Blue cheese.
I love how funky it is. who knew moldy cheese could add so much to a dish?
I think most cheese is “moldy”. Like isn’t sharp cheddar aged with the moldy edges cut off?
I’m not a cheese expert but I’m pretty sure most cheese is aged and has some level of “mold”.
I think blue cheese is just special in that the process just results in chunks of pieces that contain the mold from the aging process?
Total speaking out of my ass. Correct me please. This is speculation and a question not an answer.
most cheese is actually curdled (aka spoiled) milk essentially, but doesn’t necessarily contain edible mold.
Totally agree especially with fruit cake
Omg yuck please tell me you didn’t try that
I did indeed it is glorious
I love blue cheese. Not sure about the fruitcake. But I’m intrigued now.
So good with wings. This place near me makes amazing “boneless” wings that aren’t just chicken breast. I think it’s thighs? It’s non white meat boneless wings and I just love the spicy wings you just dunk and eat in some blue cheese. Can’t get enough.
Black licorice.
If you’re not eating black licorice (made from actual licorice root!) with double-“salt” (it’s not really salt…) are you really living!? Salmiakki forever!
Salt that bad boy and you got a party going on.
mmmm, I love the black licorice jelly beans.
Salmiakki!
皮蛋 a.k.a. “century egg” or, more boringly, “preserved egg”.
I get it. I really do. Everything about these from the colour to the texture to the aroma to the flavour is highly alien to most people’s tastebuds. (It took me ten years to warm up to them myself!) But now that I pushed through it, they’re one of my favourite things.
…edited to add this picture for those who are unfamiliar:
I got in a huge argument with someone who actually thought they were preserved for 100 years…
So with someone who doesn’t understand how reality works. Got it. 🤣
Could you imagine? You’d need to fund a company for 100 years with potentially 0 profit
Sometimes I wonder what people are thinking.
Then I remember most people don’t think.
I mean there’s tea that you can buy that’s aged about 30 years. That stuff is horrifically expensive because the capital outlay with ZERO return on it is massive. (I drank a tea that was actually 99 years old once, back in about 2003. It cost roughly twenty bucks in 2003 money for a thimble-sized teacup’s worth. Yes, it was worth it.)
You can also get liquors that are aged 25+ years here. Again, it’s hugely expensive because of the outlay vs. return ratio.
And both of these only work by also selling younger versions: for the liquors 3 years and for teas anywhere from a year on up.
A hundred years? And yet you sell them for a price of about $1.5 for ten? (First search page on Taobao, randomly selected shop: https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=683692822495)
You can also get liquors that are aged 25+ years here. Again, it’s hugely expensive because of the outlay vs. return ratio.
It’s not just that, it’s also that alcohol evaporates. I mostly know single malts - where the evaporation is called ‘the angel’s share’. It’s a couple of percent per year of storage (in Scotland). That might not sound like much but after 30 years at 2% you’ll have lost about 45% of your initial volume.
Evaporation when covered in clay is slowed by quite a bit, but yeah, 25+ years will still lose you volume.
about $1.5 for ten
I may have a business idea for the US market
Selling pre-rotted eggs? 🤣
I really like olives, but I totally get how they’re not for everyone. I also love capers and seaweed.
I still have no idea what capers are used for. I see them in delicatessens all the time, but I don’t buy them because I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with them.
They’re great with smoked salmon. Put a little smoked salmon, a squeeze of lemon, a few capers, and maybe a sprinkle of fresh dill on a crostini or cracker. They’re also nice in pasta sauce.
OK, so they’re consumed directly, not ground up or smashed into paste or something?
Yep, I just eat them straight. If I’ve bought the really big kind, I sometimes cut them into halves or quarters.
Well thanks! Next time I’m in a position to buy some I will.
they go well in sauces and savory dishes. I’d describe the flavor as a very robust and meaty olive.
They’re a little pop of salt and acid, so go really well with, eg, oily fish. I make a warm smoked mackeral salad which would be a bit meh without the capers.
Liver and Onion, anchovies, chunchullo, whitebait, blood and tongue sausage… generally these fall in two categories:
- Food that has a particularly strong flavor that clashes with what people are used to, and
- Food that is made from the parts of an animal that is not “meat” and therefore has an unfamiliar texture.
They’re wrong on all accounts - taste is acquired, and people should at least try food out of their comfort zone - but considering that it took 20 years for me to even consider trying shrimp (which still isn’t my first choice, but I like it now) I can understand.
Blood products (including blood sausage/black pudding, duck blood “tofu”, etc.) react very badly with my stomach. I like the taste fine, but I really hate tasting it, along with any other food I’m eating with it, twice (if you get my drift).
Pineapple on pizza.
I only understand other people hating it because so many people have said so. So it’s more of an acknowledgement than actually understanding.
Of course, I understand people are different, so there’s that.
tofu
mmm, I could go for some crispy tofu with hot sauce right about now
I used to eat tofu to be vegan. I didn’t like it much but I put up with it. 1-2 years later and I’ve acquired a taste for it. Now I can eat it cold, fried, baked, etc. It does need some sort of sauce to be genuinely good to me, but it requires a lot less effort than it used to.
My go-to is usually: cubed, marinate briefly in sesame oil and soy sauce (or brine for neutral flavor), then laid out on a pan and baked for 15 or so in the convection oven, which makes it crispy. I use these in various dishes, but theyre also great as-is.
Literally everyone Ive prepared it for likes it, even the ones that “hate tofu.” Because tofu doesnt really taste like anything.
My kids who are most assuredly not vegan like tofu, I think because it was never a substitute anything for them, just an ingredient I use. Ma Po tofu, kimchi jjigae, miso soup, they love it. The youngest even loves the soft silken tofu in miso or seaweed soup, I don’t like that kind.
Yeah I think too many vegans try to pretend it’s chicken or steak. It’s just not. It is its own thing.
This is a problem with vegetarians and vegans in general: they try to pitch “meat substitutes” that are absolutely filthy-tasting with terrible mouthfeel. They show off the absolute worst side of the ingredients instead of selling the ingredients where they’re strong.
There are tofu dishes that shine (like mapo doufu): make those, don’t try to gaslight people into thinking that a tofu burger “tastes just like the real thing”. It doesn’t.
The key to tofu that tastes good, rather than being a carrier for whatever sauce or spices you’re using and nothing else, is freshness.
When I lived in Canada I hated tofu (to my mother’s eternal anger). It was tasteless crap and if I wanted the taste of the sauce or soup or whatever, I’d drink the sauce or soup or whatever without the tofu. Nowadays I get tofu that, if I time it right, is still hot from the process of making it. When it’s like that it has its own flavour that’s actually quite nice. (Which makes sense: it’s made from legumes which, you know, have flavour.)
I’ve never been vegan but I cook tofu for vegan friends and myself when they come over and I LOVE IT. My first experience with it was super firm, water squished out with heavy weights and a plate, marinated then in soy sauce and sesame oil, and fried in a pan. I overcooked it a little bit but I still thought it was delicious!
Bleu cheese. It’s got the funk, and is literally moldy; I can see how that could be off-putting for someone.
Cilantro. Because I know there’s people who have a gene that makes it taste like soap to them.
I’m so sad I have the bad genetics for cilantro. Everyone who loves it seems to love it so much! But alas, soap.
Yeah, coriander is great if you’re not stuck with those genes.
Oatmeal. Yes, it’s the texture and temperature of boogers, but I never ate my boogers growing up. What I ate growing up was a lot of oatmeal.
You must have been eating rolled or, worse, coarsely ground oats if you got the texture of boogers. If you want a completely different experience that tastes great and has a nicer texture, try cut oats instead. They take longer to cook, but they’re MAGNIFICENT.
I’ve had all three througout my life and I prefer the rolled oats.
Cauliflower soup. It tastes amazing to me, but it really does smell like farts
Uni:
I’ve had sea urchin once, at a fishmarket in Tokyo. It’s definitely an acquired taste.
I can barely remember what it tasted like, just that my friend and I each had one and immediately concluded that we didn’t need another. Very different from most sea creatures at least. I expected a mussel, but it was much softer in texture and much stronger in taste.
We ate them plain, but I kinda want to give them another try with some other stuff to dampen the impact.
Tried it once. Reminds me of sea water flavored Jell-O.
I really want to try uni someday! I’ve yet to see it on the menu where I live
It tastes like the ocean… feels. It flavors the rest of your meal, it’s wild! It’s best reeeally fresh, so it’s tough to get around here, but some nice restaurants do have fresh stuff. Very spendy.
If you ever fly into Vancouver bc, you are like 10 minutes away from some of the best Asian food in North America(or so I’m told)
Richmond BC(where the airport, pretty much) is where you will find many good sushi places. You can take a train right from the airport and be there in a few minutes.
I’m not crazy about seafood, so i can’t personally recommend any particular places, but if you want a really interesting(and expensive!) experience look for omakaze places and make arrangments MONTHS in advance
Durian. Apparently it’s absolutely disgusting for some people.
I love durian stuff… gf refuses to kiss me for 2 days afterwards but its worth it every time
I had heard about it, so of course I had to try it when visiting Malaysia. It was alright. Durian chocolate carries a whiff of fart when you open it, but the taste is OK.
Sushi. Steak tartar.
I like my meat raw if I can eat it without dying.
I’m the polar opposite. Steak tartar makes me gag and the highest quality sushi I ever ate barely reached “meh”. (Normal sushi falls into the “let’s just slide this in the garbage bin when nobody is looking” camp.)
More for me lol.
I like to say that I want it done so that a good veterinarian could bring it back to life.
Grilled liver and onions and jarred Gefilte Fish. Both I grew up eating as an Ashkenazi jew with a working mom who didn’t have time to make her own Gefilte Fish haha. I do understand that both are an acquired taste though.
Never ate liver and onions until I was married. My own mother was grossed out when I told her I ate liver. But it is so flavorful! I’m sad I missed out as a kid because my parents thought it was gross. I promised myself I will not do the same to my kids.
Liver is still a fave of mine but there’s next to nowhere that serves it restaurant-wise and no idea where I’d be able to pick it up locally to try cooking it myself. I’m not even sure what seasoning would be good on it as well if I were to get a hold of it.
Vegemite on toast
I’ve never tried vegemite, but I’m very curious to try it
The trick, if you ever do, is to ignore the way Aussies have it. It really is an acquired taste, and Aussies lather it on thick. But when first starting out, the best way to do it is to spread a large amount of butter (or margarine) on toast, and then over the top of that spread a very thin coating of Vegemite.
yeah, I heard you’re supposed to put it on thin. I didn’t know about the butter, though. thanks for the tip!
I use miso these days. It’s a similar salty umami flavour to Vegemite. Miso and butter on toast is tasty.
Buy a jar and go to town. (Equivalently, though I’ve just made every Brit and Aussie wish my death, go with Marmite.)
You don’t have to worry about wasting it. If you don’t like it, it’s very good wood filler as well. (Indeed for my purposes that’s its prime usage.)
ooh! I do crafting occasionally! I might look into its uses to see if I could apply it artistically.
I’m a fan of Marmite. It is so divisive that it stands in linguistically for divisive tastes: “it’s a bit Marmite.” So I get it.
