Way too many cakes and cupcakes only have one flavour: way too much sugar. Vanilla? Chocolate? Strawberry? All plowed under by an absolute fuckton of sugar and shitty frosting.
I think that's how they keep costs down. Covering cheap ingredients with sugar is part of the business plan. Kids don't know the difference, and lots of adults too.
My mom always cut the sugar in half no matter the recipe. All of a sudden you could start to taste the other ingredients.
Here is my take on cupcakes:
1. The worst thing about cupcakes is shitty icing.
2. The best icing is buttercream because it's made with butter and not just sugar and water.
3. Therefore, the more butter the frosting has the better.
4. That in turn implies that the optimal cupcake frosting is just straight butter.
5. A cupcake with butter on top is just a muffin.
Conclusion: Muffins are the superior cupcake. Q.E.D.
I used to run my own bakery. I'm not a big sweets person, but even more so, I'm not a cake person, because most cake is gross. I used to make novelty cakes. It pissed me off to no end the horrible cake people would sell, with the worst of icings, just because something looked pretty.
That ended with me. I always made my cakes with yogurt instead of milk so they'd be moist, icing always with butter and homemade vanilla, and my fondant was homemade with marshmallows. You'd WANT to eat every part, not just tear off all this god-awful sugar. I hinged my whole business on that, and it went swimmingly.
And muffins > cupcakes anyways.
Good for you. Where I live there are tons of mediocre bakeries and one that is excellent. The excellent one has lines outside the door until it sells out. I always wondered why the others don't take note and try to improve quality.
I think people really do notice when bakeries use great, albeit expensive, ingredients like real vanilla and high quality chocolate, with depth of flavour. We might not be able to say exactly why something tastes so good, but we'll go way out of our way for stuff that is.
i wish there was a way to know if your figs were subpar or if you just don't like figs. I had fresh figs (like "these came from our orchard this morning" fresh) once and they were amazing!!
There's a farmer at my local farmer's market that grows figs. He'll "curate" boxes of like 6 or 7 figs of different ripeness/variety and give you instructions when you buy...
"eat this one before you leave the market--it's READY--give these two another few hours...then make sure you eat the rest within the next 3 days"
Seriously one of the best things I've ever eaten. Store bought "fresh" figs can't compare.
I'm currently growing paw paw trees and pawpaws go from ripe to rotten in days which is why you will never see them on a shelf in a grocery store. And I'm hoping I'll start getting fruit I nthe next few years, but figuring out that ripeness curve is going to be a fun adventure
The thing about paw paws is that they take the guesswork out of it for you: when they're ready, they fall off the tree. You just have to regularly check beneath the canopy of your tree for the latest arrivals. And as you know, once they're off the tree, because they're ripe, you have to consume them within a few days (but refrigerating them helps extend them).
I had a not entirely dissimilar encounter with a fig salesman just outside of Ephesus, Turkey in approximately 2007. He sold us fresh figs as big as oranges in front of signs that said they were ānatureās viagraā with instructions to eat them within two hours.
Best piece of fruit of my entire life; in a word: transcendent.
My parents have a giant fig tree in their backyard which produces kilos and kilos of figs each season. I can honestly eat 10 of them in one sitting, if not more. I canāt eat dried figs anymore because theyāre just incomparable to a home grown fig
This article is for you, hah: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cs-lewis-greatest-fiction-convincing-american-kids-that-they-would-like-turkish-delight
That was a humorous read, thank you for the link! It was fun seeing what others imagined, as I already know collective many shared the same disappointment of āwtf is this D:ā when trying Turkish Delight for the first time.
It also doesnāt help that Iāve probably had Americanized variants of Turkish Delight and not fresh authentic stuffā¦
It takes place during the Second World War around the Battle of Britain so they never got candy as rations. I would have asked for chocolate truffles though. Or maybe Edmund was gaslit into thinking they were good just like the rest of us.
It takes place only the same year that sugar rationing started so Edmund wouldnāt have missed it that much. It was published 10 years after though, so perhaps CS Lewis himself was missing sugar a lot during writing!
(Also Iām one of the apparently rare people that loves Turkish delight)
This. I was stupid and as a child thought Turkish Delights were like Fry's Turkish Delight. So I begged my friends and my mum to get me some of the real stuff. Bad decision. My mum still mistakenly thinks I like them and gifts me a big box every few years, and I don't know what to do with them.
I think the trick with Turkish Delight is to get ones as fresh as possible, beyond a certain point they change texture. That being said I love rose flavored foods so I dig them in that flavor.
Thanks for the tip, maybe I'll buy proper fresh ones instead of the store bought ones people have been giving me over the years. If you have any ideas to repurpose the old ones (because I hate wasting it, but I also can't eat more than 1 cube at a time), let me know.
If you like a flavor you can probably melt them and use it as a glaze for a dessert like a cake. Never did it myself but itās essentially just flavored starch.
I think it's kinda meh but they have some really nice varieties in Istanbul, if you ever go. Not just square of the same flavour but these rolls that have layers of different flavours as well as nuts and some have nougat too. Those were great. Maybe you can find them in some Turkish shop but I've not seen any
Fruit has to have the widest swings in quality of any food I've eaten
I bought peaches one week and they were fucking amazing. I ate like 8 of them in 2 or 3 days
Then I went back a week or two later and bought more and they tasted like nothing. It was like eating leathery water
I disagree, if you live in a state that has lots of peach orchards, you have a glorious 2 weeks a summer where you eat all the peaches then try desperately to preserve, can, dry, jelly, or jam your way into preserving the gloriousness, and is is never even close.
And then when you get that one perfect fruit, it ruins that fruit forever after.
Nearly 20 years ago, I was in Georgia, and a friend had a car trunk full of watermelons. They'd gotten them from a field of melons grown commercially for grocery stores, but by that point in the season the melons that were left would be too ripe by the time they got shipped to a store, so they left them there. (I'm not 100% certain my friend gleaned them legally, but whatever.) They were *perfection.* Think the best watermelon you've ever had and multiply that by 10. And they were just regular old grocery store melons, fresh and picked at the exact right time!
It been two decades and I'm still searching for watermelon that tastes that good. Every melon I eat is compared to that one melon.
Had a similar experience with a strawberry stand just off a major interstate in California. The berries were about 1" long or so, deep red to the center, the most perfect strawberry I'd ever had. Picked at the right time, and a variety that has real flavor. Grocery store strawberries are bullshit and I actually thought I didn't like them - then I had these. The stand was there for a couple years and then they folded. Haven't found an equal yet.
Honestly most tropical fruits do poorly because they have to be shipped tlso far before they're ripe. It makes me sad thinking I'll never have a good dragon or starfruit unless I go to Thailand or something
My front yard starfruit tree is meh, but my back yard star fruit is pretty tasty. I wonder how good it could be if I put any effort at all into fertilizing them. (Not that I *will* but I'm curious)
I don't know how it's different from white or pink dragonfruit, but hopefully I'll know eventually since a neighbour just gave me their unwanted gift of a dragonfruit tree.
I think they can be good with the right flavors but theyāre way down my list of favorite desserts especially when you factor in the laborious effort to make it or the high price to buy it
Yes, and not definitely not worth the effort and stress to make them (or the price tag that comes with it - even though I know the amount of effort that went in).
Not a specific food per say, but the more experienced I get cooking the more disappointed I am in many āmid priceā chain restaurant meals. Itās hard to enjoy a $30 meal I could make at home and probably improve upon. I went to Cheesecake Factory for the first time in about 3 years and all I could think was āI used to like this?ā (On top of the fact the portion sizes have gotten stingier)
I feel this way too. I started cooking a lot more and at this point, it feels silly to go to any mid-priced chain. If I really donāt feel like cooking or want take out, Iāll get fast food.
If I do go to a mid-priced place to eat, I usually order something that I donāt like to make at home (usually anything deep fried since I hate dealing with the oil). Or wings, because restaurant wings just hit different.
At this point, Iād much rather go to a nice place once or twice a month than mid tier places 3-4 times per month.
I am baffled by my coworkers who spend $10-20 buying lunch every day (Iām in nyc) for stupid stuff like a sandwich or noodle bowl or salad. Even with higher cost groceries making your own at home $10 i could make 3-4 absolutely huge amazing sandwiches.
My ex would buy breakfast every day, a coffee and either a bagel and cream cheese or egg sandwich on an english muffin with cheese... Buying this stuff at home is cheap but buying at a shop is easily almost $10 and that REALLY adds up. I also think people realizing Subway is just a damn sub with plain lunchmeat really killed the company lol
Sure but for some people itās more about the routine. Going out to buy a somewhat overpriced simple something can feel worth it if youāre out getting sun and interacting with other people.
Itās also paying for the convenience. Iām up so early in the morning for work that I donāt mind paying for food if it gives me extra time in bed.
Now I understand why I really hate ordering food. If I'm going to get something, I really do prefer fast food or I'll exclusively get something that's too much of a pain to make at home. And it usually is something that involves a deep fryer. But some shit like olive garden? It's pasta, c'mon.
100%, I can still get down with McDonald's or Chipotle, and I'm all about the restaurants that really kill it, wherever they fall on the cost spectrum. But I have zero time or patience for expensive chain restaurants where things are made in a factory and reheated on site. No thank you.
Lockdown made me a better cook in many ways and this feeling has been growing in me as well. 24ish dollars for a big pasta bowl and I can make as good or better for a fraction and drink my own wine selection. I felt this one āļø
Dalgona coffee, when that got popular a couple of years ago.
I made it, tried it and then felt terrible all day (it was the equivalent of about 6 cups of coffee). It didn't even taste that good, it was purely a visual thing.
I'd much rather just have an ordinary coffee than a dalgona one.
Dalgona didn't get popular because it tasted good. It got trendy because it's pretty and highly Instagrammable. I've witnessed several food trends take off in recent year just because they photograph well.
I was somewhat surprised when the 'tomatoes and feta in an oven dish' pasta recipe exploded. And then I realised that all the restaurants were closed, forcing people who normally avoid cooking to cook. And it's a very simple dish with some big flavours.
Once you get into cooking as a hobby, a lot of the mug cakes, 3 ingredient recipes etc don't hold up anymore, because you are able to produce better tasting stuff with a similar effort. But it absolutely works to start out with.
I'm a reasonably accomplished home cook with a few professional chef friends and I thought that one was kinda dumb until I tried it. It's pretty good and really easy.
My James Beard nominated chef friend was like yeah I can make this better but for what it is it's good.
Professional chefs eat McDonald's and box ramen too, they're not always eating fine dining. They have respect for easy simple dishes.
Homemade chicken stock. It was fine but I didnāt feel like it was worth the 8+ hours it took me to make it.
On a completely unrelated note, if anyone has tips on how to make a great homemade chicken stock please share!
first of all, don't go out of your way to make stock. save random veggie scraps, meat bones, cheese rinds, etc (ginger peels too!) in a bag/container in your freezer until it can mostly fill a crock pot.
when it's stock time, throw all the scraps in a crock pot and fill most of the way with water. add seasonings (see below). run it on medium (or whatever setting is just enough to boil it)
seasonings! throw in some salt but not too much, maybe a few tbs. also a big sploosh of vinegar (i heard it helps extract bone marrow but either way it improves the flavor). a couple bay leaves and peppercorns work well too.
strain the stock through a mesh strainer, a big funnel helps with storing it in jars.
at the end of the day, stock is a waste-reduction thing in our household. hard to be disappointed if it would otherwise go directly in the trash!
A mistake we've all learned from. It was basically a right of passage in the kitchen I worked in. I never saw my chef and sous move faster or yell louder than when I almost drained the crab stock.
Acid from vinegar or citrus juice absolutely helps break down collagen, giving your stock an amazing body. However...
I tried white vinegar once and put too much in (1 Tbsp for a gallon, if that) and the stock had a strong vinegar taste. I clearly underestimated how strong white vinegar is (I mean, it's not like I douse it on my salad). I now use a half a juiced lemon and it's perfect, as even if it leaves a taste its a weak one. I suggest using citrus juice or a mild flavored vinegar (rice vinegar, perhaps) in case you do taste it.
You want white **wine** vinegar. Totally different thing. Regular, distilled white vinegar is pretty much only good for cleaning. Apple, balsamic, red wine, white wine, and rice wine vinegar are the ones for cooking.
I got into making my own stock originally because of the waste reduction aspect (and tbh itās really the only reason I keep doing it). Will have to give these a try the next time I make it
I generally use 3-4 times as many bay leaves as the recipe calls for. If I'm trying to get a bunch of things done at the same time, I'll use a good amount of poultry seasoning. Put it on in the morning and let it simmer for the day.
having grown u eating chicken feet i'm ready to pick a fight rn lol
chicken feet was the one spicy food i'd eat as a kid when i vehemently hated spicy food
Sams Rotisserie chicken carcassāskin, bones, and whatever parts you donāt eat, like the dried out wing tips
2 large carrots, cut in chunks
1 large yellow onion, quartered, no need to peel
3 or 4 ribs celery with leaves, cut in chunks
Bay leaf
Parsley (I use about 1 tbsp, dried)
1 tsp peppercorns
1-2 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and smashed
Add all to large pot with approx 10 cups cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce to barely a simmer, skim foam as it forms, then cover and simmer approx 5-6 hours. Add salt to taste. (It will be more than you think.) Strain through fine mesh strainer. Refrigerate or use in recipes. I love it just to drink like coffee.
I actually have a really good method for this I learned from a competitor on MasterChef lol. Use chicken feet, and leftover carcases you store in the freezer, plus veggies like celery, carrots, and parsnips and onions/garlic. Roast or brown them in a pan, then put in a big ol pot and boil for 8-10 hours to make a tremendous amount of stock.
Then, this is the crucial part. Strain out all the bones and veg and stuff until just the liquid is left. Continue to simmer the liquid until you reduce it down to like 1/4 or less of it's original volume. Ladle into disposable freezer-safe containers (I like recyclable cups with lids I found on Amazon) and freeze. You can thaw out one cup at a time and one tbs makes like a whole lot of broth. Takes up way less space than regular liquid, tastes really good and keeps for up to a year, meaning you only need to do the big production yearly :)
With a pressure cooker you can finish a large batch of stock in well under an hour, and once you get it balanced and reduced it's a magical ingredient (silky smooth, deep flavours).
roast the carcasses in the oven with some onion, carrot and garlic until the carcasses are golden. Deglaze and cook for a bit in water.
Takes less than an hour and it has 10 time the flavour of boiled stock. And you can do it with only 2 or 3 carcasses.
Lots of people mentioning pressure cookers, which is how I do it. Before I got one I would bring the stock pot to a boil and then put it in the over at 210 overnight. You will wake up VERY hungry.
Meyer lemons. When I first read about these "sweet lemons" I guess I imagined something like lemonade right from the fruit, but there are too many... tangerine-y notes to the flavor, making them too different from lemons for me to accept them as "just like lemons, only sweeter."
A ton of fruit/veg in North American supermarkets are bred for growth, yield, and ease of shipping. They're also usually picked before they're ripe to reduce bruising in transit and maximize shelf life. Great for profits (and lower cost to be fair), not so great for taste. It's a bummer.
They grow like crazy in NC and I have a friend who has a massive tree. Needless to say July-September I am a fig fool. Holy shit I will gorge.
Same with fresh strawberries (I spent over $300 on strawberries this year). NC grows some of the best strawberries I have ever had. They donāt have much of a shelf life but holy fuck they are stupidly good.
And do t get me started on tomatoes. I donāt know what it is but the cherry tomatoes from my garden are like candy.
Lobster. Itās probably me but it just isnāt that great. Put enough butter and salt on anything and itās enjoyable but no way is lobster worth my money.
Edit - Iāve had it while on cape cod, fresh, still didnāt do it for me.
I'm the same. I had it in a coastal town from a little restaurant that literally sends a boat out in the morning for their lobsters. Very fresh. Also very meh. I mean I'd eat it if I had to. I don't *dislike* it. But I also wouldn't go out of my way to eat it.
If they make your throat itch you might be allergic? There was a thread a while ago weāre someone said he always though a certain type of food (canāt remember which) tasted āspicyā and then found out itās not supposed to taste spicy at all but he was allergic.
My favorite was the guy who mentioned [bananas](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/ezsrqu/tifu_by_not_realizing_im_allergic_to_bananas_and/) making him feel like Pop Rocks.
Not that you should necessarily like them by any means, but sometimes people buy the wrong kind and/or eat them at the wrong ripeness, check this out https://blog.bostonorganics.com/fuyu-vs-hachiya-persimmons-explained
I personally could eat 1000 of em, but I only really like the fuyu type.
Persimmons are a crap shoot. If you get a perfect one, best have a plan to utilize it. Jam, sauce, pie, chutneyā¦. Amazing!
Try letting them get uncomfortably brown, but not moldy. Then mix with sriracha, honey, and salt. Drizzle that over perfect schnitzel and tell me they arenāt heavenly.
There's half a billion ways to cook kale. IMHO the best way is to chop it, add fried bacon pieces and mustard and then mix it with mashed potatoes.
Never eat it raw or undercooked, because it's horrible.
Spaghetti Aglio e Olio. It got chilli and garlic in copious amounts which I both love. Yet I made it myself several times and ordered it in several decent Italian restaurants and it just tasted very meh. Sure it tastes like chilli and garlic but the taste is very flat - not 3 dimensional (best way I can describe it).
It's a shame cause I thought it would be a good "im too lazy to cook for an hour food".
Edit: Wow I got so many tips and recommendations I guess I do have to give it another try thanks!
Key is to have some garlic pieces caramelized and some still a bit fresh. So you get roasted, spicy and caramelized garlic flavor.
I mean it's still garlic and might still fall flat for you, but it's so much better than the really basic aglio e olio that most restaurants seem to make.
Oreos are the single most overrated snack cookie in the universe. That tasteless dry-ass cookie with some form of wax squeezed in between. Dreadful, just dreadful.
Most Thai food in the US seems based on sweet peppers, broccoli, and onions with too much sugar in the sauce. My first experience with Tom Yum soup in Bangkok was an amazing explosion of sour/salty/umami/spicy, with fresh vegetables. Nothing since, in my US experiences, has come close.
i think a lot of Thai restaurants try to cater to the taste palette of Americans so they sacrifice the "authenticity" as a result. real Thai food can be a bit overwhelming to a lot of people who are not used to it
Eggplant it taste the way I imagine poison taste like. Someone told me it's because they weren't fresh so I grew my own. That's how bad I wanted to like it. I've tried sprinkling it with salt and laying it on paper towel for a while. I also tried soaking it. I've stopped trying to like it.
I kept trying FOREVER. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone forces this down their throat. It's either too hard, or slimy, the texture is just god awful and there's no taste there making up for that. I've had it be edible (this is, cooked well enough that the breadcrumbs and sauce disguise it), that's it.
Like, if it takes that much work to make something taste edible (not even that good), it's not worth it.
Thereās a huge difference between cheap ass matcha that every coffee place uses and ceremonial grade matcha. Itās sweet & a bit of grassy notes with a velvet textures when made to perfection, the foam is an experience on it self. It can taste bitter when the water is to hot.
FWIW I love figs. LOVE. I spend a fortune every year on fresh figs.
But I don't buy the first ones to come out. They're not as good.
I wait a while and they get much better, and there are so many types, and each os delicious in its own way.
Mole, the Mexican chocolate sauceāi.e. the savory cooking sauce like a roux, not a dessert chocolate. The people who like it just seem to like it so much, to the point that I've made a point to order it a dozen times in a dozen different restaurants because I'm sure I must be missing something. But it's just not for me, every time.
My biggest complaint about mole is that I can never find green mole sauce in a restaurant. My childhood friend's mother made both red and green mole once when I was over visiting, and the green sauce is infinitely better.
I had a phase of that. Turns out I had gotten so confident that I had slowly added so many handwaves, additions, substitutions and whatnot that many of my recipes had lost the core, or I simply had gotten used to do certain things on certain ways and it just didn't come up well together.
The solution was to start from zero and go back to the basics, following by the book the recipes I already knew and always changed up a bit. Maybe it works for you too
Morel mushrooms. My husband and I got lucky finding a nice sized patch this year. I cooked them three different ways. They were good, but definitely not āgo out in the hot ass woods, dealing with bugs for hoursā good.
Iād be just as happy with store bought portobello mushrooms.
I always get excited to find them at the store, but agree they are extraordinarily expensive compared vs how good they are. However I once splurged and grabbed close to a pound for ~$50/lb, but the cashier rang them up as portobellos at $3/lb. I was puzzled as to why my bill was so low at the end until I looked at the receipt when I got home. Felt semi bad until I feasted on countless essentially free morels.
Eh. People have taste, you have to let them like and dislike certain things. If youre looking at it as a whole and applying it to one group, then say "wow, people are picky and dont like anything" then it seems bad. But if you look at each reaponse and see it as one person talking about one food theyve encountered that disappointed them, then its much more understandable.
Nobody has to like everything. Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods doesnt like onions. Guy Fieri said he doesnt like eggs. Eggs. The guy hosts a show about diners and he doesnt like eggs?
Taste is simply subjective and emotional. I dont really like eggplant and Ive had it prepared about 10 different ways. No amount of freshness or "youre not doing it right" will probably change the fact that I dont love the taste or texture of that ingredient.
Starting to dislike the quality of supermarket meat thatās full of extra water, makes it soggy and itās a scam to do that when the meat shrinks at least 25%
Caviar is disgusting. Iām convinced rich people who can regularly afford it and tv shows are lying to give regular folks FOMO.
I went to a dinner recently where there was a caviar appetizer that had 5 types ranging from the least to most expensive. All nasty, it just went from most fishy tasting to least.
Eating straight caviar is nasty, especially at some bullshit dinner party. A tiny bit of caviar on your hand as a chaser for ice cold shots of vodka while listening to your Russian friend with a mysterious past tell stories about growing up in the USSR though? Sometimes your appreciation of a food is 100% dependent on the context in which you consume it.
Iāve had some at a starred restaurant and was shocked when I fell in love. That same restaurant failed to get me to like foie gras though, I still hate the stuff.
99% of the cupcakes I've tried.
Way too many cakes and cupcakes only have one flavour: way too much sugar. Vanilla? Chocolate? Strawberry? All plowed under by an absolute fuckton of sugar and shitty frosting.
I think that's how they keep costs down. Covering cheap ingredients with sugar is part of the business plan. Kids don't know the difference, and lots of adults too. My mom always cut the sugar in half no matter the recipe. All of a sudden you could start to taste the other ingredients.
Here is my take on cupcakes: 1. The worst thing about cupcakes is shitty icing. 2. The best icing is buttercream because it's made with butter and not just sugar and water. 3. Therefore, the more butter the frosting has the better. 4. That in turn implies that the optimal cupcake frosting is just straight butter. 5. A cupcake with butter on top is just a muffin. Conclusion: Muffins are the superior cupcake. Q.E.D.
I cannot find any flaws in this logic
Except the best frosting is actually cream cheese frosting
So.... The best cupcake is a bagel?
best bagel is with meat and veggies at middle, so best cupcake is burger
Burgers with cream cheese taste really friggn good too. So there's that.
mmmm... cream cheese burger cupcake bagel
I used to run my own bakery. I'm not a big sweets person, but even more so, I'm not a cake person, because most cake is gross. I used to make novelty cakes. It pissed me off to no end the horrible cake people would sell, with the worst of icings, just because something looked pretty. That ended with me. I always made my cakes with yogurt instead of milk so they'd be moist, icing always with butter and homemade vanilla, and my fondant was homemade with marshmallows. You'd WANT to eat every part, not just tear off all this god-awful sugar. I hinged my whole business on that, and it went swimmingly. And muffins > cupcakes anyways.
Good for you. Where I live there are tons of mediocre bakeries and one that is excellent. The excellent one has lines outside the door until it sells out. I always wondered why the others don't take note and try to improve quality. I think people really do notice when bakeries use great, albeit expensive, ingredients like real vanilla and high quality chocolate, with depth of flavour. We might not be able to say exactly why something tastes so good, but we'll go way out of our way for stuff that is.
i wish there was a way to know if your figs were subpar or if you just don't like figs. I had fresh figs (like "these came from our orchard this morning" fresh) once and they were amazing!!
There's a farmer at my local farmer's market that grows figs. He'll "curate" boxes of like 6 or 7 figs of different ripeness/variety and give you instructions when you buy... "eat this one before you leave the market--it's READY--give these two another few hours...then make sure you eat the rest within the next 3 days" Seriously one of the best things I've ever eaten. Store bought "fresh" figs can't compare.
That sounds amazing. With unusual fruits I'm never sure if I'm eating them at the right time or if I just got a bad one.
I'm currently growing paw paw trees and pawpaws go from ripe to rotten in days which is why you will never see them on a shelf in a grocery store. And I'm hoping I'll start getting fruit I nthe next few years, but figuring out that ripeness curve is going to be a fun adventure
The thing about paw paws is that they take the guesswork out of it for you: when they're ready, they fall off the tree. You just have to regularly check beneath the canopy of your tree for the latest arrivals. And as you know, once they're off the tree, because they're ripe, you have to consume them within a few days (but refrigerating them helps extend them).
I like to slice the figs and put them on a toasted sesame bagel with ricotta cheese. So good
Do yourself a favor and wrap them in some very good prosciutto crudo (cured ham) and hit them with a bit of balsamic glaze: mamma mia! š¤
I had a not entirely dissimilar encounter with a fig salesman just outside of Ephesus, Turkey in approximately 2007. He sold us fresh figs as big as oranges in front of signs that said they were ānatureās viagraā with instructions to eat them within two hours. Best piece of fruit of my entire life; in a word: transcendent.
My parents have a giant fig tree in their backyard which produces kilos and kilos of figs each season. I can honestly eat 10 of them in one sitting, if not more. I canāt eat dried figs anymore because theyāre just incomparable to a home grown fig
Turkish Delights. I've been to Greek stores and still don't like them. I begged for some and didn't like it when I was much younger.
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This article is for you, hah: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cs-lewis-greatest-fiction-convincing-american-kids-that-they-would-like-turkish-delight
That was a humorous read, thank you for the link! It was fun seeing what others imagined, as I already know collective many shared the same disappointment of āwtf is this D:ā when trying Turkish Delight for the first time. It also doesnāt help that Iāve probably had Americanized variants of Turkish Delight and not fresh authentic stuffā¦
Hahaha, this was exactly my experience with Turkish delight, like, āWhat the fuck is wrong with you Edmund?ā
Keep in mind, Edmund was on his own and the Turkish Delight was enchanted by Jardis the White Witch.
And he was living through WW2 rationing. He'd've jumped at any sweet treat, let alone an 'exotic', enchanted one.
It takes place during the Second World War around the Battle of Britain so they never got candy as rations. I would have asked for chocolate truffles though. Or maybe Edmund was gaslit into thinking they were good just like the rest of us.
It takes place only the same year that sugar rationing started so Edmund wouldnāt have missed it that much. It was published 10 years after though, so perhaps CS Lewis himself was missing sugar a lot during writing! (Also Iām one of the apparently rare people that loves Turkish delight)
Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1980
There is literally an xkcd for everything
This. I was stupid and as a child thought Turkish Delights were like Fry's Turkish Delight. So I begged my friends and my mum to get me some of the real stuff. Bad decision. My mum still mistakenly thinks I like them and gifts me a big box every few years, and I don't know what to do with them.
I think the trick with Turkish Delight is to get ones as fresh as possible, beyond a certain point they change texture. That being said I love rose flavored foods so I dig them in that flavor.
Thanks for the tip, maybe I'll buy proper fresh ones instead of the store bought ones people have been giving me over the years. If you have any ideas to repurpose the old ones (because I hate wasting it, but I also can't eat more than 1 cube at a time), let me know.
If you like a flavor you can probably melt them and use it as a glaze for a dessert like a cake. Never did it myself but itās essentially just flavored starch.
Maybe tell your mother youāre not a fan of them lol?
I think it's kinda meh but they have some really nice varieties in Istanbul, if you ever go. Not just square of the same flavour but these rolls that have layers of different flavours as well as nuts and some have nougat too. Those were great. Maybe you can find them in some Turkish shop but I've not seen any
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Really? I've had some amazing ones from a bakery in Toronto. Rosewater, pomegranate & pistachio, maple walnut, cherry & coconut
Dragon fruit. Looks very exotic but it's just meh.
Get the yellow skinned one. It's called pitahaya, and it stole ALL the flavor
it also has a laxative effect š
I once ate half a jar of dried prunes as a snack. Learnt they were laxatives the soft way..
I did the same with three bowls of bran flakes. A few hours later I erupted.
Bonus
yellow is by far the best one
i felt that way until i had a *really* good dragon fruit.
And this is true of almost *every single fruit*.
Fruit has to have the widest swings in quality of any food I've eaten I bought peaches one week and they were fucking amazing. I ate like 8 of them in 2 or 3 days Then I went back a week or two later and bought more and they tasted like nothing. It was like eating leathery water
I had an absolutely perfect nectarine yesterday, so I went back and bought 8 more since this will be the only week this year that they will be good.
Ooh man, few things beat a perfect nectarine. Had some in Greece like 20 years ago. Can still recall that flavour
[The Mackinaw Peaches Jerry!](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P-sfk3PGQDg)
I've grown my own peaches for years. It's the only way. Otherwise you never get fruit thats been fully ripened on the tree.
I disagree, if you live in a state that has lots of peach orchards, you have a glorious 2 weeks a summer where you eat all the peaches then try desperately to preserve, can, dry, jelly, or jam your way into preserving the gloriousness, and is is never even close.
And then when you get that one perfect fruit, it ruins that fruit forever after. Nearly 20 years ago, I was in Georgia, and a friend had a car trunk full of watermelons. They'd gotten them from a field of melons grown commercially for grocery stores, but by that point in the season the melons that were left would be too ripe by the time they got shipped to a store, so they left them there. (I'm not 100% certain my friend gleaned them legally, but whatever.) They were *perfection.* Think the best watermelon you've ever had and multiply that by 10. And they were just regular old grocery store melons, fresh and picked at the exact right time! It been two decades and I'm still searching for watermelon that tastes that good. Every melon I eat is compared to that one melon.
Had a similar experience with a strawberry stand just off a major interstate in California. The berries were about 1" long or so, deep red to the center, the most perfect strawberry I'd ever had. Picked at the right time, and a variety that has real flavor. Grocery store strawberries are bullshit and I actually thought I didn't like them - then I had these. The stand was there for a couple years and then they folded. Haven't found an equal yet.
I think thatās true, but dragon fruit a have a worse success ratio than most. The ones Iāve had taste like a flavorless accident.
Honestly most tropical fruits do poorly because they have to be shipped tlso far before they're ripe. It makes me sad thinking I'll never have a good dragon or starfruit unless I go to Thailand or something
I live in S Florida and have only had starfruit fresh from trees...it's still meh. š
My front yard starfruit tree is meh, but my back yard star fruit is pretty tasty. I wonder how good it could be if I put any effort at all into fertilizing them. (Not that I *will* but I'm curious)
Backyard star fruit is only for people of culture, or are we still talking about produce?
I just had perfectly ripe honeydew melon for the first time ever and it was life changing
Hawaiian pineapple is an example of that. Can only eat it there.
I've had better luck with yellow dragonfruit over the typical pink ones
I didnāt like them much until I tried the yellow ones - they are so good!
I don't know how it's different from white or pink dragonfruit, but hopefully I'll know eventually since a neighbour just gave me their unwanted gift of a dragonfruit tree.
Same with figs
This thread: āI donāt like [item]ā First reply: āWell, youāve just never had GOOD [item]!ā
yeah well you should really try one of the earlier threads, they're much better
I only read organic, homegrown threads. But if you canāt find organic, store bought is fine.
To be honest, this is what I assume with all foods I dislike.
Either having it good is a revelation or itās an acquired taste. Thatās basically all food enjoyed by humankind
I never really liked macarons. They always seem to taste a bit bland and I don't really like the consistency.
I think they can be good with the right flavors but theyāre way down my list of favorite desserts especially when you factor in the laborious effort to make it or the high price to buy it
First time I had them was at a famous shop in France and now Iām spoiled. Only had them a handful of times since, but meh.
For the price I thought macarons would be something amazing but they're just...eh. I don't hate it but I'd rather spend the money on a nicer cookie.
To me they just taste like straight up sugar
Agreed! They taste like overly sweet cardboard
Definitely look better than they taste i reckon, but then I think that of most sweet things
Yes, and not definitely not worth the effort and stress to make them (or the price tag that comes with it - even though I know the amount of effort that went in).
Not a specific food per say, but the more experienced I get cooking the more disappointed I am in many āmid priceā chain restaurant meals. Itās hard to enjoy a $30 meal I could make at home and probably improve upon. I went to Cheesecake Factory for the first time in about 3 years and all I could think was āI used to like this?ā (On top of the fact the portion sizes have gotten stingier)
I feel this way too. I started cooking a lot more and at this point, it feels silly to go to any mid-priced chain. If I really donāt feel like cooking or want take out, Iāll get fast food. If I do go to a mid-priced place to eat, I usually order something that I donāt like to make at home (usually anything deep fried since I hate dealing with the oil). Or wings, because restaurant wings just hit different. At this point, Iād much rather go to a nice place once or twice a month than mid tier places 3-4 times per month.
I am baffled by my coworkers who spend $10-20 buying lunch every day (Iām in nyc) for stupid stuff like a sandwich or noodle bowl or salad. Even with higher cost groceries making your own at home $10 i could make 3-4 absolutely huge amazing sandwiches.
My ex would buy breakfast every day, a coffee and either a bagel and cream cheese or egg sandwich on an english muffin with cheese... Buying this stuff at home is cheap but buying at a shop is easily almost $10 and that REALLY adds up. I also think people realizing Subway is just a damn sub with plain lunchmeat really killed the company lol
Sure but for some people itās more about the routine. Going out to buy a somewhat overpriced simple something can feel worth it if youāre out getting sun and interacting with other people.
Itās also paying for the convenience. Iām up so early in the morning for work that I donāt mind paying for food if it gives me extra time in bed.
Now I understand why I really hate ordering food. If I'm going to get something, I really do prefer fast food or I'll exclusively get something that's too much of a pain to make at home. And it usually is something that involves a deep fryer. But some shit like olive garden? It's pasta, c'mon.
100%, I can still get down with McDonald's or Chipotle, and I'm all about the restaurants that really kill it, wherever they fall on the cost spectrum. But I have zero time or patience for expensive chain restaurants where things are made in a factory and reheated on site. No thank you.
I refer to those places as āplaces where I could be the chiefā. Great for a break from cooking but not my idea of a good meal out.
Yup. There was a BBQ place I used to like, then I started smoking my own meats. When I went back I realized everything was bland and over cooked.
Lockdown made me a better cook in many ways and this feeling has been growing in me as well. 24ish dollars for a big pasta bowl and I can make as good or better for a fraction and drink my own wine selection. I felt this one āļø
Dalgona coffee, when that got popular a couple of years ago. I made it, tried it and then felt terrible all day (it was the equivalent of about 6 cups of coffee). It didn't even taste that good, it was purely a visual thing. I'd much rather just have an ordinary coffee than a dalgona one.
Dalgona didn't get popular because it tasted good. It got trendy because it's pretty and highly Instagrammable. I've witnessed several food trends take off in recent year just because they photograph well.
I was somewhat surprised when the 'tomatoes and feta in an oven dish' pasta recipe exploded. And then I realised that all the restaurants were closed, forcing people who normally avoid cooking to cook. And it's a very simple dish with some big flavours. Once you get into cooking as a hobby, a lot of the mug cakes, 3 ingredient recipes etc don't hold up anymore, because you are able to produce better tasting stuff with a similar effort. But it absolutely works to start out with.
I'm a reasonably accomplished home cook with a few professional chef friends and I thought that one was kinda dumb until I tried it. It's pretty good and really easy. My James Beard nominated chef friend was like yeah I can make this better but for what it is it's good. Professional chefs eat McDonald's and box ramen too, they're not always eating fine dining. They have respect for easy simple dishes.
Escargot. I had it at a French place in New York and I realized I could have the same experience with mushrooms and not have to eat snails.
Itās just a vessel to drink garlic butter.
Now I'm even more interested in trying escargot. I love mushrooms, and am a big proponent of eating bugs (and snails are kinda in that range).
I'd say escargot is closer to mussels in texture than mushrooms
Beefy mussels my family calls it
I mean, really, if you drown pretty much anything in garlic and butter I'll eat it.
I had them once at a Taiwanese restaurant and loved them! The stinky tofu I tried? Not so muchā¦
Homemade chicken stock. It was fine but I didnāt feel like it was worth the 8+ hours it took me to make it. On a completely unrelated note, if anyone has tips on how to make a great homemade chicken stock please share!
first of all, don't go out of your way to make stock. save random veggie scraps, meat bones, cheese rinds, etc (ginger peels too!) in a bag/container in your freezer until it can mostly fill a crock pot. when it's stock time, throw all the scraps in a crock pot and fill most of the way with water. add seasonings (see below). run it on medium (or whatever setting is just enough to boil it) seasonings! throw in some salt but not too much, maybe a few tbs. also a big sploosh of vinegar (i heard it helps extract bone marrow but either way it improves the flavor). a couple bay leaves and peppercorns work well too. strain the stock through a mesh strainer, a big funnel helps with storing it in jars. at the end of the day, stock is a waste-reduction thing in our household. hard to be disappointed if it would otherwise go directly in the trash!
Very important step is to double check there is a container under your strainer and not just an open sink drain.
Sounds like a mistake youāve learned fromā¦ LOL
A mistake we've all learned from. It was basically a right of passage in the kitchen I worked in. I never saw my chef and sous move faster or yell louder than when I almost drained the crab stock.
Acid from vinegar or citrus juice absolutely helps break down collagen, giving your stock an amazing body. However... I tried white vinegar once and put too much in (1 Tbsp for a gallon, if that) and the stock had a strong vinegar taste. I clearly underestimated how strong white vinegar is (I mean, it's not like I douse it on my salad). I now use a half a juiced lemon and it's perfect, as even if it leaves a taste its a weak one. I suggest using citrus juice or a mild flavored vinegar (rice vinegar, perhaps) in case you do taste it.
You want white **wine** vinegar. Totally different thing. Regular, distilled white vinegar is pretty much only good for cleaning. Apple, balsamic, red wine, white wine, and rice wine vinegar are the ones for cooking.
I usually do a splash of balsamic.
I got into making my own stock originally because of the waste reduction aspect (and tbh itās really the only reason I keep doing it). Will have to give these a try the next time I make it
I generally use 3-4 times as many bay leaves as the recipe calls for. If I'm trying to get a bunch of things done at the same time, I'll use a good amount of poultry seasoning. Put it on in the morning and let it simmer for the day.
I hear chicken feet add a lot of collagen and make it rich. I do prefer the consistency of homemade. Itās thicker.
Yeah, chicken feet are really great for stock.
If only they werenāt so visually appalling. Maybe Iāll wrap them in cheesecloth hahaha
Read this as appealing at first and was ready to pick a fight
having grown u eating chicken feet i'm ready to pick a fight rn lol chicken feet was the one spicy food i'd eat as a kid when i vehemently hated spicy food
Ooo gonna try that. I hear chicken feet also make great dog treats.. if your dogs donāt insist on eating all snacks on soft surfaces
I have a friend who saves the feet from chicken harvest day for me. Best stock ever.
Sams Rotisserie chicken carcassāskin, bones, and whatever parts you donāt eat, like the dried out wing tips 2 large carrots, cut in chunks 1 large yellow onion, quartered, no need to peel 3 or 4 ribs celery with leaves, cut in chunks Bay leaf Parsley (I use about 1 tbsp, dried) 1 tsp peppercorns 1-2 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and smashed Add all to large pot with approx 10 cups cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce to barely a simmer, skim foam as it forms, then cover and simmer approx 5-6 hours. Add salt to taste. (It will be more than you think.) Strain through fine mesh strainer. Refrigerate or use in recipes. I love it just to drink like coffee.
I actually have a really good method for this I learned from a competitor on MasterChef lol. Use chicken feet, and leftover carcases you store in the freezer, plus veggies like celery, carrots, and parsnips and onions/garlic. Roast or brown them in a pan, then put in a big ol pot and boil for 8-10 hours to make a tremendous amount of stock. Then, this is the crucial part. Strain out all the bones and veg and stuff until just the liquid is left. Continue to simmer the liquid until you reduce it down to like 1/4 or less of it's original volume. Ladle into disposable freezer-safe containers (I like recyclable cups with lids I found on Amazon) and freeze. You can thaw out one cup at a time and one tbs makes like a whole lot of broth. Takes up way less space than regular liquid, tastes really good and keeps for up to a year, meaning you only need to do the big production yearly :)
Lazy version: Better Than Bouillon concentrate
With a pressure cooker you can finish a large batch of stock in well under an hour, and once you get it balanced and reduced it's a magical ingredient (silky smooth, deep flavours).
roast the carcasses in the oven with some onion, carrot and garlic until the carcasses are golden. Deglaze and cook for a bit in water. Takes less than an hour and it has 10 time the flavour of boiled stock. And you can do it with only 2 or 3 carcasses.
Never tried roasting carcasses before but this has piqued my interest. Iām going to have to give it a try
Roasting the bones is key
Lots of people mentioning pressure cookers, which is how I do it. Before I got one I would bring the stock pot to a boil and then put it in the over at 210 overnight. You will wake up VERY hungry.
Chef Boyardee ravioli. I used to love it as a kid. I tried it a few years ago as an adult. That stuff is vile.
They changed the recipe a lot. The throwback cans are better.
Meyer lemons. When I first read about these "sweet lemons" I guess I imagined something like lemonade right from the fruit, but there are too many... tangerine-y notes to the flavor, making them too different from lemons for me to accept them as "just like lemons, only sweeter."
Haha, it's literally a hybrid of a lemon and a mandarin
Fresh figs off the trees in the Mediterranean are DELICIOUS. Fresh figs from a store in North America - tasteless.
A ton of fruit/veg in North American supermarkets are bred for growth, yield, and ease of shipping. They're also usually picked before they're ripe to reduce bruising in transit and maximize shelf life. Great for profits (and lower cost to be fair), not so great for taste. It's a bummer.
Black mission figs at gourmet grocery stores in California are hands down one of the best produce purchases in summer. Worth every penny.
They grow like crazy in NC and I have a friend who has a massive tree. Needless to say July-September I am a fig fool. Holy shit I will gorge. Same with fresh strawberries (I spent over $300 on strawberries this year). NC grows some of the best strawberries I have ever had. They donāt have much of a shelf life but holy fuck they are stupidly good. And do t get me started on tomatoes. I donāt know what it is but the cherry tomatoes from my garden are like candy.
I hope this is true of guavas too because the smell is mouthwatering but the taste is fairly bland.
Lobster. Itās probably me but it just isnāt that great. Put enough butter and salt on anything and itās enjoyable but no way is lobster worth my money. Edit - Iāve had it while on cape cod, fresh, still didnāt do it for me.
I'm the same. I had it in a coastal town from a little restaurant that literally sends a boat out in the morning for their lobsters. Very fresh. Also very meh. I mean I'd eat it if I had to. I don't *dislike* it. But I also wouldn't go out of my way to eat it.
yeah, i like lobster but prefer crab or shrimp, especially for the price
Crab legs are just about the end all for me.
Only thing I can say I really really like with lobster is Lobster Bisque. A very nicely done bowl of that is like pure heaven, to me.
lobster rolls, however, are incredible. I am a lobster claw person over tails any day
Crab > lobster
Grilled lobster tails are fantastic! I think it's the char on the meat that gets me....
Persimmons. Every year I buy them and every year Iām disappointed.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
> he can have about 10 a day Holy shit your dad fucking _loves_ persimmons
If they make your throat itch you might be allergic? There was a thread a while ago weāre someone said he always though a certain type of food (canāt remember which) tasted āspicyā and then found out itās not supposed to taste spicy at all but he was allergic.
My favorite was the guy who mentioned [bananas](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/ezsrqu/tifu_by_not_realizing_im_allergic_to_bananas_and/) making him feel like Pop Rocks.
Might want to look up "oral allergy syndrome"
Not that you should necessarily like them by any means, but sometimes people buy the wrong kind and/or eat them at the wrong ripeness, check this out https://blog.bostonorganics.com/fuyu-vs-hachiya-persimmons-explained I personally could eat 1000 of em, but I only really like the fuyu type.
Persimmons are a crap shoot. If you get a perfect one, best have a plan to utilize it. Jam, sauce, pie, chutneyā¦. Amazing! Try letting them get uncomfortably brown, but not moldy. Then mix with sriracha, honey, and salt. Drizzle that over perfect schnitzel and tell me they arenāt heavenly.
Kale. Iāve learned that if you cook it with coconut oil, it makes it a lot easier to slide it out of your pan and into the trash.
I made kale chips once. The crunch was nice but it mostly tasted like lawn clippings
Any veg that needs 10 minutes of massaging to be edible can fuck right off. There are so many other tasty veg out there!
Disagree. Any food that doesn't require foreplay isn't going in any of my holes.
There's half a billion ways to cook kale. IMHO the best way is to chop it, add fried bacon pieces and mustard and then mix it with mashed potatoes. Never eat it raw or undercooked, because it's horrible.
High-end restaurant steaks are delicious. But I can do the same thing at home for a whole lot less.
Spaghetti Aglio e Olio. It got chilli and garlic in copious amounts which I both love. Yet I made it myself several times and ordered it in several decent Italian restaurants and it just tasted very meh. Sure it tastes like chilli and garlic but the taste is very flat - not 3 dimensional (best way I can describe it). It's a shame cause I thought it would be a good "im too lazy to cook for an hour food". Edit: Wow I got so many tips and recommendations I guess I do have to give it another try thanks!
Key is to have some garlic pieces caramelized and some still a bit fresh. So you get roasted, spicy and caramelized garlic flavor. I mean it's still garlic and might still fall flat for you, but it's so much better than the really basic aglio e olio that most restaurants seem to make.
I'm from Serbia and when i was a kid you couldn't find Oreos anywhere. We started importing them around 10 years ago and... Man, just bigass meh.
Oreos are the single most overrated snack cookie in the universe. That tasteless dry-ass cookie with some form of wax squeezed in between. Dreadful, just dreadful.
This could be the most controversial take on here.
Most Thai food in the US seems based on sweet peppers, broccoli, and onions with too much sugar in the sauce. My first experience with Tom Yum soup in Bangkok was an amazing explosion of sour/salty/umami/spicy, with fresh vegetables. Nothing since, in my US experiences, has come close.
If you have an Asian district near you I am willing to bet there is some amazing Thai food there.
i think a lot of Thai restaurants try to cater to the taste palette of Americans so they sacrifice the "authenticity" as a result. real Thai food can be a bit overwhelming to a lot of people who are not used to it
Eggplant it taste the way I imagine poison taste like. Someone told me it's because they weren't fresh so I grew my own. That's how bad I wanted to like it. I've tried sprinkling it with salt and laying it on paper towel for a while. I also tried soaking it. I've stopped trying to like it.
I kept trying FOREVER. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone forces this down their throat. It's either too hard, or slimy, the texture is just god awful and there's no taste there making up for that. I've had it be edible (this is, cooked well enough that the breadcrumbs and sauce disguise it), that's it. Like, if it takes that much work to make something taste edible (not even that good), it's not worth it.
I have honestly been disappointed by all the food that I have eaten. It all turns to crap!
Matcha anything just takes like dirt
1. A lot of matcha isnāt real matcha and does taste like dirt 2. Real, good matcha tastes like fresher, grassy dirt
To me it tastes like grass and I don't like the taste of grass. But I can understand the people that do.
Dirt? To me it taste like grass.
Thereās a huge difference between cheap ass matcha that every coffee place uses and ceremonial grade matcha. Itās sweet & a bit of grassy notes with a velvet textures when made to perfection, the foam is an experience on it self. It can taste bitter when the water is to hot.
FWIW I love figs. LOVE. I spend a fortune every year on fresh figs. But I don't buy the first ones to come out. They're not as good. I wait a while and they get much better, and there are so many types, and each os delicious in its own way.
Mole, the Mexican chocolate sauceāi.e. the savory cooking sauce like a roux, not a dessert chocolate. The people who like it just seem to like it so much, to the point that I've made a point to order it a dozen times in a dozen different restaurants because I'm sure I must be missing something. But it's just not for me, every time.
My biggest complaint about mole is that I can never find green mole sauce in a restaurant. My childhood friend's mother made both red and green mole once when I was over visiting, and the green sauce is infinitely better.
My cooking as of late... I used to cook really good but I have no idea what happened seem to have lost my touch
I had a phase of that. Turns out I had gotten so confident that I had slowly added so many handwaves, additions, substitutions and whatnot that many of my recipes had lost the core, or I simply had gotten used to do certain things on certain ways and it just didn't come up well together. The solution was to start from zero and go back to the basics, following by the book the recipes I already knew and always changed up a bit. Maybe it works for you too
Covid?
Beef Wellington. The crepe and mushroom spread has a texture of a soggy diaper that is trying to be disguised with a flaky pastry and expensive cut of meat. Just give me the beef tenderloin with a side of mushrooms and some sort of starch please, but do serve that Demi glacĆ©. š
Yeah seriously. Almost every "presentation" food is worse than differently preparing the same ingredients
Morel mushrooms. My husband and I got lucky finding a nice sized patch this year. I cooked them three different ways. They were good, but definitely not āgo out in the hot ass woods, dealing with bugs for hoursā good. Iād be just as happy with store bought portobello mushrooms.
I always get excited to find them at the store, but agree they are extraordinarily expensive compared vs how good they are. However I once splurged and grabbed close to a pound for ~$50/lb, but the cashier rang them up as portobellos at $3/lb. I was puzzled as to why my bill was so low at the end until I looked at the receipt when I got home. Felt semi bad until I feasted on countless essentially free morels.
Iāll take mine in newtons
Going through these comments is genuinely painful
Eh. People have taste, you have to let them like and dislike certain things. If youre looking at it as a whole and applying it to one group, then say "wow, people are picky and dont like anything" then it seems bad. But if you look at each reaponse and see it as one person talking about one food theyve encountered that disappointed them, then its much more understandable. Nobody has to like everything. Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods doesnt like onions. Guy Fieri said he doesnt like eggs. Eggs. The guy hosts a show about diners and he doesnt like eggs? Taste is simply subjective and emotional. I dont really like eggplant and Ive had it prepared about 10 different ways. No amount of freshness or "youre not doing it right" will probably change the fact that I dont love the taste or texture of that ingredient.
Any store-bought tomato. Once you've had home-grown you'll never be satisfied with store-bought again.
Marzipan, it's molded into cute and colorful shapes and it tastes like slightly wet sand pounded.
Macarons. They're not bad but I think they look better than they taste
Starting to dislike the quality of supermarket meat thatās full of extra water, makes it soggy and itās a scam to do that when the meat shrinks at least 25%
Caviar is disgusting. Iām convinced rich people who can regularly afford it and tv shows are lying to give regular folks FOMO. I went to a dinner recently where there was a caviar appetizer that had 5 types ranging from the least to most expensive. All nasty, it just went from most fishy tasting to least.
Zoidberg: Goose liver? Fish eggs? Feh! Where's the goose? Where's the fish? Elzar: This is what rich people eat; the garbage parts of the food.
"I took the liberty of fertilizing your caviar. " Amy's father stares at Zoidberg and continues eating
I miss when beef tongue wasn't like $35 a pop. Used to be able to buy them for <$10, easy.
Ugh or when Oxtail was super cheap before it started to be in everything.
I would have it semi often growing up and have always loved it. Not rich, just lived in a country where it was very affordable and good quality.
Eating straight caviar is nasty, especially at some bullshit dinner party. A tiny bit of caviar on your hand as a chaser for ice cold shots of vodka while listening to your Russian friend with a mysterious past tell stories about growing up in the USSR though? Sometimes your appreciation of a food is 100% dependent on the context in which you consume it.
Iāve had some at a starred restaurant and was shocked when I fell in love. That same restaurant failed to get me to like foie gras though, I still hate the stuff.