There aren’t many foods that I don’t like, so every so often I like to re-try things just to make absolutely sure I still don’t like them. For example, I can pretty much tolerate tomatoes now, and actually enjoy them on certain occasions, provided they aren’t too mealy or slimy. Also, I hated radishes when I was a little kid, but I really like them now.
Thus I spent 27 cents on a piece of durian candy the other day. For those of you who have never eaten durian, it is a fruit native to Singapore and environs that looks like this:
It’s spiky on the outside, but inside has fruit arranged in sickly white sacs that are like a thin chicken-skin-like membrane filled with custard that hasn’t quite set right. The taste of durian is really interesting because it is so unbelievable foul you think, “wow. This can’t be right. Nothing occurring in nature could taste this disgusting.” The taste itself changes. There’s a before-taste that is a lot like the smell of rotting meat. Then you get hit with overtones that are like a slightly sweetened, tangy pair of old sweatsocks. Lastly, it’s a bit like the smell of natural gas with a chaser of nail polish remover. After this is all over, you are left with the decaying meat flavor again as a very long lingering aftertaste. The candy I had mimicked this perfectly, except being candy, it was stickier and therefore harder to get rid of the filmy bacterial aftertaste.
It was so gross that I quickly downed a couple of peanut butter cookies that had been lying around my house for a couple of weeks– they were very soggy and tasted faintly of mold. The mold taste was actually a vast improvement over the durian!
Durian is so amazingly revolting that I really *want* to like it! I love eating disgusting things! My favorite food in the world is spinach. I love raw beef, anchovies (though maybe not together), liverwurst, and peanut butter & dill pickle sandwiches! I’ve voluntarily eaten raw limpets picked straight off rocks in the ocean, termites and grasshoppers (the grasshoppers were delicious, but the termites were kind of bland, but pleasantly chitinously crunchy)!
Alas, I can’t make myself like durian, and the thought of eating it again is fairly nauseating. I was going to make myself finish the piece of candy to possibly prove that I could do it, but wimped out fairly quickly.
So… the list of foods that I will not eat under any conditions include the following:
1. durian
2. jackfruit (kind of like durian lite)
3. melons (sorry, Rae’s Mom! I have the added advantage of being allergic to most kinds anyway)
4. things garnished with Miracle Whip
5. tripe
Foods that I don’t particularly like, but will eat if served them at someone’s house or something to be polite and also to see if I still dislike them as much as I think:
1. turnips (although I had pickled turnips cut in strips at this Greek restaurant the other month and they were totally delicious!)
2. beets
3. raw cabbage
4. spongecake
5. “salad” involving Jell-o and one or more of the following: meat, mayonnaise, carrots, raisins, cabbage, cottage cheese, olives
6. water chestnuts (I just don’t like the texture, the taste is fine)
7. pimentos
8. capers
9. Marmite and Vegemite (are these different things?)
Things I’ve never tried because they looked too gross even for me:
1. ducks’ feet
2. bubble tea (tea with blobs of tapioca in it? ::shudder::)
3. pickled pigs’ feet (mom’s creepy ex kept a jar in the house just to gross people out)
Luckily, most things I don’t particularly care for aren’t that difficult to avoid!
According to an AOL poll, the top 20 most hated foods are:
20. blueberries (wtf? How could anyone hate a blueberry? This list is just weird)
19. maple syrup (??? see above comment)
18. cilantro (OK I know lots of people who dislike this, but I’m a fan)
17. onions (love em!)
16. cooked carrots (Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. Cooked carrots can be pretty nasty)
15. raisins (there is a time and a place for everything, and raisins are awesome in raisin-friendly things! Granted, there aren’t a ton of those things, but when they’re good they’re good)
14. peas (WTF?!?)
13. oysters (OK, they are kind of like chewy goobers, but that’s part of their charm)
12. pea soup (pea soup is the awesomest. Blasphemy!)
11. sour cream (what do these people put in ghoulash?)
10. gelatin (again, there’s a time and a place for such things)
9. tuna (were it not for tinned tuna, I would have no protein in my diet!)
8. brussels sprouts (they’re just like little cabbages if you boil the weird aftertaste out of them)
7. beets (I heartily agree with one!)
6. okra (OK, I concede. Okra is kind of slimy and gross)
5. eggs (I don’t think there’s anything you can do to an egg that I don’t like… except possibly pickling them)
4. mushrooms (a little part of me just died when I read some of those comments)
3. mayonnaise (regular mayo is good with tuna and other things… I’m white, what can I say?)
2. lima beans (OK you got me there. I’m not into mealy things)
1. liver (not the best thing on earth, but it can be OK)
These are the BBC Food Magazine readers’ least faves:
1. Tripe (word)
2. Snails (I freaking love escargot)
3. Oysters
4. Black Pudding (I actually developed a taste for this in Ireland)
5. Squid
6. Crabsticks (I say this sometimes instead of “crap” or “shit” if I’m around little kids– what is it?)
7. Sago (I’m not even sure what this is)
8. Junket (is this a kind of fish?)
9. Kidneys (don’t think I’ve ever tried one!)
10. Tapioca (oh hellz yeah. Naasty)
11. Haggis (still want to try this!)
12. Mussels
13. Tofu
14. Spam
15. Aspic (isn’t this just wimpy soup? Or am i thinking of something else?)
16. Oxtail (is this really tails of an ox, or is it something else?)
17. Rabbit
18. Semolina (wait, isn’t this a kind of wheat?)
19. Peanut butter (another staple in my diet)
20. Anchovies
So there you have it. I know what I’m not having for dinner!
