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From despicable to delicious
By Ann | February 6, 2008
Today’s NYT dining section has a little snippet about ox-tail soup at Momofuku Ssam. Apparently, wunderkind-chef David Chang refused to eat his mother’s oxtail soup as a child — now he loves it. This article (actually, it’s hardly an article, more like a paragraph) got me thinking about foods I used to hate but now enjoy.
Definitely bittermelon (pictured above), though I can’t remember actually hating it (Mom, Dad — care to weigh in here?), it was more of a dislike. I ate a lot of it in Beijing, though, stir-fried with scrambled egg, or simply with garlic. It’s refreshing and super good for you.
Zucchini/squash/courgette. To be honest, I still don’t love zucchini — something about the mushy texture and namby flavor — but I don’t avoid it, and I often cook with it.
Spicy food. I read that children’s tongues have more tastebuds per square inch, and are thus more sensitive. I do remember gasping from the misery of spiciness, but now I kind of enjoy that feeling. Have you ever felt slightly giddy from peppers?
Preserved tofu/fu yu. Actually, I still hate this. Not that I’ve ever tried it. But I’ve smelled it, and that’s enough for me. It seems counterintuitive to put something that stinky into your mouth.
How about you? Do you have any foods that have gone from despicable to delicious?
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3 Responses to “From despicable to delicious”
Comments
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February 6th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
You name it, I hated it. When I was a tot, my father used to tease me on the way to Jack in the Box, asking me if I planned to order my two least favorite things in the world: meatloaf and coffee! Now I love both. Broccoli I hated, now I adore it, especially when prepared by CtB. And yet, there are a number of items that repulsed me then and still do now: cooked carrots. Yams. And then there are the things I loved when I was little but can’t bear now: pancakes. Jello. Yuck.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:41 am
but they are pretty cool looking! though i’ve never tasted them.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I don’t remember Ann ever liking bitter melon as a child but I thought the aroma of the black bean and garlic with which it was prepared would eventually trick her into sampling it. She tried it but was not an afficionado of it then. I’m glad she likes it now!
I used to hate fish when I was growing up. I still dislike it, but now I’ll eat it if it’s super fresh and doesn’t have those fishy methylamine odors hovering over it.