Chapter 33: What foods do you dislike? Have these changed over time?
Originally written August 10, 2021
I probably like too many foods. Some foods that others can’t stand, I like.
I love sushi. I’m fond of liver and onions (though I don’t eat it very often). Every so often I like pizza with pineapple (though recently I read an interesting theory that hatred for pineapple on pizza has become an expected thing, if not exactly a trendy thing, to say.)
And, of course, I love onions:
I’ve even eaten brains (bovine, not human). I’d heard my grandmother talking about eating brains in scrambled eggs. Once when I was in college and had first moved out of my dorm, I bought some brains at the corner grocery and made brains with Rice-a-Roni. It wasn’t very good. I never tried again. But I didn’t hate it nearly as much as I do the following disgusting dishes:
1. Chipped beef on toast: Our family frequently served this goopy, salty horror. The chipped beef came in these little jars and I’d cringe every time I’d see them in my mom’s grocery cart. My brother loved it and so did my grandmother. I’d just eat the toast.
2. Chicken a la king: I don’t remember my family serving this very much. But it was a favorite of the lunch ladies at school. To me it was chipped beef that used to cluck instead of moo. How could a king, who could order any meal he wanted, ever like this crap? But here’s a weird contradiction. While I hated chicken a la king, I actually loved chicken pot pies, even the cheap frozen kind that were so popular in the early ‘60s. It’s basically the same thing. I can’t explain this strange quirk
3. Tomato aspic: This was a holiday specialty of my mom’s. To me it was a desecration of good Jello.
A few years ago, at a Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s house, I think, I actually tried some. I found I didn’t actually hate it anymore. But that probably was about 10 years ago and I don’t think had it since.
4. Beets: I’m not sure why but beets always kind of grossed me out. After reading Tom Robbins praise the beet in his novel Jitterbug Perfume, I was curious.
“The beet is the most intense of vegetables,” he wrote. “The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. … The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. … The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma … The beet was Rasputin's favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.”
But still, beets kind of gross me out. I tried some borscht a few years ago. I didn’t puke but I can’t say I liked it.
5. Pizza: Speaking of puking, this is a strange one for me. I don’t consider pizza a “disgusting dish” — anymore.
But when I was in grade school, I puked my guts out one night after eating many slices from Sussy’s, a popular pizza joint in Oklahoma City. (And no, pineapple was not involved.) Vomiting for me is a very rare but very traumatic occurrence. For years afterward I would not touch pizza of any kind.
Sometime in high school after we’d moved to Santa Fe, I decided to try pizza again one time while I was at Pizza Hut with a bunch of friends. And I loved it. That’s probably a lucky thing because when I went on to become a reporter, I probably couldn’t have survived election nights in the newsroom if I hadn’t liked pizza.
Music break: Let’s get the perspective of The Rob Roys
6. Green peas: Now here’s one food whose appeal, or lack thereof, has evolved for me. As a kid any time we had peas, always frozen I’m pretty sure, they’d be overcooked beyond comprehension.
And I hated them.
Even when we had vegetable soup, I’d do my best to keep the peas out of my spoon before I’d put it to my mouth — one of the very few times I could be called a “picky eater.”
But I got to where I didn’t mind green peas in hot soup — except I’ve never liked pea soup itself.
Then my relationship with peas changed in the mid 1980s when Souper Salad opened in Santa Fe. There they had cold green peas — I’d like to think fresh, but who knows, they may very well have been frozen — in their salad bar. I’m not sure what prompted me to try them the first time, but I did and I’m glad. They became something I’d use on every salad I’d make at Souper, as well as in any salad bar I went to from then on. I still don’t like hot peas alone as a side dish, but the cold ones are just fine.
In fact, Souper Salad made me more open to all sorts of vegetables, as long as they were not severely overcooked, as was the practice of my mom and perhaps most moms in the 50s and 60s and probably the ‘70s as well.
For instance, I don’t think I’d ever eaten broccoli before I started going to Souper Salad. I tried it in a salad there in the ‘80s and then started serving it at home. (But, even though Souper offered beets at their buffet, that wretched vegetable still remains high on my 10 Least Wanted list.)
I also credit Souper Salad with the fact that — unlike me — both my son and daughter grew up liking vegetables. We’d eat often at the Souper Salad in Santa Fe and while both kids probably liked the soft-serve ice cream and mediocre pizza better, they always got a healthy salad there as the main part of their meals.
Sad to say that, at least in Santa Fe, Souper Salad was a victim of the pandemic. The buffet format was not conducive to the COVID era, I guess. Before the plague I’d eat there every week or two. I hate the fact it’s gone.
7 Menudo: Just not my favorite food-o.
Now if you come to my house, I promise I will not serve you chicken a la King: