Food that I think is irredeemably nasty.
When I was younger I was an exceedingly picky eater, though thankfully I have broadened my horizons a bit since then. (Well except for a major narrowing on the part of meat products but we'll ignore that for now). However I still remain pretty fussy as this list can attest to. In making this list there was a large amount of cultural bias involved as it only includes food that the average Californian is likely to encounter (I'm sure other cultures are capable of producing nasty food as well along the lines of haggis, tripe, uni, escargot, trepang, whale blubber, monkey brains, smoked mopani worms, sweet breads, 100 year old eggs, duck fetuses, fruitcake, brains and eggs, and unholy combinations of blood and milk but thankfully I don't expect to have many encounters with those during my lifetime). It also emphasizes food that tend to become ingredients in other dishes where I must then either pick them out or put on a brave face while eating them. Therefore beef jerky and jello molds are also omitted because while they are certainly nasty, they are easier to avoid than most things on this list.
1) Jalapeños: I firmly believe that spicy peppers should be somewhere between yellow and red on the color wheel. In any event they should not be a nasty shade of swamp green. Furthermore the taste of spicy peppers should be all spice and no vegetable as opposed to the lame compromise that jalapeños try to enact. Furthermore jalapeños are frequently pickled which brings us to...
2) Anything that has been pickled: I'm a biologist so I don't like to eat any food that I might see floating in a glass jar - it looks too much like a specimen. I also have a marked aversion to the taste or smell of excessive amounts of brine/vinegar. The color of this unholy potion also resembles the urine of something that is seriously sick.
3) Cucumbers: I don't like the watered-down vegetable flavor, I don't like how they can be crunchy and mushy at the same time, and I don't like the way they smell. Furthermore once cucumbers are added to a dish, in my mind it is ruined because even if you pick out every single one of these nasty vegetable interlopers they've already leaked their filth fluid all over the rest of the food. Luckily for me boycotting these botanical abominations is not likely to have adverse effects on my health because they have absolutely no nutritional value.
4) Papaya: A triple threat - it smells like feet, tastes like death, and I break out in a rash if it gets anywhere near my skin.
5) Sausage: As said earlier, I'm not that carnivorous to begin with but I can reconcile myself to most forms of animal flesh as long as it is free range and organic. Sausages however, are impossible. It's hard for me to want to eat something that started out as an assortment of random animal parts that probably don't look too appealing to begin with that are then ground up, mixed together and somehow solidified into a cylinder. Furthermore this strange meat product has a nasty tendency to show up in pasta sauce or pizza that I had previously believed was vegetarian.
6) Red or purple cabbage: The idea of cabbage was never that appealing to begin with as it smells bad and then makes people who eat it smell bad. Pickling it and adding mayo to make cole slaw certainly does not improve the situation in my mind. Living in San Diego reconciled me to the idea of greenish-whitish cabbage when served on fish tacos but the red/purple varieties continue to freak me out. Especially because I swear the color bleeds into the salad dressing.
7) Bleu cheese: I try not to eat things that have already gone moldy, I don't like the taste, and I'm not sure I approve of how it's spelled either.
8) Hard boiled eggs: Between the rubbery texture, the brimstone odor, and the fact that they're usually served cold I don't see anything to like about this Easter tradition that is really better for dyeing than eating. I also don't like that as a 'vegetarian' I am frequently offered an egg-salad sandwich which combines this unpleasant ingredient with large amounts of mayo.
9) Peeps: Okay so these things don't usually sneak into other dishes (thank god) but they are nasty enough to merit a separate mention. They're so sweet that not even I like them (and that's saying something) and have a weird chemically aftertaste. Also they're made with gelatin which certainly doesn't help their case.
10) Any kind of mayonnaise based salad (with the exception of tuna): This gives away that I don't completely hate mayonnaise because it is a key ingredient in a well made tuna salad (well made here means a roughly 1 part mayo for every 10 parts tuna) and can also be nice on a sandwich or on french fries if you're Dutch/Belgian and not overly concerned about cardiovascular health. However potato salad, egg salad, macaroni salad, and carrot and raisin salad (I don't know whose idea that one was) all rank as inedible filth in my mind. I can't even attempt to justify it but I always regard them as the worst part of any picnic. Maybe they're just too slimy/grainy/cold. They're also way too high a risk of food poisoning.
1) Jalapeños: I firmly believe that spicy peppers should be somewhere between yellow and red on the color wheel. In any event they should not be a nasty shade of swamp green. Furthermore the taste of spicy peppers should be all spice and no vegetable as opposed to the lame compromise that jalapeños try to enact. Furthermore jalapeños are frequently pickled which brings us to...
2) Anything that has been pickled: I'm a biologist so I don't like to eat any food that I might see floating in a glass jar - it looks too much like a specimen. I also have a marked aversion to the taste or smell of excessive amounts of brine/vinegar. The color of this unholy potion also resembles the urine of something that is seriously sick.
3) Cucumbers: I don't like the watered-down vegetable flavor, I don't like how they can be crunchy and mushy at the same time, and I don't like the way they smell. Furthermore once cucumbers are added to a dish, in my mind it is ruined because even if you pick out every single one of these nasty vegetable interlopers they've already leaked their filth fluid all over the rest of the food. Luckily for me boycotting these botanical abominations is not likely to have adverse effects on my health because they have absolutely no nutritional value.
4) Papaya: A triple threat - it smells like feet, tastes like death, and I break out in a rash if it gets anywhere near my skin.
5) Sausage: As said earlier, I'm not that carnivorous to begin with but I can reconcile myself to most forms of animal flesh as long as it is free range and organic. Sausages however, are impossible. It's hard for me to want to eat something that started out as an assortment of random animal parts that probably don't look too appealing to begin with that are then ground up, mixed together and somehow solidified into a cylinder. Furthermore this strange meat product has a nasty tendency to show up in pasta sauce or pizza that I had previously believed was vegetarian.
6) Red or purple cabbage: The idea of cabbage was never that appealing to begin with as it smells bad and then makes people who eat it smell bad. Pickling it and adding mayo to make cole slaw certainly does not improve the situation in my mind. Living in San Diego reconciled me to the idea of greenish-whitish cabbage when served on fish tacos but the red/purple varieties continue to freak me out. Especially because I swear the color bleeds into the salad dressing.
7) Bleu cheese: I try not to eat things that have already gone moldy, I don't like the taste, and I'm not sure I approve of how it's spelled either.
8) Hard boiled eggs: Between the rubbery texture, the brimstone odor, and the fact that they're usually served cold I don't see anything to like about this Easter tradition that is really better for dyeing than eating. I also don't like that as a 'vegetarian' I am frequently offered an egg-salad sandwich which combines this unpleasant ingredient with large amounts of mayo.
9) Peeps: Okay so these things don't usually sneak into other dishes (thank god) but they are nasty enough to merit a separate mention. They're so sweet that not even I like them (and that's saying something) and have a weird chemically aftertaste. Also they're made with gelatin which certainly doesn't help their case.
10) Any kind of mayonnaise based salad (with the exception of tuna): This gives away that I don't completely hate mayonnaise because it is a key ingredient in a well made tuna salad (well made here means a roughly 1 part mayo for every 10 parts tuna) and can also be nice on a sandwich or on french fries if you're Dutch/Belgian and not overly concerned about cardiovascular health. However potato salad, egg salad, macaroni salad, and carrot and raisin salad (I don't know whose idea that one was) all rank as inedible filth in my mind. I can't even attempt to justify it but I always regard them as the worst part of any picnic. Maybe they're just too slimy/grainy/cold. They're also way too high a risk of food poisoning.