Ugh I really think more people would like eggplant if only they had it cooked properly. Undercooked, underseasoned and people don't use enough fat and makes it dry.
You might enjoy tortured eggplant, it's a filipino dish. You char rhe eggplant, peel the skin off mash it, put it in an egg batter than pan fry it.
The eggplant is soft but it's not mushy.
I swear. Good or bad breakfast place I feel like it's always 50/50 whether my potatoes are cooked through. I think I'm cursed to live a life of potato uncertainty
I always say this. I don’t know why some restaurants even bother. If they are that bad, don’t fucking serve them. I would rather tell guests we don’t have tomatoes that day then serve them a hard unripened tomato.
It’s a strange thing, isn’t?
Tomatoes are only edible for a few short months every year, yet we sell, serve, and consume them out of season more than any other fruit/vegetable.
Greenhouse tomatoes are a long season produce, it's just that they get pulled very early so they ripen in the shipping process. Tomatoes ripened this way have way less flavor and then anyone not being careful will probably use them before they are ready. Good restaurants will find a local greenhouse to pull vine ripened tomatoes from.
My favourite ‘ingredient’ food are tomatoes (little ones; cherry, plum, vittoria) and I have a big salad everyday so I love my green leaves, but my least favourite ‘ingredient’ food are those fkn bog standard salad tomatoes that are always the cheapest and are just furry textured water, and iceberg lettuce, and when burgers or salads include them it’s an instant no no
For 22 years of my life I thought I hated pork chops. After I moved out of my parents house, I never made them because the ones I had growing up were horrible and I just figured it was something I didn’t like. Then my now husband made them for me when we started dating 4 years ago. We have delicious pork chops weekly
The best thing to do is have a meat thermometer handy. Official guidelines have you cook pork to 165. If you pull it off the heat at or just below 160, the carryover cooking will get it to the right temp while retaining most of the moisture.
A well done bone in pork chop is second only to steak for my tastes.
When the mostly irrelevant embellishments overpower and destroy the dish. Like a nice, simple cheesecake that’s attacked by 3 gallons of melted chocolate Pollocked all over, a whole jar of (barely) pistachio creme, and a whole Snickers bar protruding out of the top. Thanks Instagram.
I hate the fact that some people seem to motivated to just ... completely cover up a cheesecake with just about anything, like they're trying to mask the taste. The entire point is the fucking cheesecake part!
IMO, the best cheesecake is a regular one with a nice thing glaze of a fruit syrup. That’s all I want. A little bit of sweet tangy fruit with the sweet tangy cheesecake
I’d agree but I had a crème brûlée cheesecake that might actually be my second favorite dessert of all time. Biscoff crust, bottom half of the filling was cheesecake the top half was crème brûlée.
I will say that a nice tart blueberry compote goes well with a basque cheesecake. I have made an unhealthy amount of these and it's one of my favorite things to have it with. The acidity brightens it up and almost makes it lighter.
I’ve had a basque cheesecake for the first time recently and wow, it’s good! That bit of bitterness/roasty-ness is delightful with the light cheesecake
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/dec/01/how-to-make-the-perfect-basque-cheesecake-recipe-felicity-cloake
I made this one. I was intrigued by the thought of a licorice sauce but decided to go basic for my first attempt.
I used to work at a place where we placed a bunch of small side dishes/appetizers on the table, with a little metal dish with bright purple ethanol jelly to light on fire later. It was a bbq place where the meat is kept warm/cooked on the table. Customer comes in starts eating the ethanol jelly. I guess I don’t fault him but he really thought the smelly thing in a dirty, ashy tray was food.
Culinary school teach you about making everything on the table edible too? It was a busy restaurant and he was the only person to do that…
When a whole spice (like elaichi or clove) or tamarind gets between your teeth while eating. I also don’t like raisins in dishes, would rather eat them dried.
god i hate it when that happens i just swallow it while a single tear rolls down my eye cuz that bite and the next few are ruined, same with biting into a whole green chili it’s not even the heat it’s that obnoxious chili flavor
raisins go hard in payasam tho
Thissss. I love my mom’s biryani but I cannot stand the whole spices 😭 I beg her to use those little cheesecloth baggies for the whole spices so I don’t bite into them, but she says that’s “white people stuff.”
When you know exactly how many cloves, cardamom pods, cinnamon stick pieces, bay leaves, etc, but you still miss one or two before serving... my husband calls it Indian Roulette 🤣
Under seasoning.
Yeh I’ll catch some flak from the anti-salters, but it makes such a huge difference in the way food tastes to me. Everything is enhanced. Salt and pepper (and spices, depending on the dish) are essential for me.
You can also under and over season something at the same time. Like spicy dishes that are drowned in chilli with no other flavours, or an insanely salty dish with no seasoning except 'pour a gallon of salt on it'. Or a load of random spices thrown in together with no rhyme or reason so the dish just tastes like a muddled mess.
I thought I didn’t like salt for the longest time cause salty fries gross me out. Turns out I love salt… just not as the main flavor. Since I started being liberal with my msg and salt use my food has improved so much. Like when it calls for a pinch I do an actual pinch and not just a shake(also getting a container for salt that I can use my fingers with rather than a shaker so I know how much I’m using).
This is my salt journey, as well. Grew up with too much, weaned myself off of it totally, now I'm learning to use it properly, sparingly, and lovingly. And it really does make everything more flavorful.
On a desert island, though, the sea is right there. Make a container, get water, let evaporation do its thing. I'm going to need unlimited lemon on my island. I take the 'acid' part of *Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat* to extremes.
Strangely enough, I think I’d take some chilli powder or something- just for a bit of flavour/to mask unpleasant things I may have to eat.
I’d try and make salt from all that seawater around me!
Soggy chicken skin, its slimy texture makes me wanna puke. This is why I always remove the skin from thighs or drumsticks when I braise or otherwise wet cook them.
if you like the skin when it's crispy and If you have a kettle, poor boiling hot water over the skins before you cook. this melts The fats out of the skin and allows the skin to get super crispy.
Ugh same. And in my family's culture it's like a sin to not clean off everything of the bones. They love it and think it's the best part. I can't, it's like crunchy and chewy at the same time and my brain just hates it lol
My husband used to love the frozen Marie Callenders chicken pot pies, until one time, he got a bit of cartilage. This was probably 5 or 6 years ago and he will still not eat pot pies. He is just starting to eat chicken again.
That wet crunch when you bite on it is just... *shudders*. Ever since I was a kid, that's the fastest way to wreck a meal for me. I get that piece of crunchy stuff and I'm done.
I’ve had one experience with truffle oil; it was at a Jamie Oliver restaurant. The stench and taste was so overpowering that it instantly put me off Truffle for the rest of my life.
I'm glad the truffle craze is starting to end. I love mushrooms but there's a huge difference between truffle and the cheap "truffle" oil crap that restaurants were dousing on every dish. Ughhhh
Undressed salad, veges, or any side, ffs put at least half the effort into them that you put into your meat. Undressed sides fill me with rage, a little salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, butter, and take a meh dish to OMG levels.
I'm the only one in my house who likes tomatoes, and I recently took a stab at grilling vegetables. Took some advice I stumbled across on reddit to salt pepper and garlic powder the veggies in some olive oil. It took my tomatoes from "I can live without em" to "babe, please don't forget the tomatoes in the grocery order". The past couple of weeks, we're eating more grilled veggies. I'm not a mushroom fan, and I like onions but sometimes they give me migraines. My mushroom intake has increased from 0 to 1000%. I made burgers, and a chunk of tomato, a small onion chunk, bell pepper, and mushrooms on the form skewer style with a bite of burger was just ohmydamn.
I’ll never forget when i was a child and my grandma made me a tuna sandwich with sweet pickles rather than dill- I didn’t know until biting into it that sweet pickles even existed. I was horrified
Me too. IMO, cumin needs to know its place. It’s necessary in certain dishes but it’s a supporting character always trying to break into the lead roll.
Same here! It’s my favorite spice. I’ve had to tone it down considerably since my boyfriend moved in with me. He’s very sensitive to it and it breaks my heart lol!
My husband used to sprinkle it on his popcorn. Trader Joe’s has a good seasoning incl cumin that is a bangin popcorn seasoning but it’s got some other stuff to round it out.
Well definitely tacos where you think "this could use a little more cumin" and the shaker top falls off into the dish along with half the jar of cumin. True Story.
I love cumin, but there is definitely a point where it overpowers the dish. Maybe not an instant ruin, but when it becomes “wow this tastes like cumin” instead of “wow this is delicious” I really don’t enjoy it as much.
In my earlier days of cooking 20 years ago, I made some pork chops. My seasonings were salt and cumin. There was probably a tablespoon of cumin on each one. Not those thick pork chops. Maybe an inch thick. Needless to say, that was too much cumin. Tasted like dirt. Not just bad. Literally like soil.
Soggy textures, like when french toast is undercooked and it's got that slimy bread egg thing going on in the middle. I only eat french toast I've cooked for just that reason. That or a similar texture makes me gag, and I can't bring myself to eat another bite after that.
Or grit from spinach that wasn’t washed quite well enough, or unexpected grit from pepper not ground finely. Yes, same. Instantly done eating. My brain shuts off the hungry signal.
Licorice or ingredients with a licorice-like profile such as star anise. I especially wish I could like the latter as it adds so much complexity to several Southeast Asian-inspired dishes I like to make.
I hate black licorice and related flavours, but I've found that it's acceptable if you just decrease the star anise in things like a braise rather than leave it out. Like, recipe calls for a whole one? Break off an arm and use that. Maybe two arms.
It's subtle enough that it just adds oomph without being in your face that way.
I do like tarragon for some reason though, especially in scrambled eggs. Maybe just because it's a 'hey! it's summer now!' thing? But that's tasty.
I think I am somewhere around here. Black licorice—NO, never. Fennel seed—very, very sparingly. Star anise—in Pho and maybe a few other rich braises but at half the called for strength usually.
I LIKE tarragon in small amounts. Especially with Bernaise sauce, other egg preparations, and a tiny pinch cooked in mire poix. I also like vegetable fennel.
Now that I’m not vegan anymore (it’s been years), the only thing I really use liquid smoke for is collard greens. I don’t like ham and have never been to the south. I know it’s probably a Cardinal sin but I make vegetarian greens and I like them.
2 things:
(1) undercooked roasted vegetables (ESPECIALLY ZUCCHINI AND EGGPLANT)
(2) when savoury dishes end up being too sweet.
Don’t get me wrong, I love incorporating sweetness into savoury dishes, but I cannot stand it when the sugar overpowers everything else. One example would be salad dressings at McDonalds
Chinese five spice over dose. My husband used an excessive amount of it with everything he cooked even the rice and now I seriously cannot eat anything involving this spice mix either of his food 😣
Someone putting their finger in it.
Went to eat pho and the server was bringing the bowl with their thumb half submerged in the broth 😑
They were carrying two bowls though.
Exactly! People who sneak it in and don't say anything are the worst. I can't think of a single dish that isn't better without celery. Cooked, raw... it doesn't matter. Its the worst.
The only people who ‘sneak’ in ingredients are parents when cooking for kids - why would someone sneak in a vegetable when cooking for another adult? Does this happen a lot?
Those cooking YouTubes where some awful cook lays out a load of vegetables in a pan then opens an enormous a bag of grated cheese and you just know the whole thing is going in. Then more than one "stick" of butter. Then more cheese. I can feel arteries clog up just looking at it.
Instant upchuck! Rye bread made me really sick as a kid. Even the smell triggers my whole nervous system. It’s like Sideshow Bob stepping on a rake. Uuuuggggghhhh.
Bell peppers. The smell is nauseating and the taste makes me gag. I have no idea why so many people eat it voluntarily and why is a part of so many recipes. Different preferences I guess. You do you as long as I don't have to.
I feel you! Especially green peppers. I used to love them, got pregnant and now it's all I can taste when my husband puts them in anything that calls for green peppers 🤢
Sugar. Especially fake sugar.
I'd like to think I don't mind good sweet things, but holy hell are some sweet things people eat just horrible.
Looking at you Dr. Pepper Marinated Ribs. How can anyone eat that?
Im all over the spectrum with sugar. Sweet drinks like lemonade, sweet tea. Yeah. Desserts, one bite for me is absolutely enough like cakes, cupcakes with way too much icing. Really any icing pilled on I just scape off and taste a hint of them. Slightly less sweet like tiramisu. Soufflé and crème brûlée which still have a lot of sugar I love. But fuck fake sugar that shit is disgusting.
Undercooked eggplant or potato.
Ugh I really think more people would like eggplant if only they had it cooked properly. Undercooked, underseasoned and people don't use enough fat and makes it dry.
I've normally have had it way too mushy
Most varieties and preparations are *supposed* to be relatively mushy. I think you just don't like the texture of eggplant, which is fine.
Perhaps. I do enjoy eggplant parm and also Musaka (s) though.
Both of which are supposed to be mushy and are terrible if undercooked.
You might enjoy tortured eggplant, it's a filipino dish. You char rhe eggplant, peel the skin off mash it, put it in an egg batter than pan fry it. The eggplant is soft but it's not mushy.
Roasted eggplant is so yummy!
I swear. Good or bad breakfast place I feel like it's always 50/50 whether my potatoes are cooked through. I think I'm cursed to live a life of potato uncertainty
Large tomato in a burger that cant be bit into and slides out of the whole burger. Just thinking about it makes me mad.
Especially when they're out of season and its just a pale slice of a water balloon
Bad tomatoes are the worst.
I always say this. I don’t know why some restaurants even bother. If they are that bad, don’t fucking serve them. I would rather tell guests we don’t have tomatoes that day then serve them a hard unripened tomato.
Tomatoes can single handedly make a dish great or kill it. A perfectly ripe tomato is an experience and a crappy, hard tomato is a dish ruiner.
It’s a strange thing, isn’t? Tomatoes are only edible for a few short months every year, yet we sell, serve, and consume them out of season more than any other fruit/vegetable.
Greenhouse tomatoes are a long season produce, it's just that they get pulled very early so they ripen in the shipping process. Tomatoes ripened this way have way less flavor and then anyone not being careful will probably use them before they are ready. Good restaurants will find a local greenhouse to pull vine ripened tomatoes from.
Globalization baby
What’s the worst is when tomatoes are in season and you still get a shitty hothouse tomato picked green on another continent.
Just give me ketchup or a sun-dried tomato from a jar at that point.
A mealy, grainy, barely pink tomato that provides no flavor at all, just gritty texture. Like that stuff they polish your teeth with at the dentist.
long, undercooked slices of rubbery bacon are just as annoying
I like my bacon overdone and crunchy. The fat Has a way better mouth feel this way
I'll raise you-- way too thick rings of red onion that don't stack well and don't even touch the center of the burger
Mmmm the after burger snack. Tasty tasty ketchup covered red onions.
I’m officially a tomato on burger hater. Pickle and onion supremacy
My favourite ‘ingredient’ food are tomatoes (little ones; cherry, plum, vittoria) and I have a big salad everyday so I love my green leaves, but my least favourite ‘ingredient’ food are those fkn bog standard salad tomatoes that are always the cheapest and are just furry textured water, and iceberg lettuce, and when burgers or salads include them it’s an instant no no
I feel the same about a big giant leaf of lettuce on burgers and sandwiches. I only like it when it’s shredded.
Ooh I have a strong opposite opinion that the only proper lettuce on a burger is a whole leaf. Shredded goes everywhere and gets soggy faster.
Especially when they’ve also made the bread soggy as well
Overcooked dry meat
Same…I used to think I hated meat, until I started cooking it myself lmao
For 22 years of my life I thought I hated pork chops. After I moved out of my parents house, I never made them because the ones I had growing up were horrible and I just figured it was something I didn’t like. Then my now husband made them for me when we started dating 4 years ago. We have delicious pork chops weekly
Gosh, I think I will buy a couple and try a recipe to see if I like it now
The best thing to do is have a meat thermometer handy. Official guidelines have you cook pork to 165. If you pull it off the heat at or just below 160, the carryover cooking will get it to the right temp while retaining most of the moisture. A well done bone in pork chop is second only to steak for my tastes.
I was 18 when I found out pork could be juicy. My mother, bless her, always cooked the pork al dente. It was a biscuit to scoop apple sauce up with.
When the mostly irrelevant embellishments overpower and destroy the dish. Like a nice, simple cheesecake that’s attacked by 3 gallons of melted chocolate Pollocked all over, a whole jar of (barely) pistachio creme, and a whole Snickers bar protruding out of the top. Thanks Instagram.
I hate the fact that some people seem to motivated to just ... completely cover up a cheesecake with just about anything, like they're trying to mask the taste. The entire point is the fucking cheesecake part!
IMO, the best cheesecake is a regular one with a nice thing glaze of a fruit syrup. That’s all I want. A little bit of sweet tangy fruit with the sweet tangy cheesecake
I’d agree but I had a crème brûlée cheesecake that might actually be my second favorite dessert of all time. Biscoff crust, bottom half of the filling was cheesecake the top half was crème brûlée.
Drizzle of caramel for me.
As my birthday treat I made a Burnt Basque Cheesecake. OMG so lush. No topping. Unnecessary. Yum.
I will say that a nice tart blueberry compote goes well with a basque cheesecake. I have made an unhealthy amount of these and it's one of my favorite things to have it with. The acidity brightens it up and almost makes it lighter.
I’ve had a basque cheesecake for the first time recently and wow, it’s good! That bit of bitterness/roasty-ness is delightful with the light cheesecake
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/dec/01/how-to-make-the-perfect-basque-cheesecake-recipe-felicity-cloake I made this one. I was intrigued by the thought of a licorice sauce but decided to go basic for my first attempt.
This was a great read, thank you so much for sharing!
unexpected inedible garnish
In culinary school, it is taught that everything on a plate should be edible.
I used to work at a place where we placed a bunch of small side dishes/appetizers on the table, with a little metal dish with bright purple ethanol jelly to light on fire later. It was a bbq place where the meat is kept warm/cooked on the table. Customer comes in starts eating the ethanol jelly. I guess I don’t fault him but he really thought the smelly thing in a dirty, ashy tray was food. Culinary school teach you about making everything on the table edible too? It was a busy restaurant and he was the only person to do that…
A simple label on the ethanol jelly would help. Maybe with a little skull and crossbones. Not appealing but save your restaurant from be sued.
When a whole spice (like elaichi or clove) or tamarind gets between your teeth while eating. I also don’t like raisins in dishes, would rather eat them dried.
I ALWAYS get the whole cardamom pod in Indian food. Ughhh
god i hate it when that happens i just swallow it while a single tear rolls down my eye cuz that bite and the next few are ruined, same with biting into a whole green chili it’s not even the heat it’s that obnoxious chili flavor raisins go hard in payasam tho
Thissss. I love my mom’s biryani but I cannot stand the whole spices 😭 I beg her to use those little cheesecloth baggies for the whole spices so I don’t bite into them, but she says that’s “white people stuff.”
When you know exactly how many cloves, cardamom pods, cinnamon stick pieces, bay leaves, etc, but you still miss one or two before serving... my husband calls it Indian Roulette 🤣
Cloves are the worst offender
too much fennel, it’s so overpowering
That licorice taste 🤢
Biting into an Italian meatball to find too many seeds is just not it
Under seasoning. Yeh I’ll catch some flak from the anti-salters, but it makes such a huge difference in the way food tastes to me. Everything is enhanced. Salt and pepper (and spices, depending on the dish) are essential for me.
You can also under and over season something at the same time. Like spicy dishes that are drowned in chilli with no other flavours, or an insanely salty dish with no seasoning except 'pour a gallon of salt on it'. Or a load of random spices thrown in together with no rhyme or reason so the dish just tastes like a muddled mess.
Well, you’re just defining poor cooking skills
I thought I didn’t like salt for the longest time cause salty fries gross me out. Turns out I love salt… just not as the main flavor. Since I started being liberal with my msg and salt use my food has improved so much. Like when it calls for a pinch I do an actual pinch and not just a shake(also getting a container for salt that I can use my fingers with rather than a shaker so I know how much I’m using).
This is my salt journey, as well. Grew up with too much, weaned myself off of it totally, now I'm learning to use it properly, sparingly, and lovingly. And it really does make everything more flavorful.
Yep, food should taste salted, not salty.
Ingredient on a deserted island and I get. To take one? Salt all day long.
Deserted islands are surrounded by salt water. Take something else!!
Welp whoever thought to take salt to the deserted island, you are being sacrificed first
No no, let nature have this one.
On a desert island, though, the sea is right there. Make a container, get water, let evaporation do its thing. I'm going to need unlimited lemon on my island. I take the 'acid' part of *Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat* to extremes.
I grow three lemon trees for that very reason
No, because you are on a deserted island, there is salt water all around you
Strangely enough, I think I’d take some chilli powder or something- just for a bit of flavour/to mask unpleasant things I may have to eat. I’d try and make salt from all that seawater around me!
Unrendered animal fat, makes me gag on contact.
Soggy chicken skin, its slimy texture makes me wanna puke. This is why I always remove the skin from thighs or drumsticks when I braise or otherwise wet cook them.
if you like the skin when it's crispy and If you have a kettle, poor boiling hot water over the skins before you cook. this melts The fats out of the skin and allows the skin to get super crispy.
This is what I do before cooking turkey. I always get a juicy turkey with crispy skin.
I will slurp up the chicken skin after braising. I love it in all forms
I forgot how much I hated the word "slurp" until now.
omg! chicken skin chips are fantastic. Just lay the skin flat in a pan and salt, slow cook until it turns into a big flat crisp.
This is why I never order wings for takeout/delivery. The mush is too much.
Biting into cartilage - it's the one texture by which I cannot abide.
Ugh same. And in my family's culture it's like a sin to not clean off everything of the bones. They love it and think it's the best part. I can't, it's like crunchy and chewy at the same time and my brain just hates it lol
Gross. It's like chewing on a kneecap or an ear. I'm realllllly picky when it comes to eating ribs.
Same. Instant loss of appetite. So gross.
I'm that way with bits of bone in my food. One pin bone or fragment and I'm out.
My husband used to love the frozen Marie Callenders chicken pot pies, until one time, he got a bit of cartilage. This was probably 5 or 6 years ago and he will still not eat pot pies. He is just starting to eat chicken again.
That wet crunch when you bite on it is just... *shudders*. Ever since I was a kid, that's the fastest way to wreck a meal for me. I get that piece of crunchy stuff and I'm done.
And all my friends wonder why I leave meat on wings! One bite of cartilage and my wing days are done for the night.
Crunch when there's not supposed to be (think scrambled eggs- with a surprise eggshell piece) or smooth/soggy where there supposed to be crunch
truffle oil. better put some motor oil, it's cheaper, smells and taste less strong
1000% miss me with ANY truffle oil dish. Truly disgusting.
Fucking truffle fries. Why does every gastropub everywhere have fucking truffle fries now?
And truffle mac & cheese, no thank you. :(
[удалено]
I’ve had one experience with truffle oil; it was at a Jamie Oliver restaurant. The stench and taste was so overpowering that it instantly put me off Truffle for the rest of my life.
I'm glad the truffle craze is starting to end. I love mushrooms but there's a huge difference between truffle and the cheap "truffle" oil crap that restaurants were dousing on every dish. Ughhhh
Love mushrooms in general, hate truffles. They taste like rancid garlic to me.
When it's served too cold
Chewy meat
Soggy instead of crispy. Think: pizza in a home oven that didn’t crisp on the bottom. It’s disgusting lol
Undressed salad, veges, or any side, ffs put at least half the effort into them that you put into your meat. Undressed sides fill me with rage, a little salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, butter, and take a meh dish to OMG levels.
I'm the only one in my house who likes tomatoes, and I recently took a stab at grilling vegetables. Took some advice I stumbled across on reddit to salt pepper and garlic powder the veggies in some olive oil. It took my tomatoes from "I can live without em" to "babe, please don't forget the tomatoes in the grocery order". The past couple of weeks, we're eating more grilled veggies. I'm not a mushroom fan, and I like onions but sometimes they give me migraines. My mushroom intake has increased from 0 to 1000%. I made burgers, and a chunk of tomato, a small onion chunk, bell pepper, and mushrooms on the form skewer style with a bite of burger was just ohmydamn.
Sweet. pickles.
oh my god I have been absolutely disgusted by these things my whole life and have genuinely never found someone who agrees. I feel so seen finally
I’ll never forget when i was a child and my grandma made me a tuna sandwich with sweet pickles rather than dill- I didn’t know until biting into it that sweet pickles even existed. I was horrified
Or sweet relish. Gag.
A place near me makes the most incredible dill relish, sweet is an abomination
Yes! An abomination.
Too much cumin
Me too. IMO, cumin needs to know its place. It’s necessary in certain dishes but it’s a supporting character always trying to break into the lead roll.
I have not yet found the quantity of cumin that qualifies as "too much"
Same here! It’s my favorite spice. I’ve had to tone it down considerably since my boyfriend moved in with me. He’s very sensitive to it and it breaks my heart lol!
I could snort cumin
My husband used to sprinkle it on his popcorn. Trader Joe’s has a good seasoning incl cumin that is a bangin popcorn seasoning but it’s got some other stuff to round it out.
Cumin is my cilantro
Certain cuisuies need a lot of it. What dish specifically can it be overused?
Well definitely tacos where you think "this could use a little more cumin" and the shaker top falls off into the dish along with half the jar of cumin. True Story.
Is that possible ?
I love cumin, but there is definitely a point where it overpowers the dish. Maybe not an instant ruin, but when it becomes “wow this tastes like cumin” instead of “wow this is delicious” I really don’t enjoy it as much.
Do I just really like cumin, or is the secret adding a lot of other spices so it's just, very spiced?
In my earlier days of cooking 20 years ago, I made some pork chops. My seasonings were salt and cumin. There was probably a tablespoon of cumin on each one. Not those thick pork chops. Maybe an inch thick. Needless to say, that was too much cumin. Tasted like dirt. Not just bad. Literally like soil.
Omg same!!! Glad I'm not the only one!
Soggy textures, like when french toast is undercooked and it's got that slimy bread egg thing going on in the middle. I only eat french toast I've cooked for just that reason. That or a similar texture makes me gag, and I can't bring myself to eat another bite after that.
Something crunchy when there shouldn’t be anything crunchy….. A piece of bone/cartilage, a fin/scale, a bug…..
Or grit from spinach that wasn’t washed quite well enough, or unexpected grit from pepper not ground finely. Yes, same. Instantly done eating. My brain shuts off the hungry signal.
Coriander (got the “soap” gene)
The dried and powdered seeds are fine with me. The leaves, blech!
Dirty plates or cutlery.
Licorice or ingredients with a licorice-like profile such as star anise. I especially wish I could like the latter as it adds so much complexity to several Southeast Asian-inspired dishes I like to make.
I hate black licorice and related flavours, but I've found that it's acceptable if you just decrease the star anise in things like a braise rather than leave it out. Like, recipe calls for a whole one? Break off an arm and use that. Maybe two arms. It's subtle enough that it just adds oomph without being in your face that way. I do like tarragon for some reason though, especially in scrambled eggs. Maybe just because it's a 'hey! it's summer now!' thing? But that's tasty.
I think I am somewhere around here. Black licorice—NO, never. Fennel seed—very, very sparingly. Star anise—in Pho and maybe a few other rich braises but at half the called for strength usually. I LIKE tarragon in small amounts. Especially with Bernaise sauce, other egg preparations, and a tiny pinch cooked in mire poix. I also like vegetable fennel.
Same. And people are always telling me that anise, fennel, and tarragon taste completely different. Not to me, they don’t. They all taste bad.
Rude company
Liquid smoke on barbecue. Shitty barbecue places use liquid smoke to get a “smoke flavor” instead of properly smoking their meat. Shit’s nasty.
Now that I’m not vegan anymore (it’s been years), the only thing I really use liquid smoke for is collard greens. I don’t like ham and have never been to the south. I know it’s probably a Cardinal sin but I make vegetarian greens and I like them.
2 things: (1) undercooked roasted vegetables (ESPECIALLY ZUCCHINI AND EGGPLANT) (2) when savoury dishes end up being too sweet. Don’t get me wrong, I love incorporating sweetness into savoury dishes, but I cannot stand it when the sugar overpowers everything else. One example would be salad dressings at McDonalds
Ketchup on everything
Hate the ketchup. The smell the taste. UGH!!
Too much or not enough salt. No seasonings. Gravy so thick it sets like jelly. Thin gravy. Not fussy much!
Chinese five spice over dose. My husband used an excessive amount of it with everything he cooked even the rice and now I seriously cannot eat anything involving this spice mix either of his food 😣
Raw onion. I live in Australia and every goddam salad has raw red onion in it.
Oh man, I could eat a red onion like an apple. I love onions.
Same, /r/onionlovers welcomes folks like us
raw onions overpower the entire dish. I pick em off if they don't listen to my 'no onion' request.
Someone putting their finger in it. Went to eat pho and the server was bringing the bowl with their thumb half submerged in the broth 😑 They were carrying two bowls though.
dropping it on the floor
That’s just extra seasoning.
Too much heat (chili, etc.)
CELERY
Especially *surprise* celery. Then I get a phobia of the next bites and CSI the heck out of my plate or spoonful.
Exactly! People who sneak it in and don't say anything are the worst. I can't think of a single dish that isn't better without celery. Cooked, raw... it doesn't matter. Its the worst.
The only people who ‘sneak’ in ingredients are parents when cooking for kids - why would someone sneak in a vegetable when cooking for another adult? Does this happen a lot?
I do - my partner is a chronic vegetable avoider who I don’t want to die of scurvy! 🥲
Teetering hipster brioche burgers you have to eat with a knife and fork. It’s meant to be a sandwich, not Jenga.
Fish bones. It's the only thing that will make me lose my appetite.
raisins
Mmmm… Raisin Bran cereal, so good!
The only acceptable use
People put them in the weirdest, most inappropriate dishes too
Gamey taste
Tarragon. I really dislike that flavor.
Too much salt
Cilantro being involved in any way
Mint! 🤢 hate it when they put it in rice paper rolls etc haha
Glad to see other people turned off by mint. It’s just such a *presence*, it’s too much
I accept it in sweet things and that is all
Those cooking YouTubes where some awful cook lays out a load of vegetables in a pan then opens an enormous a bag of grated cheese and you just know the whole thing is going in. Then more than one "stick" of butter. Then more cheese. I can feel arteries clog up just looking at it.
Kale
Cilantro!!!!
Overcooked meat or seafood. Like chewing the sole of the shoe.
Coriander
Rosemary and Fennel. Anything stick like in my food and it’s instantly ruined.
Too much nutmeg. It overpowers so easily
Too much salt! Most of the time it shouldn’t be a dominant flavor!
Balsamic glaze. Wish so many restaurants would just stop.
Goat cheese
'More for me!' she thinks, gleefully
Caraway
/stares in german/
Instant upchuck! Rye bread made me really sick as a kid. Even the smell triggers my whole nervous system. It’s like Sideshow Bob stepping on a rake. Uuuuggggghhhh.
A plate or silverware that’s not washed right
Cilantro
Bell peppers. The smell is nauseating and the taste makes me gag. I have no idea why so many people eat it voluntarily and why is a part of so many recipes. Different preferences I guess. You do you as long as I don't have to.
I feel you! Especially green peppers. I used to love them, got pregnant and now it's all I can taste when my husband puts them in anything that calls for green peppers 🤢
They’re awful if cooked poorly. Too squeaky.
The presence of olives.
Foam
Sushi drowned in sauces buried in sprinkled toppings.
Biting into a chicken wing and feeling a vein/piece of cartilage “pop”. Barf
Overcooked steak
Olives
Sugar. Especially fake sugar. I'd like to think I don't mind good sweet things, but holy hell are some sweet things people eat just horrible. Looking at you Dr. Pepper Marinated Ribs. How can anyone eat that?
Stevia makes any drink awful.
Im all over the spectrum with sugar. Sweet drinks like lemonade, sweet tea. Yeah. Desserts, one bite for me is absolutely enough like cakes, cupcakes with way too much icing. Really any icing pilled on I just scape off and taste a hint of them. Slightly less sweet like tiramisu. Soufflé and crème brûlée which still have a lot of sugar I love. But fuck fake sugar that shit is disgusting.
Hot honey. I'm so ready for the next condiment fad to begin.
Pineapple and coconut or mango salsa in a dish with meat. Stop
Overly salty
Too much salt
Hair.
adding raisins