Taste

[sgt.null]

being of french stock, giving up gravy was hard. white gravy is animal free, but the mushroom and brown gravy has to be avoided. i make one from vegetable stock though...

[Avatar]

Damn! I finally remembered the point of this thread afterall.

It was actually quite appropriate given the title, but I obviously lost track too quickly.

What I wanted to talk about is really a question of taste. When I eat something, I eat it because it tastes great. There are things that I can eat, that I don't hate, but I'll never prepare them.

Everything should taste great. If the GF makes something new, she'll eat it, even if she doesn't really like the result.

Would you?

--A

[sgt.null]

if my wife makes it, yes.

[Avatar]

Man, I can't. I don't see the point of eating something you don't like, unless of course you're going to die.

--A

[hanna]

I totally agree. If I make something I don't like, I'm calling the Pizza place.

[High Lord Tolkien]

Yeah, I just threw away 5lbs of potato salad that I made yesterday.
I fell asleep just at the time I was supposed to add the mayo, egg, and italian dressing so my wife put the taters in the fridge.
Well, I usually mix it all together when the potatos are warm and soft.
So it tasted like crap or rather it tasted like the crap you would buy at a store!
Rather than suffer through eating it I just tossed it away in disgust.
But that's just me.

[hanna]

A friend of mine cannot cook. Not at all. She has trouble boiling water. Last time che cooked for me it was awful. I politely and (wo)manfully swallowed it down and spent the next 24 hourse on the porcelain telephone. After that, I said enough.

[Menolly]

Mainly it seems to be the textures that get me. Apparently is called "Tactile Defensiveness," and it affects my sense of touch as well.

Good old SID raising it's ugly head?

Y'all must have started this thread while we were at Universal Orlando; somehow I missed it before. I have to agree with Hanna, taste is learned to a big degree. It is influenced at first by the foods we are exposed to growing up. Then, if we make a lifestyle choice which is important to us that affects what we eat, we can train our taste to find that we used to enjoy unappealing if it conflicts with our new lifestyle.

I also think many people will eat foods they don't like because they find it wasteful to throw away food that will satisfy hunger without making you sick. IMO that has nothing to do with taste, but with upbringing and how frugal you have made yourself to be.

[hanna]

I'm not too sure which is better though - Not eating food you don't like, or eating it rather than throwing it away.

[sgt.null]

believing it's a sin to throw away food i will eat stuff that i don't like.

[Avatar]

Well, she doesn't consider it a "sin," but otherwise that's how the GF feels about it too. She's very keen on not being wasteful. Which I totally respect. But knowing that it doesn't make a blind bit of difference, I just can't force myself to eat something that I don't like. Would rather, like HLT, throw it away.

--Avatar

[matrixman]

I stumbled onto this thread, began reading and became strangely fascinated, er, in the same way that obscure afternoon cooking shows used to, I guess. Didn't know Avatar had such a passion for gravy...I learn something new everyday here.

Oh, and I like the stuff that everybody seems to hate here: okra and celery. What that says about my taste I have no idea. Not too much of a food connoisseur; I worship at the altar of the local deli--I just take the sale of the day, or soup of the day, or whatever. Does that make me a philistine of cuisine? You decide.

[Avatar]

Glad it made interesting reading for you at least. I love cooking, I'm just lazy. In fact, I come from a family of dedicated cooks, and my brother is a chef (with all the attitude that implies as well...).

Celery...nothing wrong with it, it's just bland. And Okra is something I've never had the opportunity to try, although I suspect I wouldn't like it.

Think of yourself as an adventurer rather than a philistine. Always ready to take another leap into cuisine's unknown. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

One of my biggest drawbacks is that I tend to find something I like, and then stick to it. I'd rather eat something I know I'm gonna love, than chance being stuck with something unpleasant, or even simply something that's not that great.

Food is meant to taste great. (That whole "adventurer" thing applies to the GF as well. She'll cook something with no idea of what its gonna taste like. (And then force herself to eat it, even if it doesn't taste great. I...just...can't...)

--Avatar

[sgt.null]

neve tried okra until arriving in Texas. love it now, stewed with tomatoes.

[Menolly]

neve tried okra until arriving in Texas. love it now, stewed with tomatoes.

:::shudder:::

The okra I've had stewed with tomatoes has always been too slimey for me. But fried okra? Mmmm...

[Avatar]

Well, I'm certainly in no place to comment. In my last post though, I forgot to mention that the GF has also worked as a chef, albeit a vegetarian one.

--A