Scrambled Eggs Suck
And other ordinary foods I neither respect nor enjoy.
For the past two weeks, Wednesday's What Now? newsletters have been dedicated to delicious food: First, there was Aleks' existential pasta recipe, and then came Caitlin's rumination on cake. With those in mind, I figured I'd carry on this nascent tradition with some food thoughts of my own. But unlike my more open-minded/mouthed colleagues, I thought I'd write about life at the other end of the edible spectrum: ordinary foods that I simply do not enjoy or respect, no matter how hard I try.
C'mon, this'll be fun!
Bananas: There was a time in my life where I, a stupid child, ate a banana a day, every day, for years. That time has come and gone. The one and only thing bananas have going for them is convenience. They sit in own little wrapper, perfectly crafted to fit snugly in the palm of your hand. That's it. That's their one advantage in the world of fruit. Once you actually peel one back and bite in, they're somehow mushy and stringy at the same time. Absolutely unacceptable mouth feel. The fact that they taste like sugar on top of sugar doesn't help much either. Sometimes bananas can be useful in other things, like banana breads and smoothies, but on their own? Terrible.
Broccoli: I know! What if we had a veggie with that tastes like a different, better vegetable had started to go bad, and also it has the texture of microscopic dippin' dots from hell. I have never had a meal with broccoli that couldn't have been improved upon by using green beans or asparagus instead. Whatever treaty General Tso signed that allowed broccoli to encroach on his otherwise impeccable dish should be nullified by the U.N. immediately.
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Peas: Tiny grenades of ass flavor just waiting to explode in your unsuspecting mouth. Next.
Scrambled eggs: Okay, I don't actually hate scrambled eggs. I'll eat 'em if they're given to me, but c'mon, you're not 10 years old anymore. There are much better, more fulfilling, more sophisticated ways to enjoy chicken fetus than just scrambling it all together like a preschooler who refuses to color inside the lines. Over easy? Terrific egg. Poached? Now we're talking. Scrambled, though? Grow up.
Shrimp: Are you fucking kidding me? Absolutely not. Why on Earth do people think that the fact that they live underwater makes them anything other than huge insects. You're not running around dipping brood x into a fucking martini glass full of cocktail sauce, are you? But because shrimp live slightly more moist lives than cicadas, they're suddenly a classy snack? Get the fuck out of here, and go chew on a grasshopper, weirdos.
Tuna Salad: Tuna? Good. Salad? Good. Tuna salad? An abomination that somehow takes a bunch of individually delicious ingredients and turns them into an irredeemable slurry of conflicting flavors and textures. You have simply nothing to gain by eating tuna salad, and everything to lose.
These have been some foods that I don't like. Please don't email me to tell me why you do like these foods. Good for you. I don't care. If, however, you have an irrational dislike of some perfectly benign food, I'd love to hear about it.