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Post by rikita on Mar 5, 2017 12:19:23 GMT
the first time i am aware of trying parsnips is only a few years back (though my parents might have given it to me as a child and i forgot) as it is mentioned so often in texts about baby food, so i made some parsnip purree for agnes when she was little, and used it in other meals a few times. never really got into it though.
kale i consciously tried the first time after getting together with mr. r. (again i might have had it as a kid and forgotten) as it is very traditional in his part of the country.
not sure i had mcdonalds before my exchange programme in the US. that's also when i had tacos and burritos for the first time. quesadillas i think i didn't try until i was visiting my american ex in albany ... sushi i had for the first time in a chinese buffet (strangely enough) in albany - though i didn't get more into it until i tried it at proper sushi places ...
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Post by lagatta on Mar 5, 2017 14:12:47 GMT
I'm sure you might find some absurdities in this Wiki article about Grünkohlessen en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCnkohlessen I knew it was in the Hanseatic towns, obviously at the border of the Netherlands, where Stamppot is practically the national dish, around Hamburg? I had a couple of friends, him from Vienna, her from Bremen (handy for me as they had to speak schoolbook German to understand each other) and he said that in Bavaria and Austria they feed that stuff to livestock... The first time I ate at McDonalds was one time my family was travelling to the US; it didn't exist in Québec or eastern Ontario back then. I remember the famous golden arches more than the food, which was ordinary snack bar food. For some odd reason I remember that milkshakes were an attraction, and of course I couldn't have them as I had a very grave cow milk allergy as a small child. It is odd that I recall that. I have no idea where it was; certainly somewhere in the northeastern US. Albany is not terribly far from here; I think it is about half-way between NYC and Mtl. If I recall, one has to get off the train at Albany to travel from here to Boston: there is no direct route. Public transport is really shitty in large parts of North America. I have a food question for questa; since you have spent quite a bit of time in Indonesia, perhaps also Malaysia, I assume that you have eaten tempeh, a staple soya food there?
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Post by tod2 on Mar 7, 2017 13:42:16 GMT
I remember with vivid clarity the first time I ever tasted a langoustine. It was at a luncheon and I was partnered with a Portuguese gentleman from Luanda who was in South Africa on a business trip. When you are young, unmarried and not engaged or had a serious boyfriend, the co-workers in the office always picked on you to accompany some (usually much older) man to a staff do. The restaurant went to enormous trouble to bring onto the large table, huge platters of freshly boiled langoustines. The restaurant had also made their own mayonnaise which was not like any I have ever tasted before. My 'date' showed me how to yank off the head of the lango and suck the juices. This repulsed me slightly but I pursed my lips and gave a half-hearted suck. The meat of the main part was OK but I was not overwhelmed. Today I would wade through thick mud to be seated once again at that table, only this time really slurping those divine creatures!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2017 15:19:32 GMT
Langoustines were my grandfather's absolute favourite food item, while my grandmother dearly loved crabs, using a crab pick for hours to make sure she didn't miss even the smallest shred. I was luckiy to grow up in a family that really liked all of these "complicated" things -- fish with the head on, bony fish, boiled shrimp that needed to be peeled.
The connection with "first tastes" is the number of fully grown adults that I encounter who have never eaten such things because their parents didn't eat them (in many cases) or else the parents were happy to serve their children fish fingers or something from McDonald's to make it simple for everyone. I remember when I was little how much time my parents would take to assist me with these things while their own plates got cold. I even have a friend who avoids mussels whenever possible, not because he doesn't like them but because he doesn't like having to deal with the shells.
Since what one likes is mostly learned in childhood, quite a few people will never appreciate their first taste of things as an adult. Tough luck for them!
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Post by amboseli on Mar 12, 2017 16:54:46 GMT
Avocado Artichoke Eggplant Okra the obvious regional seafood e.g. crawfish and some other local fish. We didn't have excotic food when I was young. We lived in a rural place and ate what our land and the seasons gave us. It was only after I met my husband that I started to get to know and appreciate food that was not home grown. My parents-in-law lived in the city where it was much easier to find fruit and veggies other than home grown. My M-I-L was a good cook, my own mom wasn't. I still don't like okra, though. Same goes for foie gras, oysters, sweetbread, snails, and so much more.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2017 17:32:12 GMT
I never liked okra until Bixa prepared it for me some odd 25 years ago or more.
I remember exactly where we were, at her grandmother's house in St. Francisville.
She also taught me about toasting basmati rice.
I also remember we both used fountain pens and she had BROWN ink which I thought was the coolest thing.
I still have a hand written recipe written with that same ink.
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Post by lagatta on Mar 12, 2017 18:48:09 GMT
I don't like raw oysters, which for oyster-lovers are the whole point of eating them. The texture. I have no problem with sashimi or other raw fish. I certainly like them poached or stewed.
I don't hate foie gras but I don't like it any more than duck livers that aren't force-fed, so I buy those when I find them (much cheaper).
I like okra, but it can be hard to get right.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2017 19:10:44 GMT
May I ask why you don't like raw oysters but do like them poached etc.
Is it the texture? i'm always curious when I hear this.
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Post by amboseli on Mar 12, 2017 22:33:14 GMT
As for me, I don't like/eat oysters at all. Not raw, not poached, not 'au gratin' with a champagne sauce.
Something else I never ate until, say, 15 years ago (when they came in fashion), is scallops. I will eat them but I find them overpriced in our restaurants.
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Post by rikita on Mar 13, 2017 0:02:32 GMT
i never had oysters yet and am curious about them. i tend to like sea food and i usually like interesting textures (though i most like chewy ones, like calamari ...) i was actually a very picky eater as a child, by the way, while these days except for some things i know i don't like (and those are more likely things that are very common here) i will try most things ... when i was a kid, our access to exotic food was limited of course, but i think it might be more the attitude that parents teach than the particular food itself (and then of course people are just different, even if they had the same upbringing) ... there was always the idea in our home that the food others find strange is a special treat (and in our area even eating mutton and game instead of chicken and pork was quite strange) - even if we kids didn't want to eat it, we knew our parents liked it and over time developed a certain curiosity. i try to encourage a. to try things but not force her, because i suppose it is better leading by example. she has her things she is picky about, but is not a "only white bread and plain rice" kid either, so far ...
(sorry, this is a bit of a drifting through different thoughts kind of post ...)
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Post by bjd on Mar 13, 2017 6:23:42 GMT
I tasted oysters for the first time when I was about 18 or 19 and they were smoked. I thought they were pretty good. But since I came to France and saw that people eat them raw, I have never eaten them. I won't say what they remind me of, but just won't eat them. Interestingly, none of my kids will eat them either. They have all tasted them (not at our house) but each time they got sick. I don't think my refusal to eat them has anything to do with it though. My husband used to eat oysters whenever the opportunity arose but lately he has been feeling sick after eating them too.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2017 12:02:48 GMT
I refused to eat blood sausage until I became an adult. My grandparents and brother just gobbled it up during the year that we spent with them, but on those nights I had a couple of slices of ham instead.
I don't know when I finally decided to give it a chance. And I still don't have a definitive opinion of it because sometimes it is very good and sometimes it isn't good at all, but it always looks the same no matter what so you can't really tell until you put it in your mouth.
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Post by tod2 on Mar 13, 2017 14:09:28 GMT
I have never eaten blood sausage but did taste a tiny piece of Black Pudding at breakfast in the UK. Did not wow me. Maybe I expected it to taste like biltong... Now that is just raw dried meat but of course has been cured slighlty with vinegar and spices. The taste is fairly similar to blood after you have bitten your tongue or lip. Don't know if blood sausage tastes of blood
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Post by lagatta on Mar 13, 2017 16:12:23 GMT
It is the slimy texture of raw oysters that I don't like. Smoked, poached and stewed are fine. And I have no aversion to raw fish or cevice. I love most seafood such as clams, mussels, shrimp, squid and octopus.
I sort of liked boudin noir when I was younger but now it sort of nauseates me - the iron taste of the blood is too strong for me now.
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Post by amboseli on Mar 13, 2017 21:46:18 GMT
I will only eat boudin noir (is this the same as black pudding?) from my local butcher. Just a few times a year will do.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2017 23:00:27 GMT
Boudin noir, black pudding and blood sausage are all the same thing to my understanding.
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Post by lagatta on Mar 15, 2017 16:05:50 GMT
They are all the same thing, but there are many regional variations, such as morcilla.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2017 16:31:45 GMT
I can't say that "slimy" as an attribute has ever appealed to me, but the 'slime' of okra or oysters has never bothered me. Perhaps the taste of these items has been of greater appeal to me or maybe one person's slime is another person's 'luscious'. For example, who is to say whether a delightful tomato sauce with olive oil on pasta is 'slimy' or not. As far as I am concerned, they have the same slippery quality as those other things.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 28, 2017 4:53:15 GMT
I've had a bunch of stuff going on lately, so haven't given anyport the attention it deserves. However I did note this thread when it was first started and have been looking forward to an opportunity to read all the posts in sequence, which I just did. It's funny to realize that there are so many foods that others remember trying first as adults that I've eaten since before I can remember.
Really, some things, such as oysters, that have been mentioned brought back vivid memories. Even as I write this, in my mind I'm in the backyard at my grandparents' house. My grandfather had a waist-high tree stump next to a faucet in the side yard between the house and the store. He'd stand there and shuck oysters until he'd filled a large bowl and then we'd all sit at the long wooden table in the patio and eat them till they were gone. My mother was always eager for the bowl to get emptied, as she wanted to drink all the liquid left in it. Much as I love oysters, that always mildly disgusted me. And really, I prefer to open an oyster and suck it out of the shell to all other ways of eating them.
Another thing that several people mentioned was snails. I think I can remember my mother making them when I was a child or teen, but my most vivid memory of eating them was standing in the tide in Malaga when I was around nine. My mother showed us how to pick up the little sea snails and dig them out with a pin to pop in our mouths. It was that summer vacation that I also remember eating smelt for the first time.
Funnily enough, my first parsnips really stick in my mind. They were something that always intrigued me from reading about them, I guess in English books. (I was a huge Enid Blyton fan as a kid.) But the first ones I ever saw were in the very early 70s in the Riverbend Winn-Dixie in New Orleans. Once I had them, I was hooked for life, but they haven't come my way very often.
One thing I never had until I was a junior in high school was pizza. This was @1965 in Savannah, Georgia. I guess it wasn't as ubiquitous all over the US as it is now.
More recently -- last week, as a matter of fact -- I ate mallow for the first time. All kinds of wild greens are eaten here, so maybe I'd had it in a mixed bunch before, but this was the first time I got a bunch of just mallow and cooked it. It is quite good!
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Post by rikita on Mar 28, 2017 6:24:39 GMT
i think i had pizza once as a small kid on family vacation in poland (in gdansk i think) - it was very exotic to me and stuck in my mind for years, until pizza finally became commonly available food where i lived ... not sure if it was something we didn't have at all, before, or something you just didn't get as easily and my parents thus just never got it for us ...
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Post by tod2 on Mar 29, 2017 17:08:21 GMT
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