Holy shit, is this ever good. I'm eating it right now on some freshly-cooked shrimp.

Then again, I'm one of those people who thinks almost anything is improved by cilantro.

Posted April 16, 2004 9:50 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

clearly you are not one of those people who tastes cilantro as soap.

Posted April 16, 2004 10:26 PM by sdn

Nope. To me, it tastes very nice. However, I am one of those people who tastes liver as nauseatingly pungent and bitter.

Posted April 16, 2004 10:38 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I'm with you and with Patrick on the cilantro, and if you keep publishing your recipes I'll be with you on the couch!

Posted April 16, 2004 10:41 PM by Bob Webber

Now THIS is evil. Where am I going to find shrimps at 5am ?

Thanks for the recipe though. Seems quite nice.
TOO nice, for now.

Posted April 16, 2004 10:58 PM by MD²

Cilantro, ick. Too much work, anyway. I made ham and bean soup today -- seven ingredients including the water -- and that was very good. No stirring, only a tiny amount of chopping.

I don't like liver, either, but it's the texture that gets me there. Joel Rosenberg keeps saying I'd like his liver (the liver he cooks) if I'd have it, but I can't imagine any liver being good.

(Beans are on the gout exclusion diet. If I can't move my hands and feet tomorrow, I'll know I can't have them.)

Posted April 16, 2004 11:10 PM by Marilee

Basil si, cilantro no. Nasty stuff. Some places that make prepared guacamole or some of the local salsas are heavy on cilantro, and it always tastes awful.

Posted April 16, 2004 11:36 PM by Scorpio

Moderation, grasshopper, all things in moderation. And to each according to his tasting genes.

Too much cilantro overpowers, putting more soap taste in than ever ginger could bring. Too little -- why bother?

It furthers one to make the great salsa.

Posted April 16, 2004 11:48 PM by Tom Whitmore

Mmmmmmm, cilantro. And coriander!
But is there away around the dressing mix? I did a quick google and came up with this: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,191,132191-246194,00.html

I suspect that the pectin is there as a thickener and emulsifier, which sounds unnecessary in this preparation since the mayo already has lecithin in it.

In any case, it sounds pretty darned good, kind of like a lower-fat sort of aoli. Hmmm, maybe I could sub some good (e.g. Total 2% from Greece) yogurt for part of the mayo....

Now liver only works for me as home made chopped liver or as foie gras. Beef liver = yuck. Haven't had the nerve to try pork liver, but I'm told it's really good.

Posted April 17, 2004 2:47 AM by Larry B

I don't understand people who don't like cilantro, any more than I understand people who don't like chocolate, or coffee.

I mean. I understand. I understand that there are people for whom they don't taste good. But I can't fathom how. It's one of the Great Mysteries of the Universe. How can you not like this?

Then again, people ask me the same question about artichokes...

On the other hand, I don't care for too much coriander. I suspect that would qualify as too much. Still, it sounds good overall. If I had any energy after all the stress, I might even try it.

Teresa, if you do ever write a gathered-blog-wisdom book, please include your recipes!

Posted April 17, 2004 2:49 AM by Tina

Soap? To me, cilantro tastes like armpits. Dill sounds good, though.

Liver I haven't had since I was about 6, when my mother had a good long think about what your liver does, and stopped serving it. I never got up the gumption to try it myself as an adult.

Posted April 17, 2004 2:59 AM by cyclopatra

The core ingredients of "Italian dressing" (apart from the vinegar and oil) are usually parsley, basil, oregano, and thyme (as recorded by Fawlty & Garfunkel), plus onion and garlic.

I don't use dry dressing mixes, but I would suggest something like:

2-3 Tbs finely chopped/ground fresh parsley (or 1 Tbsp dried, if you have absolutely no other option
1/2 Tbsp dried oregano
1 Tbsp dried minced onion
1 clove garlic, finely chopped, or 1/2 tsp dried minced garlic
1/2 tsp ground fresh thyme, or half that dried
. . . and the basil's already in there.

As always with our mischievous little friends the herbs, adjust to taste; I would tend to be a tad bit generous with the garlic but not the onion. A little more oregano will make it more aromatic, but too much will travel roughshod over all the other aromatics. If you're into lab work, you might want to make the dry spice mixture outside the bowl and do a couple of taste/smell tests before adding it. (If you make too much, you can always put the extra in a sealed bag and sprinkle it on your tomato soup.)

Posted April 17, 2004 4:36 AM by John M. Ford

Mm.

I'm another of the cilantro=soap tasters, though I have actually eaten a few things with small quantities of cooked cilantro that tasted good, and wouldn't have been as good without it.

My grandmother, on the other hand, is nauseated by the smell, and says it tastes like squashed stinkbugs. (I've always wondered how she knew...)

I like coriander seed, so whatever chemical it is must not be present in the seeds.

Posted April 17, 2004 7:20 AM by Nao

Well, I used to hate cilantro, but they serve it so much around here that eventually I got used to it. Now I not only like it, I would miss it in certain salsa recipes. I think it's just a matter of getting used to the odd taste. As with most things, it can be overdone, but I find it blends well with other spices. If it dominates a dish, that probably wouldn't be good.

If you find cooked liver bitter, that's probably because it wasn't marinated properly, which it really should be. When i was very poor, I used to get liver quite a bit, because it was very cheap. A marinade for liver is a great use for leftover beer that's gone flat. Red wine, too.

Posted April 17, 2004 7:44 AM by Robert L

I'm a cilantro-lover, too.

What I hate are sweet potatoes (or yams, if you're into that sort of thing).

My yam-distaste is so incomprehensible to most people that there is actually a script that must be played out every time they are offered (over and over - with the same actors). There is the offer, and my, "No, thank you." Then they say, "You don't want any sweet potatoes?" and I again respond with a polite, "No, thank you." They say, "Are you sure you don't want any sweet potatoes?" and finally I say, "No - thank you - I just don't like sweet potatoes." Then the clincher: "But you haven't tried these sweet potatoes. You would like these." This plays out every year - and yes, I did try that recipe a few years back and Surprise! didn't like it.

If it were declining a chocolate dessert or other thing considered universally yummy I wouldn't have to go through this. Is there something in yams that has brain-control function? Scientists?

Posted April 17, 2004 8:19 AM by Jill Smith

Just as a data point, I don't much like chocolate; it doesn't taste particularly good.

I don't like cilantro, either; it and coriander tend to make me decidedly woozy, as well as tasting like soap.

I'd probably try this with tarragon, to go with all that lemon, were I to attempt it.

Posted April 17, 2004 9:34 AM by Graydon

Mmmmmmm . . . .

Those who hate cilantro, try modifying the recipe as follows: substitue fresh coriander for the cilantro.

This recipe is also good if you replace the coriander seeds with cilantro seeds ...
;)

Posted April 17, 2004 9:48 AM by rea

What is cilantro?

Looking it up on image.google proves only that the leaves look vaguely familiar, so I may have had it in salad under another name, or I may just be thinking of another herb that's green and has, you know, herb-shaped leaves. ;-)

Googling on cilantro "also known as" tells me that apparently cilantro is just coriander - only it's the leaves instead of the seeds.

Which is presumably what rea is getting at. *sigh*

My parents had a pictorial encyclopedia of edible plants that was damned useful, in the days before image.google, for figuring out what ingredient the cookbook writer was referring to...

Posted April 17, 2004 10:02 AM by Yonmei

If you think you don't like cilantro, try some from an organic foods market. I notice a huge difference in taste. Cilantro also has a reputation for helping chelate mercury, so I try to serve cilantro at meals where we have salmon or tuna.

Dry citric acid -- now there's an ingredient I've never used before.

Posted April 17, 2004 10:39 AM by Kathryn Cramer

The taste of cilantro is a genetic marker. For some, there's a very unpleasant taste to it (like me.) Another test is a chemical called propylthiouracil (PROP). About a quarter of the population finds PROP to be incredibly bitter, a half of the population finds it somewhat bitter and the last quarter finds it tasteless.

File that under widow's peaks, the ability to roll your tounge into a cylinder, and if your earlobe is connected to the side of your head or just the ear. When you roll together a few hundred thousand genetic dice, you are bound to get some odd results.

Then there are those known as "supertasters" that taste some of the basic flavors much more intensely than others. This can seriously shift what is tasty and not tasty (and makes seriously spicy food actually painful. I have to eat wimpy Thai -- proper Thai food might have taste, but I can't tell from the serious amount of pain I'm experiencing at the time.)

My answer to those who taste cilantro poorly -- swap herbs. To those who taste it well, don't, and enjoy it.

I don't think any less or more of you -- you didn't get a vote on your genetic makeup.

Posted April 17, 2004 11:15 AM by Erik V. Olson

For me, it's eggplant: unless the stuff is buried in an o'erwhelming baba ganouj, it's nasty and sharp and foully bitter, and feels like it's attacking the roof of my mouth. My brother says it "tastes" much the same to him; the rest of my family loves it. I've met folks who dislike eggplant, or who can take it or leave it, but only one or two others who have such a visceral reaction to it.

But cilantro? Yum. And I can roll my tongue. But I don't remember what happens with the litmus paper pH tongue-test you do in high school biology or chemistry or whatever. --Isn't that linked somehow to whether or not you like cilantro?

Posted April 17, 2004 11:36 AM by Kip Manley

Kip, if you rub the eggplant with salt first and layer the slices between paper towels, the nasty taste leeches out.

Posted April 17, 2004 12:38 PM by julia

Yes! on the sweet potatoes. Sheesh, I do not like them, and marshmallows are not going to help. I never liked onions, either, and saying "but these onions are sweet!" was not convincing. Sure, they're sweet, and they taste like onion.

I like cilantro well enough in small doses, but it can certainly be overdone. The weird, seemingly genetic flavor turnoffs I have are mangoes (yes, I have had them fresh in Hawaii, and they still taste bad) and a couple of the solanaceous fruits. Most peppers are fine, tomatoes and tomatillos are lovely, but bell peppers and ground cherries have a particular nauseating flavor that bothers me so much I can't eat pizza that once had any bell pepper on it.

Posted April 17, 2004 1:21 PM by Kylee Peterson

I, strangely enough, like tomatoes and onions when cooked, but not raw, and it does not matter how "sweet" they are. (There will be onion rings with ranch dressing in heaven.) Salsa is a sometimes exception to that, but I do like cilantro in it.

And isn't cilantro, or the local equivalent, used in Indian cuisine? I swear there was some along with the peppers and onions with my chicken tikka last Saturday night. (Merced may not be a foodie hotspot, but we have some great Indian restauraunts. No decent Thai to speak of, though.)

Posted April 17, 2004 1:32 PM by Claude Muncey

Claude, my absolute favourite dish at my favourite Indian restaurant is made with cashew nuts, reduced cream, and coriander. It tastes blissful.

Posted April 17, 2004 1:43 PM by Yonmei

It sounds ambrosial, Yonmei -- do you remember the name of the dish? (One of the local Indian places has a cook that will take suggestions.)

Posted April 17, 2004 2:23 PM by Claude Muncey

I make aloo gobi (Indian curry with potatoes and cauliflower) with tons of coriander in it - for the coriander/curry lovers, it's total comfort food. I think Indian cooking uses a lot of coriander in general.

Another recipe for coriander-lovers:

Lime-Cilantro Dressing
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup lime juice
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Shake it up. You're done. Enjoy on anything from salad to asparagus to your lover's toes....

Posted April 17, 2004 2:35 PM by Jill Smith

....and Claude, I can eat cooked onions every which way, but if I try to eat even a smallish slice of a raw onion (no matter how sweet it may be), I end up curled up in fetal position on the floor, groaning in agony. It does something apocalyptic to my stomach.

Posted April 17, 2004 2:39 PM by Jill Smith

I guess I'm pretty fortunate - I'm not allergic to anything and seem to lack any of the odd genetic stuff that makes things taste bad.

As far as sweet potatoes go, I hated them as as kid. I guess I just couldn't wrap my palate around a sweet dish on the savory dinner table. I also wouldn't touch liver in any form.

Last week I attended a seder, where my friend's mom made probably the best tzimmes ever. Sweet potatoes, apricots, prunes, orange peel and dried cherries. (She also makes the world's best chopped liver - lots of garlic.)

I think people urge others to try things simply because our tastes change as we age, and what we hated as kids just might be sublime now.

Right now, my only two food challenges are natto (fermented bean sprouts) which I just can't get past my nose, and uni which I think tastes like lye custard. But, I almost religiously try them at least once a year to see if I still don't like them.

Posted April 17, 2004 2:48 PM by Larry B

Mmm, count me in as a cilantro lover. This sounds great, but my husband hates cilantro -- says it tastes like dirt -- so it will have to wait until next Thursday. When he's at school on Thursdays I get to cook whatever foods I love that he turns his nose up at, and this is going on the list!

Posted April 17, 2004 4:16 PM by Tiellan

Teresa's recipe sounded wonderful until she added mayonnaise, because, for me, mayonnaise induces retching. What would you suggest as a replacement for mayonnaise?

I love cilantro. When I want to eat potato salad, I make a recipe from one of my Chinese cookbooks that has a dressing made out of sesame oil, vinegar, cilantro, and scallions. Hmm, maybe I'll make that for dinner tonight.

I have no particular fondness for sweet potatoes, and, Kylee, thank you for not liking mangoes. I grew up in south Florida, and we had a mango tree in our backyard, so I know very well that I don't like the taste of mangoes, but for years, people kept trying to get me to eat them.

Oh, and count me as one of the people who likes raw onion. One of my favorite childhood snacks was a slice of bread, buttered, with thin slices of onion and/or radish. Yum!

Posted April 17, 2004 5:19 PM by Adina

Teresa, that sounds wonderful. I don't have the ingredients, but I'll get them.

Adina, I haven't made the recipe yet, but maybe sour cream? Does mayo make you retch because you don't like the taste, or because of the egg? If the latter you could try soyannaise.

Posted April 17, 2004 5:33 PM by Xopher

Teresa, is there a particular reason you spell it 'cilentro' rather than 'cilantro'?

Posted April 17, 2004 6:26 PM by Ulrika

Although I seem to have a good nose for most spices and flavours I cannot tell the difference between things with malt in them and the unmalted version. (Like malted milk shakes, or ovaltine which just tastes like chocolate milk to me.) I've always wondered if this was like the soapy cilantro gene. I do love cilantro, and rarely find anything too bitter. Isn't there a bitter broccoli gene too?

The sauce sounds great. You should write a cook book. Or have a special page where you collect all of the recipes you have posted at least.

Posted April 17, 2004 6:53 PM by Rachael HD

I love liver, especially if it's smothered in fried onions. Mmmmmm kissable.

I used to make giblet gravy to go with our Thanksgiving turkey, but we have to wait for the little one to get a little older before I serve it again.

Cilantro doesn't taste nasty to me, but it doesn't thrill me, either. What I can't bear to eat is melon in any form (except watermelon). "Casaba" might be fun to say, but don't put any on my plate.

I like the supertaster idea. I thought They Might Be Giants made it up for the song--didn't realize it was a real thing.

Next time I reject spicy-hot food, I'll be sure to say it's because I'm a supertaster.

Posted April 17, 2004 7:52 PM by Harry Connolly

....

Cilantro/soap gene. Blazing epiphany. Suddenly it all just *makes sense*!

OK, file that under: today, things learned.

But sweet potatoes, as in, Very Sweet potatoes, those I like (my wife the Hungarian scrapes my sauce off them, or steals one or two out of the cooking pot before I bake them, but my American sweet tooth likes them marshmallows all too well.) Is that a genetic marker, too (the yam, not the sweet tooth)? Or do some people just not like them much?

Posted April 17, 2004 8:10 PM by Michael

Tina, I don't like cilantro or coffee, and I wouldn't choose chocolate (I eat it if it's dessert somewhere, but I'd choose something with fruit). Many years ago, when I was a consultant and traveled a lot, the really good hotels would put butterscotch candies on my pillow.

Jill, sweet potatoes and yams are different veggies, regardless of how the store labels them. They're both tubers, though. I like yams better than sweet potatoes, but that's probably because when we lived overseas, nobody ever served me yam with marshmallows.

Kylee, I like onions in pretty much any form. My grandfather, who lived in Walla Walla, Wash, used to grow Walla Walla onions and would just take the husk off and eat them out of hand. I think I inherited that.

Tiellen, my brother and father like cooked spinach and my mother and I didn't/don't, so when Mother and I went out for something, I'd cook spinach for my father & brother. Later on, when we were transferred to the Pentagon and Mother was substitute teaching, on the days she chose not to teach, she'd have chicken livers for lunch (the other three of us didn't like them) and share them with the cat. The cat started bringing her the heads and livers of the birds it caught.

Adina, I make a low-fat dip/sandwich spread with low-fat ricotta. I put some ricotta, a bit of skim milk, and whatever herbs I want to use into a small blender. Start with tiny amounts of the milk, you can always add more. And if you add too much (or want to make dressing to start with), it can just be salad dressing.

Posted April 17, 2004 9:01 PM by Marilee

Mmmm. Cilantro.

Isn't the prolonged aftertaste from aspartame also a genetic state?

Posted April 17, 2004 10:47 PM by BSD

re: supertasting. Until I learned that word, I thought I, my father and my younger sister were just mutants, or castoffs from a planet where everything tasted like sand. My younger sister has it the worst - she can't eat tomato sauce because it's "too spicy." My father is just a step below that - he tastes perfume if he steps too close to someone wearing too much, or walks by a perfume counter. He refuses to go into department stores at all. When that used to be the only exit out of the mall, he held his breath on the way through, then spent the next several minutes snuffling to blow the perfume molecules out of his air passages.

But that doesn't begin to explain why I'm the only person I know who can eat cranberries, raw and whole. Cranberry juice makes me vaguely nauseated (I think it's the sheer volume of sugar), but I used to pop cranberries into my mouth like candy. I also ate gigantic dill pickles whole, often spending an entire day chewing on them and sucking out the juice.

So I honestly think most people process tastes differently. Whereas most people interpret sour as, "It's bad; spit it out," I tend to interpret sour as "yum. Filling." However, I also have an insatiable sweet tooth.

And it's interesting how tastes change as we grow older. I used to hate swiss cheese. Now, given a choice, it's the first cheese I'll eat. Perhaps it's the sweet tooth speaking up again? And, as a child, something seemed wrong about sweet-tasting cheese.

Posted April 17, 2004 11:11 PM by Alice Keezer

I totally agree that cilantro tastes like soap. Utterly delicious soap. The sort of soap you'd take home and eat in small stolen bits of crazed self-indulgence. Mmm, cilantro.

Oddly enough, eggplant is one of the few major food categories I can't quite deal with. Even more oddly, I like eggplant just fine when it's been beaten into babaganoush.

Posted April 17, 2004 11:30 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

And isn’t “babaganoush” just so much more fun to say?

Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ganoush!

Posted April 18, 2004 12:22 AM by Avram

I always hated sweet potatoes till I went to my neighbor's house for Thanksgiving, and he served mashed sweet potatoes with chipotle peppers (the dried ones, not the ones pickled in adobo). They were addictive.

I now have a favorite recipe for burritos made from chipotle sweet potatles, refried kidney beans and cheddar cheese.

I think kim chee is the only food I cannot eat.

Posted April 18, 2004 1:14 AM by hamletta

Avram: "You got me slammin' an-a-scarfin, grabbin' an-a-gobblin' b'ba-ganoush, ba-ba, baba ganoush." Rhymes 'baba ganoush' with 'delicious oosh' somewhere in there too.

Posted April 18, 2004 1:20 AM by Xopher

Patrick: Here you go: cilantro bar soap. You could grate it over a salad. Actually, cilantro cheese would be pretty good, now that I think of it; my favorite cheese has whole cumin seeds throughout.

I love fresh cilantro, but I am lazy, so I chop it up and add it to supermarket salsa.

The excellent foodie blog "Knife-Wielding Feminists" recently offered this useful taxonomy hint:

Except that maybe it wasn’t parsley. It looked far more like cilantro. I tasted it, and even though it tasted like parsley, I wasn’t convinced. It still looked like cilantro. I referenced Chez Panisse Vegetables: no help at all. I referenced Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and bless Ms. Madison’s soul, I discovered that parsley’s leaves have short stems that break off the main stem opposite one another and cilantro’s leaves bunch together right next to the stem. I definitely had parsley.

Posted April 18, 2004 1:52 AM by Christina Schulman

Larry B -- so agreed on natto (the texture is the worst part) but good _uni_ tastes to me like brominated cream. I still don't like it, mind you, but there's nothing like lye to it when it's at its best.

Posted April 18, 2004 2:23 AM by Tom Whitmore

...she'd have chicken livers for lunch (the other three of us didn't like them) and share them with the cat. The cat started bringing her the heads and livers of the birds it caught.

Aw, that brought back memories of the first and best cat I ever knew. I remember clearly one day on the back doormat finding that the cat had gifted us the head, heart, and liver of a mouse. The sheer care that must have gone into cleaning and arranging what I assume are the choicest bits... It's bringing tears to my eyes, thinking about it.

As for cilantro, I also as a kid had goldfish, and on their tank I had a filter. Changing the filter involved being exposed to several weeks worth of goldfish ...detrius. And the first time I encountered cilantro, I realized that it smelled exactly like that. However, I think I've become accustomed to the taste of the cilantro. (Still, I figure, why risk it? And use parsley when I make salsa instead.)

As for genetics, when I get in a human genetic frame of mind, I turn to the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man database (OMIM). Alas, no one appears to have done any studies on cilantro, but there is a mention of how eating artichoke can make water taste sweet for some people...

As for marshmallow, it has no place in cuisine unless it's paired with either chocolate or rice krispies. No wonder people don't like yams! Ew! ;)

I deal with yams by making them into a slightly nuanced vehicle for concentrated orange juice and butter. That is, 1. bake yam, peel yam, cut into inch-thick slices. 2. in small saucepot over heat, mix together butter and concentrated orange juice. 3. drizzle over yams in baking dish, and bake some more.

Posted April 18, 2004 2:46 AM by Madeline

Just a quick note, Julia: me mother knows from cooking eggplant. It doesn't matter how you leach it or fry it or roast it or chop it into a ratatouille or smash it into a moussaka or what you do with the stuff, it tastes frickin' awful. --We were quasi-sort-of vegetarian, and had our own large garden in Kentucky, which grew a lot of eggplant, and there was this Quixotic thing for a while there with finding just the right way of preparing it so I could eat it, and I just couldn't. Nasty.

(Still had to clean my plate, though. --I'm not denying there might not be some psychological quirk at the root of it all: I was eating this tasty dip once at a party years later and asked what it was and was told, baba ganouj! You know, with eggplant? You could have knocked me over with a feather. But it's not like I go seeking out baba ganouj or anything. We sort of eye each other warily over deli counters these days. Not sure if I can trust it. But! The Armenian word for eggplant is batilgian, which is ever so much fun to say.)

Handy trick for sprucing up your bog-standard oil-and-vinegar over greens-and-such salad: add a dash of vanilla. Lays a nice round vaguely sweet floor under the dressing.

Posted April 18, 2004 2:56 AM by Kip Manley

",,,no one appears to have done any studies on cilantro..."

Packets of propylthiouracil-treated paper have, for many years, been available for high-school biology classes; the students are supposed to take a handful home, force them on all their family members, and chart the inheritance of the taste gene. Whether this is more or less embarrassing than demanding that they all perform tongue gymnastics depends on the family dynamic, I suppose.

Can't wait for the Acme Home DNA Fingerprinting Kit.

Posted April 18, 2004 3:41 AM by John M. Ford

Madeline - Try adding dried stone fruits to your yam recipe, esp. apricots. Just add a little more liquid. The results will be worth it.

Marilee - My cats never dissected anything they brought back as love gifts, which were mostly crickets. We never fed them crickets... My mother's cat used to bring her lizards, which he would delicately place on her pillow. I'm convinced that that cat was pure evil.

Tom Whitmore - Brominated cream? I'm not too sure what brominated anything tastes like, then again I'm not too sure what lye tastes like. I guess I was just trying to say that uni has a really basic (in a pH kind of way) flavor.

Posted April 18, 2004 5:19 AM by Larry B

Sweet potatoes and yams are different? Who knew.

Marshmallows are not considered "food" in my mom's neo-crunchy food taxonomy (I was the only kid in the 70's in my small-town NH elementary who had homemade whole wheat bread and bean sprouts in her sandwiches. If I wasn't a girl, I'm sure I would have gotten beaten up. Instead, I just got made fun of). Instead, she makes the darned things with brown sugar and pecans. It may be more elegant, but I still can't stand it. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, though. A little nibble of dark chocolate, thanks, I'm done.

Speaking of baba ganouj, despite being another who's not crazy about eggplant, I got addicted to the stuff when I was a student in London. Marks & Spencers makes some seriously yummy "aubergine dip." I think it's all the garlic masking the bitterness or something.

Posted April 18, 2004 6:48 AM by Jill Smith

sweet potatoes with chipotle peppers.

Those who dislike eggplant aren't missing much, nutritionally. It's kind of a filler food.

Posted April 18, 2004 8:43 AM by Harry Connolly

May I add, as a regular British lurker here, that coriander/cilantro (they are definitely the same thing) is sold here in the UK as bunches cut with the top part of the stem or root attached, while the parsley is sold as bunches of leaves with cut stems. I suppose the whole plant is cut for coriander, while the leaves are cut off a growing plant for parsley. This is the flat-leaf parsley - we also get a frizzy-leaved parsley which looks completely different from coriander, but tastes the same as regular parsley.

About the smell, I find it fairly unpleasant, but good (in moderation) in some dishes, especially curries, and I dislike the smell on my hands after I've used it. The name coriander apparently comes from the Greek for bedbug, and I was able to confirm this the only time I actually encountered live bedbugs. This didn’t do much for its appeal as a herb, of course. The seeds smell much nicer, warm and spicy. I've never found the smell especially soapy, but I noticed yesterday in a handout from my local supermarket that they are bringing in a range of biodegradable household cleaning products that 'smell of freshly-cut coriander'.

Posted April 18, 2004 10:33 AM by Alex Lawson

Larry B: chlorine, iodine and bromine all have slightly different smells (I'm fortunate in not having smelled fluorine), and "good" _uni_ is more like bromine that the others to me. One Japanese chef I know uses it in sauces, and has served it to me steamed: both those uses are excellent. If you're in Seattle, go to Mashiko....

Posted April 18, 2004 12:54 PM by Tom Whitmore

Add to the database of people who can't comprehend that other people have different tastes:

(1) "How can you not like this?" Easily. It tastes bad.

(2) "But you haven't tried these sweet potatoes." It's not these sweet potatoes: it's all sweet potatoes.

Sometimes it is how the food is cooked. I've had delicious brussel sprouts. Once. But mostly, it's just the food.

Posted April 18, 2004 1:25 PM by Simon

Xopher, it's the taste of the mayonnaise, not the egg in it; I eat scrambled eggs all the time. Sour cream might work.

Marilee, ricotta sounds like the perfect thing. I'll have to try that.

I stayed away from eggplant for a long time, because my mother used to make a dip from it that I thought looked really weird. (Not quite babaganoush--just roasted eggplant and garlic). One day I was visiting an aunt, and she talked me into trying her eggplant dip, and I admitted that it was quite tasty, and she then pointed out that this was exactly the same dip that my mother had been making all these years.

Posted April 18, 2004 2:02 PM by Adina

"Those who dislike eggplant aren't missing much, nutritionally. It's kind of a filler food."

But ratatouille makes perfect diet food. If you have a big bowl of ratatouille before dinner I can promise you won't over-eat. I suppose that would go double for all the eggplant haters.

I have a coworker who won't eat eggplant or any other "night shade" vegtable because she says it causes inflamation in her joints, does this sound plausible to y'all?

Posted April 18, 2004 2:17 PM by Rachael HD

Nightshades do supposedly cause minor inflammation. People with arthritis can find mild relief by avoiding taters, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and so on. At least, my friend's mother did.

Posted April 18, 2004 2:42 PM by Harry Connolly

Gout too. As an interesting if irrelevant aside, all the nightshade family have at least one poisonous part, I'm told. I think it's the flowers for tomatos.

Alex Lawson: coriander and cilantro are the same plant, but not the same thing. Coriander is a spice; it's the seeds of the plant. Cilantro is an herb and as such consists of leaves. To me they don't taste anything alike.

Wintergreen and teaberry are the same plant, too...I've never tasted teaberry, so I don't know if it tastes like wintergreen...anybody? And, as mentioned above, tomato flowers and tomato fruit are not interchangeable!

Posted April 18, 2004 4:47 PM by Xopher

Larry B, in cricket season, I get up in the morning and find the cats have left cricket legs all over the foyer. Apparently the legs are not actually food. The cats are also quite good at spiders and other critters, but worms and slugs are too slow for them.

Jill, my mother's mother was a "health nut" back when it was actually thought lunatic. Some of that spilled onto my mother who never let us have sweet things unless there was company. We never had hot dogs or American cheese, sodas, candy, whole milk, etc. It turns out my brother (who is 47 now) quickly started eating all those things when we left home, but I still prefer to avoid them.

Rachel, yes, nightshades are implicated in arthritic flare-ups:

http://www.noarthritis.com/research.htm

Posted April 18, 2004 4:49 PM by Marilee

Argh, wintergreen. It makes me nauseated when I smell it and sometimes I retch. My mother thought I was born with this because she used to chew wintergreen gum and I kept throwing up when I got near her mouth or breast. She changed to Juicy Fruit, and there wasn't any problem.

If someone has just put wintergreen gum in their mouth, I have to move away or retch. And then there's the radiology techs who don't believe me when I say I'll throw up if I smell/taste wintergreen. I usually try to aim the barium at their shoes.

Posted April 18, 2004 4:53 PM by Marilee

"[I]n cricket season, I get up in the morning and find the cats have left cricket legs all over the foyer."

This would seem to call for at least a "Well bowled, Greymalkin!" But of course cats have a distinctly idiosyncratic response to praise.

Posted April 18, 2004 6:07 PM by John M. Ford

Ah yes, Marilee! No sugar cereals, no soda, no packaged cookies or cakes... I used to eat such stuff at friends' houses, but upon growing up lost most of my sweet tooth... but will almost never turn down a potato chip. Is there such a thing as a "salt tooth"?

When my mother met her Norwegian mother-in-law (don't get me started on things preserved with lye...), I believe she found a kindred spirit. Gramie ate yogurt back when you couldn't buy it at the corner grocery. On top of the health-consciousness, layer the Norwegian things like pickled herring and nokkelost cheese, which are major yums in our family. (Tho my Indiana-bred mother had never had fish until she met my dad. She loves it now, but her mother won't touch it...)

I guess we're just a wierd food family. Mom's favorite saying is, "If it's not food, why are you eating it?" (Usually re: diet or other sodas).

Posted April 18, 2004 6:35 PM by Jill Smith

John M. Ford writes:
Can't wait for the Acme Home DNA Fingerprinting Kit.

Won't be long now. We are, after all, living in the future...

Posted April 18, 2004 7:41 PM by Chad Orzel

Ahhh, kimchee, king of preserved vegetables (the one true Pickle is thy Queen, and her progeny are numerous).

My primary food-avoidances are almost all texture-based: squid, octopus, clam, and uni sushi; most arthropods; Natto; and overcooked legumes and cruciforms (those cruciforms that are harmed by long cooking, that is). I will try nearly anything else, though there are some foods that I've tried, but simply can't manage to successfully eat: Poultry feet fall into this category, as does spice beyond a certain, exceedingly high, level.

Posted April 18, 2004 10:36 PM by BSD

Xopher, et al. Re: nightshades.

One of the reasons it took so long to convinve people to EAT potatoes and tomatoes is because they resemble their poisonous cousins. As well the part we eat are the ONLY part of that plant that is safe to eat. Leaves, vines, and roots of potatoes and tomatoes are full of the chemical that makes nightshades poisonous.

My only food oddness (aside from a couple of food allergies, easy to avoid, which could be lethal, like my clam allergy) is that if I have to handle something too much, I may not be able to eat the recipe I've prepared. It doesn't happen too often, and it usually happens with a meat dish (when I was a newly wed, I decided to make chicken-liver stroganoff for Jim. He really likes chicken livers and I think they're okay, especailly with a strong sauce. The Joy of Cooking gave an ultimately unnecessary instruction (I was new at adventurous cooking) of handling all the livers, removing anything that might be unappetizing. Well, the upshot was I could not even swallow a mouthful of something Jim found wonderful. I'd messed with it too much and had grossed myself, sigh.

Jim does make a really wonderful sauteed chicken liver, he uses a flour/romano/seasoning breading, then tosses them into an oil and butter mix. Really tasty, even though I ordinarly do not like liver in any fashion.

Posted April 18, 2004 11:06 PM by Paula Helm Murray

That would be convince...

Posted April 18, 2004 11:08 PM by Paula Helm Murray

Don't like chocolate. It tastes just like brussels sprouts. Loathe brussels sprouts.

Can't make my tongue do the cylinder-thing, either, spent hours upon hours trying to do so, as a child. Everyone else in my family can.

Maybe my mother really DID find me under a cabbage leaf.

Posted April 19, 2004 12:22 AM by Mel

Damn. Now I'm hungry and I just had dinner.

I like almost everything. My sister and I were possibly the only children in NA to become pleasurably excited on finding out there was liver and onions for dinner.

I'm probably not a supertaster though I have very limited tolerance for bitter things. (Unless it's gin and tonic.) Can't stand coffee or coffee-flavored things, but I prefer my grapefruit without sugar thank you very much. Sour is always good. I'm with BSD on the whole pickle thing as, if I recall correctly, is Patrick. Cilantro is fine stuff, esp. in salsa. I can't eat much hot spicy food, but Indian food is ok as long as it isn't vindaloo.

Eggplants are fine by me. It occurs to me that I haven't made ratatouille in too long.

I never thought I liked sweet potatoes until the first time I had tempura in a Japanese restaurant. It was a whole new flavor sensation. Turns out I don't like them cooked with all that sweet stuff.

About the only thing I won't try any more is raw fish. Been there, done that. If I wanted to eat raw dead fish and seaweed, I'd lie on the beach with my mouth open. (Stolen from someone not a million miles away from this blog.)

MKK

Posted April 19, 2004 12:42 AM by Mary Kay

Can I have your dead raw fish with seaweed, Mary Kay?

Posted April 19, 2004 3:56 AM by David Goldfarb

I love sweet potatoes and broccoli, but don't do pickled/salty things, which to me are similar in yuckyiness. (This includes pickles, olives, kimchee, herring, sardines, and so on, as well as that asian candied stuff with the red salty-sour powder). I even drink my margaritas without salt!

Posted April 19, 2004 8:51 AM by oliviacw

Changing the filter involved being exposed to several weeks worth of goldfish ...detrius. And the first time I encountered cilantro, I realized that it smelled exactly like that.

How odd. The first time I used white pepper in a beef dish I thought it smelled like the inside of a cow barn--that same sharp/musky smell. Smells great in the jar, but not in the meatloaf.

Posted April 19, 2004 9:41 AM by Holly M.

I share the anti-cilantro gene, and can't stand certain types of melons. And department store perfume (or those magazine inserts) -- yuck! But my chief bugaboo is something most of you probably like -- cucumbers. To me, they taste like chlorine, and chlorine makes me nauseous. (That's why I never learned to swim; those chlorinated pools.) Yams: fine with tart fruit juice or herbs. I used to cook both clams and chicken livers (*not* together!) and love them, but I've given them up as too much bother. If I were more of a cook these days, I'd be yearning for a good recipe for nice cold coffee yogurt.

Posted April 19, 2004 10:33 AM by Faren Miller

Marilee: I love wintergreen, but have a similar (though weaker) reaction to peppermint. That one I think was acquired as a taste aversion in childhood (got sick on too many peppermint candies). Yours sounds almost like an allergy, though in that case I'd expect artificial wintergreen flavor would give you much less of a reaction (you'd still react because of the association).

Faren Miller: I even like doing my white laundry, because the smell of chlorine reminds me of swimming pools! Funny how that can go either way. I love cucumbers, but it never would have occurred to me to associate them with chlorine.

What I can't stand is the smell of cooking pork (roast, bacon, whatever). It doesn't smell BAD to me particularly, but I start feeling sick whenever I smell it, an odd combination. I suspect the action is physical in this case (since whatever you can smell, you're inhaling). Lamb bothers me too, but not as strongly. I'm one of those vegetarians who barfs when I accidentally ingest a trace amount of meat, one reason I'll never go back.

Another big hate: the smell of overcooked vegetables. Smell the same as rotten ones to me. That's why I can't stand brussels sprouts; they're always cooked to moosh. I don't like any vegetable mooshy. I understand this is the proper way to cook them (and asparagus), but since I don't much like either one, it's not a big loss.

(Side note: 'mush' to me is assonant with 'but'; it's either a kind of porridge or a sleddog command. 'Moosh', above, is meant to be assonant with 'foot', and is strictly a food-word (I learned it from my cooking pals, whose vowels are somewhat different from mine). If I had to spell something assonant with 'goose' I guess I'd resort to 'mooshe', but fortunately no such word exists in my idiolect. My spellchecker would probably correct it to 'Moshe', if I used one, which I don't.)

Posted April 19, 2004 10:58 AM by Xopher

Put me on the anti-coriander leaf list. Actually, put me on most of the anti lists. I was greatly relieved to discover the concept "supertaster", it explained quite a lot about why I hate eating out at friends' houses. I seem to have pretty much every "it tastes bad" gene going, apart from the biggie for a Brit - the Evil Bitter Brassica Chemical. Naturally, that is the only one my husband has...

Coriander leaf tastes bad to the point where the first time I encountered it, I had to fight not to throw up. But whatever the chemical is, it's obviously not in the seed, because I've been cheerfully slinging that into everything for years.

Posted April 19, 2004 12:03 PM by Julia Jones

(2) "But you haven't tried these sweet potatoes." It's not these sweet potatoes: it's all sweet potatoes.

My experience is exactly the opposite: every specific-food aversion I've had has been cured by encountering it in high-quality form. At this point I can't think of anything I haven't learned to like, even stuff (like Swiss cheese and seafood) that used to make me retch.

That doesn't mean it's OK to be pushy, of course.

The common mistake with yams and sweet potatoes is to make them even sweeter. I like them much better baked with the skins on, adding only butter, salt and pepper.

Posted April 19, 2004 2:26 PM by Tim Walters

Xopher: That's why I can't stand brussels sprouts; they're always cooked to moosh.

I won't argue with your religion, but you're definitely moving in the wrong \c/ircles. Gaiman and Pratchett tell us that Brits are comforted by the smell of sprouts cooking forever; most of the people I know understand that sprouts should be cooked more moderately.

Best-served around here are at Henrietta's Table, which uses local produce as much as possible. I'm not sure they've sat \in/ water at all -- maybe lightly steamed before sauteing. Not undercooked (I love broccoli steamed for a short time but can't stand it raw), just crunchy and go well with many things (pass on the ketchup).

Posted April 19, 2004 2:27 PM by CHip

I love cilantro! My hispanic wife puts silantro in/on just about everything, to its betterment. A really simple sauce we've found is to take some plain jogert, stir in diced cilantro and a splash of lemon sauce. Dip batter fried chicken pieces in it, with mashed potatoes and broccolli on the side and you've got yourself one hell of a meal.

Posted April 19, 2004 4:47 PM by Keith

CHip - I don't know about comforting, I find the smell and taste of Brussels sprouts disgusting, whether they are cooked to mush or crisp, or even (as I once encountered them) raw in a salad. Don't like the way they look much, either.

Posted April 19, 2004 5:15 PM by Alex Lawson

My favorite recipe for Brussels sprouts involves baking them, and then covering with a sauce made from orange juice concentrate and balsamic vinegar. Sufficiently delicious that my mother (who usually doesn't like Brussels sprouts) likes them.

I don't think there's really much food stuff that I don't like the taste of, aside from strong artificial mint or bubblegumish flavors. (This made getting my teeth cleaned at the dentists' rather unpleasant, as all the flavors of professional-grade toothpaste they have are things I actively dislike. I actually preferred the plain baking-soda stuff they used for grownups.)

For somewhat odd things I like, one of the local Chinese restaurants has had beef with bitter melon as a special for the last few months; I was rather fond of it when I tried it. It was also a bit entertaining how all of the restaurant staff seemed to find an excuse to ask me how I liked it.

And it's 2:30, and I haven't had lunch yet, and there is this smell of what seems to be home-cooked Chinese food coming from the desk of my officemate. Must find food, now!

Posted April 19, 2004 5:31 PM by Brooks Moses

People who don't like brussels sprouts because they're too bitter should try cooking them in a mild acid. I usually poach them in apple juice.

Posted April 19, 2004 5:36 PM by Marilee

My experience is exactly the opposite: every specific-food aversion I've had has been cured by encountering it in high-quality form. At this point I can't think of anything I haven't learned to like, even stuff (like Swiss cheese and seafood) that used to make me retch.

That doesn't mean it's OK to be pushy, of course.

For me, and a number of the other coriander leaf haters I know, a dish contaminated with the stuff smells as if the local tomcat has sprayed in it.

Now, I'm sure I could learn to like this if I tried really hard. But the assumption that I don't like it simply because I haven't encountered it in high quality form is likely to get remarks about just how high quality does the tomcat urine have to be to be enjoyable? Pedigree, or will any old mongrel do?

I understand the point being made, because I've had the experience of discovering I didn't like something because of the quality of the ingredients or the preparation, rather than it being an intrinsic property of the item. But there are many people around who because they think something's wonderful, can't accept that it isn't wonderful to everyone, and that this can be a physical difference between people. If it's one of the chemicals where there are genetic differences in the way it tastes, then their super wonderful preparation method isn't going to have any effect on the nay-sayers unless it actually removes, alters or masks the chemical. (And masking is a lot harder to do than the non-tasters think.)

There are such methods - salt leaching and acid have been mentioned in the thread. But my experience of "you haven't tried *this* version" is that it's usually either someone who's convinced that their cooking is so wonderful that nobody could dislike it, or someone who doesn't believe that you've ever actually tried it, so you just have to be coaxed to try it and then you'll discover how yummy it is. It gets annoying.

Oh, and for those people who like to sneak a disliked item into the meal, and then triumphantly tell people what they've been eating - it's quite possible that your victim did notice it, thought it was disgusting, but has been brought up to be polite to their host...

Posted April 19, 2004 7:33 PM by Julia Jones

For me, and a number of the other coriander leaf haters I know, a dish contaminated with the stuff smells as if the local tomcat has sprayed in it.

Sure. I didn't mean to imply that anyone can and should learn to like anything, especially if there really is a genetic bias against it. (It must suck to be a Mexican kid with cilantrophobia.) And I agree that the behavior you're talking about is rude.

I just wanted to point out that at least some of these dislikes aren't set in stone. Swiss cheese literally used to make me gag. Now I eat it with pleasure. I'm sure I could have lived a full life without learning to like Swiss cheese, but I'm glad I did.

Posted April 19, 2004 8:11 PM by Tim Walters

okay--I can accept that preparation--salt-leaching, acid soaking, disguising with vast quantities of Velveeta cheeze-like-food, etc.--might make brussels sprouts more palatable.

Now, what do you have to do to chocolate to make IT less bitter and generally mouth-unfriendly...

Posted April 19, 2004 8:17 PM by Mel

Dropping in well after everyone else...

Mel: disguising anything with Velveeta makes it less palatable, not more. (Okay, so I actually like Brussels sprouts and cauliflower and broccoli, so perhaps I should recuse myself from that bit of the discussion.)

Just to throw a little more heat into the mix, I will say that my housemate had been adamant that she loathed some things, only to find that really, it truly was all about how she'd encountered it before. She likes my versions fine.

I like to cook red sweet potatoes (yams) with ginger and cayenne. No sugar.

Larry B: Natto isn't fermented bean sprouts, it's fermented soy beans.

Xopher: Asparagus and brussels sprouts don't require cooking to death, that's a foul canard!

(Anyway, I'm weird by NorAm standards, I really like the slippery texture of natto, and have a serious jones for okra.)

Posted April 19, 2004 8:47 PM by Trinker

Trinker - yep, they are fermented soy beans, my bad. It's the goo that they trail that makes me think of bean sprouts left to molder for months and months...

Yet I can eat Tempeh, another fermented soy bean product with no problem.

And okra doesn't have to be slimy. Just cook the pods whole and cut them up before you serve them.

As far as encouraging/forcing people to try things they dislike, forcing is just plain wrong. But, I have trained myself to be able to eat just about anything if politeness requires it. Encouraging, on the other hand is OK if you don't try to make the other person feel bad. And, if you have the cilantro aversion thing, just say you're allergic. It's a little white lie that can make things easier for you.

Posted April 19, 2004 11:34 PM by Larry B

Julia, I always hated brussel sprouts until I found out to cook them in acid. I don't actually cook much anymore, so I haven't had them in a while, but I don't think they've changed that much.

Larry B, I *love* fried okra. The frying isn't so good for me, so I try to limit my drive-throughs at Captain D's to a couple times a month.

Posted April 19, 2004 11:41 PM by Marilee

Marilee: Julia, I always hated brussel sprouts until I found out to cook them in acid. I don't actually cook much anymore, so I haven't had them in a while, but I don't think they've changed that much.

The sprouts bitter chemical is one of the few where I know I'm a non-taster, so I can't tell whether the acid trick actually works or not -sprouts taste just fine to me when steamed or boiled in plain water for a few minutes. (Cooking them until they turn into a mush will not please me, but that's for other reasons.) How much acid is needed to make this work?

I can't remember whether I've done the grapefruit rant here...

Posted April 20, 2004 1:45 AM by Julia Jones

Might try (one day, cautiously) the acid on Brussels sprouts trick, but I think it's also revulsion at the texture. I love the taste of mulberries, but raw, cooked, mixed with cream, etc, the 'mouthfeel' makes me gag. Have had the juice, and there is a place that makes a cordial of them with no fibre at all, and I like them both. A shame, because my mother's flats have a mulberry tree in the backyard, and no-one seems to want them -- except the wildlife :)

Perhaps leaching out bitterness/foulness plus mushing up the Brussels sprouts would make them OK. But why bother? Unless it was all you had, or sprouts had some amazing inseparable health benefit that broccoli, cauliflower or cabbage (all of which I like or can cope with) don't.

Posted April 20, 2004 3:30 AM by Epacris

But my experience of "you haven't tried *this* version" is that it's usually either someone who's convinced that their cooking is so wonderful that nobody could dislike it, or someone who doesn't believe that you've ever actually tried it, so you just have to be coaxed to try it and then you'll discover how yummy it is. It gets annoying.

Definitely, it gets annoying. Especially if it comes from your mom and you were never a picky eater, never had to be coaxed to try anything, didn't refuse food because it "looked weird," etc...

The really freaky thing about the sweet potato "script," though, is I have never in my own personal experience seen it played out with any other food. If I say, "No, thank you" to another dish for any other unstated reason, that polite demurrer is honored without question. But with sweet potatoes, everyone seems to turn into the Borg of Yam (sorry, I now know they are different, but I couldn't resist it) and insist I must be assimilated.

Posted April 20, 2004 5:14 AM by Jill Smith

Interesting to see where this discussion went - my chem class was using the tasting papers mentioned somewhere upthread yesterday. Turns out we have a couple of supertasters in class, and it was fun to see their reactions. (I'm a better-than-most taster, so I wasn't reacting well either.)

Sweet potatoes are best plain. Or baked into a pie; it's much better than pumpkin, which has always tasted soapy to me.

And as far as the natural-foods childhood goes, I had one of those. And still got made fun of. And this was in the supposedly more enlightened early 90s. However, my parents have slackened on my much-younger sister, and now the pantry's full of all manner of processed food. It breaks my heart a little when I can't find the all-natural peanut butter; the regular stuff tastes like dessert to me.

Posted April 20, 2004 8:02 AM by Nomie

I was appalled to discover one would serve sweet potatoes or yams with marshmallows. I don't think I've been brave enough to try the dish when I've encountered it, and I've had them separately before.

I don't have any of the chemical taste markers that I know of, but I haven't tried some of the vegetables mentioned. On the other hoof, it is exasperating to have to fend off my mom's attempt to feed me mushrooms. I can't deal with the texture for some reason.

I am vexed by my husband's general non-enjoyment of sweets, because this means that we end up buying far fewer sweets, even though the sweets we get, I can monopolize. I suppose he's good for my eating habits. :-p

Posted April 20, 2004 9:37 AM by Yoon Ha Lee

I think okra is disgusting unless a) cooked with a strong sauce, especially an Indian one; or b) pickled. Yum okra pickles yum. Either method neatly disposes of the slime problem.

I grew up thinking I hated broccoli because my mother's way of cooking it was to put the spears in cold water in a steel pan, turn on the (electric!) burner under them, and let them simmer until dinnertime, whenever that was. A vaguely broccoli-shaped, rotted-smelling moosh was the result. Yuck.

When I first tasted lightly-steamed broccoli with butter, I discovered that I love the stuff. I even like it raw now. (I still dislike cauliflower, because it seems to have no flavor at all. Not too bad in hot mixed pickles, I must say.)

I believe that no one who dislikes chocolate should be coaxed into trying it or taught to like it. The best case outcome is that they will continue to dislike it; if the efforts are successful (unlikely) they will eat chocolate that chocolate lovers - me, for example - might otherwise get!

Posted April 20, 2004 10:40 AM by Xopher

Yoon Ha Lee -- which mushroom texture don't you like? There are so many different varieties, and they vary even more depending on how they are cooked. The squeaky toughness of wood ears is completely different from the softness of chanterelles; the leathery feel of reconstituted dried shiitake is not like fresh shiitake or the slight crunchiness of uncooked button (agaricus campestris) mushrooms. And though Crimini and Portobello are nominally the same mushroom, the textures of both vary with some overlap (pour olive oil into the gill side of a portobello with the stem removed, enough to fill. Let it sink in for 10 min or so. Add just a bit more oil. Grill on a barbecue, gill up to start then a short time gill down. Slice, serve, eat hot. Salt is optional).

As an aside, I can't believe it's taken me two days to remember the term "halogen" to describe the Mendeleev VII column.... They say memory is the second thing to go.

Posted April 20, 2004 11:26 AM by Tom Whitmore

I have a coworker who won't eat eggplant or any other "night shade" vegtable because she says it causes inflamation in her joints, does this sound plausible to y'all?

Back in the early 80s I went through a macrobiotic phase, and they eschew all of those foods. [Along with just about everything tasty in the world.]

I'm amazed at the number of people who don't like chocolate! Astounding.

Posted April 20, 2004 11:35 AM by Joy Rothke

What are "tasting papers?"

Posted April 20, 2004 11:40 AM by Harry Connolly

Xopher: exactly correct on chocolate; my immediate response to Now, what do you have to do to chocolate to make IT less bitter and generally mouth-unfriendly... was "Let someone else dispose of it."

Someone I knew back when used to respond to trial dishes with "This is awful. \Terrible!/ I'm going to wipe it off the face of the earth while you go back and try again." That could get old quickly, even (especially?) from someone who fancied himself the zeroth coming of Nick van Rijn, but it played OK in New England ("hostile, suspicious, costive and clannish" is what Damon Knight called us...).

Posted April 20, 2004 12:09 PM by CHip

Faren -
I love coffee gelatin - it's not quite coffee yogurt, but...you can make it with hot coffee for the hot, to dissolve the gelatin and cold coffee for the cold...you can add sugar or fake sugar to the hot mix, if you like sweet. Then, when it has set, cut it into cubes and pour either coconut mild or sweetened condensed milk over it. You could also make the milk the cold wet ingredient...different texture, but easier to use in a food fight.

Posted April 20, 2004 2:31 PM by Karen Junker

Good, that's settled. You guys can have my share of the world's chocolate. I'll swap for the leftover okra and yams.

Posted April 20, 2004 2:57 PM by Mel

Tom: I believe I've had all those mentioned above, or variants thereof, and didn't like any of them. The taste is not quite a selling point, but I acknowledge it's been long enough since I've been brave enough to try mushrooms deliberately, as opposed to finding some lurking in (usually restaurant) food, that it might not be the issue it once was.

On a side note, I loved spinach (served Korean-style) until I saw what a particular Houston elementary school cafeteria did with it (boiled to tasteless, sodden, almost brownish-green moosh), started hating it, then was won back when we moved back to Korea. I have since discovered that there are perfectly respectable non-moosh non-Korean methods of preparation that I enjoy.

Posted April 20, 2004 3:01 PM by Yoon Ha Lee

Harry - the "tasting papers" I referred to are strips of tissue paper impregnated with a variety of chemicals. Depending on the abundance of taste buds and your particular genetic makeup, people either experience a delay in tasting the chemicals or taste them differently. Sodium benzoate will taste bitter to nontasters, sweet to supertasters, and salty to regular tasters; thiourea will taste immediately bitter to supertasters and have no taste at first for regular tasters. We used a third chemical in class, but I can't remember what it was.

Side note: while we're on the subject of foul and pestilent greens, has anybody else ever had fiddlehead ferns? My parents love them, but I think they taste like a used dishsponge must.

Posted April 20, 2004 3:24 PM by Nomie

Julia: "The sprouts bitter chemical is one of the few where I know I'm a non-taster, so I can't tell whether the acid trick actually works or not -sprouts taste just fine to me when steamed or boiled in plain water for a few minutes. (Cooking them until they turn into a mush will not please me, but that's for other reasons.) How much acid is needed to make this work?

I can't remember whether I've done the grapefruit rant here..."

My usual deal with brussels sprouts is to put a small boneless pork chop in the middle of an oval Pyrex casserole dish. Then I trim and put Xs in the bottom of about a dozen sprouts and put them around the pork chop with the bottoms out. Then I pour enough apple juice over to cover the chop and add some rosemary (ground if I don't have fresh) and then put the lid on and zap for 10 minutes in the microwave. Before I started this, I started elbow macaroni on the stove. The pork chop will finish just as the macaroni do and I move the chop, sprouts, and macaroni to the plate and make a quick reduction of the apple juice/fat/rosemary to pour over all of it.

I *love* grapefruit, but I take a statin and I can't have grapefruit or grapefruit juice with it.

Posted April 20, 2004 3:53 PM by Marilee

Re: Chocolate. Many years ago, when I consulted for M&M/Mars in their Hackettstown factory, I had to taste test every week. (They test everybody, even contractors, and you taste more often the better taster you are.) You have no idea how awful some potential chocolate recipes are. Fortunately, we had a spit bowl and water so we didn't have to swallow them. They used to send me home with bags of chocolate (the regular kind they sell) and I'm not that fond of chocolate. Fortunately, I was volunteering with at-risk teens at the time and *they* always liked the chocolate.

At a con, I don't remember which, someone had brought some bitter dark chocolate particularly hoping Mary Kay would try it. Mary Kay wasn't there, so I tasted for her. I'm very fond of Mary Kay, but I'm not doing that again.

Posted April 20, 2004 3:59 PM by Marilee

My problem food is lamb.

And I, too, can't stand natto. I was equally drop-jawed and appalled watching Morimoto pouring Coca-Cola to make a dessert out of the secret ingredient in the Iron Chef Natto episode.

Tom, I've always thought of uni as sweet. But then, I discovered that the uni my local bar (Sushi-Ota in San Diego) serves is caught locally in La Jolla Cove and is exceptionally fresh. Singer exclaimed over it.

Posted April 20, 2004 4:12 PM by Kathy Li

Well, recall that at least two of the Iron Chef judge/tasters (including the Anime Voice Lady) admitted that they didn't like natto, either.

I had uni in Seattle once (with Singer, naturally) -- it would have been physically impossible for it to be any fresher, as the urchins were disempointybitsed in front of us. I liked that (as well as the amaebi with extra crispy), but I doubt I'd order it under any other circumstances, Singer's absence included.

Posted April 20, 2004 4:24 PM by John M. Ford

That would have been at Old Nikko, wouldn't it, Mike? At least that's where I had it similarly, which led to my "brominated cream" comment.

Shrimp heads, shrimp heads, extra crispy shrimp heads
Shrimp heads, shrimp heads, eat 'em up yum!

Posted April 20, 2004 4:30 PM by Tom Whitmore

I've had fiddleheads, although I can't tell you what kind of fern (it was in Korea). They're edible, but a bit slimy in texture, or is it the preparation? I prefer sesame leaves with dwaenjang. (Fermented soybean paste? I don't know the English or the Japanese for it. Maybe it's the same thing, or related to miso?)

Posted April 20, 2004 4:48 PM by Yoon Ha Lee

I take it uni and natto are some kind of sashimi fish?

Yoon Ha Lee, there are even some mooshy cooked-to-death ways of preparing spinach that are quite tasty...I used to be quite fond of Sag Paneer until I developed a medical condition that forced me to give up spinach (sob).

Posted April 20, 2004 4:49 PM by Xopher

Kathy Li wrote:
I was equally drop-jawed and appalled watching Morimoto pouring Coca-Cola to make a dessert out of the secret ingredient in the Iron Chef Natto episode.

Natto with Coke?!

Good gods.

Even my leg hair stood up, reading that. I don't think that's ever happened before.

Posted April 20, 2004 5:09 PM by Kylee Peterson

Fermented soy beans = natto.
Everytime you go visit a foreign country, it seems a bunch of friends you have there have nothing better to do than try to have you ingest some of the local delicacies they don't (and won't) usually consume themselves. In France it's generally frog and snails, in Mauritania it's that special recipe of maffé rice (the one with roff, gombo, peanut butter AND sweet potatoe), in Japan it's natto it seems.

Posted April 20, 2004 5:18 PM by MD²

Xopher:

Uni is sea urchin, a creamy textured seafood with a highly variable flavour depending on where and when it is caught, and how fresh it is.

Natto is satans contribution to the culinary world, and appears to we mere mortals as fermented soy beans.

Posted April 20, 2004 5:58 PM by Booklegger

Ooo, ooo! Us, us! We'll eat your fiddlehead ferns over here!

Years ago we found fiddlehead ferns at a local farmers' market (the "organic" veg farm, even) and we bought what they had left, which was maybe 1/2 pound. The person manning that stand could give us no clue how to cook these things but we bought these thingies anyhow. (Okay, we like strange food, we admit it---and the fiddlehead ferns looked soooo lovely, soooo pretty and curly.)

Ricky cooked them Kagan family fresh veg stir-fry default: he fired up the wok and, in either peanut oil or olive oil, he fried up two dried peppers and two sliced fresh cloves of garlic. Because I'm a wimp these days about hot pepper, he pulled out the hot peppers the minute they turned black (if you like your cooked veggies spicy, leave the peppers in thruout the stir-fry)---and then he threw in the fiddlehead ferns and tossed 'em quick quick QUICK! with a splash of soy sauce and a splash of sherry.

(Best I can offer as amounts on this fiddlehead fern dish is that Ricky generally goes easy on the soy sauce and heavy on the sherry. Splash soy here = maybe a teaspoon; splash sherry here = maybe a tablespoon. The sherry's not there for the alcohol; it's there for the flavor.)

I think he cooked them in about five minutes flat, if that...and they were bright green with quick black spots and they were crispy and crunchy and we've been searching for a source of MORE fiddlehead ferns ever since.

No way were those fiddleheads slimy. If you can get them fresh in your neighborhood, please express us the ones you don't want.

P.S. You don't have to have a professional wok stove to cook Ricky's fresh veg default. I've done green beans and broccoli and cauliflower and broccoflower (sp?) in a cast iron frying pan when Ricky isn't home and brought them all off on high heat and chutspah so far. As long as I use his secret two hot peppers and his WHUMP of sherry and remember to pull everything out the minute it goes BRIGHT GREEN with the occasional seared black spot, it tastes terrific. (Well, okay, the cauliflower is harder to time but if it goes mushy it's your own dang fault for not pulling it out while it's still crispy and crunchy.)

More when I get a chance.... Now I'm hungry and I must go eat.

Posted April 20, 2004 6:55 PM by JMKagan

Tom, Mike: Now I feel short-changed. No live uni when Singer took me to Nikko's! [pout].

Kylee: My reaction, exactly. Morimoto was using the dump-lots-of-sugar-on-beans Asian dessert approach (usually used with red beans, mung beans, lotus seeds, etc.) So it made sense in a demented kind of way. But even Fukui-san was freaking.

Posted April 20, 2004 7:24 PM by Kathy Li

Marilee: Yes, yams and sweet potatoes are different, but (and I had a long debate, before a friend of mine and I got it all resolved) the things called yams in the supermarket are just a variety of sweet potato (say the difference between a walla-walla and a bermuda onion). The true yam is a very blad tuber, which gets to 15-20 lbs in bulk.

Alice: I have been known to keep a bag of cranberries in the freezer (which makes them a tad sweeter, which is why bears prefer to eat the fruit which overwinters), and eat them like little balls of sherbet.

Christina: that parsley sounds like Italian parsley. Oddly, while I love cilantro, I find Italian/flat-leaf parsley to be a tad soapy. useful for some things, but in terms of flavor I prefer curly (and get funny looks when I eat the bits used as garnish in restaurants).

I'm only half done with the thread, but the pottery lab awaits (and I've at least one pot out of the kiln, and I hope three, so glazing is on tonights menu) but I seem to have quirky tastes in food. I could blame them on genetics, but can't really say.

Eggplant is bitter, brussel sprouts are foul, artichokes are bland and pointless (and ruin the rest of the meal, because they make everything sweeter), mango is disgusting, bell peppers are revolting (but, just, bearable) cooked spinach makes me retch (this is induced aversion, the one thing my pre-school made us finish was the overcooked canned spinach), but collards can be all right, where spinach is called for; so long as they aren't overdone. Fresh spinach, on the other hand, is yummy. Add the least heat, and it is horrble. I tried some on a burger once, the heat from the meat made the leaf inedible.

Broccoli is nasty, but kale is ok.

Liver, well the smell of it cooking makes my slaver like Pavlov's dogs, but the texture kills my appetite for a week. Ground, in terrines, and pates, just fine. Browned liverwurst on toast, with a schmeer of coarse mustard, and some fresh leaf lettuce, yum.

Milk, well my mother says that I've never cared for it. I was presented cows milk after I was weaned and balked, but cream, half and half, etc., are fine. I find it gummy, and boring and it lingers in my throat, but DO something to it, and I am well pleased.

The worst thing about my oddities with food, are that so many of the things I don't like, are popular as vegetables in public places, and so I find myself leaving them on the plate.