I am what you would call an adventurous eater. I enjoy trying new restaurants, new dishes, new things. But there are some things that I find incredibly disgusting, and even though I continue walking down their treacherous paths (face it, I never learn anything), I’m always back at the end, gagging. Here are a few things I can’t stand to eat (or drink):
1. Any sort of organ meat. I can eat it, sure, but in my head, I get grossed out. Not because it’s organ meat, but basically because this one time, I was watching the Food Network, I think Iron Chef maybe? Or maybe Top Chef? And somebody said that you have to soak kidneys in water for like hours or they’ll taste like pee. Now everytime I’m presented with an organ meat option, I immediately jump back to that scene and think OMG PEE and instead go with the chicken.
2. Yogurt, pudding, especially Jello. This is new for me, because I have always loved yogurt and one of my favorite desserts as a kid was pistachio pudding. I was never a fan of Jello, but I would usually eat it if it was served. There’s something about the gloppiness that turns me off, the mouthfeel. A lot of people would consider it “creamy” but I consider it “disgusting”. I try to eat yogurt anyway, though, because it’s good for me, though I usually try to go with a Greek yogurt or the Yoplait Whips kind. I stay far away from pudding and I haven’t touched a bowl of Jello since I was a wee girl.
3. Fish with bones and skin. Actually, any kind of meat with bones, but fishbones are really disgusting to me. I’m not one of those people who are all like “No, I don’t know want to know that this piece of flesh I am eating is from a living creature!” I grew up on a farm and there were plenty of people that surrounded us that had cattle they raised for slaughter. I get that the meat I buy in styrofoam packages is from a living creature. I just prefer that there be no bones. Fishbones are the worst - I hate picking around the bones. And the skin! When I was 13, we went to a seafood restaurant and I ordered some sort of fish and it came out with the skin on it. I didn’t know any better, so I ate like half the skin before someone told me I shouldn’t.
As far as meat on the bone, it also grosses me out. Especially chicken, though I do make an exception for pollo a la brasa. For this reason, I don’t eat fried chicken, I don’t eat chicken wings and I don’t eat T-bone steaks. I don’t like the connective tissue and the veins…. oh man, the veins. Just thinking about it makes me want to hurl, seriously.
4. Corned beef hash. Every New Year’s Day, my mom would cook a giant pot of corned beef and cabbage (also not a favorite of mine). Then she would take the leftovers and make corned beef hash, which I absolutely HATE. The smell of it, the taste of it, everything about it makes me gag. I hate watching any tv show that features corned beef hash prominently (Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, I’m looking at you) because I instantly flashback to 6 year old me, sitting at the breakfast bar in our kitchen, staring at a plate of crispy crunchy mushy corned beef hash that my mom had just made. I have not eaten a plate of corned beef hash since I was 6.
5. Grapefruit and coffee. There a lot of people in this world that start their mornings off with grapefruit and coffee. My grandma used to, and I always found it odd. I love oranges and citrus fruits but I cannot stand grapefruit - not even with sugar on it. As for coffee, I can and will drink it, but it has to have so much milk and sugar in it that it probably doesn’t even count as coffee when I’m done with it.
6. Sweet potatoes. I have tried and tried and tried to like sweet potatoes. I’ve eaten them as chips, baked with brown sugar and honey, mashed, and french fried. I like them as french fries, but everything else can go. Every year around this time, I always contemplate buying a sweet potato and then I remember how much I hate them.
7. Meat in the morning. Oh my gosh, no. Please do not serve me bacon, sausages, ham, steak, pork chop, whatever in the morning. I will eat cold pizza in the morning, leftover lo mein noodles, cereal, a piece of bread, a chunk of cheese, whatever. But do not try to serve me a full breakfast. Also, no on the eggs. I occasionally get a craving for a fried egg sandwich, but that’s maybe once every few months. I am not a breakfast person except for, of course, cereal.
8. Juice. I don’t like any sort of fruit juice except apple juice and even then, it has to be watered down. But my goodness do I love sugar-free Kool-Aid with no nutritional value.
9. My biggest food hates are probably mushrooms and bell peppers. At one point, I actually told my dear friend Cara that I hate these two things more than rapists. I cannot STAND roasted red peppers, portabella sandwiches, stuffed mushrooms, anything with these things. I always force myself to eat something with one of these ingredients and I am always heartily sorry after I do it.
10. Wine. It’s almost a blasphemy that I say this, but I can’t get behind wine. I’ve had two wines in my life that I enjoyed and both were local wines. I don’t drink very often, either, so that could be the reason. I always want to drink wine and everytime we go into Trader Joe’s, I always think about buying a bottle but every time that I do, I drink two sips, shudder, and pour the rest down the drain. We have dusty wine glasses in our cabinet that I bought, hoping that we could be wine-o-philes. Give me a glass of cherry Kool-Aid anyday.
