Embarrassing admissions

I have been pondering coming out of the closet on this for some time. I imagine--I certainly hope--that we all have those ingredients, condiments, assorted miscellaneous food items, that the rest of the world has known about forever but that we somehow managed to, shall we say, overlook. So I was curious about others' lapses and thought I would start this thread by admitting my embarrassing and longstanding ignorance first:

Flat leaf parsley. For decades I used curly parsley and only curly parsley. (The fact that flat leaf might not have been as widely available twenty years ago and still is not, in some places, is not my point, though as Antonius has graciously pointed out in conversation, that undoubtedly had at least something to do with my lapse.)

I figured: "Parsley, shmarsley, curly, flat, polka-dotted, what's the big deal?" After the aforementioned decades in the wilderness, I finally succumbed to the hoopla, exited my self-imposed culinary desert, and bought some flat leaf parsley a few weeks ago. The first time ever.

Golly.

Am I embarrassed! I think night/day, black/white, good/evil, justice/military justice might be apt analogs. In any event, I won't be buying curly parsley any more (at least not voluntarily).

So, help me out here. Anyone else have a similar moment of enlightenment, a similar epiphany?

I had an epiphany about 10 years ago with KOSHER SALT. Then just a few years ago I discovered sea salt. I'll never turn back.

Flip

I used to prefer flour tortillas to corn tortillas (i.e. burritos to tacos). Will never venture back to flour tortillas again.

. . . but: asparagus.

I avoided it until my late 20s.

When I was growing up in Texas, the only asparagus I saw at home was the limp, offensive stuff that came out of a can. Most often, we had it as a "fancy" salad, served mushy and cold, dressed with a dollop of Miracle Whip and Baco-Bits. Teeth were not a prerequisite for dining on this concoction.

The ban ended when I was introduced by a co-worker in the kitchen where I was employed to the wonders of fresh, in-season blanched asparagus and asparagus soup.

Cheers,
Wade

Duck -

In the 80's I had a horribly greasy whole duck at some French restaurant in the Palmer House. Don't know how good of a place it was supposed to be, but it was Labor Day and we were hard pressed to find anybody open serving a "nicer" dinner.

Since then have been adoring rare duck breast with nice crispy skin, or can even tolerate the crazy places that serve it skinless.

Maybe ROAST duck is just what I don't like.

But last fall bought a duck, cut on the boneless breast, used very little water, many batches to cook the rest into a really rich broth and made a super duper sauce with that liquid. Well, of course it was good, it was super ducky. But then I still haven't gotten into confit so don't know what else to do with the rest of the duck.

There's other things, mostly came from ethnic cookbooks, recommended ingredients, different preparations.

Pancetta
Making Polenta (various ways now, even quite custardy)
Soppresata (very good salami)
Sopes (geez, why does anyone eat tacos?, thank you Rick Bayless).
Fresh herbs (and why so many years before I tried Tarragon?)
Good braises (not yucky stew).
How to roast really well.
How to grill really well.
Small chickens (there's a topic on that)
Convection toaster ovens for roasting peppers and other veggies (as well as cooking meat)
Tacquitos (particularly home-made)
Poblano peppers (and creamy roasted poblano soup!)
Really good olives (thank you Sam's Marcey Street Market).
Really good cheese (Did we use to have so many purveyors?)
Probably much more....


Gotta explore, one way or another, I can't imagine anyone grew up eating all they'd eventually like.

FoodTV and cookbooks have been very educational (as well as other cooking shows on other networks).

Nancy

I did not like tomatoes or cucumbers until I went to live in Great Britain. Now, I would say, for any vegetable you think you do not like, wait until it is in season locally, get it from a farmer's market or equivilant, and see what you think.

The other thing, and I once mentioned this, but until I went off to Europe after college, I never put milk in my coffee--not manly right Boy, did a few good cups of cafe au lait change my mind.

Although I grew up in almost coastal new england, I would not eat fish. My mother was a terrible fish cook, and the closest she came to serving me fish was scrod, battered and frozen. It was awful. When I was 16 I spent a summer in a town in japan that sat on the ocean. I started eating fish then...but it wasn't until the next summer when I truly discovered the joys of fish. Small fish, big fish, cooked fish, raw fish...and to think, for years I refused to let fish pass through my lips to my mouth. From that point forward, fish and I were on the best of terms; I even had a part time job with a fishmonger during college.

Fresh cooked beets were another revelation, but not nearly as fun.

I often joke that until I was grown I didn't realize that fish weren't rectangular creatures who lived in beds of bread crumbs on the bottom of the sea. Not true, since I several times went fishing for perch and crappie with my grandfather as a lad. But close enough until airshipping of fresh ocean fish really got going in the 80s.

Does this count? I hated, hated, hated, despised the bitter salinity of olives, the sharp, metallic foetidness of bleu cheese, and the mealy, D-grade granular, frigid, smear of liver pate'...until...

I encountered quality representations thereof:

-my olive epiphany came with Moroccan oil-cured olives(and I worked backwards from there...omg Fox and Obel's Pernod-marinated green olives).

-Maytag(in all it's gloriously-plebian uber-creme) ingratiated my palate allowing further exploration of rich, ripe, fetid, stinky, hardcore blues---tho' I recently discovered an even creamier cheaper-by-half Wisconsin buttermilk blue at the downtown Whole Foods.

And, liver pate'...it must've been a super-saturation thing...the more I tried the more I developed this weird, visceral(hah!), organic craving for it. Foie, on the other hand, I loved immediately.

Christopher Gordon wrote:I hated, hated, hated, despised the bitter salinity of olives

I had a similar olive problem that I overcame through sheer force of will.

Best,
Michael

Hah. Excellent.

My s/o for years looked askance at my contortions in attempting to appreciate his beloved olives. I still don't know if it's a "super-taster" issue or simply my (then?) parochial palate. What I have learned (sweet mead truth)-what I wish my adolescent self allowed himself access to is ...try everything...try it again...try different varieties...

I'm a sucker for the somatic pleasures of cultural vocabulary.

eatchicago wrote:

Christopher Gordon wrote:I hated, hated, hated, despised the bitter salinity of olives

I had a similar olive problem that I overcame through sheer force of will.

Best,
Michael

This is very similar to my new years resolution this year - to learn to like pickles (olives will have to wait till '07) there are few things I categorically dislike, and I'm convinced that it is because I haven't tried hard enough or found the right version, but so far '06 has been a tough year (although I have had a minor victory with loaded chicago dogs)

So, to stay on topic - not a huge fan of pickles or olives. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

You know...what finally pierced my thick-headedness vis a vis the gems of the olive tree:

Olive Bars

Treasure Island(s) used to maintain a great one...I've detected a substantial drop in quality in the past year at the couple I frequent

Whole Foods offers bars serving fresher olives, but less diversity

Fox and Obel is substantially more expensive, however they have a higher turnover of the spiced/marinated varieties

failing that, I recommend attempting a base Italian tomato sauce and incorporating minced olives...the acidity and sweetness of the tomato should ameliorate the assertiveness of the olive. No garlic.

My wife, who hated olives six months ago, learned to love them thanks to the kalamatas from JP Graziano's, which are very, very good quality. If you don't like briney things, though, it might be a stretch. They also sell some quite good oil cured olives, and they're very liberal with samples, so just ask to try some.

On olives:

My fave place is Sam's Wine Marcey Street Market.

Don't be turned off that they're behind the counter in Lincoln Park. They are very happy to let you sample any of their stuff, except the rare items that are totally package up to sell.

In Downer's Grove they have an open bar. No idea what they put together in the new Highland Park store.

Please try the green Castelvetrano olives - they are a VERY different green olive in that they are brined (salt) rather than in vinegar. Also, they have spicy greek olives - it was a hit at a recent family party while the other olives were kinda ignored.

I don't know why, but Sam's olives seem better than Whole Foods. Well, at least the black Cerignola's I got from Sam's Downer's Grove were way better than the ones I got at Whole Foods in Palatine.

Nancy

I didn't know until about two years ago that Mozzarella de Bufala is actually made from Buffalo milk. I thought Bufala was a region in Italy.

I experienced one of my first food epiphanies at age 10. Until that time, I didn't think I liked steak. And no wonder -- all the steaks I'd ever eaten had been home-cooked and kosher, which meant broiled to a dry leatheriness. There are many delicious Jewish specialties, but grilled meats aren't among them.

On this occasion, I was taken to an Italian chophouse in downtown Detroit called Lelli's. I don't remember who did the ordering, but for me, probably because it was the smallest steak on the menu, they ordered filet mignon.

It came lightly charred outside, medium rare inside, meltingly tender, in a pool of its own juices mingled with savory zip sauce. Decades later, I can still recall how that steak tasted.

I have been steak lover ever since, and I eat my meat bloody rare.

Ed could probably put a date on this better than I, but for at least the first 30 of my pasta-cooking years, all I knew of Parmesan was that it came in a green cardboard shaker box--unless you were buying generic (and I always was), in which case it was some other color. And Romano was just another word that was sometimes on the box and sometimes not.

So stupid....So deprived....

Processed American Cheese Food

Oh sure, I'll drop 50 clams at Whole Foods or Cheese Stands Alone on 4-year-old gouda and soft ripened stuff, but I've still got a jones for the orange sliced crud in a plastic wrapper.

Melt over an omelet? Grab a slice. Grilled cheese? Certainly need a slice (along with some muenster and swiss). Quick snack? Can't get the plastic off fast enough.

Canned mushrooms.

I love fresh mushrooms -- all kinds, but sometimes on a pizza, I crave those taupe-colored, uniformly shaped, slightly rubbery and always salty (even no-salt-added-versions) mushrooms in a can.

Takes me back to those pizzas made by the Greeks I grew up with in my corner of Connecticut.

I spent my entire California youth-hood, up until flnally leaving Davis avoiding anchovies on pizza (and everywhere else, for that matter). After football games in highschool at Shakey's, etc. "Anchovies? on my pizza? you must be crazy!" I said.

Then at some point a few years ago, a friend, who really knew what she was doing, and had a real pizza oven, said "What? you DON'T have anchovies on your pizza?, and promptly made me exactly the right pizza with anchovies.

Oh boy. I *still* think even unto today about my 'wasted childhood.' Even lousy pizzas at Shakey's, with lousy anchovies, would have tasted pretty good.

Three yrs ago TODG and I went to Collioure, had the anchovies at The Source. Man, it was even worse than Shakey's: I'd just flat-out wasted an awful lot of good eating time, B.A. (before anchovies) .... : (

Geo

Ann Fisher wrote:Ed could probably put a date on this better than I, but for at least the first 30 of my pasta-cooking years, all I knew of Parmesan was that it came in a green cardboard shaker box--unless you were buying generic (and I always was), in which case it was some other color. And Romano was just another word that was sometimes on the box and sometimes not.

So stupid....So deprived....

I seem to also remember a complete lack of olive oil in the house growing up... We had (and used) mushroom soy sauce, but no olive oil.

I think that changed sometime in my late teens, and I think "Great Chefs of the World" was largely responsible.

As for my admissions, boy, there are a lot. I didn't like steak until I was 16, seafood of any kind until 19 or so, despite being offered trout fresh from the stream for weeks on end every summer. I'm still a little intimidated by shellfish.

I didn't like, really, any sandwiches until age 18. I still don't like 95% of cold sandwiches. I don't like the type of ham served at easter, or really any kind of ham except serrano, prosciutto, etc.

Ah well. I'm young yet, maybe I'll get to be less of a picky little such and such as I age.

When I was a, uh, kid, I, uh put ketchup on hotdogs. But I'm better now.

Choey wrote:When I was a, uh, kid, I, uh put ketchup on hotdogs. But I'm better now.

Oh, that needs to go on my list, too. Damn.

Even though I grew up in Cincinnati, where Southern Food was readily available at every sleep-over, if not at my house, I refused all things called "greens"

My husband's mother is a good Southern cook with the requisite can of bacon grease. I learned. I now keep a bag of frozen greens in the freezer, and liberally add them to many things: pulled pork, stews, soups, as well as serving them with salsa or gravy.