Quite often, if someone mentions that they don't like a certain food, someone else will reply with something like "Oh, you just haven't tried really good [food]. You have to get it fresh, in season, organic and locally grown, and eat it raw, not cooked. Or if you have to cook it, just steam it lightly, make sure you don't overcook it." They give all this advice that is ultimately aimed at getting the most flavourful [food] possible.
But when I don't like a food, it's because of the flavour. I don't like olives because they taste like olives. I don't like cantaloupe because it's so cantaloupey. Making it more flavourful would just make things worse.
Are there really people who want some flavour, any flavour, no matter what it is, and would only dislike a food because it's lower in flavour?
You see something similar in nutrition advice from time to time. They recommend that you reduce your salt use by shaking spices on your food instead of salt, or you put lemon juice on your salad instead of salad dressing. As though you're after a flavour, any flavour, rather than a specific flavour. (But, somehow, the flavour of actual food won't do.)
I also see this sometimes when I'm complaining about my annual apple drought. I'm all "I can't find Cortland apples!" and people respond with "You should get some blueberries, they're in season now!" My complaint is about the absence of a specific variety of a specific fruit. Why would someone think this need can be addressed with a fruit, any fruit? And if it could, there are plenty of kinds of fruit commercially available, including other kinds of apples right where my beloved Cortlands should be. Don't you think I'd have already bought some other fruit and stopped complaining if some other fruit would solve the problem?
Actually, this also reminds me of the Google Reader shutdown. One of the arguments in favour of the shutdown was that people allegedly don't need RSS in this age of social media. My social media certainly does provide me with things my friends think are worth sharing (and is useful in this respect because it isn't all stuff I would have stumbled upon myself), but I still want to read the things I want to read. Having a steady stream of things to read is insufficient; I also want to read specific things.
Are there really people like this, who don't have specific preferences and think anything will do interchangeably? Or do people who like to give others advice on the internet just think there are?
7 comments:
Are there really people who want some flavour, any flavour, no matter what it is, and would only dislike a food because it's lower in flavour?
Maybe not. I don't know. But many people, including myself, have thought they didn't like a food, but later found out they had had it ill-prepared (especially over-cooked), or not fresh, and that if they tried said food either fresher or prepared better, they did like it.
Not some food, any food, but that particular food, done differently. I can think of at least five foods that fall into this category for me.
You see something similar in nutrition advice from time to time. They recommend that you reduce your salt use by shaking spices on your food instead of salt, or you put lemon juice on your salad instead of salad dressing. As though you're after a flavour, any flavour, rather than a specific flavour. (But, somehow, the flavour of actual food won't do.)
You might be misinterpreting this advice. The idea is to attempt to wean yourself off salty food, and acclimate yourself towards a different taste.
Removing salt makes the food taste bland, so instead of bland, substitute another type of flavour or sensation and see if you can get used to it.
Many food behaviours are habitual - especially salt and sugar. Many people can get used to less salt and less sugar, over time - not because they're after "any flavour," but by developing a new habit.
The internet argument, I don't know. I never actually believed that the argument was made seriously. I thought it smacked of an excuse after the fact. For whatever reason, Google didn't want to support Reader anymore, so they used social media as an excuse.
Cravings never work that way for me. The problem with removing salt from food is not that it's bland, but that it's not salty. If you add another flavour, it's still not salty and the salt craving still isn't sated. The cravings continue to exist and get stronger and stronger until I'm at a point where I'm pouring salt from the salt shaker directly onto my tongue, or scarfing down potato chips even though I'm not hungry or something.
I'm very curious what kinds of foods work for you when done fresher or better. I can't think of any examples where the difference wouldn't be the food simply tasting more like itself.
I get salt cravings, too. I discovered that lowering my overall sodium intake reduced them hugely. The same thing for sugar. I have a very low sugar diet, and I rarely (if ever) crave sweets anymore. But the more salt I eat, the more salt cravings I get. I guess you have not found this?
On your other q, when I was a kid I hated broccoli. I discovered that was because my mother bought frozen broccoli (as was common in those days) and then boiled the hell out of it. As a teenager, I discovered broccoli lightly stir-fried in garlic. Yum! Couldn't believe it was the same vegetable. Lots of vegetables work that way for me.
I thought roast chicken was boring and tasteless. Turns out that was also my mother's roast chicken! (Poor mom takes a beating here. She cooks much better now.)
I know people who grew up in small towns in New England or Ontario who thought they hated Chinese food. Turns out they hated the hated what passes for Chinese food in small towns with predominantly Anglo populations. When they ate better quality Chinese food in the Chinatowns of major cities, they loved it.
One more example, but this is a tricky one. I know many people who hated calamari, believing it to be tasteless and rubbery. But when they have an opportunity to try really good calamari, they love it.
That is tricky because many people won't even try calamari because (for reasons unknown to me) they say it's gross to eat squid.
Are you able to articulate what exactly it was that you didn't like about broccoli? Because, with what little information is here, it sounds like it's neutral and a good vehicle for garlic, not like outright dislike.
I can't identify with the meat example, but I propose that squid is gross because it has too many legs.
The broccoli I had as a child smelled bad, had almost no flavour, and was mushy, an unpleasant texture.
The stir-fried-in-garlic broccoli was a good degree of crunchy (snappy but not raw-crunchy), had a vegetable taste that I like, and also had a garlic taste that I like. I can't articulate what good broccoli tastes like, but it's has a definite taste. It's not spicy but it's not neutral.
When you eat squid, you don't see the legs. It no longer looks like a squid. It wouldn't bother me if it did, but it doesn't.
That's interesting, because to me the vegetable taste that broccoli has is the same as the bad broccoli smell (which I found particularly yucky as a child but doesn't bother me as an adult because my palate is more sophisticated. Yes, what I eat now is more sophisticated.)
It's interesting how smells and tastes are so completely subjective.
Yes, what I eat now is more sophisticated
:>)
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