What are your foodie limits?

by Monika Bartyzel, Posted May 16th 2008 @ 10:05AM

"I wanted to be The Girl Who Is Not Afraid To Order Tripe And In Fact It Makes Her Even Cooler And All The More Sexy Because She Enjoys It. Alas, it was not meant to be." Carol at French Laundry at Home

Hear, hear!* I don't know about you, but this sort of rationale is what made me a foodie. I was a fairly picky eater growing up. I wasn't so bad that I'd eat PB&J for every meal, but if they weren't like the usual meat-potato-veggie triumvirate, or something else I'd eat normally, I'd get testy. If you were at the Mexican restaurant about 25-years ago where a little blonde girl went nuts because her beef was shaved instead of ground, that was me.

But then I got older, moved to the big city, and shed many of my food inhibitions. I hated it when my friends gazed at me in disappointment whenever I wouldn't try anything. I couldn't say no when someone slaved over a hot stove to bring me a meal full of food I didn't like. Soon, eating became an adventure -- discovering new tastes, learning about the foods, making meals fresh and fun.

Still, there's food I recoil at. I finally got over my distaste for mushrooms, but I still can't bring myself to eat calamari. I've always had a ban on foods I couldn't look at in their full or prepared form. This might sound weird, since I find cute animals desperately tasty, but there's just something wrong with slipping something into your mouth when the mere sight of it gives you the willies.

While I keep challenging myself and try to say "never" as little as possible, there are foods on that list. After Anthony Bourdain traveled to Montreal, eyeballs were added with indelible ink, and I think now I can safely add tripe as well. Carol's account of cooked tripe tickled my gag reflexes, but it also made me laugh, a lot, because I get it. It isn't just that quote above, but the desire to like everything. It's great to be able to eat and enjoy whatever is on your plate, but we have to face the facts: We all have at least one food Achilles Heel.

What is/are yours?

*Edited thanks to Kiwi.

Filed Under: On the Blogs, Food Quest
Tags: Food Quest, foods you wont eat, FoodsYouWontEat, French Laundry at Home, FrenchLaundryAtHome, gross foods, GrossFoods, Tripe

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Reader comments (Page 2 of 2)

6-12-2008 @2:51PM blukami said... I cannot eat bone marrow.
either right out of the bone or jellitan.
I didn't eat my first jelly bean until this easter because a friend found some made with pectin for me.

Can't eat it because of a H.P. Lovecraft story called "the bone eaters".

I love menudo it is my favorite soup that I still cannpt do myself.
I don't think I could eat bugs or eyeballs.
Allergic to aspartame so anything with that is right out.
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5-18-2008 @10:07AM blukami said... I cannot eat bone marrow.
either right out of the bone or jellitan.
I didn't eat my first jelly bean until this easter because a friend found some made with pectin for me.

Can't eat it because of a H.P. Lovecraft story called "the bone eaters".

I love menudo it is my favorite soup that I still cannpt do myself.
I don't think I could eat bugs or eyeballs.
Allergic to aspartame so anything with that is right out.
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5-18-2008 @10:44AM Gobo said... I have a serious peeve with overly picky eaters, I have to admit. It's one thing to be wary of truly oddball foods that are outside of your experience, but I know people who don't eat soup (because it's too watery and that's somehow gross), tomato sauce, condiments of any kind, sandwiches, or mushrooms... usually because they had some kind of strange experience as a kid and are 'traumatized' thirty years later.

Have a little courage and open your palate up to all the amazing flavors out there!
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5-18-2008 @1:02PM John the blacksmith said... I couldn’t think of myself eating balut until about three weeks ago. I had gagged on the thought for years but I have been preaching to my friends how a person should taste and evaluate with their taste buds not their prejudices.
I was in one of my favorite Asian markets and the woman who runs it was chiding me to try a duck balut. I thought about what I had been telling my friends so I asked her about how I cook it and server it. I picked up one and brought it home where it sat on the counter for two days.
I felt that I had better do something with that egg or I would have a duckling to care for and I didn’t want that. So it was in to the boiling water for 18 minutes. I gave it a bit of time to cool so I could handle it and took it out of the shell. With a bit of lime juice, salt and pepper I started to pick away at it and before too long it was gone. It tasted like a hard boiled duck egg (I love regular duck eggs) with a bit of texture and meatiness. Not terrible but not something I would rush to have again. If however I had to face a food challenge on some reality TV show I would have that one aced!
Two weeks later I am in the same store and I see something that makes my heart skip a beat. For my experimentation with the balut I am rewarded with the first fresh Mangosteens I have seen in thirty eight years. Heaven!

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5-19-2008 @1:04AM Belgand said... My food dislikes are far more pedestrian and encompass a wide variety of things that are a common part of Western culture:

tomatoes (unless you process them enough)
mushrooms
green beans
green peppers (red peppers are generally OK)
olives (all kinds, I do love olive oil though)
onions (I cook with them, but I don't want to taste them on their own)
squash (all kinds except pumpkin pie)
watermelon (I enjoy artificial watermelon flavor, but the real thing is flavorless and very unpleasant)
artificial grape flavor (it tastes nothing like grapes!)
sour cream
cottage cheese

I'm amazed that people are willing to eat so many of these vile, unpleasant things. Almost any vegetable you'd find on a pizza is completely disgusting to me.

So yes, I'm generally opposed to eating brain and such, but I rarely encounter it. These things make it a pain in the ass ordering food almost every day. When will people learn that mushrooms are just a horrible fungus and reject it completely? I can only hope it happens before I next go out to dinner.
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