Foods Never Eaten/Tasted

[Deleted]

Inspired by HTMB's post about never having eaten a snail,I was inspired to start this thread.
Up until about 2 years ago,I had never eaten/tasted a parsnip. This may seem odd, having grown up in a Northern rural agricultural village where it would be perfectly feasible to have encountered this vegetable at some point. I had never.
I asked my brother had he, and his response was no.
I was baffled.
My mother had just passed away so, I couldn't ask her.
And so, I remain baffled.
My husband had never tasted a parsnip either, but, it was more easily explained because he grew up in a region of the South (NOLA) where parsnips would not have been readily offered just as okra had never crossed my palate until moving South.
And so, we embarked on our first taste of a parsnips adventure and quite liked them.
So, now my curiosity is piqued as to what foods have you never tasted for whatever reason?
Another one I just thought of is quinoa (after recently reading some vegetarian recipes posted recently).

[htmb]

I love quinoa and most other grains. I also love all different types of beans. I was a vegetarian for 15 years, but now eat meat a couple of times a week. I prefer beef and pork, and am not too crazy about chicken or turkey. I have tried to make a conscious effort to eat more fish lately, but that endeavor is not going too well.

You could have a field day exploring my eating habits, but they were shaped by serious food allergies and a necessary distrust of what might possibly have been added to a food dish. I am allergic to dairy products and to mold. I love cheese and have found I can eat a few different types of hard cheeses depending on what's been added to them during the maturation process. I absolutely love Gorgonzola, but more than one little nibble will send me into severe gastric distress for at least half a day. On two different trips to Paris I spent at least one full day on the couch out of action because I ignored the reality of my allergies and ate some very delicious foods at dinner that made me quite ill. It's a drag, but I've just learned to live with it. No Berthillon ice cream for me. I've never even tasted it.

Since I was adopted as a newborn, my mother gave me whatever the standard formula of the day was for babies, but I didn't tolerate it well at all. As I got older, I started throwing my baby bottle down until she finally figured out something was not working. I also had lots of problems with the parents of my friends when I visited in their homes because milk was a staple on the dinner table. My friends' parents were usually horrified that I refused to drink milk at their homes.

So, if I am not adventurous when it comes to new foods, all I can say is that goes back to infancy. While I am not really sure I would even want to try a snail, it is very possible that the richness of the dish would be a problem for me to digest. I'd have to pop that sucker in my mouth minus the buttery sauce.

[Deleted]

Are you totally allergic to dairy items or just to lactose?

I have successfully avoided sweet potatoes for my entire life in spite of growing up in the Deep South and making several trips to Africa.

[htmb]

Nov 29, 2012 15:42:37 GMT kerouac2 said:

Are you totally allergic to dairy items or just to lactose?

I have successfully avoided sweet potatoes for my entire life in spite of growing up in the Deep South and making several trips to Africa.

I am allergic to dairy. It is the dairy combined with mold that gives me the most problems. Also, the foods that have had casein added cause major problems, so I can eat something that doesn't appear to have dairy in it and still get sick.

[tod2]

Nov 29, 2012 15:42:37 GMT kerouac2 said:

Are you totally allergic to dairy items or just to lactose?

I have successfully avoided sweet potatoes for my entire life in spite of growing up in the Deep South and making several trips to Africa.

I am trying to fathom why? Its a potoato.
Admittley, recently I have bought the yellow variety which is not sweet! The white flesh purple skinned one is the gorgeous sweet succulent one to bake in the oven then lather in butter! Oh yum,yum,yum!

[onlymark]

There are many types of shellfish and seafood that I've not eaten. Nor tripe, brains, most offal nor a thousand different types of pasta or fruit. Yet I've had a varied diet and eaten in many countries. I've probably eaten more types of game than most people though.

[tod2]

Nov 29, 2012 15:14:37 GMT htmb said:

I love quinoa and most other grains. I also love all different types of beans. I was a vegetarian for 15 years, but now et maeat a couple of times a week.

I have had quinoa in a sealed sachet in my cupboard for a very long time. I bought it as an anti-acid food sauce. I THINK I tried it boiled with apple slices for a breakfast dish when in Australia but not since.
I must congratiulate you for varying your diet and including meat.
My Australian friend was told by a doctor to PLEASE include meat at least once a week.

[Don Cuevas]

I'm sure that there are more foods I've never eaten than those I have. ¿Y que?

[Deleted]

Nov 29, 2012 18:55:06 GMT Don Cuevas said:

I'm sure that there are more foods I've never eaten than those I have. ¿Y que?

I'm sure there are for me as well, mostly based on limited travel and exposure.

In the OP what I was aiming toward but, perhaps worded it wrongly, was foods that were more than likely available in the region I grew up in and which were not necesaarily exotic or unusual. But, somehow, not introduced to me until way later in life.
I was not referring to foods that I avoided,had an aversion to, or was allergic to.
I'm not a picky eater per say, but, there are plenty of foods that don't appeal to me.
That's not the direction I was trying to go with the thread.

[Deleted]

This had to do with having a French mother, but I did not have the slightest idea what grits were until I was at least 14 years old, even though it was a word that I heard very often. There were no television commercials showing them, and the television series were all made in Los Angeles or New York in those days, so even if there was a breakfast scene, there was no "regional" food.

Once I finally saw grits, I mentally thanked my mother for not giving them houseroom.

[Deleted]

I never had grits either until I moved down South.
I could take them or leave 'em . I did have a South Carolina style breakfast recently where grits were served with shrimp in a cheese like casserole. It was fabulous.

[htmb]

I love grits. On the other hand, I had never seen or eaten Cream of Wheat or Oatmeal until I was ten and went to summer camp. I found them both not to my liking. I am sure it has to do with the texture.

While oysters are certainly available here, I have never eaten one by choice.

[lagatta]

I've never had grits, but wouldn't they be similar to polenta? Like Casimira's tasty grits dish, polenta has little flavour of its own but is sometimes served as a neutral foil for tasty stuff.

I'm sure I've only tasted a small fraction of all the foodstuffs in the world - just in an Asian greengrocer's, there are so many vegetables that remain mysterious...

Quinoa was little known outside the Andes until fairly recently. Its benefits are that it is very high in protein, and unlike most plant sources, it has almost complete protein. It is also gluten-free, for people who are intolerant of gluten (a real and serious problem, though unfortunately "gluten-free" has also become a fad). And since it is not a "true grain", it has been declared Kosher for Passover!

It is a hardy plant. It is now grown as well in Saskatchewan, on the Canadian prairies.

[htmb]

I've eaten alligator, but buffalo is something I am not sure I've tried.

[lagatta]

Do you mean the American bison, which is often called buffalo? or the true buffalo en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_buffalo - Water buffalo and its relatives are not common in North America, but the wiki article actually refers to ranching them on a small scale in Florida - which certainly has the right climate and land!

We don't have the right climate at all, but Mediterranean buffaloes are farmed here to produce excellent mozzarella, which I have eaten.

I'm sure bison meat is available in Florida. There are buffalo ranches here, though we were never in its traditional range - wood buffalo lived far to the west and north of here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_bison

And obviously, Plains bison (buffalo) hail from the Great Plains, or Prairies in Canada.

[Deleted]

Going back to the common items to which casimira was referring, another item I never ate in Mississippi was a persimmon, even though my paternal grandmother who lived next door in the early years had a number of persimmon trees and most of them would lie rotting on the ground. She was the only person who actually ate persimmons (I don't know if she ate them as is or in some sort of preparation -- pie or something). Nobody in my family ate them and I don't think that any of the rest of the family did either (she had 5 children and 18 grandchildren) since they were free to pick and nobody ever did.

I always thought the smell was rather sickening (like a durian!) but then again, most of the ones I smelled were the one lying rotten on the ground.

I finally ate a persimmon about 10 years ago, and I don't even remember if it was in Asia or in France, and it actually was not bad at all. But I have never bought any, even though they are available in the stores here (the French name for persimmon is 'kaki' for some reason). They absolutely do not attract me, but I won't mind eating them if somebody serves them to me now.

[htmb]

Yes, we have American bison/buffalo here. Burgers are on menus in higher-grade restaurants sometimes, I've just never tried bison/buffalo burger. (I was trying to get back to Casimira's original intent, too).

Persimmons grow in north Florida. I once took a bite out of a green persimmon right off of a tree on a dare. I do not recommend it.

[Deleted]

Funny -- I do not even remember unripe persimmons, as marked as I am by the rotten ones on the ground covered by ecstatic blue bottle flies.

[htmb]

Biting into an unripe persimmon will suck every ounce of saliva right out of your mouth. It was probably the most horrid thing I have ever bitten into. I did it not realizing the outcome ahead of time, but egged on by a 9 year old little boy who was under my care for a couple of weeks. He is now a major player in the political party opposite mine. Figures.

[lagatta]

I've always found "kakis" (neither unripe or rotten) very insipid, but to be fair they were shipped from afar.

One thing I've "tasted" (offered some from a friend's plate) but never really "eaten" and certainly never ordered, is poutine, a local junk-food which has become some kind of cultural icon here in Québec.

[Don Cuevas]

O.k.: Surströmming. Fermented Baltic Herring.

[Deleted]

Funny!! The French word for persimmons being kaki. ;D
They never crossed my food 'radar' until living here and I quite like them although not real real ripe but with just a wee bit of crispnesss to them. There are several varieties of them too, so, one really shouldn't write them completely off until trying a couple of different kinds.
As for poutine....I had never heard of it until reading of it on here. And then, it appeared on a couple of menus here and I have avoided it like the plague. One place, a rather high end chic wine bar with excellent small plates had it on their menu and I was frankly a bit taken aback seeing it. (although, funny, they didn't list it as 'poutine', someone had to tell me that's what it was). I think there was some version of it offered at the Poboy Fest.
Buffalo is offered here but, it's surely the bison lagatta speaks of and it's delicious as a burger.
I love pickled herring DC, can't say I've ever had or been exposed to fermented herring though.

HTMB....when I hear of folks never having eaten an oyster....all I can think is: more for me!!!!!

[htmb]

Dec 1, 2012 15:31:01 GMT casimira said:

HTMB....when I hear of folks never having eaten an oyster....all I can think is: more for me!!!!!

Yes, casimira, you may have ALL my oysters! With me it's that texture thing again.

One summer, when I was in college, my family joined with several others at a beach motel south of Clearwater, Florida. It was actually a collection of apartments owned by a family friend, and we usually gathered there over the 4th of July holiday.

This particular summer there happened to be so many stingrays in the shallows that we were unable to swim in the Gulf. My father, who often pulled jokes relating to food, netted several stingray and cut their fleshy parts into small, round chunks. He then convinced me to bread them and fry them up so he could serve them to his friends as scallops. I'm sure they must have all been in on the joke as I remember everyone laughing and having a great time. They ate all the stingray I prepared, too.

Casimira, I don't recall ever tasting caviar or octopus, though they are certainly not that available to me.

[Deleted]

Every time I go to Québec I always have poutine, if only from McDonald's or Burger King.

[Deleted]

I would have thought that calamari would be a mainstay readily available offering in Florida HTMB? You need to get exploring woman!!!

The stingray incident reminded me of my mother's harsh warning about ordering scallops in a restaurant where scallops (be they bay or sea scallops). She said to always be wary of ordering them in a restaurant where they weren't regional as, often times sting ray and monk fish in particular were "cookie cut" and frequently passed off as scallops.
How do you fell about clams or need I ask given your disdain for the texture of oysters?
I may give poutine a try. It's a matter of too many foods,textures glommed together that turns me off.

[Deleted]

Poutine is just fries with gravy and cheese curds -- I consider that much less gross than fries with ketchup!

[Deleted]

Dec 1, 2012 17:30:35 GMT kerouac2 said:

Poutine is just fries with gravy and cheese curds -- I consider that much less gross than fries with ketchup!

I can't go there, sorry, and,I don't want to turn this into a yuck I hate this food thread please....

[htmb]

I've eaten a lot of clams, but they were always fried. I stopped eating them because I realized it was the fried batter I really liked, not the clams themselves (if they really were clams ). I don't recall ever eating mussels though. I have them on my list to try if I'm ever somewhere they serve a nice bouillabaisse or paella.

One seafood I remember absolutely loving was the fresh, smoked mullet my father and uncle prepared on the grill at the beach. Delicious!

[htmb]

This discussion about food reminds me of another story about my father. He was very involved in local and state politics and for many years hosted luncheons at our home once a month. The menu was always the same thing: gopher stew, white rice, salad, biscuits, and a very sweet, upside down cake.

The gophers were the same land tortoises that are now protected by the government due to a major decrease in population related to the growth in land development. Back then, I was required to take a burlap feed sack when riding my horse each afternoon. If I spotted a gopher I was to place it in the sack and bring it home for the stew.

My brother and I tried valiantly to avoid eating gopher stew, once we figured out my mother's "chicken stew" had just too much dark meat to make it suspicious. My father was also a hunter so we ate a lot of small game, and occasionally we'd have deer.

I love a good, batch of fried potatoes with catsup on the side for dipping.

[lagatta]

I've never eaten gopher as far as I know, nor squirrel.

I can't abide frites laden with gravy - they wouldn't be crisp that way, and would be a waste of calories and fat. Confess I prefer them with spicy NON-SWEET mayonnaise on the side (not the stuff sold mainstream in North America, though I've read that there is a famous NON-SUGAR mayo in the US South - Duke's? (Never seen it up here)

Obviously fries and mayo isn't health food - I haven't even had them once this year, but they are a great treat every once in a great while.

Venison, yum.