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28 aug 06 "how do you feel about the casserole? ever since i can remember, i don't even like my foods touching on the plate. i say ban the casserole." i adore casserole. it's, like, my favorite thing. food is best when it combines -- that's the essence of cooking: taking a lot of ingredients and combining them. i'd guess you like some foods that are prepared from a recipe. or, maybe not -- perhaps you just like meat, bread, and vegetables. but bread is a combo of flour, salt, and yeast -- does that gross you out if you think about it? all of that flour touching all of that salt? maybe the key to your disgust is wet things touching each other. do you like soup? soup is basically a runny casserole. some don't like gooey foods, or gloppy foods, or mushy foods, such as casserole, oatmeal, refried beans, etc -- things that are more or less the consistency of snot or loose stool. i can understand why you might be grossed out by this, but i don't share your sentiments -- in fact, my favorite foods tend to be snot-like, paste-like, tar-like, etc. they don't taste like their counterparts, but they share a texture. lots of things share a texture: perhaps those chunks of meat you like share a texture with solid bowel movements. getting hung up on texture-associations is going to cripple you, food-wise. i'm probably on the far end of the spectrum in that i will eat almost literally anything (chicken bones, apple cores, raw meat, paper, etc, as well as all conceivable species of casserole). food that isn't fresh is the only thing that makes me wrinkle my nose, even though of course we have croutons, which are supposed to be stale, and cheese, which is supposed to be curdled and often moldy. but i draw the line at rotten meat, or rotten potatoes. i do get sick of foods, and then they start to disgust me a little bit. furthermore, this often happens right after i buy a big batch; then, i have to throw it all out. the "finish what's on your plate" ethic is a little silly in the face of massive obesity and consumption of factory-farmed animals, which require some ghastly number of times more farmland to feed than would be used to grow the vegetables we're supposed to be eating. so, i don't really have a problem with throwing away food. ride your bike to work before you begin your lecture, or at least get rid of your SUV. a tube of liverwurst tossed in the can isn't going to send anyone to purgatory. i'm not sure if i could handle mopane worms or cicadas, though. shrimp mildly gross me out when i start to think about how very closely related to insects they are, and then in fact how closely they physically resemble insects. but most of the time, i'm able to blot it out, especially if i don't have to de-leg them. asian restaurants sometimes serve whole prawns -- eyes, feelers and all. you just pop them in your mouth and crunch away. i'm a big fan of liver, as well as of lamb chops, which are very similar in flavor, except lamb chops are milder. i pointed this out to someone who loves (loved?) lamb chops and hates liver, and he looked at me as if i'd told him there really isn't a santa claus. i can't tell coke from pepsi, and neither can you, according to a double-blind study. i replicated the study with some people, and confirmed the results. i used to think coke was ever so slightly bitter, and had more flavor, while pepsi was milder and sweeter, but not anymore -- the red can puts it all in your head. anyway, those who don't like casserole (and not some particular kinds of casserole) have "immature pallettes", as i like to call them. the sort of person who doesn't like the foods on their plate to touch shows us child-like food-behavior. 9 times out of 10, probably, this sort of person is overly-fond of sweets. the phenomenon is a bit similar to childhood sexual abuse locking the personality in at the victim's age when the abuse took place; makes me wonder what sorts of traumas lead to a diet of jolly ranchers and big macs, hold the secret sauce. it probably has something to do with breast-feeding. but yeah -- the best foods, the most complex foods, the most critically acclaimed foods, are the ones that are mixed-up a bit. a casserole is the archetype of "mixed-up food". so, stay at the kiddie table, and allow the adults to eat in peace. sorry, that was mean. but i really couldn't resist the metaphor. that's all it was. |
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