attending the Culinary Institute of America in New York years ago. Ever since, I've wondered a bit what would have been if I had gone.

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I can second that, when I was in H.S. I took a part time job at a tiny restaurant in midtown called Hemmingway's. The chief and another chef were cia alum and attempted to motivate me in that direction. I was 16 and just didn't have the interest. With my wife attending culinary school now I sometimes wonder what if...but then again I have my fingers and am able to afford her going to culinary school.

Even bigger than that though!!! I went to Paris for the first time when I was 17 with a cousin who squeeks when he walks, we spent the entire two weeks eating crepe on the street and bread....I came home with almost all the cash I traveled with. If I could do it over, id get him drunk, ditch him and go eat Paris.

Mike

[ghostrider]

I regret that I haven't cooked Indian food in almost 10 years and my spices (and probably my technique) have gone decidedly stale.

I've got to find my Indian muse again.

[fifi]

I regret not spending more time with my Grandma and Great Aunt Minnie. Oh, I did spend time in the kitchen, absorbed some of their wisdom via osmosis. But, as they aged and were fading away, I was a late teen, in college, then newly married so I had other things on my mind. I wish I could have recorded their stories and history of the various dishes they made, gardens they had, the animals they raised.

My sister, 7 years older, had realized some of what we were about to lose. For instance, if she had not had the presence of mind to go ask, we might not have the recipe for Pickled Shrimp. As a treat as part of a birthday dinner for a dear friend tomorrow, I am making this dish right now.

Isn't it odd how things converge on eGullet and, working with this recipe, I was thinking of things I would have asked if I had been wise enough.

[snowangel]

Growing up in Thailand, why didn't I spend more time in the outdoor kitchen with our cook? Learning absolutely everything about pounding curry paste and all of the other intracies? Why didn't I learn how to make kao soi from her? After all, her family owned one of the best kao soi joints in Chieng Mai.

[west2100]

I regret having been on a school-sponsored tour with a stingy teacher when I toured Europe. We ate bottom of the barrel food in Paris, PARIS! I will always remember the one restaurant we went to where we were served delicious little cheese...things, I honestly have no idea what they were. These were followed by, of all things ironic, french fries. It appears we were so incredibly cheap that they had actually gone to the McDonald's across the street to get french fries for us.

In retrospect, I should have just left, gone to a bistro, or a bakery, or anything really, consequences be damned.

[chow guy]

I came this () close to attending the Culinary Institute of America in New York years ago. Ever since, I've wondered a bit what would have been if I had gone.

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The same exact thing happened to me. When I got out of the army in 1970, the GI Bill wouldn't pay for the CIA. It was very expensive even way back then. I've wondered how my life would be different, if I had gone. My friend who graduated from the CIA went into the corporate sector, which seemed to be a major focus back then.

[chromedome]

I guess there would be two, for me.

I stayed home from university in the fall of 1980 to fish with my father and my uncle. My plan was to save my earnings and tour Europe on a Eurail youthpass. I had collected all of the necessary applications and such, but...that year the fish didnt' come, for the first (but by no means the last) time, in that part of the Newfoundland coast. We spent a lot of time and hard work on earning very little money. When all was said and done, I'd have had about enough money to get me to Heathrow and back, and that was about it.

Although my focus at the time was not gastronomic, I know beyond a doubt that a trip like this would have spurred my interest in "good" food (as opposed to "just" food) years earlier than it did happen.

This, in turn, leads me to a second regret: the twenty years I drifted from sales job to sales job before becoming a cook. I'd like to have at least a few of those back.

There are lots of others, of course, but they're not culinary...

[John DePaula]

My regret is missing the opportunity to meet Julia Child. I always felt that she was somewhat of a kindred spirit.

And I'm certain that many people around here feel the same way!

We miss you, Julia!

[rajsuman]

- I wish my husband was a foodie.

- I wish my children were more interested in food, although I hope they'll change for the better as they grow up.

- I wish I'd known well enough to ask recipes of all those memorable dishes I ate at other people's homes as a child.

- Sometimes I wish I could stop obsessing about food, but not really.

[Kouign Aman]

I regret I cant eat food that's more than barely picante. So much good food in the world that I have to pass on because the first bite is taste, and then its all pain!

[Darienne]

I regret that I never enjoyed cooking for the first 65 years of my life, that I regarded it with the same attitude that I had towards making beds and cleaning toilets...something I HAD to do but didn't really want to. It took so much time away from things I was much more interested in. And all those years my wonderful husband did all the short-order cooking, something I am still to nervous to try. All those years I felt such guilt...but not enough guilt to push me into cooking one more thing than I had to.

Now I am having a wonderful time, but now I am so much slower to learn what I need to know, and my hands no longer obey my demands.

[ScottyBoy]

I regret I cant eat food that's more than barely picante. So much good food in the world that I have to pass on because the first bite is taste, and then its all pain!

This is one I used to relate with (pepperoni was too much sometimes!). But I've actually been able to build up my tolerance over a couple years.

I only regret being too young while being taken on vacations around the world and not realizing my life's work would be in food. I only ate hot dogs.

[SylviaLovegren]

I haven't seen lion for sale anywhere else. (It might have been mountain lion, I don't know. But I haven't seen that either.)

I've eaten mountain lion, and would gladly pick the rib-eye. Carnivores are less than tasty.

A friend of the family's father was a bounty hunter (animals only) in the wild West -- she said that growing up mountain lion was her favorite meat. I always wondered about that.

[Mjx]

I really regret being pushed to eat certain things when I was a child, since these efforts effectively acted as aversion therapy, and to this day, my inability to even gag/keep down most cheeses is probably one of the saddest things.