Food I love to loathe…
Having marked March and April as my months for kickstarting my health and fitness regime, I’m pretty pleased with how things are going so far. Thanks to my week at Viva Mayr (of which more later), I am down 8lbs already, and next week I’m heading to my first ever bootcamp, in the New Forest.
Today I had to fill out an advance questionnaire for the nutritionist at the camp, and amongst the questions was a section for foods that I dislike. It reminded me that way back in 2009 I wrote a post on LLG about the food I love to loathe and, upon re-reading it, thought it might be time to re-visit it.
Out of both politeness and a sense of adventure, I’ve trained myself to eat most of the ingredients I disliked growing up. Partly it is because my palate has naturally become more sophisticated as I’ve got older: I wouldn’t touch lettuce (I used to flush it down the loo of our house in Kent), peas, garlic, or olive oil until I was in my late teens but now cannot imagine life without them.
Children naturally dislike bitter foods as an evolutionary precaution against ingesting poisonous foods, and I didn’t think I liked spinach, Brussels sprouts, or courgettes because they were ruined by school dinners, their natural bitterness exacerbated by poor cooking.
Then I learnt that spinach gently wilted was a very different beast from a blob of overcooked gritty dark green pap, that Brussels Sprouts – and their tops – were lovely chiffonaded and stir fried (recipe in my cookbook!), and that courgettes lightly sauteed in butter were a lovely thing compared to the mushy rounds we were served at lunchtime.
Some foods I just didn’t know I liked and refused to try. I gave away chips (French fries) at school dinner until I was maybe ten: because we had never had them at home, I presumed I didn’t like them. Mayonnaise, for example, I didn’t touch until I was 18, then I couldn’t believe what I had been missing.
Because I couldn’t stand hot custard, I thought I didn’t like creme patissiere until my late twenties. (This last one saddens me, because now the thought of a tart of raspberries resting lightly on a bed of creme pat gladdens the heart considerably.)
On the other hand, although I will now eat blue cheese, okra, parsnips, mashed swede, pears and aubergines (eggplant) which all used to be on my personal Index, I certainly would never choose to cook and only eat them out of politeness at restaurants or at other people’s houses.
However there are some foods I cannot eat without having a gag reflex. So, just for my personal amusement, here are the foods I will not, under any circumstance, contemplate putting in my mouth:
A glass of milk: YUK. I vividly remember the taste of the milk, in those little ice cold glass 1/3rdpint bottles, that we were forced to suck up through blue straws at Primary School. Hot milk is even worse: remember the skin that used to form on top? I’m giving myself chills just thinking about it.
My utter horror of milk doesn’t extend to yoghurt, cheese or cream (mmm) or, indeed, to milk as an ingredient (I’ll whip up a nice Béchamel any day), but it does include the following horrors:
Rice pudding & semolina: these are milky puddings with the texture of wallpaper paste. What’s to like?
Porridge: more milky goop. Never forgiven my mother for feeding me this for my fifth birthday breakfast. I still remember the feeling of disbelief that she would feed me this pap on my birthday.
Bird’s Custard Powder: Slimy, smelly, milky. Lil’sis can suck this up by the bucketload, sprinkled with hundreds and thousands, and full of sliced bananas. But then she’s bats.
White chocolate: A pointless exercise. Creamy, milky, melty goop; usually cheap & nasty so it leaves an oily, vegetal film in the mouth. This stuff is many things but to call it chocolate is a sacrilege
Green (bell) peppers: Merely an unripe red pepper. Sour and nasty.
Tapioca: Again, it’s the milky, frogspawn-y texture thing.
Liquorice & aniseed: In the same camp as far as I am concerned. Let’s add Raki, Pernod, Anisette & Ricard in there, and Pontefract cakes too whilst we’re at it. (But I love tarragon, so there’s clearly something off with my tastebuds.)
Cooked bananas: I blame my mother’s banana mousse for putting me permanently off the pervasive taste of blended or cooked bananas. I shudder still at the memory.
Desiccated coconut. Eurgh. The hideous, slightly giving, sawdust texture. I bear this a grudge as I refused to eat fresh coconuts, or coconut milk based curries for years, not realising that desiccated coconut was a filthy invention with no relation to coconut milk.
Salad Cream, margarine, Miracle Whip or Dream Topping/Whip: 4 aberrations that offend every sensibility. What? You’d rather eat a cocktail of artificial gunk than a judicious amount of mayonnaise, butter or cream? Bonkers.
Jackfruit: a bit rarified this but, believe me, I’ve never forgotten the rancid taste & slippery, silky fruit
Marzipan: this upsets me as I should like this. I adore almonds & almond essence, but the texture…
Chestnuts: It’s a texture thing again. That mealy thing chestnuts have got going on? Eurgh.
Honey & Dates: Whilst I eat fruit continually, I have come to the conclusion that I do not like dense naturally super sweet things. And as for that weird papery/sticky/oozy thing with dates…
Chocolate and fruit together. Whether it’s raspberries in a chocolate tart, or a fruit cream in a box of chocolates, it’s just all too acidic/sweet/cloying
What foods can you not stand? Or conversely, what have you trained yourself to eat?
