"No matter how beautiful its carmine and orange stalks, the sight of a bunch of chard in my organic bag always makes my heart sink." -- Nigel Slater, The Kitchen Diaries
A boyfriend once told me that if I ever wanted to make him cry, I could serve him scrambled eggs on a Wednesday night in the winter. I had no particular interest in making him cry (though that changed later on...), of course, but I asked him why. He wasn't especially keen to elaborate, but it had something to do with childhood, and his mother having choir practice, and his now-estranged father taking over kitchen duties the only way he knew how.My best friend's husband is only now, at 35, accepting small wisps of mayo on his sandwiches after an incident 25 years ago involving his older, stronger brother, a spatula, and a family-sized jar of Hellmann's. My own grandfather, the child of immigrants who settled in a small Pennsylvania town, refused garlic for the first several decades of his life for fear of, in his words, "smelling Italian". It breaks my heart to know that, and it absolutely underscores the massive emotional impact that certain foods can have on us.
Food is uniquely powerful in that besides our multi-sensory involvement with it, it also becomes part of us. While other aesthetic details -- songs, smells, etc., may imprint themselves on our memories of situations both joyful and otherwise, they're not as likely to, well, make you feel like you're gonna hurl. It goes deeper than an aversion to taste or scent or mouth-feel. Food certainly warms the soul, but it can also make it heave.
My trigger food? Tuna-noodle casserole. And no, I don't wanna talk about it.
What are the foods that hit you where you live? Let it out in the comments -- we're here for you.
Cheese Course: Brebis Pardou
A transcendent summer tomato salad
Sliced bread turns 80 today
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 85)
8-20-2007 @ 2:32PM
Ellen said...
Any kind of PICKLES--YUCK-O AND MOST WHITE FOOD ARE ON MY SUPER DISGUSTING LIST: no no no to sour cream, mayo (although I will eat Miracle whip in very small quantities with tuna), cottage cheese, yogurt, as well as any kind of salad dressing and most of all, any kind of pepper: black, bell or chili! I also don't do straight tomatoes although love tomatoey things like pizza, spaghetti, etc. I love a good California Roll, non-spicy but flavorful guacamole, garlicky mussels and clams and lobster, of course! All those food dislikes plus being deathly allergic to nuts makes me an often-difficullt person to feed!
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8-20-2007 @ 2:36PM
Leslie said...
MAYO-A big yuck!
Every Wednesday at my Catholic Elementary School, the Nuns would make sandwiched for the students. They would make them in the morning, slathering mayo all over them, and then letting them sit, sometimes in the hot sun, until lunch time. When we got them they were gross, hot, mayo sandwiched that sat out too long. To this day, I hate mayo!
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8-20-2007 @ 2:42PM
Roxanne said...
LIMA BEANS..............that's it!
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8-20-2007 @ 2:50PM
Kat K. said...
Oh my! In response to comment #2 - that's like a double whammy to me. I went to Catholic school for 12 years, and in addition to a nun trying to strangle me with her bare hands (I wasn't doing ANYTHING!), the lunchroom nun would stand behind kids and STARE at the backs of their necks until they finished every last bit. She'd glide around, wagging her finger and hissing "Eeeeeeeat your lunnnnnch. Eeeeeeeeeeeat yourrrrr luuuunnnncccch! Don't leeeeaaaave a pea on yourrr plaaaate!" I still can't see peas and carrots together on a plate without shuddering.
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8-20-2007 @ 2:50PM
Kiyoko said...
I cant eat anything with canned mushrooms. Fresh shrooms are okay in small quantities but I will sometimes pick those out too. The reason why.... Arsenio Hall once revealed some shocking FDA allowances on his talk show many many years ago. One in particular being that the FDA allows up to 21 maggots in a can of mushrooms. Ick. Sometimes I get these big plumes of wild mushrooms growing next to one of the mature trees in my back yard. One day I got sick of looking at them and went out and wearing clogs kicked the plant by the root. It was infested with maggots eating the rotting vegetable. They were all over my shoe and since they were clogs they got all over my sock. Hydrogen peroxide kills maggots instantly. Everything else including bleach or alcohol just makes them wiggle faster. Ick. Ick. ICK!!! Yuck-o!!!!
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8-20-2007 @ 3:33PM
Gotti said...
A pond-green pea soup, which sat uneaten at the table, got cold and developed a thick wrinkled skin on top. As a child I hated it, now I love it - figure this.
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8-20-2007 @ 4:03PM
Liver said...
Roxanne, you took the words right out of my mouth...lima beans...
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8-20-2007 @ 4:14PM
Linda said...
Can't stand tuna noodle casserole or anything with raisins. Cooked raisins look like fat ticks. UCKKKKKKKK
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8-20-2007 @ 4:34PM
Linda said...
I can't stand tuna noodle casserole or cooked raisins. Cooked raisins look like fat ticks. UCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
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8-20-2007 @ 5:00PM
Lori said...
Mayo is my "Hurl Food", too. When I was little, my 2 sister's held me down and dumped huge globs of Mayo, ketchup and mustard down my throat and smeared it up my nose. To this day just the smell of mayo makes me wretch. I have never, ever used mayo, ketchup or mustard since and never, ever will be able to tolerate even a hint of any of them. I can even pick up the the taste when anyone makes one of those horrid chocolate cakes with mayo in it. YUCK! I even become nauseated if I accidently touch one of the slimy condiments while doing dishes, for example. I insist that my husband thoroughly rinse his dishes before depositing them in the sink if he chooses to eat what I refer to as salmonella pudding. (Wretching sound inserted here.)
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8-20-2007 @ 6:17PM
Dawn said...
The one food I say Yuck-O to is marshmallo Peeps blah. when I was a child about 6 years old at Easter they were in my basket, and they looked cute and yummy, but to my dismay they were horrid and caused me to vomit, to this day I cannot stomach the thought of eating those peeps or any other marshmallos.
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8-20-2007 @ 6:17PM
Barb said...
Liver. Sorry, just can't handle eating it. Also squash. I love sweet potatoes but somehow squash just turns my stomach...go figgahhh. And as long as I'm at it...creamed spinach. Don't mind it raw - as in the leaves but creamed makes me...
Ok, now that I've gotten that out...
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8-20-2007 @ 7:23PM
Gare said...
Yuck....Squash when fixed like mashed potatoes! Those are n-a-s-t-y ! I remember sitting at the dinner table and not being allowed to leave until I ate them! What a horrible experience! Tears rolling down my cheeks. What a nightmare. Brussel sprouts....that's another veggie that as far as I'm concerned can leave this earth forever!
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8-20-2007 @ 7:23PM
Gare said...
Right on....Lima Beans.....disgusting
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8-20-2007 @ 7:24PM
dave said...
beets...................
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8-20-2007 @ 8:21PM
Linda McDuff said...
Can't stand liver. My husband loves it but has to eat it out as I won't cook it. My husband also loves buttermilk which I think is the grossest stuff in the world.
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8-20-2007 @ 9:35PM
D-Lish said...
Overcooked eggs. YUCK-o. Sulfuric scrambled, chewy brown around the edges or hard-boiled with a grey-green yolk ring and rubbery white. Either way, stay back
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8-21-2007 @ 8:01AM
Samara said...
Tuna fish, totally grosses me out. The smell of it makes me sick. Any (except pasta) kind of salad made with mayo. I wont eat veal, b/c in college I had a teacher who told us how baby cows are treated and I thought that was so sad, so, I wont eat that. My fiance puts ketchup on EVERYTHING !! That makes me sick, the smear or smell of it on his plate when he's done makes me nauseus,,, even thinking about it now is making me gag. I can't wash those dishes. Yuck! Any kind of break the fast foods at Yom Kipper , whitefish salad, lox, raw onions, yuck, yuck, yuck, I'll just have a bagel with cream cheese. I can't even help clean up that stuff, I don't want it to accidently touch me.
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8-21-2007 @ 8:38AM
dianne casey said...
nectarines, plums, and STUFFED GRAPE LEAVES!!!!!
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8-21-2007 @ 8:40AM
Jenny said...
I don't like canned spinach, liver or to use butter with "crumbs" in it. Or any condiment with "bits" in it. GROSS!!! I don't like brussel sprouts either. Lima beans or Kidney beans are just weird textures and gross.
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