Who is the Ale Man? Shoddy Goods 119
0I used to hate coffee, beer, and asparagus, and now I’d love as much of all three as my health could take. But celery’s still out. What acquired tastes have you acquired, and what do you expect you’ll never acquire? Let’s talk in this week’s Shoddy Goods chat.
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Yum:
Quality semi-sweet dark chocolate washed down with a hoppy IPA. Sounds weird, tastes wonderful.
Yuck:
Snails - never tried them, never will.
@macromeh I’ve tried snails once. There were from Lidl, came in a little tin already stuffed with garlic butter, just toss it in the oven. And you know what? They were pretty good.
Acquired tastes i have acquired ? Has @dave been replaced by AI?
I have not acquired a taste for weird english. Most of the time. I’m sure there’s stuff that I eat now that I didn’t eat when I was younger. But right now I can’t really figure out what it might have been. And strangely I think I knew what I was going to put here before I started typing and laughing at the English in the question. Maybe later
I’ve become much more tolerable of beers and brussel sprouts. Neither of them make the list for my first choice of foods, but really depends, especially if they’re prepared in certain ways.
@chienfou Brussel sprouts have been genetically modified since the 90s to have less of that bitter, cabbage-y flavor when cooked. That being said, a lot of folks grew up in the 40s-80s with bland, boiled brussel sprouts, and it wasn’t until the era of the TV chef in the late 90s who showed people how to roast them instead of boil them, and thus created a whole new market for them, just in time for the less cabbage-y version to hit grocery store shelves.
I suppose I meant “so called ‘acquired tastes’” but just heard that in my head more than typed it. But no, as of yet, the robots have not taken over my ‘thing I say at the end of Shoddy Goods’ job. I think they probably would’ve remembered the “so called” part if they had.
Oh, dark chocolate, that’s a good one.
Blue cheese , feta cheese, and anchovies were tastes I’ve acquired.
My folks would get gorgonzola on half of the pizza at the pizza restaurant we used to go to as kids, and “ewwww, blue cheese!!!” would always be the chorus with my brothers and I. Don’t get me started on the side of anchovies my dad would always order. However, as I got older, my culinary curiosity grew as well. I recall hitting up a salad bar at a hotel we were staying at and seeing this weird, bright red salad dressing, labelled as “French Dressing”. I gave it a shot, and wow, that’s actually pretty tasty. Huh. From that moment, my culinary world exploded. But blue cheese stayed out of reach of enjoyment, even as I angled away from traditional college and started working in restaurants. That is, until I was invited by one of my managers to attend the Sysco Food Show, where all the Sysco vendors had their best wares out for sampling and whatnot. I recall seeing a massive table spilling over with dozens of types of cheeses, and then I spotted that familiar blue hue. Gorgonzola, there it was. So I went up and got a sample. And just l like that, I understood. Gone was the “ewwww” vibe that had surrounded blue cheese for more than a decade. It tasted…good. Great even. Creamy, a little salty, with a tang that my eight year old brain could never have processed properly but my twenty-one year old brain all of the sudden couldn’t get enough of. And from then on, there have been very, very few foods that I won’t try once, twice, maybe even three times, to see if I really like it.
Anchovies I had just sort of ignored as I got older, but when I was working at another pizza joint, we had these fancy anchovies in olive oil that folks could order. The dishwasher (younger than I was) asked me to sneak him one or two when I was in the back opening up a fresh can. “Huh, if this kid likes them, maybe I’ll give them a shot”. And boy, am I glad I did. I still say “For Power” when I eat one out of the jar in my fridge. Hope you’re doing well out there, Sal.
Feta was a little later, but it was also at a restaurant I worked at, another pizza joint (see a trend?) This place was owned by a Serbian family, and they had a really high quality feta for salads. And once I tried that feta, I got it. Love me some feta now.
Boiled peanuts are a very recent acquired taste, but that is a different story. Growing up in the south, but with Yankee parents, we were roasted-salted peanut people. We would see the guy on the side of the road on the way to the beach with the big pot of boiled peanuts and a truck full of watermelons, and this time it was my father leading the chorus of “Boiled peanuts!?!? Who wants a boiled peanut?!?” So I never tried them. Until I dated a girl from the south. And we went to a restaurant that had them on the appetizer menu. We order, and it was another moment like the blue cheese moment almost 20 years before. “Oh wow, I get it now.” Since then, I’ve become a full-on evangelist for the Edamame of the South, and when peanuts are in season, I always have a homemade batch in the fridge for get togethers.
So eat up folks, keep trying new things, and keep adding new wrinkles to your brains and new tastes to your tongue.
I never liked brussel sprouts growing up. Then my wife changed my mind. She tossed a pack of bacon in the frying pan and cooked it until crispy. Then removed the bacon, halved the sprouts and cooked them face down in the bacon fat until they started to char. Then removed them from the pan tossed them with the crumbled bits of crispy bacon from earlier.
I am now a fan of brussel sprouts.
Bacon fixes a lot of problems 
edit - one thing I have yet to acquire a taste for is raw octopus. I LOVE sushi, but not that. It’s a texture thing. I don’t mind the taste
Martin Crane was the “Ale-Man!”