hey gawker dudes. what the fuck is wrong with you?

sure, but my bf has improved my kitchen skills to the extent where i can almost grate a block of cheese adequately now

although i was made to mix butter and sugar together purely as entertainment for our guests at a recent dinner party :(

hahaha alfred beat me to my exact zing

sure, but my bf has improved my kitchen skills to the extent where i can almost grate a block of cheese adequately now

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Friday, February 12, 2016 10:20 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

!!!

i think most people are picky eaters as teenagers (the things i wouldn't eat...avocadoes and aubergines bc of the texture, a lot of land animal meat bc gristle and fat grossed me out, peppers bc...i have no idea) but there's a point in early adulthood where everything CLICKS and it's like another world has been opened when you realise you can and will eat anything

this for sure. i was very picky as a kid/teenager, ate mostly bland foods, all kinds of things i had never tried. then in college i got in a band and started traveling with older dudes who valued trying whatever new foods were around, and started dating a girl who was similarly inclined. i didn't want to appear picky or narrow-minded so i faked it until i made it, and now i am known near & wide for eating everything. social pressure is important.

fyi i would certainly do these things on camera for money

i feel like i've spent much of my adult life making up for all the avocadoes i rejected as a teenager

^^^ first line of your memoir

organ meats in general are things i eat because i'm conditioned to think of "eating a thing I haven't eaten before" as inherently interesting and valuable. But in general I think there's a reason we mostly eat muscle, the muscle is the best part.

Winners:
excellent sweetbreads are excellent (but I would only order this in a fancy place, indifferent sweetbreads not worth the money)
foie gras (but there's the cruelty issue)
heart (but only technically an organ, this is basically muscle)

Fine:

Tripe, omasum: these are fine, and they work in a "variety meat" mix / soup, but whenever I order a dish that's mostly this I feel like I'd slightly rather have had muscle

Chopped liver: would never order this off a menu, but enjoy it in a "post-bar-mitvah kiddush" or similarly culturally weighted context

Not for me:

crab lung

brain -- just kind of mild, like a much less interesting sweetbread to me

hunk of liver

kidney -- worst thing I've ever eaten, what the fuck is wrong with you britishes

there's a point in early adulthood where everything CLICKS and it's like another world has been opened when you realise you can and will eat anything

btw this is otm and reflects my experiences with eggs, anchovies, and men

nice

on second thought i have enjoyed sweetbread, liver and osso bucco on occasion. again, it's the mental issues that are problematic with offal and having never eaten them as a kid.
balut falls into the category of crrrrrrrrraaaazy food for me but it's common enough for much of a continent!

but I would only order this in a fancy place

a loooooot of foods i took against as a teenager were because i'd had a substandard version of them; a great cook makes such a difference

Osso bucco is marvelous but, yeah, the cook makes the difference.

I'll never warm to liver. Eating a la italiana can't hide its muddy taste.

man, the weird food google search rabbit hole led me to this thing and no
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiviak

This is Kiviak, a traditional winter foodstuff consumed by Greenlandic Inuits. It may look like a seal's carcass stuffed with whole, fermented birds because, well, it is. Kiviak is relatively simply to make. First, collect approximately 400 Auks. Then, stuff them—beaks, feathers, feet, and all—into the hollowed-out body cavity of a seal, Tauntaun-style. Next, press out as much air as possible from the carcass and seal it with seal grease to prevent spoilage. Finally cover the meat bag with a large rock pile for approximately 3-18 months. During this time, the Auks ferment within the seal until they can be eaten—raw. Thanks to a layer of fat within the seal sack, the Auks soften while they ferment allowing every part of the bird—save feathers—to be consumed.

i certainly get it as necessary for the environment and the culture but sport eating here is pretty heavy on the crrrrrrrraaazy

I'll never warm to liver. Eating a la italiana can't hide its muddy taste.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, February 12, 2016 10:38 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what about chicken fried with some grilled onions

yeah, that's higado a la italiana more or less

nah i'm talking closer to this http://images.media-allrecipes.com/userphotos/720x405/808324.jpg

nope too muddy I think you meant this:

https://tomfernandez28.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/o-john-dean-mitch-mcconnell-facebook.jpg

one of our toddlers' favorite meals is fried chicken livers with onions and rice

toddler otm

my godson was eating mushroom risotto, grilled snapper, and Brussel sprouts at 18 months, which thrilled me.

a loooooot of foods i took against as a teenager were because i'd had a substandard version of them

See also: liquor. People who dismiss things like gin, or tequila, or bourbon outright surely bought the cheapest, easiest to attain version of them at an impressionable age, drank too much and got sick, then blamed the spirit but not the quality. I've seen people (adults and children alike) caught in this same vicious cycle, of sticking to an inferior/plain/boring version of something and then wondering why they don't like it. I've had friends who didn't like Chinese food because ever since they were kids they would order the gross, sticky, boring sweet and sour chicken. Well, of course you don't like Chinese food, because what you've been eating is not it! Same with gin cocktails, or tequila/rum (if they're accustomed to impure swill) or bourbon (if they got drunk on Jack Daniels once in college, swigging from the plastic bottle in a cornfield).

That said, I've eaten immaculately prepared lamb brains, but I'll never eat them again. Like savory melted marshmallows.

My kids are both super picky in totally different ways, with maddeningly little rhyme or reason.

I've had friends who didn't like Chinese food because ever since they were kids they would order the gross, sticky, boring sweet and sour chicken.

what kid doesn't like this? my kids are crazy for crap steam-table panda-express level chinese food though they're happy to eat better stuff too

right now we're lucky because our kids are mostly just picky about the order in which they eat food rather than what they actually eat; we've also made the mistake of introducing them to fancy cheeses and pate and fancy salamis thanks to dinner parties at friends' houses and now they do weird things like totally lose their shit over (ie) manchego

Yeah, I feel for folks whose kids like sushi. $$$.

xpost I think kids love it. But if you stick with it too firmly even as your tastes evolve away from sickly sweet and greasy, you'll convince yourself that "Chinese food" is the problem, not the specific dish.

I had a friend who claimed not to like coffee. Then I discovered that every time he had coffee he thought it was "too strong," so he kept watering it down, using fewer and fewer grounds. After I explained to him that coffee actually gets more bitter the weaker you brew it he went the other direction and has since been converted.

we have specifically avoided giving our kids sushi because a) still too young, and b) $$$

otoh I would love to see their reaction to a tuna roll

both my girls love lox, herring, scumbria, sushi, and other such exotic fish dishes

I think the thing they devoured that surprised me the most was this spicy lobster/clambake recipe we had at a dinner party, where they kept shoveling it into their mouths and then shaking their heads and wiping their tongues due to the spice level, then shoveling in more.

(also, they eat bananas)

introduced my son to belly lox at zabar's, he went fucking bonkers for it, good thing for my wallet i live 1500 miles from zabar's

See also: liquor. People who dismiss things like gin, or tequila, or bourbon outright surely bought the cheapest, easiest to attain version of them at an impressionable age, drank too much and got sick, then blamed the spirit but not the quality

otm. Every friend who did shots of Popov in college still won't touch vodka.

but y'know also he likes cheetos and crappy general tso chicken

who doesn't love crappy general tso chicken tho

heck yeah

can you guys help me make my kids like capers btw

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/95/The_poster_of_the_movie_The_Great_Muppet_Caper.jpg

introduce them to Pacman, then tell them the capers are the little pellets Pacman has to eat before getting to the big power pill

ok that's brilliant

then give them a big matzah ball

what is this thread about again?

your mom

OK I think I've got a plan but one thing, how do I make the matzoh ball blink?

blow dust in its eyes

Teaching your kids that Chinese people only or mostly eat good quality Chinese food also means that you've given them the gift of seeing a Chinese kid laugh their asses off the first time they meet them!

one of the cutest things i ever saw was this family at a chinese restaurant once, the relationship from what i can assume is mom, daughter, stepdad (or stepdad candidate) and the stepdad was trying to prove himself to the kid and he made a joke like "oh yeah, general tso... a relentless warrior known for deep frying his enemies and dousing them in a delicious candy sauce" and then the kid started laughing so hard

https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_8_lee_looks_for_general_tso
yeah, i know ted talk but still

With kids, the single best thing you can do to encourage their palates is to have a vegetable garden. Your kids will be eating cherry tomatoes and raw green beans on the sly before you know it, and you'll have to yell at them for raiding the carrots before they're ready. My mom a repertoire of 10-15 dishes she does really well, and 5-10 that I dread. My dad could cook anything on a grill, or any breakfast thing, really well. He also liked to go on missions to 'bad' neighbourhoods all over the Twin Cities, explaining that THIS was the best Chicago-style hot dog available or THAT place had the best tacos, and there were MANY trips to great hamburgers situated in utter shitholes full of career drunks and hotheads. My dad never led me to a bad hamburger.

My rule of thumb re: meat is 'don't eat an organ that corresponds to one you've had surgery on'. I was super-finicky as a kid because of nausea issues around chemotherapy, and shunned egg yolks, potato salad, fatty porky things and US-style baked beans (I eat all of these now except for the beans). I still cannot bear squash, yams, or sweet potatoes (exception: pumpkin in pie). My mom can't stand liver, so we never had it. She also banned Spaghettios, '70s over-manufactured convenience foods and sugar cereals. Our baked goods came from the Scandinavian bakery or the Jewish deli, no exceptions. I will eat any seafood going. My mom bore witness to a three-day stalemate between my aunt, my grandfather and some oatmeal when she was little, and she never pulled anything like that with us. OTOH like the tune is space says, Chinese or Japanese or Italian food was such a reward for being adult-ish that I demanded a Japanese meal for my 4th or 5th birthday, and have always had such a sense of food as a gateway to the world that even now, I always go to the supermarket whenever I'm travelling to foreign countries.

i always eat it when it is served to me but liver is p nast tbh... gotta put heaps of fried onions & garlic on that shit