Brussels sprouts

[firecat]

I've avoided brussels sprouts for many years because I hated them as a child.

Recently I went to Masa's, a very tony restaurant in SF (it was supposed to be a surprise for the OH, but he figured it out beforehand). The chef at Masa's is Ron Siegel, famous for besting Iron Chef Sakai in Battle Lobster. I don't like lobster either, but when Siegel reproduced his Iron Chef meal at his former restaurant, Charles Nob Hill, I went, and he did indeed feature the lobster in ways I liked.

Anyway, at Masa's, my dish came with brussels sprouts on the side. I figured I would try them again - if anyone can cook brussels sprouts in a way that I can tolerate, Ron Siegel can, right?

I ate one. I still hate them.

Comments

Habit

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

I make a habit of retrying foods I have known myself to dislike every few years, and am careful to try them made by a very good cook.

I hated broccoli as a kid. I like it lightly cooked now. Steamed spinach is okay, don't overcook it or it'll nauseate me.

I still hate okra. Still despise brussel sprouts. {grin} I retried grits today and enjoyed them!

I do think retrying every now and then is wise.

Re: Habit

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

I keep retrying unagi with no great success. People keep saying "just wait until you have it at [x restaurant]!" and I do wait. But it still tastes like eel. Then again, it can't be that bad, or I'd not keep eating it.

I have retried reconstituted mashed potatoes (and derivatives like Pringles) with no luck at all. Gag, gag, gag.

Ditto any kind of canned veggies except tomatoes.

Brussels sprouts, on the other hand...

Just wait until you've tried them cooked *right*. :-)

Re: Habit

[lysana.livejournal.com]

Fake mashed potatoes don't taste good to me, either. I like Pringles, but a bit too well what with my insulin sensitivity issues.

Re: Habit

[firecat]

I love all obnoxiously overprocessed crunchy junk food (except when it's way overspiced), especially when it comes in weird containers.

This is a love I try to practice mostly at a distance.

Re: Habit

[firecat]

I used to like unagi, but I don't any more. It's the sauce more than the meat, though.

I'm glad you and jodawi agree on the subject of brussels sprouts. It would be difficult if you didn't!

Re: Habit

[femmediva.livejournal.com]

Unagi used to be my favorite, but I'm getting a little burned out on it- it is the sauce.
I do the retrying of things periodically too- and have been pleasantly surprised at times- other times, not. I recently retried sea urchin (can't remember the Japanese name for it offhand), and learned that I still can't stand it.

Re: Habit

[firecat]

Oh yeah, uni. I tried it twice (once because they gave some to me by accident - I asked for ume). I am unlikely to try that again even after a decade. A century, maybe. Or when my eyesight gets poor enough that it doesn't look so disgusting to me.

Re: Habit

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

Nae, nae, it would just be more for me.

Re: Habit

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Have you ever eaten fried okra? And I don't mean that deep fried garbage they seve in cafeterias. Properly, the okra is sliced into little wheels about 1/3 of and inch thick, dredged in cornmeal and shallow fried. Ummm good, especially with lots of sliced vine-ripe tomatoes.

Mary Kay

Re: Habit

[krasota.livejournal.com]

mmm, fried okra. one of my favorites, along with fried green tomatoes and fried summer squash or zucchini.

i like brussels sprouts, too, though. and spinach. and broccoli.

Re: Habit

[firecat]

I've changed my mind about a lot of foods, so I do re-try them. I like broccoli lightly cooked or raw in very small servings. I love steamed spinach, especially with the yummy sauce the OH puts on it. I've never minded okra. I don't know that I've ever had grits.

Another food category I've never changed my mind about is seafood with skeletal material attached (fish with bones, shellfish still in the shell).

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Do you like cabbage? If someone ever gives you, say, a big stalk of them for a present, you can probably chop them up and add them to things just like regular cabbage.

There's a brussels sprouts packing plant a few blocks from my house, that we walk by while running errands sometimes, and in front of the building is a big conveyor belt often covered with brussels sprouts. They don't seem to be too good about cleaning up wayward brussels sprouts -- often there are puddles of water on the ground with rotting brussels sprouts in them that have the most horrible smell, like rotting seaweed/sewage. Because of this I doubt that my children will ever want to eat brussels sprouts.

[firecat]

I like cabbage prepared in certain limited ways. I think if I were ever given a stalk of brussels sprouts as a gift, though, I would thank the giver and then in private jump up and down on them and put the remains in my compost heap.

A brussels sprouts plant with rotting brussels sprouts. If I wind up in hell, I bet there will be one nearby.

[jodawi.livejournal.com]

damned anticlimax. sweet little buttery alien nodule brains...

[kightp.livejournal.com]

First off: Feel free to hate brussel sprouts. It's your mouth. (-:

Second: If the texture is part of the problem, and you're in the mood to experiment again sometime, try them the way my sister prepared them the other night: Steamed to the point where they were very soft, then very thoroughly mashed with lots of butter and a little salt.

IMO, brussels sprouts are one big exception to the "vegetables are better when they're not cooked to mushiness" rule. Al dente brussels sprouts make me feel like a ruminant - chew, chew, chew.

[firecat]

It's not the texture. But if I work up energy to try them again in a decade or so, I'll try them mashed.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I didn't have food in my mouth when I read that because it would've gone flying.

Thanks. I needed the laugh.