Knowing your audience

Last weekend, I was asked to bring an appetizer to a cocktail party. I wanted to make something a little bit different, unusual, something that would make people say “Wow, that’s unique,’ or “I’ve never seen anything like that before – fascinating.”

So I made liquid popcorn.

I tried it out on a few adventurous eaters, and got the desired response.

But at the party, the comments I got were “Ewww – that’s weird.” “Yuck – it tasted like popcorn, but the texture was like an oyster – and I hate oysters” and “I tried it, and I thought I was going to vomit.”

Obviously this wasn’t a foodie crowd. For fun, I might make it again for the LTH picnic. Clearly a different audience.

Liquid Popcorm

(All proportions are approximate)

Take about 3 qts. popped popcorn, and, using a spice grinder (in my case, an old coffee grinder reserved for spices) and, in small batches, grind popcorn into a fine powder.

Separately, add about 1/2 tsp. sodium alginate to 2 cups water, and mix vigorously in a blender. (Sodium alginate is available in consumer-sized quantities from Willpowder.net.) After you let the mixture sit for a few minutes, it should be slightly viscous, and feel a little bit sticky. Add popcorn powder to the blender in small batches, until you reach the consistency of a thin crepe batter. (If there’s no vortex when running the blender, the consistency is too thick.) Add salt to taste.

Let sit overnight, to fully hydrate the alginate and allow any bubbles to disperse.

In the morning, dissolve 1 1/2 tsp. Calcium Chloride (available from Willpowder, or less expensively through homebrew suppliers) in 1 1/2 cups water.

Carefully slide about a teaspoonful of the popcorn solution into the CaCl2. It should start to set up within a minute or so. At that point, you can start to push it around a bit in the calcium solution. When it seems to be slightly firm, take it out with a slotted spoon and immerse in a water bath. It can stay in there for 15 – 30 minutes — much longer and the slight gel surrounding the liquid popcorn will thicken too much, and you’ll have popcorn jello.

Serve on a teaspoon, encouraging guests to take the whole thing into their mouth, and let it explode by squeezing it between the tongue and the roof of the mouth.


And make sure you’re serving it to people who are at least a little open-minded and willing to try something different.

Anyone else ever mis-estimated their audience?

Where's the butter?

Very impressive and very Moto-esque. I've never attempted any dish as creative as yours (and I'd love to try it right now). But I've failed with crowds when using avocado and blue cheese in desserts . . . basically receiving responses such as "well, it looks beautiful." But hey, I often have problems trying to get some of my friends to go anywhere but your corner sports bar for a dried out burger.

mhill95149 wrote:Where's the butter?

I thought the calcium in the milk solids of butter might react with the alginate and turn the whole thing to jello. I did try using fake butter - Butter Buds - and that worked alright.

I know this thread is about knowing your audience but I just wanted to thank you for posting about your spherification technique. I bought some alginate at the Spice House but they were out of calcium chloride at the time and I haven't been back yet to pick some up. But one thing that has kept me from diving right in was the lack of ratios for the alginate-to-water solution as well as the CaCl2-to-water solution.

But I do commend you for taking a chance and bringing your dish to that party. I always aspire to do something envelope-pushing like that but usually chicken out and go for something more familiar.

I would have been the right audience - sounds great, Tom. I too was wondering about the butter dimension - I imagine saturating a piece of edible paper with it, a la Moto's cotton candy (which has a sphere like yours, on top of some flavored contact paper), would do the trick if one didn't want to incorporate the butter into the popcorn powder.

My audience miscalculation was last fall for a luau - I was one of two people (out of about ten chefs) to actually try to make something Hawaiian. Pork and spam were devoured, poi was mostly left alone ("how interesting!"), and I even made the gringo-friendly kind with mashed banana and coconut milk.

Excellent post - thanks.

When I started a new job about 8 years ago, in a new town, one of my new colleagues invited me over for dinner with his family. I brought a plate of roasted beets tossed with a little balsamic vinegar. Couldn't be a simpler dish and not the least bit strange to me.

It wasn't touched. Apparently none of them eat beets or hadn't since they were served beets from a can as a child. So, not only did they not want them, they wouldn't even try them. Oh well.

My most significant case of not knowing my audience was at a dinner mostly attended by my sister's Puerto Rican in-laws. I do not think their food comfort zone extends much beyond their own culture (delicious as it is) and some basics of American foods (pizza, burgers, etc.).

I brought a large pot of homemade chicken biryani. Foolishly, I thought that the basic idea of flavored chicken and rice would be familiar enough to be attractive, but the flavors would be different enough to be interesting.

The room emptied out when I opened the pot (and it was a very good biryani) and I went home with exactly as much as my wife and I didn't eat: about a dozen chicken thighs worth of meat and pounds of rice. I don't think I ate chicken biryani for a year after that week.

My wife contends that a room full of people willfully ignoring a main dish like that is rude but I still insist that I take a good portion of the blame for not knowing my audience.

Best,
Michael

I brought a Thai dish to a party of a bunch of my Chinese friends. It was ignored by all but one good friend, an academic, who allowed that it was, well, good, but 1) it had been borrowed from Chinese cuisine in the first place; and 2) the Chinese original was much better.

It seems to me that most Americans waaaay overestimate the size of the acceptablity-window in their foreign friends' palates. Go in a hypermarché in deepest France, look for non-French cuisine items and what do you find? A few Italian items, relating mostly to pasta and pizza, and maybe, just maybe, a French version of something vaguely Vietnam-ish.

We're raised eclectically here (amid complaints from foodies that there's no native American cuisine as a cause/effect), but very very few other cultures are.

Geo

Geo wrote:We're raised eclectically here (amid complaints from foodies that there's no native American cuisine as a cause/effect), but very very few other cultures are.

My mom was an immigrant Japanese woman. I grew up with rice three meals a day. Japanese rice.

When we would take her out for dinner and if the place wasn't Japanese and there was rice on her plate she wouldn't touch it.

My mother lived in this country for 46 years as a rice snob.

eatchicago wrote:My wife contends that a room full of people willfully ignoring a main dish like that is rude but I still insist that I take a good portion of the blame for not knowing my audience.

Don't take any of the blame, that is extremely rude and obnoxious. Some of the comments in this thread about people not even willing to try something are infuriating. There is nothing more awful, imo, than someone with a completely closed mind...towards food or otherwise. At least make an informed decision as to whether or not you like it.

BTW, that liquid popcorn is a trip, would've loved to have been there for that.

nr706 wrote:Last weekend, I was asked to bring an appetizer to a cocktail party. I wanted to make something a little bit different, unusual, something that would make people say “Wow, that’s unique,’ or “I’ve never seen anything like that before – fascinating.”

So I made liquid popcorn.

I tried it out on a few adventurous eaters, and got the desired response.

But at the party, the comments I got were “Ewww – that’s weird.” “Yuck – it tasted like popcorn, but the texture was like an oyster – and I hate oysters” and “I tried it, and I thought I was going to vomit.”

Obviously this wasn’t a foodie crowd. For fun, I might make it again for the LTH picnic. Clearly a different audience.

...
And make sure you’re serving it to people who are at least a little open-minded and willing to try something different.

Anyone else ever mis-estimated their audience?

If I read your post correctly, they did try it, but they didn't like it. Be fair to your audience-- at least they didn't pelt you with the remaining globules and denounce you for Crimes Against Popcorn.

Jen

Many refused to try it.

Pie-love wrote:If I read your post correctly, they did try it, but they didn't like it. Be fair to your audience-- at least they didn't pelt you with the remaining globules and denounce you for Crimes Against Popcorn.

Jen

Considering that some of their responses were "ewww", "yuck", and "I thought I was going to vomit", I think the audience received way more fairness than they were due.

I totally respect that not everyone is going to like everything, and that some folks are more adventurous to others, but I was taught that such responses are rude & inappropriate. The few times I've gotten such responses to something I've made, I've unhesitatingly called the person out, usually by saying "Rude!" while smirking ever so slightly...plus watching the person stammer & apologize is kinda fun.

Well, it does sound intriguing-- have you considered making a caramel corn version?

Jen

djenks wrote:

eatchicago wrote:My wife contends that a room full of people willfully ignoring a main dish like that is rude but I still insist that I take a good portion of the blame for not knowing my audience.

Don't take any of the blame, that is extremely rude and obnoxious.

I agree. Maybe I could understand the response if the dish in question was something really out-there that evoked squeamishness but this just sounds like rudeness to me.

nr706 wrote:Many refused to try it.

That's a shame because it looks very cool and obviously, a lot of thought, effort and enthusiasm went into it. Maybe you need some new friends.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

nr706 wrote:Many refused to try it.

That's a shame because it looks very cool and obviously, a lot of thought, effort and enthusiasm went into it. Maybe you need some new friends.

=R=

You know you can invite me to your house any time.

Pie-love wrote:Well, it does sound intriguing-- have you considered making a caramel corn version?
Jen

I've thought about that. Maybe I'll just grind up some Cracker Jack (probably won't include the prize inside in the grinding, though).

nr706 wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:

nr706 wrote:Many refused to try it.

That's a shame because it looks very cool and obviously, a lot of thought, effort and enthusiasm went into it. Maybe you need some new friends.

=R=

You know you can invite me to your house any time.

I'd have tried it, and I was always taught that same rule: try at least one bite and be nice. I think it sounds very interesting.

Next time this happens to anybody, please post an LTH event called "Help Me Eat This {enter name of dish here}".

Oh yea babe I feel your pain!

I once made the most beautiful Deviled eggs for a NY Eve party and topped every other one
with the tiniest bit of red caviar. They were beautiful!
Now I thought that was elegant and expensive and delish!
Apparently the other guests didn't.
All the naked eggs got eaten and the only one who ate the caviar eggs was me...
My poor eggies sat there ignored all night
Oh well, lesson learned.

Turning down caviar topped deviled eggs?!?! That's just crazy.

They were more of a potato chip and chicken wing crowd....

Love potato chips and wings....but probably still would've helped myself to enough caviar-topped deviled eggs to make myself look like an ass That's not even that far out, surprised no one ate it. Especially with that people are willing to eat at McDonald's and the like.

Caviar was one of those things that when i first tried i had to make a conscious decision to try it before i made up my mind...man was i pleased.

I also go back and re-try things that i've previously hated every couple years or so. It's amazing how taste buds change or mature.

sauerkraut is something that Laschett's Inn reversed me on as of late. I ate that up with a fork all by itself. Man that place is good btw.

I always used to have this trouble at office potlucks, even when I made food I considered rather tame. It's also why I pretty much gave up on homemade food gifts.

LAZ--

Those potluck winners would be winners even out in deepest Kansas! Amazing. I think I'm going to copy the whole page and file it as "LAZ's Potluck Winners". Tnx for that!

Geo