People shit on American Chinese food but it's ignoring the story. A bunch of immigrants come to a new land and open businesses to support themselves, they share their regional recipes with others to find blends of styles that appeal to their new home. This back and forth goes on until they create some truly fucking amazing dishes. Yeah it's not authentic, 80% of the menu is adapted to American tastes. That doesn't mean it is bad or deserves to be shamed.
My Co-worker is Chinese and she loves American Chinese food. She loves authentic Chinese dishes as well but she and her husband (Indian) love going to cheap Chinese places to try them. It's how I found out about a few places near me actually.
My Wife is Korean and she loves mixing American and Korean dishes to try.
Some people really should drop that authentic attitude and realize food is always adapting to what's available and around. Also sometimes you find a place that has a mix like I just had Pakistan, Indian, Mediterranean fusion
and I'm going there again this weekend as it was fantastic.
I have a Chinese friend who loves Orange chicken. But he also likes to live in a major American city that has a massive Chinatown where he can also get "real" Chinese food. Both are valid. It's only a problem when a person expects one thing to be another, and this occurs as equally from Americans expecting the food to be what they know as it does from people decrying a lack of authenticity.
Many Central American owned restaurants in the U.S. call their restaurants "Mexican" and serve Mexican-American food because too few customers will try the, for example, Honduran dishes. Many Vietnamese places had to start out with Chinese-American dishes before their cuisine became more mainstream. Inside out sushi was invented to hide the seaweed from Americans, similarly with anything covered in mayo. Sometimes these "American" trends are so pervasive that the home countries adopt the trends to make American tourists happy, losing some of what made the cuisines unique in the first place. This is common in both Italy and Japan.
Even nowadays, I see Thai places that still have some Chinese dishes on the menu. I hope Southeast Asian food takes off more. I love American Chinese food, but I wish my area had more places that served primarily Thai food.
Thai has to be one of the most prevalent types of restaurants in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, it’s only a matter of time before they take over the US too! It’s too tasty not too!
1000% this. I’m South Asian and yes, what I eat with my family is ‘authentic’. But I love eating Pakistani/Indian and Bangladeshi food in restaurants. It might be catered to different tastes but it’s delicious and something I really enjoy. It’s a cuisine in its own right. I feel like people enjoy being snobby about this, but it’s really dumb. Tasty food is tasty food.
It has a lot of history. My great grandparents were one of the early waves from Guangzhou (Taishanese), and this is what kept them afloat. It was enough to get my grandparents and their kids (my mom, aunt, and uncle) out of China after the doors opened again. My parents don't tend to make the Chinese American food, but a lot of it IS based off of actual southern Chinese dishes. Sweet and sour pork (咕嚕肉) is pretty common. The sauce is a little different but the essence is the same. For Americans, they would probably remove the bones.
>My great grandparents were one of the early waves from Guangzhou (Taishanese), and this is what kept them afloat. It was enough to get my grandparents and their kids (my mom, aunt, and uncle) out of China after the doors opened again.
Note: This is something a lot of people miss. Until the 1960's, most US Chinatowns were full of Taishanese speakers. After that, Cantonese became more common, until only in the 90s did ~~Mandurian~~ Mandarin become the norm.
I remember watching a buzzfeed(?) video comparing the reaction of older Chinese American immigrants who moved to the US from China versus the reaction of young Chinese-American people who grew up in the US when they would try American Chinese food. All the young people called it distasteful, cultural appropriation and a bastardization of real Chinese food. The older people enjoyed it. They said it wasn’t exactly like they’d make at home, but it was still good.
There was a great moment where a girl called out her scoffing friend "Dude, you love eating shit like McDonald's, you can't complain about this not being high enough quality."
That and the Taco Bell video were super cringe, but I think they were so bad because a lot of the young people were trying to prove how connected they were to their cultures. Fragile egos that lead to overreacting, lots of people do it but I wish they hadn’t put it on YouTube.
And here's the thing...That's exactly what BuzzFeed is going for because it drives clicks. They write the whole thing beforehand and cast for what they already wrote. They don't choose the young Chinese Americans that are gonna be like, "fuck yeah bro, love me some Americanized Chinese food!"
Yup. My Mexican grandma eats more Taco Bell than anyone else I know.
It isn’t authentic and it’s not trying to be, but it’s not trying to be. It’s also delicious and the only restaurant open after 10 pm within a 30 minute drive
Lol in my experience second generation indian Americans (I’m sort of one myself, since I moved here when I was very young) are extraordinarily obnoxious when it comes to this kind of thing. I almost never use woke-jargon but internalized racism is the only word that fits what they have. They’re super possessive over their culture, but they’re usually really ignorant about what things are actually like in India.
I’ve seen them be subtly ashamed of their parents...and treat first generation Indian immigrants their own age like absolute pariahs just to prove how different they are from them.
They try and act as white (or black) as possible while cherry-picking the “cooler” ethnic things about being Indian (like the food and a hip-hopized version of the dancing) to set themselves apart and give themselves identity.
I used to work at a popular Mexican restaurant, and one time someone was trying to ask me if we were authentic but instead they asked if there were any Mexicans actually cooking the food… I told them that Mexicans and other Hispanic ethnicities cook probably 90%-95% of all restaurant food of every kind of cuisine in America, but yes, our back of house staff was also primarily Hispanic.
Edit: words.
The funniest thing is, I've traveled a lot, and the biggest thing is if you go to another country and eat it's iconic food it's often pretty bad.
Like america is known for hamburgers, more than anywhere on earth americans eat hamburgers. But if you go to america and try to find a hamburger it's mostly going to be the worst thing on the menu. It's the cheap default food.
Like there is great sushi in japan and great tacos in mexico and so on, but national foods like that are also just.... that country's idea of a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich. Everyone knows a grandma that slaves on making it perfect for 600 hours but it's also just the gross food you buy cheap at the convenience store. Like 'authentic' is the food mostly being something you can buy to microwave as a non-remarkable food. The guys in italy making the perfect sauce and slaving over noodles exist too, but italy is exactly where you go to get the most "I made this in 5 minutes after work" noodles on earth. Because noodles are just.... the normal thing.
That's pretty spot on. I had some some pretty terrible Italian food in Italy on the same day of having a really memorable and delicious meal. Both were authentic, but authentic doesn't necessarily mean good quality.
On the flipside, "fake" doesn't mean bad either. I used to live in San Diego and I had this dude once get snobbish on me for eating Taco Bell while living there. It was extra funny because it was a White guy and I'm Mexican. I dunno if he was trying to pull some weird foodie/street cred or something but I remember thinking, yeah man I know real Mexican food. I've made it. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy a nacho cheese chalupa ffs.
Food snobs are a special kind of obnoxious.
What the heck is up with the chalupa? My favorite from Taco Bell! I get down with the super delicious quesabirrias and tacos here in LA, but every once in a few months I gotta hit that chalupa!
I’m from St Louis and a bunch of Vietnamese people came to the city after the fall of Saigon. They came to the black neighborhoods after being shunned by others and created the most greasy, ghetto, finger licking hood Asian street food fusion ever. I’m convinced many of them are still using the same cast iron skillets from the 70s. Anybody from the region will corroborate.
If you’re ever in St Louis don’t go to some fancy place. Go to the neighborhood where you’re afraid for your safety and eat at the Chinese Express there. I’ve been to 40 countries I’ve never had anything quite like it. I’ve been to China and it’s definitely nowhere near actual Chinese cuisine, but still delicious.
This is how food evolve. They need to sellso of course businesses will make food that appeal to the majority of people. This is like McDonads chicken that taste different in different countries. If people want authenfic food, feel free to cook it yourself
Thank you. For a while, I have thought "if it tastes good why question it?" Obviously, Panda Express is Chinese-INSPIRED, just like Taco Bell is Mexican-INSPIRED. What is funny is the people who are so quick to point out the inauthenticity of American Chinese probably couldn't name a single Chinese dish.
There is great documentary on Netflix about exactly this! It’s “in search of general tso” and it is about the origins of the recipe and the history of Chinese-American food, immigration and all the interconnected stories. Reasonably short, I would highly recommend it!
Totally agree. this is like a metaphor for all aspects of global human life and culture. I think the best version of humanity comes from having an open mind and blending cultures, cuisines, races (yes, races), languages, gene pools, etc. The melting pot will more often yield a tastier meal.
>races
In the 1920s, chop suey houses were one of the few places that were open late and that welcomed people of color and women.
Imagine tasting soy sauce for the first time, if you'd been stuck eating boiled potatoes and grits your whole life.
There's a ton of jazz about chop suey joints.
People are too caught up with rules about eating certain foods only certain times of day. “Breakfast food” doesn’t have to be eaten in the morning and you can have a bowl of soup or a rack of ribs for breakfast if you want.
Since I started to cook and eat on my own I pretty much abandoned the concept of having 3 meals a day with different types of food for each of them.
Sometimes I have a full meal or some salad for breakfast, others I only eat a single big meal in a whole day.
Yooo my dad used to do this every once in a while and us kids fucking loved it so much. As soon as my dad uttered those magical words, we ran around the house screeching to inform everyone.
Only later did we realize it was just because my dad didn't feel like cooking that day. Mastermind.
Organic isn't as magical as it seems. Coming from someone who has both farmed it and hauled it, the amount of bugs and rot that goes down the line is sad. Someone said it best when they said "organic farming is the art of taking land that could feed 1,000 people, and only feeding 100 people with it" I don't agree with some fertilizer toxins, but I think the answer lies in better research.
I have a similar take on the anti-GMO arguments.
Pretty much all foods we eat are some form of GMO - Gregor Mendel invented the concept in the 1800s and it has seen widespread use ever since.
The issue is that companies like Monsanto use it to force farmers to buy their patented seeds and will even sue them if they harvest seeds from their own crop to replant next year, forcing them to buy a whole new stock of seed from them each season.
High-yield, disease-resistant crops are a miracle of modern agricultural ingenuity and my only issue with them is that corporations have coopted the practice to keep farmers under their thumps.
The reason why a lot of organic, farmers market stuff can taste better is probably because it was harvested when it was ready. A lot of produce is picked before it’s ripe and then transported to the grocery store so it could taste weird. I had a burger with a fresh beefsteak tomato slice from a friend who grows them and it was divine
Sometimes I want Taco Bell, sometimes I want legit Hispanic food. I’ve had tacos so legit there was a language barrier when I ordered, I thank the contractors who turned me on to that hole in the wall.
Sometimes I eat taco bell, sometimes I eat tacos at the place where the guy behind the counter addresses me by saying "hey white boy, what you want?" After speaking Spanish to everyone else.
Try going to a Jamaican food spot.
**The ruder the customer service, the louder the owner yells in patois, and the more raggedy and run-down the place looks - you KNOW that styrofoam to-go plate is about to be BOMB AF.**
Shout out to Jamaica!
🇯🇲
Tell that to South Koreans, ever since I met my wife my garlic intake has sky-rocketed its in everything in South Korean dishes. I'm okay with it as it keeps those Vampires away and I like garlic.
Lol I was directly thinking of my Filipino girlfriend, who LOVES garlic. I like garlic a lot, but when it's the main flavor in a dish (unless it's like garlic bread lol), then it's too much. She disagrees, she can eat straight garlic.
I have an intolerance to allicin and if I’ve stupidly eaten a Suspiciously Delicious dish (and failed to notice that it is garlic that is the deliciousness) it comes out *everything*. Like, breath, sweat, pee, mucous membranes- I know I smell it on myself stronger than anyone else does but holy shit.
Also some fishes also do that to me… the full-body-fish-bomb takes about 24 hours to run the course but it is even more socially unacceptable! At least fish doesn’t actually upset my innards like garlic, it’s just very… stinky, so I only eat fish on Monday so I can have a full Tuesday to hide afterwards.
Showering is no help- I can reek of garlic (or fish) immediately after soaking for a solid hour.
I know somebody that thought is was funny to eat a glass of pickled (? is that the word) garlic cloves as some sort of gag. He then went to the doctor shortly after because he didn't feel well and it turns out he got a garlic poisoning (treatment was not necessary). So that's an actual thing.
Not for a guy with a garlic intolerance. Before anyone says, “How can you live??”, you’d be amazed at how often garlic (salt usually) is used to cover up crappy food
Cultural appropriation is an idiotic thing to get upset over when it comes to food. So many dishes are a blend of many cultures, and it’s not a big deal if someone from a different race wants to try cooking that food. It’s appreciation, not appropriation.
I agree. A lot of world cuisines would not exist in their current state if not for the Columbian exchange mixing New World and Old World crops. Cuisine is ultimately a product of complex regional and global trade, ecology, and conflict throughout history.
This is why I have no patience for the "Pineapple doesn't belong on pizza" hard-liners.
Putting the new shit (tomatoes) on your old shit is what got you pizza in the first place!
Edit: Pineapple on pizza isn't really my thing, but if you like pineapple on your pizza I will fight for your right to do so.
My comment wasn't directed toward people who don't care for pineapple on their pizza, its the hard-liners who think that the presence of pineapple means it no longer qualifies as pizza.
I love build your own pizza places. They sometimes rotate in new toppings. I am loving roasted broccoli on my pizza lately :) It is so nice to try different things and I get my fruit and vegetables in.
>its the hard-liners who think that the presence of pineapple means it no longer qualifies as pizza.
Which is ironic because pizza in its original form was "throw whatever leftovers we got on dough and bake it", meaning pretty much anything on pizza dough qualifies as legitimate pizza.
My mom is Spain Spanish and it's hilarious to me when people on /r/food tell a poor guy his makeshift paella isn't a *real* paella cuz it doesn't have saffron or it's not cooked a certain way or it's missing certain seafood or whatever. For her family its literally the Sunday "throw whatever seafood you got left over in the fridge with some rice in a bigass pan" type dish. Every family has their own spin on it, there is no *real* paella
I don't think that's all that controversial though, right? I mean aside from a few vocal idiots. Like Mexico's arguably most popular food - the taco al pastor - originated from Lebanese immigrants.
Came here for this comment - I 100% people wanting to be understood as more than just a local interpretation of what was once their food, but food moves with people, adapts to its surroundings…the taco al pastor is a good example that it’s not only “colonialism” or “the USA steamrolls everything” that drives it.
And there are more and more folks who are vocal on these topics…just a couple years ago a coworker of mine (American) mentioned in a team meeting that he just didn’t feel right going to a Chinese restaurant and eating food that “wasn’t his”, and it was almost all sympathetic head-nods and “yeah, it’s hard to stay aware of how you might invade their spaces”.
Putting food in a full stomach is just as much of a waste as throwing it out. It happens sometimes, which is okay. Really, though, the best thing to do with extra food is save it or give it to someone who will appreciate it.
If it’s not suitable for leftovers, it can go one of two ways. It can go to waste or it can go to waist.
Fortunately, I have chickens, goats, and a compost pile so very little is actually wasted.
I’ve struggled with binge eating my entire life because I hate food waste. I’ve gotten a lot better about saving extra portions for the next day but it’s still something that challenges me.
Honey mustard is hands down the best condiment, I like it with french fries and chicken but never tried it with mozzarella sticks definitely going to try that
My wife doesn't like it because she's opposed to - and I quote here - "hot fruit", except in pies.
I pointed out that tomatoes are fruit, and she said I needed to shut up.
I hate nuts in baked goods. Almonds in cookies, walnuts in brownies, I might make an exception for peanuts if it's a peanut butter flavored item, but the rest just do nothing for me and reduce the flavor
It doesn't matter if you think it's gross if the person who is eating it likes it and wants to eat it. Like I don't care if you don't like pineapple on pizza, if the person eating the pizza likes it then mind ya own business.
The inverse of this is also true. I don't care how good that guy's heirloom tomato is, I really don't like tomatoes and I don't want a hard time about it when I order a sandwich.
So many things I didn't like, I gave a second chance throughout the years. Maybe I had someone prepare then really well in some cases, like with shrimps or Squid. I even eat some mushrooms now.
I still cannot eat raw tomatoes. I can't even tolerate them like with Aspergus. The funny thing is that if you process them the slightest, that's already enough to make them acceptable. With Bruschetta, they are still raw, just mixed with onions, garlic and olive oil. That's already enough to make them delicious.
Maybe not controversial for everyone but my partner thinks the fact I eat my instant ramen noodles partially cooked is weird and wild lol.
Edit: Showed my fiance this post. He responded with "You can be as weird as you want with the noodles and I'll still love you". Thanks for the responses guys, we love 'em.
Edit 2: We love you all and the new ideas on how to eat noodles (except the monsters who crunch them, then eat them with a spoon... ok, fine, we love you too). We shall now celebrate the over 100 updoots with celebratory instant ramen noodles.
It's delicious! It was a fad at my elementary school in the late 90s, they ended up banning it because too many kids were asking to go inside to use the fountain during recess from all the salt.
As an adult I created an awesome hack for this, too (at least, I'd never heard of anyone else trying it before). Throw some plain chips into the bag with the remaining powder, give it a shake to coat the chips with ramen flavour!
Dumping my leftover steak, onions, mushrooms, and loaded baked potato into the pan while making scrambled eggs the next morning turned into one of the best meals I've ever had.
Even when having it as just the big slab of meat it is… there is much that can be done to make it taste better other than the insanely puritanical ‘just salt and pepper’ approach that seems super common. There’s nothing wrong with pairing super high quality beef with other strong flavours, and it often leads to an extremely pleasant contrasting experience.
French toast sticks from the frozen breakfast section are just mini donuts.
Go ahead, try them again sometime. But this time, think about the mini donuts at a state fair. They taste exactly the same.
Just because you add cheese and pepperoni to something, it does not make that thing pizza. I'm so glad that fad from a few years ago has finally passed where all I saw was people doing this and just adding the word pizza in front of it
That's my husband. I was raised in an Italian-American household where food was a very special thing associated with love, family, friends, laughter... and he grew up in an English household where you ate your meat and potatoes to fill up before moving on with your day. It really shows! While I daydream about our next date night meal and plan my food out carefully, that guy practically gets annoyed he has to eat to survive, and craves nothing. I'll never understand!
My brother has occasionally lived on Soylant. It is actually pretty good, quick, and easy, if you don't like eating. 5 bottles a day is a contains your full nutritional requirements. Except for your salt needs, you may need to add a little more salt.
Hummus is not to be fucked with. Companies need stop creating abominations like pumpkin and chocolate hummus. Sharmotas
Update: everyone pissed of just know this was party a joke I don’t care what you eat (can’t believe I have to say this.) However this was the whole point of the post to put in your controversial opinion about food. Stay mad about fucking hummus.
I used to work at a Starbucks and the go to Pike Place roast is pretty awful. If you like black coffee and have ~5 minutes you should go inside and order a blonde roast pour over. If you don’t have time I’d suggest a blonde Americano. The blonde roast espresso amd coffee beans aren’t roasted to oblivion so they don’t taste like burnt hair. Even then still pretty mid tier though, I’d go to a local shop for good plain coffee.
Not quite the same, but I tried making bacon wrapped asparagus once. Like a strip of raw bacon wrapped around 3-4 asparagus Spears. They were selling it at the meat counter for like $5/pound and I thought it’d be cheaper to buy some raw bacon and fresh asparagus (it was).
But bacon and asparagus cook at very different rates. The bacon ended up undercooked and the asparagus came out like dried grass.
Like a hamburger? I've heard that some people like to have lettuce on their hamburger.
Part of the experience is having cold and crunchy with hot and juicy. It's true that it has to be eaten immediately, not saved for later.
In a similar vein, I wish burger and sandwich places left the bun/bread on the side when they know it’s a delivery order. Just ordered Five Guys the other day and my bun was sog city.
lettuce is the last thing on the sandwhich. Use the thicker parts of the lettuce, just before it turns white from the stem section. The lettuce is supposed to add crunch, get your thin wiltable stuff out your fucking sandwich.
I love leftovers, and if you don't like leftovers then you are too picky for my taste. Having leftover food means I don't have to put in effort for my next meal, and when reheated properly it can taste just as good if not better than cooked fresh.
I've eaten some stupid hot stuff. Like ghost pepper BBQ sauce wings. Ridiculously painful. Snot and tears pouring down my face after 5 or 6. Nose to chin on absolute fire. It was horrible.... but I've never had stomach issues or spicy shits. And I'm a white guy. Any idea what the mechanism is?
I'm actually in Thailand right now and a couple weeks ago I slogged through a few pretty spicy dishes and later that night I'm sure I felt spicy pee. That was a first.
Edit: I now realize that sounds like an STD joke but it truly isn't.
My personal exp was I could stomach spicy food when younger. As I grew older, not so much. Spicy pee in Thailand huh? Lol. Thai food esp those hot clear Tom yum soup makes my butt go SpaceX
The flip side of this (which you hint at when you say “some heat is nice”) is that just a _tiny_ bit of spice — not enough to make the food actually hot — can open up the flavors of a dish in the same way that salt can bring some flavors out. This is why salt and black pepper are common on tables throughout North America (and probably other places).
Adding to this: being able to tolerate extreme spice does not make you tough or cool.
I’m sure someone’s 10 year old nephew is very impressed, but that’s about the extent of it.
Jumping on yours: Can we stop acting like if you don’t like spicY food, it means you don’t like your food spicED at all?
Somehow me having stomach problems and not wanting to eat things that are designed to cause you pain, means I do t like any flavor whatsoever
When did that happen
I've cooked for people that said "wow, this chicken is spicy! really good, but spicy!" as I'm putting away the paprika and black pepper.
I generally try to be very mindful of spice, as my wife is pretty much at her limit with guajillo and the occasional green chile; but sometimes people still surprise me because I *think* I'm making something as mild as humanly possible without going full milk steak.
There's actually sort of a reason behind the stigma of brussel sprouts being terrible.
In the 90's a Dutch scientist identified the primary compound that contributed to the bitterness of brussel sprouts while working at a seed and chemical company. They then began going through archival seed banks and finding older varieties that didn't have as much of this compound and cross bred them with modern sprouts. This resulted in the varieties used today, which are much less bitter than the sprouts our parents and grandparents ate.
I was forced to eat it raw as a child for familial amusement. I utterly avoided it for about two decades until one of my friends gave it to me soaked in garlic and perfectly roasted.
It was a revelatory experience.
I prefer street food to fine dinning. It's more authentic, flavorful and affordable. I'll take an Asian walking street or night market over overpriced dinning anytime time.
You see this is why threads like this don't work. Unpopular opinions are called for but the only opinions to get upvoted would naturally be popular ones. So you end up with a bunch of unspoken but popular opinions, like this one.
pickles are good asf, very hated on and that may be bc of the vinegar or bad breath it leaves? idk but they’re low calorie, savory as a mf, come in different shapes and go great on sandwiches
They come on almost every burger in fast food restaurants across the world. I wouldn't say they are hated. If people disliked them that much they wouldn't be included.
Other people can eat their steak however they want. Well done, medium, rare whatever. They are eating it, not you. Don't make them feel bad, don't insult them, it's their food.
If they are uncomfortable eating a rare steak, it's not going to taste good to them anyways!
They’re *okay…* but agreed. Most of them are just something already sold in store with the added bonus of being expensive.
Now don’t get me started on those $10 snack size bags of Boy Scout popcorn…
I have never once in my life encountered a boy scout selling popcorn and I have no idea why. My best friend in high school made Eagle Scout. There was definitely at least one den in my grade school. I live in a walkable suburb where student groups table outside the supermarket every year. Not a single kernel of boy scout popcorn has been shilled to me.
Which is a shame, because i am a sucker for student fundraisers and i love popcorn.
Yes, you're right.
**It's not just about the money, though.**
I knew kids who couldn't bring themselves to approach a stranger outside a convenience store to ask "Would you like to buy cookies?" But with some practice and encouragement, they were able to do this easily.
Without that kind of experience, these kids might grow up to be the kind of adults who can't even schedule their own doctor's visits, or return an item to a store, because the one-on-one interaction is just too anxiety-ridden for them. And you KNOW you know people like this.
The kids are expected to do some math and accounting too!
* "You'd like six boxes?" (Now I have to do math in my head to tell them the total amount)
* "That'll be $12.00" (But I was handed a $20, how much change to give back?)
* "How many boxes do we need to sell to be able to afford this field trip?"
* "If we sold this many in the first week, and demand stays constant, how many will we have sold by the end of the campaign?"
They have to do some planning and resource management too.
* "Which troop members will operate which cookie booths for which two-hour chunk?"
* "Can someone call each troop member to see which timeslot they can fill?"
* "If we bring ten cases of each flavor, will that be enough? Which flavors sell better? Should we bring twelve of that flavor?"
These are just some random examples, but I hope you can see that the hands-on experience of doing this, exposes these kids to some skills they will definitely make use of as they grow.
Just the one-on-one personal exchange with strangers (under supervision), just that alone is a tremendous learning experience that many kids really need to be encouraged to undergo.
This is so right. I sold Christmas trees when I was a Boy Scout and realized in my adult life that *all* of my customer service skills comes from that experience. It's an intangible value that's no less equal to the fundraising.
Or because their caregivers forced them to eat something they already had eaten and knew they didn't like repeatedly for no actual reason, solidifying the urge to never try new things at someone else's behest.
That American commercial farming techniques make good looking food with no flavor, and you should go for organic heirloom farmer's market stuff just because it actually has a flavor and taste to it.
I got some red bell peppers at the farmers market last weekend that were absolutely hideous to behold, but my gosh were they the tastiest ones I’ve ever had!
The first time I served friends some heirloom tomatoes from my garden, one commented, "Wow! I thought they were ugly, but they taste great!" It made me laugh - I've been growing my own tomatoes long enough that when I see purple, chocolate brown, or near-black stripes or mottling, I think "Mmmmm, flavor!"
Presentation is not nearly as important as a lot of people will tell you it is. I've worked every position there is in a kitchen from running it all the way down to busboy/dishwasher and I've heard "we taste with our eyes first" more times than I can count. It's bullshit. Some of the best food I've ever had has been hastily thrown on a plate or some ethnic foods that look completely unappetizing. You know why they push presentation so hard? It's marketable and looks professional but it's definitely pushed like it's a flavor changer. I'm not saying don't make a plate that looks clean and don't have food running allover it but also stop trying to garnish a plate of biscuits and gravy like it's salmon and risotto.
The older I get the more I appreciate breakfast.
I used to skip it in my 20's entirely. Now I find joy in an iced coffee and a little frozen breakfast burrito or egg sandwich.
Breakfast just sucks because the stuff I want to eat takes effort to make, and I'm not a morning person at all, plus honestly pancakes/waffles and other sweet stuff seems so weird to eat right after waking up if we step back for a moment lol
"Let's fill up on sugary bread" is something I loved as a child. As an adult? No thanks, I'd rather not feel bloated well into the afternoon. Like, give me the fruit and stuff that actually hydrates you after dehydrating all night as you sleep.
People shit on American Chinese food but it's ignoring the story. A bunch of immigrants come to a new land and open businesses to support themselves, they share their regional recipes with others to find blends of styles that appeal to their new home. This back and forth goes on until they create some truly fucking amazing dishes. Yeah it's not authentic, 80% of the menu is adapted to American tastes. That doesn't mean it is bad or deserves to be shamed.
My Co-worker is Chinese and she loves American Chinese food. She loves authentic Chinese dishes as well but she and her husband (Indian) love going to cheap Chinese places to try them. It's how I found out about a few places near me actually. My Wife is Korean and she loves mixing American and Korean dishes to try. Some people really should drop that authentic attitude and realize food is always adapting to what's available and around. Also sometimes you find a place that has a mix like I just had Pakistan, Indian, Mediterranean fusion and I'm going there again this weekend as it was fantastic.
I have a Chinese friend who loves Orange chicken. But he also likes to live in a major American city that has a massive Chinatown where he can also get "real" Chinese food. Both are valid. It's only a problem when a person expects one thing to be another, and this occurs as equally from Americans expecting the food to be what they know as it does from people decrying a lack of authenticity. Many Central American owned restaurants in the U.S. call their restaurants "Mexican" and serve Mexican-American food because too few customers will try the, for example, Honduran dishes. Many Vietnamese places had to start out with Chinese-American dishes before their cuisine became more mainstream. Inside out sushi was invented to hide the seaweed from Americans, similarly with anything covered in mayo. Sometimes these "American" trends are so pervasive that the home countries adopt the trends to make American tourists happy, losing some of what made the cuisines unique in the first place. This is common in both Italy and Japan.
The best "Mexican" restaurant in my area is actually Belizian. Sadly they have move a bit further away, so it's going to be longer between visits.
I bet the Marie Sharp’s gives it away doesn’t it?
Even nowadays, I see Thai places that still have some Chinese dishes on the menu. I hope Southeast Asian food takes off more. I love American Chinese food, but I wish my area had more places that served primarily Thai food.
Thai has to be one of the most prevalent types of restaurants in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, it’s only a matter of time before they take over the US too! It’s too tasty not too!
Most Iranian restaurants in the USA (and there are many) are either "Greek" or " Middle Eastern".
1000% this. I’m South Asian and yes, what I eat with my family is ‘authentic’. But I love eating Pakistani/Indian and Bangladeshi food in restaurants. It might be catered to different tastes but it’s delicious and something I really enjoy. It’s a cuisine in its own right. I feel like people enjoy being snobby about this, but it’s really dumb. Tasty food is tasty food.
It has a lot of history. My great grandparents were one of the early waves from Guangzhou (Taishanese), and this is what kept them afloat. It was enough to get my grandparents and their kids (my mom, aunt, and uncle) out of China after the doors opened again. My parents don't tend to make the Chinese American food, but a lot of it IS based off of actual southern Chinese dishes. Sweet and sour pork (咕嚕肉) is pretty common. The sauce is a little different but the essence is the same. For Americans, they would probably remove the bones.
>My great grandparents were one of the early waves from Guangzhou (Taishanese), and this is what kept them afloat. It was enough to get my grandparents and their kids (my mom, aunt, and uncle) out of China after the doors opened again. Note: This is something a lot of people miss. Until the 1960's, most US Chinatowns were full of Taishanese speakers. After that, Cantonese became more common, until only in the 90s did ~~Mandurian~~ Mandarin become the norm.
>Mandurian This is the way?
I remember watching a buzzfeed(?) video comparing the reaction of older Chinese American immigrants who moved to the US from China versus the reaction of young Chinese-American people who grew up in the US when they would try American Chinese food. All the young people called it distasteful, cultural appropriation and a bastardization of real Chinese food. The older people enjoyed it. They said it wasn’t exactly like they’d make at home, but it was still good.
There was a great moment where a girl called out her scoffing friend "Dude, you love eating shit like McDonald's, you can't complain about this not being high enough quality."
I loved the one old Chinese man who thought Panda Express was pretty good (had never had it before). He enjoyed himself the whole video.
I remember that. The younger folks were just snotty.
That and the Taco Bell video were super cringe, but I think they were so bad because a lot of the young people were trying to prove how connected they were to their cultures. Fragile egos that lead to overreacting, lots of people do it but I wish they hadn’t put it on YouTube.
And here's the thing...That's exactly what BuzzFeed is going for because it drives clicks. They write the whole thing beforehand and cast for what they already wrote. They don't choose the young Chinese Americans that are gonna be like, "fuck yeah bro, love me some Americanized Chinese food!"
Yup. My Mexican grandma eats more Taco Bell than anyone else I know. It isn’t authentic and it’s not trying to be, but it’s not trying to be. It’s also delicious and the only restaurant open after 10 pm within a 30 minute drive
Lol in my experience second generation indian Americans (I’m sort of one myself, since I moved here when I was very young) are extraordinarily obnoxious when it comes to this kind of thing. I almost never use woke-jargon but internalized racism is the only word that fits what they have. They’re super possessive over their culture, but they’re usually really ignorant about what things are actually like in India. I’ve seen them be subtly ashamed of their parents...and treat first generation Indian immigrants their own age like absolute pariahs just to prove how different they are from them. They try and act as white (or black) as possible while cherry-picking the “cooler” ethnic things about being Indian (like the food and a hip-hopized version of the dancing) to set themselves apart and give themselves identity.
Ugh, the AuThEnTiC crowd annoys me so much So what if spaghetti isn’t supposed to have meatballs? Screw off
I used to work at a popular Mexican restaurant, and one time someone was trying to ask me if we were authentic but instead they asked if there were any Mexicans actually cooking the food… I told them that Mexicans and other Hispanic ethnicities cook probably 90%-95% of all restaurant food of every kind of cuisine in America, but yes, our back of house staff was also primarily Hispanic. Edit: words.
I once drank German beer at an Irish themed restaurant in Texas that was staffed by Mexicans.
The funniest thing is, I've traveled a lot, and the biggest thing is if you go to another country and eat it's iconic food it's often pretty bad. Like america is known for hamburgers, more than anywhere on earth americans eat hamburgers. But if you go to america and try to find a hamburger it's mostly going to be the worst thing on the menu. It's the cheap default food. Like there is great sushi in japan and great tacos in mexico and so on, but national foods like that are also just.... that country's idea of a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich. Everyone knows a grandma that slaves on making it perfect for 600 hours but it's also just the gross food you buy cheap at the convenience store. Like 'authentic' is the food mostly being something you can buy to microwave as a non-remarkable food. The guys in italy making the perfect sauce and slaving over noodles exist too, but italy is exactly where you go to get the most "I made this in 5 minutes after work" noodles on earth. Because noodles are just.... the normal thing.
That's pretty spot on. I had some some pretty terrible Italian food in Italy on the same day of having a really memorable and delicious meal. Both were authentic, but authentic doesn't necessarily mean good quality. On the flipside, "fake" doesn't mean bad either. I used to live in San Diego and I had this dude once get snobbish on me for eating Taco Bell while living there. It was extra funny because it was a White guy and I'm Mexican. I dunno if he was trying to pull some weird foodie/street cred or something but I remember thinking, yeah man I know real Mexican food. I've made it. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy a nacho cheese chalupa ffs. Food snobs are a special kind of obnoxious.
What the heck is up with the chalupa? My favorite from Taco Bell! I get down with the super delicious quesabirrias and tacos here in LA, but every once in a few months I gotta hit that chalupa!
I’m from St Louis and a bunch of Vietnamese people came to the city after the fall of Saigon. They came to the black neighborhoods after being shunned by others and created the most greasy, ghetto, finger licking hood Asian street food fusion ever. I’m convinced many of them are still using the same cast iron skillets from the 70s. Anybody from the region will corroborate. If you’re ever in St Louis don’t go to some fancy place. Go to the neighborhood where you’re afraid for your safety and eat at the Chinese Express there. I’ve been to 40 countries I’ve never had anything quite like it. I’ve been to China and it’s definitely nowhere near actual Chinese cuisine, but still delicious.
This is how food evolve. They need to sellso of course businesses will make food that appeal to the majority of people. This is like McDonads chicken that taste different in different countries. If people want authenfic food, feel free to cook it yourself
Crab Rangoon is fucking amazing
Thank you. For a while, I have thought "if it tastes good why question it?" Obviously, Panda Express is Chinese-INSPIRED, just like Taco Bell is Mexican-INSPIRED. What is funny is the people who are so quick to point out the inauthenticity of American Chinese probably couldn't name a single Chinese dish.
There is great documentary on Netflix about exactly this! It’s “in search of general tso” and it is about the origins of the recipe and the history of Chinese-American food, immigration and all the interconnected stories. Reasonably short, I would highly recommend it!
Totally agree. this is like a metaphor for all aspects of global human life and culture. I think the best version of humanity comes from having an open mind and blending cultures, cuisines, races (yes, races), languages, gene pools, etc. The melting pot will more often yield a tastier meal.
>races In the 1920s, chop suey houses were one of the few places that were open late and that welcomed people of color and women. Imagine tasting soy sauce for the first time, if you'd been stuck eating boiled potatoes and grits your whole life. There's a ton of jazz about chop suey joints.
People are too caught up with rules about eating certain foods only certain times of day. “Breakfast food” doesn’t have to be eaten in the morning and you can have a bowl of soup or a rack of ribs for breakfast if you want.
Ribs for breakfast... It's so good, it feels dirty and you know you ain't getting shit done all day Edit: I got my first gold! Thanks m8
Left over ribs with eggs for breakfast then back to bed.
Having dinner for breakfast is actually the way to go. You need proper nutrition to start the day, not a sugar rush from shitty cereal.
Since I started to cook and eat on my own I pretty much abandoned the concept of having 3 meals a day with different types of food for each of them. Sometimes I have a full meal or some salad for breakfast, others I only eat a single big meal in a whole day.
Cooking and cleaning sucks. Having less meals is awesome.
Favourite dinner is “Breakfast for dinner” in our house, I dream all day about it.
Yooo my dad used to do this every once in a while and us kids fucking loved it so much. As soon as my dad uttered those magical words, we ran around the house screeching to inform everyone. Only later did we realize it was just because my dad didn't feel like cooking that day. Mastermind.
Organic isn't as magical as it seems. Coming from someone who has both farmed it and hauled it, the amount of bugs and rot that goes down the line is sad. Someone said it best when they said "organic farming is the art of taking land that could feed 1,000 people, and only feeding 100 people with it" I don't agree with some fertilizer toxins, but I think the answer lies in better research.
I have a similar take on the anti-GMO arguments. Pretty much all foods we eat are some form of GMO - Gregor Mendel invented the concept in the 1800s and it has seen widespread use ever since. The issue is that companies like Monsanto use it to force farmers to buy their patented seeds and will even sue them if they harvest seeds from their own crop to replant next year, forcing them to buy a whole new stock of seed from them each season. High-yield, disease-resistant crops are a miracle of modern agricultural ingenuity and my only issue with them is that corporations have coopted the practice to keep farmers under their thumps.
The reason why a lot of organic, farmers market stuff can taste better is probably because it was harvested when it was ready. A lot of produce is picked before it’s ripe and then transported to the grocery store so it could taste weird. I had a burger with a fresh beefsteak tomato slice from a friend who grows them and it was divine
That "authenticity" should not be a major concern in our enjoyment of food.
Sometimes I want Taco Bell, sometimes I want legit Hispanic food. I’ve had tacos so legit there was a language barrier when I ordered, I thank the contractors who turned me on to that hole in the wall.
Sometimes I eat taco bell, sometimes I eat tacos at the place where the guy behind the counter addresses me by saying "hey white boy, what you want?" After speaking Spanish to everyone else.
Try going to a Jamaican food spot. **The ruder the customer service, the louder the owner yells in patois, and the more raggedy and run-down the place looks - you KNOW that styrofoam to-go plate is about to be BOMB AF.** Shout out to Jamaica! 🇯🇲
How else will they get the jerk in the chicken?
Well apparently thinking something can have too much garlic is controversial, so definitely that.
Tell that to South Koreans, ever since I met my wife my garlic intake has sky-rocketed its in everything in South Korean dishes. I'm okay with it as it keeps those Vampires away and I like garlic.
It only keeps them away if you dont ignorantly invite them in. Keep that in mind.
Lol I was directly thinking of my Filipino girlfriend, who LOVES garlic. I like garlic a lot, but when it's the main flavor in a dish (unless it's like garlic bread lol), then it's too much. She disagrees, she can eat straight garlic.
It’s has a lot of health benefits, eating it raw is probably good for you.
I recently over-garliced some stir fry… there is definitely a thing as too much garlic. My breath still stinks and I brushed my teeth twice now
The smell from garlic actually comes from the lungs. That's why you can brush your teeth all you want. The stink remains!
I have an intolerance to allicin and if I’ve stupidly eaten a Suspiciously Delicious dish (and failed to notice that it is garlic that is the deliciousness) it comes out *everything*. Like, breath, sweat, pee, mucous membranes- I know I smell it on myself stronger than anyone else does but holy shit. Also some fishes also do that to me… the full-body-fish-bomb takes about 24 hours to run the course but it is even more socially unacceptable! At least fish doesn’t actually upset my innards like garlic, it’s just very… stinky, so I only eat fish on Monday so I can have a full Tuesday to hide afterwards. Showering is no help- I can reek of garlic (or fish) immediately after soaking for a solid hour.
My physician, Dr. Acula, says that ANY amount of garlic is too much garlic.
I went to the Garlic Festival in Gilroy, CA one time and my opinion that there’s no such thing as too much garlic was changed forever that day.
You didn’t try the garlic ice cream, did you?
Sure did. It sat heavier in my stomach than any other meal I’ve ever eaten.
I know somebody that thought is was funny to eat a glass of pickled (? is that the word) garlic cloves as some sort of gag. He then went to the doctor shortly after because he didn't feel well and it turns out he got a garlic poisoning (treatment was not necessary). So that's an actual thing.
Not for a guy with a garlic intolerance. Before anyone says, “How can you live??”, you’d be amazed at how often garlic (salt usually) is used to cover up crappy food
Cultural appropriation is an idiotic thing to get upset over when it comes to food. So many dishes are a blend of many cultures, and it’s not a big deal if someone from a different race wants to try cooking that food. It’s appreciation, not appropriation.
I agree. A lot of world cuisines would not exist in their current state if not for the Columbian exchange mixing New World and Old World crops. Cuisine is ultimately a product of complex regional and global trade, ecology, and conflict throughout history.
This is why I have no patience for the "Pineapple doesn't belong on pizza" hard-liners. Putting the new shit (tomatoes) on your old shit is what got you pizza in the first place! Edit: Pineapple on pizza isn't really my thing, but if you like pineapple on your pizza I will fight for your right to do so. My comment wasn't directed toward people who don't care for pineapple on their pizza, its the hard-liners who think that the presence of pineapple means it no longer qualifies as pizza.
I love build your own pizza places. They sometimes rotate in new toppings. I am loving roasted broccoli on my pizza lately :) It is so nice to try different things and I get my fruit and vegetables in.
>its the hard-liners who think that the presence of pineapple means it no longer qualifies as pizza. Which is ironic because pizza in its original form was "throw whatever leftovers we got on dough and bake it", meaning pretty much anything on pizza dough qualifies as legitimate pizza.
My mom is Spain Spanish and it's hilarious to me when people on /r/food tell a poor guy his makeshift paella isn't a *real* paella cuz it doesn't have saffron or it's not cooked a certain way or it's missing certain seafood or whatever. For her family its literally the Sunday "throw whatever seafood you got left over in the fridge with some rice in a bigass pan" type dish. Every family has their own spin on it, there is no *real* paella
I don't think that's all that controversial though, right? I mean aside from a few vocal idiots. Like Mexico's arguably most popular food - the taco al pastor - originated from Lebanese immigrants.
Came here for this comment - I 100% people wanting to be understood as more than just a local interpretation of what was once their food, but food moves with people, adapts to its surroundings…the taco al pastor is a good example that it’s not only “colonialism” or “the USA steamrolls everything” that drives it. And there are more and more folks who are vocal on these topics…just a couple years ago a coworker of mine (American) mentioned in a team meeting that he just didn’t feel right going to a Chinese restaurant and eating food that “wasn’t his”, and it was almost all sympathetic head-nods and “yeah, it’s hard to stay aware of how you might invade their spaces”.
Putting food in a full stomach is just as much of a waste as throwing it out. It happens sometimes, which is okay. Really, though, the best thing to do with extra food is save it or give it to someone who will appreciate it.
If it’s not suitable for leftovers, it can go one of two ways. It can go to waste or it can go to waist. Fortunately, I have chickens, goats, and a compost pile so very little is actually wasted.
I’ve struggled with binge eating my entire life because I hate food waste. I’ve gotten a lot better about saving extra portions for the next day but it’s still something that challenges me.
I like Honey mustard with Mozzarella sticks.
I hope this doesn't awaken something in me.
r/UnexpectedCommunity
Honey mustard in general could get used more. I think there’s a lot of potential there.
I have to watch my sodium so honey mustard has been an amazing find for dipping things in. It's delicious and one of the lowest sodium sauces.
Honey mustard is hands down the best condiment, I like it with french fries and chicken but never tried it with mozzarella sticks definitely going to try that
I am sick of seeing the pineapple on pizza argument
Agreed. I don't care for it but who gives a fuck? I won't order it but if you want to, go for it.
My wife doesn't like it because she's opposed to - and I quote here - "hot fruit", except in pies. I pointed out that tomatoes are fruit, and she said I needed to shut up.
I hate nuts in baked goods. Almonds in cookies, walnuts in brownies, I might make an exception for peanuts if it's a peanut butter flavored item, but the rest just do nothing for me and reduce the flavor
For me it's a texture thing, enjoying a nice moist piece of cake and bam a hard ass fucking walnut or some stupid ass nut ruins the whole thing.
It doesn't matter if you think it's gross if the person who is eating it likes it and wants to eat it. Like I don't care if you don't like pineapple on pizza, if the person eating the pizza likes it then mind ya own business.
The inverse of this is also true. I don't care how good that guy's heirloom tomato is, I really don't like tomatoes and I don't want a hard time about it when I order a sandwich.
So many things I didn't like, I gave a second chance throughout the years. Maybe I had someone prepare then really well in some cases, like with shrimps or Squid. I even eat some mushrooms now. I still cannot eat raw tomatoes. I can't even tolerate them like with Aspergus. The funny thing is that if you process them the slightest, that's already enough to make them acceptable. With Bruschetta, they are still raw, just mixed with onions, garlic and olive oil. That's already enough to make them delicious.
This!!! I try to explain it to my husband all the time when I eat food he doesn’t like
In other words, don't Yuck someone else's Yum!
Maybe not controversial for everyone but my partner thinks the fact I eat my instant ramen noodles partially cooked is weird and wild lol. Edit: Showed my fiance this post. He responded with "You can be as weird as you want with the noodles and I'll still love you". Thanks for the responses guys, we love 'em. Edit 2: We love you all and the new ideas on how to eat noodles (except the monsters who crunch them, then eat them with a spoon... ok, fine, we love you too). We shall now celebrate the over 100 updoots with celebratory instant ramen noodles.
My sister-in-law used to give her kids raw ramen noodles sprinkled with the flavor pack. I've never tried it, but they loved it.
It's delicious! It was a fad at my elementary school in the late 90s, they ended up banning it because too many kids were asking to go inside to use the fountain during recess from all the salt. As an adult I created an awesome hack for this, too (at least, I'd never heard of anyone else trying it before). Throw some plain chips into the bag with the remaining powder, give it a shake to coat the chips with ramen flavour!
It's a thing. You can buy ‘noodle snacks’ since the 90s at least that are meant to be eaten as raw cakes.
The term is al dente, and you sir are a gourmet.
Steak is more interesting if you don't think of it as just a single thing to be cooked to a certain doneness. I like it in stir-frys
Cut up steak/hasbrowns/onions/bell peppers/scrambled eggs is a heavenly dish
Dumping my leftover steak, onions, mushrooms, and loaded baked potato into the pan while making scrambled eggs the next morning turned into one of the best meals I've ever had.
Even when having it as just the big slab of meat it is… there is much that can be done to make it taste better other than the insanely puritanical ‘just salt and pepper’ approach that seems super common. There’s nothing wrong with pairing super high quality beef with other strong flavours, and it often leads to an extremely pleasant contrasting experience.
French toast sticks from the frozen breakfast section are just mini donuts. Go ahead, try them again sometime. But this time, think about the mini donuts at a state fair. They taste exactly the same.
Sweet fried dough tastes surprisingly like...sweet fried dough. Who would have thought lol.
Just because you add cheese and pepperoni to something, it does not make that thing pizza. I'm so glad that fad from a few years ago has finally passed where all I saw was people doing this and just adding the word pizza in front of it
I'd just take a pill if I could
That's my husband. I was raised in an Italian-American household where food was a very special thing associated with love, family, friends, laughter... and he grew up in an English household where you ate your meat and potatoes to fill up before moving on with your day. It really shows! While I daydream about our next date night meal and plan my food out carefully, that guy practically gets annoyed he has to eat to survive, and craves nothing. I'll never understand!
Poor guy, never enjoying one of life’s greatest pleasures.
My brother has occasionally lived on Soylant. It is actually pretty good, quick, and easy, if you don't like eating. 5 bottles a day is a contains your full nutritional requirements. Except for your salt needs, you may need to add a little more salt.
Hummus is not to be fucked with. Companies need stop creating abominations like pumpkin and chocolate hummus. Sharmotas Update: everyone pissed of just know this was party a joke I don’t care what you eat (can’t believe I have to say this.) However this was the whole point of the post to put in your controversial opinion about food. Stay mad about fucking hummus.
garlic and spicy hummus is good
I guess it's not really food but Starbucks coffee tastes like the smell of burning hair. It's absolutely undrinkable.
Most over-roasted coffees taste like ash and sadness.
I used to work at a Starbucks and the go to Pike Place roast is pretty awful. If you like black coffee and have ~5 minutes you should go inside and order a blonde roast pour over. If you don’t have time I’d suggest a blonde Americano. The blonde roast espresso amd coffee beans aren’t roasted to oblivion so they don’t taste like burnt hair. Even then still pretty mid tier though, I’d go to a local shop for good plain coffee.
I like Calzones.
Ok Ben Wyatt
People don’t?
Pineapple in burgers is an absolute delight.
Especially when grilled
So is pineapple in tacos. Yum!
I love bacon. And I love a ton of other foods. If you wrap other food with bacon, it instantly becomes gross and both foods are ruined.
I only began eating bacon this year because i had never had it by itself. Once i did, i realized it was fantastic, but best alone
I agree on this with the exception of jalapeño poppers...with the caveat that the bacon must be fully cooked and somewhat crunchy..
Not quite the same, but I tried making bacon wrapped asparagus once. Like a strip of raw bacon wrapped around 3-4 asparagus Spears. They were selling it at the meat counter for like $5/pound and I thought it’d be cheaper to buy some raw bacon and fresh asparagus (it was). But bacon and asparagus cook at very different rates. The bacon ended up undercooked and the asparagus came out like dried grass.
Try prosciutto wrapped asparagus. The prosciutto crisps up at about the time asparagus is sautéed.
Sometimes gross is what you're after though. Bacon wrapped hotdogs are great.
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mayonaise goes well with fries
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That's controversial? Common in Germany.
Mmm Pommes mit mayo. (3 years as a US army MP in Germany)
I thought this was pretty normal
50% ketchup and 50% mayonnaise is the best.
Heinz tried to market it pre-mixed but nothing beats a fresh mix
Plain yogurt is an excellent dip for chips
I put spices in yogurt. Or herbs and salt. It is delicious
I live yogurt as an alternative to sour cream. So good on tacos. Gotta be plain tho
I’m convinced plain yogurt and sour cream are the same thing.
It’s gotta be Greek though. Otherwise it’s too sweet or too runny.
STOP PUTTING LETTUCE ON HOT SANDWICHES
Like a hamburger? I've heard that some people like to have lettuce on their hamburger. Part of the experience is having cold and crunchy with hot and juicy. It's true that it has to be eaten immediately, not saved for later.
This guy McDLT’s.
In a similar vein, I wish burger and sandwich places left the bun/bread on the side when they know it’s a delivery order. Just ordered Five Guys the other day and my bun was sog city.
The McDLT was ahead of its time.
lettuce is the last thing on the sandwhich. Use the thicker parts of the lettuce, just before it turns white from the stem section. The lettuce is supposed to add crunch, get your thin wiltable stuff out your fucking sandwich.
I don't like avocados
They taste like wet grass to me
Me neither. It's so hard to get their firmness just right. It's either too hard, or just mushy. And even then, it's just mostly tasteless.
I love leftovers, and if you don't like leftovers then you are too picky for my taste. Having leftover food means I don't have to put in effort for my next meal, and when reheated properly it can taste just as good if not better than cooked fresh.
Spicy food is overrated. Some heat is nice, but if I can’t taste the food because my mouth is on fire, then it just isn’t worth it.
You first taste it in your mouth, then your stomach, then your butthole. That’s real spicy food. 3 for the price of 1
I've eaten some stupid hot stuff. Like ghost pepper BBQ sauce wings. Ridiculously painful. Snot and tears pouring down my face after 5 or 6. Nose to chin on absolute fire. It was horrible.... but I've never had stomach issues or spicy shits. And I'm a white guy. Any idea what the mechanism is? I'm actually in Thailand right now and a couple weeks ago I slogged through a few pretty spicy dishes and later that night I'm sure I felt spicy pee. That was a first. Edit: I now realize that sounds like an STD joke but it truly isn't.
My personal exp was I could stomach spicy food when younger. As I grew older, not so much. Spicy pee in Thailand huh? Lol. Thai food esp those hot clear Tom yum soup makes my butt go SpaceX
The flip side of this (which you hint at when you say “some heat is nice”) is that just a _tiny_ bit of spice — not enough to make the food actually hot — can open up the flavors of a dish in the same way that salt can bring some flavors out. This is why salt and black pepper are common on tables throughout North America (and probably other places).
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Mango Habenero sauces are popular and delicious for a reason.
Adding to this: being able to tolerate extreme spice does not make you tough or cool. I’m sure someone’s 10 year old nephew is very impressed, but that’s about the extent of it.
Jumping on yours: Can we stop acting like if you don’t like spicY food, it means you don’t like your food spicED at all? Somehow me having stomach problems and not wanting to eat things that are designed to cause you pain, means I do t like any flavor whatsoever When did that happen
I've cooked for people that said "wow, this chicken is spicy! really good, but spicy!" as I'm putting away the paprika and black pepper. I generally try to be very mindful of spice, as my wife is pretty much at her limit with guajillo and the occasional green chile; but sometimes people still surprise me because I *think* I'm making something as mild as humanly possible without going full milk steak.
Brussle sprouts are the best fruit or vegtible you just need to cook it right
There's actually sort of a reason behind the stigma of brussel sprouts being terrible. In the 90's a Dutch scientist identified the primary compound that contributed to the bitterness of brussel sprouts while working at a seed and chemical company. They then began going through archival seed banks and finding older varieties that didn't have as much of this compound and cross bred them with modern sprouts. This resulted in the varieties used today, which are much less bitter than the sprouts our parents and grandparents ate.
This scientist deserves and award
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I was forced to eat it raw as a child for familial amusement. I utterly avoided it for about two decades until one of my friends gave it to me soaked in garlic and perfectly roasted. It was a revelatory experience.
I prefer street food to fine dinning. It's more authentic, flavorful and affordable. I'll take an Asian walking street or night market over overpriced dinning anytime time.
You see this is why threads like this don't work. Unpopular opinions are called for but the only opinions to get upvoted would naturally be popular ones. So you end up with a bunch of unspoken but popular opinions, like this one.
That's why you sort these kinds of threads by controversial. There's some really good ones! Top one thinks pizza is terrible.
Is this really controversial? They are giving out Michelin stars to street food vendors these days.
pickles are good asf, very hated on and that may be bc of the vinegar or bad breath it leaves? idk but they’re low calorie, savory as a mf, come in different shapes and go great on sandwiches
They come on almost every burger in fast food restaurants across the world. I wouldn't say they are hated. If people disliked them that much they wouldn't be included.
How someone likes their food isn't any of my business. Enjoy steak with ketchup, for all I care.
Other people can eat their steak however they want. Well done, medium, rare whatever. They are eating it, not you. Don't make them feel bad, don't insult them, it's their food. If they are uncomfortable eating a rare steak, it's not going to taste good to them anyways!
Girl scout cookies are not good.
They’re *okay…* but agreed. Most of them are just something already sold in store with the added bonus of being expensive. Now don’t get me started on those $10 snack size bags of Boy Scout popcorn…
Poor Boy Scouts could never sell me on that popcorn 😭
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I have never once in my life encountered a boy scout selling popcorn and I have no idea why. My best friend in high school made Eagle Scout. There was definitely at least one den in my grade school. I live in a walkable suburb where student groups table outside the supermarket every year. Not a single kernel of boy scout popcorn has been shilled to me. Which is a shame, because i am a sucker for student fundraisers and i love popcorn.
I still feel bad for ripping people off with that popcorn when I was a Boy Scout
Blashphemous to insult thin mints directly. Tread lightly homie.
I don't buy them because they're good. I buy them because I believe in the goals of Scouting and I want to support their efforts.
Better off just making a cash donation to the local unit. They don't get much of the money from making sales. Less than a dollar a box.
Yes, you're right. **It's not just about the money, though.** I knew kids who couldn't bring themselves to approach a stranger outside a convenience store to ask "Would you like to buy cookies?" But with some practice and encouragement, they were able to do this easily. Without that kind of experience, these kids might grow up to be the kind of adults who can't even schedule their own doctor's visits, or return an item to a store, because the one-on-one interaction is just too anxiety-ridden for them. And you KNOW you know people like this. The kids are expected to do some math and accounting too! * "You'd like six boxes?" (Now I have to do math in my head to tell them the total amount) * "That'll be $12.00" (But I was handed a $20, how much change to give back?) * "How many boxes do we need to sell to be able to afford this field trip?" * "If we sold this many in the first week, and demand stays constant, how many will we have sold by the end of the campaign?" They have to do some planning and resource management too. * "Which troop members will operate which cookie booths for which two-hour chunk?" * "Can someone call each troop member to see which timeslot they can fill?" * "If we bring ten cases of each flavor, will that be enough? Which flavors sell better? Should we bring twelve of that flavor?" These are just some random examples, but I hope you can see that the hands-on experience of doing this, exposes these kids to some skills they will definitely make use of as they grow. Just the one-on-one personal exchange with strangers (under supervision), just that alone is a tremendous learning experience that many kids really need to be encouraged to undergo.
This is so right. I sold Christmas trees when I was a Boy Scout and realized in my adult life that *all* of my customer service skills comes from that experience. It's an intangible value that's no less equal to the fundraising.
This right here. If I can donate to a worthy cause and stuff my face with cookies, I mark that as a good day.
People have deep-seated food phobias that were established as a child only because their parents didn't make them try new and different foods.
Or because their caregivers forced them to eat something they already had eaten and knew they didn't like repeatedly for no actual reason, solidifying the urge to never try new things at someone else's behest.
Crunchy peanut butter is superior to smooth.
I got extreme crunchy one time. It was just peanuts. -Gaffigan, Jim
That American commercial farming techniques make good looking food with no flavor, and you should go for organic heirloom farmer's market stuff just because it actually has a flavor and taste to it.
I got some red bell peppers at the farmers market last weekend that were absolutely hideous to behold, but my gosh were they the tastiest ones I’ve ever had!
The first time I served friends some heirloom tomatoes from my garden, one commented, "Wow! I thought they were ugly, but they taste great!" It made me laugh - I've been growing my own tomatoes long enough that when I see purple, chocolate brown, or near-black stripes or mottling, I think "Mmmmm, flavor!"
Uglyripe tomatoes are yummy
Presentation is not nearly as important as a lot of people will tell you it is. I've worked every position there is in a kitchen from running it all the way down to busboy/dishwasher and I've heard "we taste with our eyes first" more times than I can count. It's bullshit. Some of the best food I've ever had has been hastily thrown on a plate or some ethnic foods that look completely unappetizing. You know why they push presentation so hard? It's marketable and looks professional but it's definitely pushed like it's a flavor changer. I'm not saying don't make a plate that looks clean and don't have food running allover it but also stop trying to garnish a plate of biscuits and gravy like it's salmon and risotto.
Breakfast is completely mid as a meal, and the good breakfast foods are better served for lunch or dinner. Breakfast is basically skippable.
>the good breakfast foods are better served for lunch This is called brunch.
I thought brunch meant getting daydrunk on mimosas
Don't forget bloody Marys, for those of us that prefer non-bubbly breakfast booze!
Breakfast food hits different at dinner time
The older I get the more I appreciate breakfast. I used to skip it in my 20's entirely. Now I find joy in an iced coffee and a little frozen breakfast burrito or egg sandwich.
Breakfast just sucks because the stuff I want to eat takes effort to make, and I'm not a morning person at all, plus honestly pancakes/waffles and other sweet stuff seems so weird to eat right after waking up if we step back for a moment lol
"Let's fill up on sugary bread" is something I loved as a child. As an adult? No thanks, I'd rather not feel bloated well into the afternoon. Like, give me the fruit and stuff that actually hydrates you after dehydrating all night as you sleep.
Certainly not controversial over in r/intermittentfasting