Thanks but no thanks

There's no shame in not liking something

I’ve given a lot of thought to this platform lately, wondering what to post. As much as I enjoy sharing recipes, truth is, recipes are a dime a dozen these days, so it would be good to mix things up a bit. Restaurant reviews are fun, but those are for a limited audience. I’ll continue posting both recipes and reviews, but from time to time, I think an opinion piece makes for interesting reading. And opinions are certainly not lacking when it comes to this Substack writer! However, I don’t think this is the right audience to rant about Trump or Quebec language laws, but I certainly have plenty of opinions when it comes to food, cooking and dining out. So this week I thought I’d share my thoughts on something we are all faced with: food aversions.

I love strawberries. Always have, always will. I try to find the best in season, and my younger son is such a berry eater that I’ll even buy the lousy ones from Florida in February. My older son, though, hates them. And when I say hate I mean to an extent that I once tried to make him eat the most perfect strawberry (with whipped cream on top!) and you’d think I was feeding him snake brains by the way he screamed and squirmed in my arms. Needless to say, he didn’t eat a strawberry that day 20 years ago and I don’t think he has since.

Food aversion is a fascinating topic because you gotta wonder why each person has a like or dislike for foods ranging from strawberries to fermented shark fins and everything in between. Add food intolerances to that as well as allergies, and it turns out every one of us has a folder of foods we love, like, tolerate, and detest.

Food aversion comes up often in regards to pregnancy as it affects 70% of pregnant women, hormonal changes being the reasoning on that one. I can’t say I recall any food aversions when I was pregnant. I just recall craving St-Hubert barbecue chicken with my first son, and eight months of morning sickness with my second that I fought off by eating spaghetti with olive oil and lemon for breakfast. Many women have told me they couldn’t even look at certain foods when they were pregnant, which I completely understand.

However the food aversions I find more interesting are the ones we trail along with us from toddlerhood to old age. What to do when faced with children unwilling to put a single Brussels sprout or broccoli floret past their lips? Do what I did to my toddler and force them to eat it — with no success? Continue to serve it in hope that one day they will see another kid eat it with pleasure? Pas facile.

And kids aside, what about us? I’ve met many adults who are picky eaters. I myself wouldn’t touch most fish, cheese or olives — yes olives! — before I was in my thirties. And even today, there are many foods I’ve tried but just do not like, or actually despise. Oily fish, I’m looking at you.

Taste is an idiosyncrasy that marks our individuality almost as accurately as a fingerprint. I’ve enjoyed watching my kids develop their tastes and living with a man who eats absolutely everything, except for mussels for which he has an intolerance.

One thing I do find off putting is this pressure, especially when I was a restaurant critic, to like *everything.* Yes, but no. Though my mother adored chicken feet, I will pass. And I couldn’t imagine ever eating a kipper though my father loved them. It took my sister took years to start spreading butter on her toast, but if I serve her a red pepper, she’ll lose it.

Apparently a person should taste a food 15 times before knowing if it has any chance of being accepted. I did this with many foods and it was my route of eventually falling in love with cheese and salmon. But otherwise, I’ve come to accept the fact that there are foods I just cannot stomach.

Compare these to your loves and hates:

Sea urchin: I didn’t mind sea urchin until one day I had dinner next to a highly-regarded food critic who told me she hated sea urchin and that when it wasn’t fresh it tasted like garbage. Peering down at the sea urchin tart in front of us, she continued by saying, “Look at this sea urchin for instance. We’re far from any body of water so it’s obviously not fresh, and it’s brown so that’s no good.” I felt my stomach turn with every mouthful and haven’t managed a bite since, even of the freshest specimens. Sea urchin is considered a serious foodie fave, an ingredient that separates the true gourmets from the imposters. But it’s a no-can-do for me.

Raisins: I actually love raisins on their own, in savoury dishes (especially salads) and they can be quite nice in ginger/spice cookies. But raisins in muffins, cinnamon buns, scones, hot cross buns or cinnamon toast will be picked out of any baked good in seconds. It’s the mushy texture I don’t like, and sorry, but a plump, baked raisin is just yucky.

Jerusalem artichokes: Jerusalem artichokes, also called sunchokes, have a lovely, artichoke-meets-hazelnut taste, yet they wreak havoc on most people’s digestive systems. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say there’s a reason some people call them “fartichokes.” Perhaps only people who live alone should be served them. It’s bad, really bad. If it were up to me, this popular root vegetable should be banned from human consumption.

Shrimp: Everyone LOVES shrimp. My mother, for instance, would jump on any shrimp dish when dining out, and my kids, even at their fussiest, have always wolfed down shrimp like ravenous flamingos. I like shrimp too, though when reading about the horrible practices in shrimp farming and the horrific conditions on shrimp fishing boats, I’ve lost almost all of my enthusiasm for this popular crustacean. But the shrimp I really don’t enjoy are the small Matane specimens, which in Quebec along the St-Laurence River, you can find for sale in small styrofoam cups. Halfway through the cup, I always get the feeling I’m eating worms. Same texture. No thanks. Oh and don’t get me started on those little, head-on prawns teeming with roe. Ugh!

Octopus: Yes it’s delicious but I saw My Octopus Teacher and I’m not eating any being smarter than I am, and octopus are, so that’s that.

Eggplant: I’ll eat eggplant, and I often prepare it myself for dips or sliced and grilled as part of a vegetable platter, or layered in lasagna, but do I enjoy it? Meh, not that much. And I feel like I’m not the only one who wouldn’t be crushed is eggplant disappeared off the face of the earth. C’mon, you know who you are.

Anchovies: Anchovies add a complex saltiness when mixed into a sauce (like Green Goddess), a dressing (like for Caesar salad), or pasta (like puttanesca), but this potent little fish —that Nigella Lawson calls the “bacon of the sea” — is just too strong in flavour for me to manage solo. I’ll never forget being handed plate after plate of them to taste in Collioure France at an anchovy canning factory. I managed one, and it was a challenge.

Blue cheese: I love the taste of blue cheese, especially in dressings and sauces, but on its on, again, it’s too intense a taste for me to manage.

Green peppers: You know what’s good? Green peppers on old-school Greek pizza. I love that! But because green peppers are so indigestible, I pull them off the pizza and enjoy the flavour they leave behind, rather than eating these unripe, bitter bell peppers.

Tripe, kidneys and brains: I like some offal, but these three cuts are just too organ-like for me to enjoy. I’ve eaten them all, I didn’t die, but I didn’t enjoy them either. It probably doesn’t help that my grandmother used to say that she didn’t like kidneys because, according to her, you could never flush out the taste of urine. Yeah, not good.

Insects: No. Thanks. Especially LIVE insects, which I’ve been served on more than one occasion.

Cottage cheese: It’s the texture. Ugh.

Mushrooms: Mushrooms are seriously delicious and I absolutely adore ceps (porcini), chanterelles, back trumpet mushrooms, and many more. I adore a mushroom duxelles stuffing or a sauté of button mushrooms with parsley and garlic spooned over a steak. Grilled King eryngii mushrooms are delicious, as are deep-fried oyster mushrooms and pan-fried lobster mushrooms or hen of the wood mushrooms. Wild mushroom risotto will always be one of my favourite dishes. But when poorly prepared or past their prime, mushrooms can be yucky. That goes for any ingredient, but there’s something about mushrooms that sometimes just tun me off.

Okra: Slimy, seedy, and pretty bland tasting, okra, however, is loved by many. I’d like to know why.

Yogurt: Never been a fan. Very acidic, weird gritty texture at times. I can manage a few spoonfuls but little more. Best served in small quantities with berries and loads of granola. Or made into a sauce, like Tzatziki!

Milk: Never drank a full glass of milk in my life, and neither has my sister. That said, I love so many things made with milk, from custards to béchamel sauces… but milk as a drink, non merci.

Fishy fish: I was a late-comer to loving fish but there are just so many I can’t stomach: mackerel, skate, black cod, sardines… even tuna. Oily fish mostly. And just the thought of cod liver or monkfish liver makes me retch.

Graham crackers: Not good. Everyone loves them, but they are a poor excuse for a pastry crust.

Horse: I grew up reading kid novels like Black Beauty, My Friend Flicka and The Black Stallion, so horse has always been off limits for me. “Too magnificent an animal to eat,” said a chef I worked with in France and I agree — even if all animals are magnificent.

Caviar: Another gourmet delicacy that is entirely wasted on me. It’s rare, it’s expensive, it’s fun to eat, and it pairs beautifully with Champagne, but it’s just not my thing. I’ve spent 20 years giving it away to my dining companions and scraping it off of my food. I’ve given it a chance time and again but to this day, whenever I see someone excitedly present a mound of caviar, I’m filled with dread.

Not especially partial to… oysters (because when you get that off one… eesh), baked apples (mush city), whelks (so rubbery), squash (watery and bland).

These are more or less my dislikes. I would love to read a some of yours!

When reading through my list I notice the a common complaint is that many ingredients are just too strong tasting. If this is the case with you too, consider purchasing these supertaster test papers to see whether you are a supertaster. A what? Supertasters are people — a quarter of the world’s population apparently — whose sense of taste for certain flavors and foods is far more sensitive than average. Another way to test is to place a ring-binder re-enforcer sticker over your tongue and count the number of taste buds within the circle. If the number exceeds 30, you are a supertaster.

Another article to read on Supertasters here.

But before you get too excited, it’s worth noting that supertasters tend to dislike strong, bitter foods, so as much as it might explain your hatred for Brussels sprouts, it won’t explain an aversion to texture, a common culprit of food aversion.

Or food with eyes. Never good.