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Guilty Pleasures

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steveclarkus

Goose Poop Connoisseur
What are some of the foods that you enjoy that others (household members or not) can't stand?

Alternatively, what is a food you enjoy but makes you feel guilty every time you eat it?

Mine is canned smoked oysters. I love them, especially with some Frank's Red Hot on them. My wife HATES all things seafood and the smell makes her gag.
I regularly have kippers with my scrambled eggs for breakfast but don’t feel guilty about it. In fact, I’m about an hour from it.
 

TexLaw

Fussy Evil Genius
About the only thing I like to eat around the house that others (at this point, that's pretty much Mrs. TL) can't stand is ripe, stinky cheese and sour kimchi. She's just not into that sort of thing. Sometimes, when I would go buy cheese, I would specifically ask the cheesemonger for "something my wife will make me go outside to eat."

As far as the things I just feel guilty about eating, the top one has to be French's Fried Onions. We don't normally have them around the house, but there are a couple of dishes that we get them for. A small amount tops the casserole, and I eat the rest over the next couple of days.
 
It's a long list. Durian, bugs of all kinds though silkworm pupae would be tops ,.shrimp paste and fish sauce, snake, eel, prahok (another fermented fish thing)...my daughter (who was born in Cambodia) will tolerate some of it but the rest of the household in California noooo.

Guilty pleasures though... peanut butter-banana-bacon sandwich .

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When I was in the Philippines, durian was a constant source of conversation. I flew a C-12 there (military King Air) and we had a standing rule of no durian on the airplane. Any time we flew down to Mindanao, we had to be vigilant. Many times, our Filipino military compadres would show up at the airplane with sealed cardboard boxes that needed to get back to Manila. These boxes literally did not pass the sniff test. I had a pilot friend at Philippine Airlines and he flew the Fokker 50. PAL ordered the planes without APUs so there was a large, empty, external bay where he said they would run durian. One night in Davao, I was out to dinner with several Philippine Air Force buds. We were enjoying fresh local seafood and massive quantities of San Miguel. Over the course of the evening, both balut and durian showed up at the table. I ate a balut but several of my friends claimed that they hadn’t witnessed it so I ate a second one. Then I tried the durian. I absolutely refuse to eat it again. The cliche is that it “smells like hell, tastes like heaven.” I say smells like s*it and tastes the same. I felt vindicated when Andrew Zimmerman tried it, threw up, and refused to try it again.
 
When I was in the Philippines, durian was a constant source of conversation. I flew a C-12 there (military King Air) and we had a standing rule of no durian on the airplane. Any time we flew down to Mindanao, we had to be vigilant. Many times, our Filipino military compadres would show up at the airplane with sealed cardboard boxes that needed to get back to Manila. These boxes literally did not pass the sniff test. I had a pilot friend at Philippine Airlines and he flew the Fokker 50. PAL ordered the planes without APUs so there was a large, empty, external bay where he said they would run durian. One night in Davao, I was out to dinner with several Philippine Air Force buds. We were enjoying fresh local seafood and massive quantities of San Miguel. Over the course of the evening, both balut and durian showed up at the table. I ate a balut but several of my friends claimed that they hadn’t witnessed it so I ate a second one. Then I tried the durian. I absolutely refuse to eat it again. The cliche is that it “smells like hell, tastes like heaven.” I say smells like s*it and tastes the same. I felt vindicated when Andrew Zimmerman tried it, threw up, and refused to try it again.

My reaction to Andrew Zimmerman was that he needed to give up the pretense and quit What a lightweight. Durian and prahok do both smell like a backed up sewer but they taste great to a lot of folks (my experience mostly Vietnam and Cambodia) even if even on their own local airlines you can't bring the stuff on. I dropped a tiny piece in front of my house and I swear it stank for months.

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Ridpath

FIGHTER!
My kids love shrimp paste on rice. i like to add it to fried rice. My wife tried silkworm pupae in Vietnam and was grossed out. LOL her family likes a salted fish think called Hom Yee (Cantonese) a hunk is steamed on top of ground pork. Or used in fried rice, the only way I like it. Some batches are so pungent it puts me off. Yet her family loves it.

I like peanut butter banana sandwiches with honey. One of my go to lunches to bring on a fishing trip.

What part of California are you in?
That’s in Wikipedia as ‘Cantonese Salted Fish’. Love the stuff, haven’t had it in years. Apparently it’s a known carcinogen - hasn’t stopped it from attaining luxury food status though where I’m from.

For me it’s kimchi, durian, Marmite and Bovril. No idea why people hate the stuff, all tasted amazing to me...
 
That’s in Wikipedia as ‘Cantonese Salted Fish’. Love the stuff, haven’t had it in years. Apparently it’s a known carcinogen - hasn’t stopped it from attaining luxury food status though where I’m from.

For me it’s kimchi, durian, Marmite and Bovril. No idea why people hate the stuff, all tasted amazing to me...

The "I'd it if it didn't kill me" is a whole other category. See for example the raw crustacean and fish stuff that's popular in NE Thailand...

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TexLaw

Fussy Evil Genius
I felt vindicated when Andrew Zimmerman tried it, threw up, and refused to try it again.
My reaction to Andrew Zimmerman was that he needed to give up the pretense and quit What a lightweight.

The funny thing about Andrew Zimmern is that he also can't stand walnuts.

The funny thing about durian is how many talk about how awful it is, but many of those have never even been around it. It does have some sort of butyric acid aroma about it, and I admit that it's not exactly a pleasant one, but it also isn't that big of deal for just about everyone. When I was running a beer judging class, we had a session in which I mixed different chemicals into Bud Light so that the students could smell and taste them. One was butyric acid. Out of the roughly 10-12 students, only one had a real problem with it (gag reflex). More than half recognized it as a component in some aromas they actually enjoy (for example, Parmigiano-Reggiano and other aged cheeses), although a few of those did not until we discussed it a bit. The remaining few had no strong opinion (other than they didn't want to drink anything that smelled like that).

Durian is an excellent example of something that gets talked up such that folks have highly formed expectations that greatly influence their experience. Then, those folks talk it up even more sensationally (because that's what you're supposed to do these days), and that leads to more highly formed expectations. That then leads to even more sensational talk. It spirals to the point that folks that never have even laid eyes on a durian (much less smelled or tasted one) find it appropriate to repeat others' sensational exaggerations as if those exaggerations were based on their own experience.

I recently ran into the same thing when talking about a neti pot. I got the "self-imposed waterboarding" comments.

tl;dr--It's a mountain out of a molehill. A tempest in a teapot. Yeah, it has a smell that some don't like and that some really don't like, but it's hardly the end of the world.
 

Doc4

Stumpy in cold weather
Staff member
What are some of the foods that you enjoy that others (household members or not) can't stand?

Stilton. "Daddy's stinky cheese" they call it.

Alternatively, what is a food you enjoy but makes you feel guilty every time you eat it?

Popcorn.

I spend most of the time doing keto, and obviously popcorn isn't going to keep me in ketosis. But it's still good for movie watching. The one I really like is this:

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I love dried fruits (prunes, dates, apricots) and the rest of the family can't stand them. I don't know why. They all will eat a fig newton. I also love smoked meats, particularly lox, and am also alone in that (except for the cat, she likes the lox a lot).

Oh, and the thing I feel guilty about eating is liver pate. Love the stuff, but it's not good for me.
 
Real Mexican Food:

Buche, Lengua, and Barbacoa Tacos!!!! A BIG bowl of Menudo!!!

Chinese:

Chicken Feet, Tripe Soup, chunks/squares of Roasted Duck and deep fried Baby Squid!!!
 
Agree that durian is a polarizing taste. I tried it, didn’t like it but I can understand others that love it. I found it ironic that the Durian Hotel in Davao prohibited guests from bringing durian into the Durian Hotel. Based on the difficulty of getting durian from Mindanao to Luzon, which I witnessed first hand, you can imagine my astonishment when, ten years later, I found it in a grocery store in Oklahoma City. Now I live in New Mexico, wish I could find some kinilaw or tapsilog.
The funny thing about Andrew Zimmern is that he also can't stand walnuts.

The funny thing about durian is how many talk about how awful it is, but many of those have never even been around it. It does have some sort of butyric acid aroma about it, and I admit that it's not exactly a pleasant one, but it also isn't that big of deal for just about everyone. When I was running a beer judging class, we had a session in which I mixed different chemicals into Bud Light so that the students could smell and taste them. One was butyric acid. Out of the roughly 10-12 students, only one had a real problem with it (gag reflex). More than half recognized it as a component in some aromas they actually enjoy (for example, Parmigiano-Reggiano and other aged cheeses), although a few of those did not until we discussed it a bit. The remaining few had no strong opinion (other than they didn't want to drink anything that smelled like that).

Durian is an excellent example of something that gets talked up such that folks have highly formed expectations that greatly influence their experience. Then, those folks talk it up even more sensationally (because that's what you're supposed to do these days), and that leads to more highly formed expectations. That then leads to even more sensational talk. It spirals to the point that folks that never have even laid eyes on a durian (much less smelled or tasted one) find it appropriate to repeat others' sensational exaggerations as if those exaggerations were based on their own experience.

I recently ran into the same thing when talking about a neti pot. I got the "self-imposed waterboarding" comments.

tl;dr--It's a mountain out of a molehill. A tempest in a teapot. Yeah, it has a smell that some don't like and that some really don't like, but it's hardly the end of the world.
 
Fresh seafood has no smell. If it smells like the beach or ocean that's a good thing. Maybe that's why people don't eat seafood...if it smells fishy it's a turn off. Quite frankly its the most healthy thing you could put in your mouth.

Sardines will turn up a persons nose. I love them and eat them every week. I like them with a little spicy mustard and fresh ground black pepper or hot sauce. Also try them with a splash of apple cider vinegar.
Just tried sardines. No way I've had these before, I'd definitely remember.

Very tasty, once you get around the presentation. Headless fish in a can, bones still in it.

I had mine with some hot sauce, though I actually kinda enjoyed them straight out of the can. Like jumping into a pool for the first time. Just dive in and it's smooth sailing from there.
 
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