Monday, November 20, 2006

feed me!! feed me NOW....


Not sure why I started thinking about food all of a sudden, but it probably dates back to a conversation I had with Hazel a while ago: Hazel doesn't like olives. Whereas I love olives - especially jars of Tabasco brand pimento-stuffed green manzanilla olives, but pretty much any olives will do. It struck me, however, that I've only really eaten them in bulk (and I do eat them a lot) since relatively recently. So....

Things I really like, but only started liking relatively recently, say within the last 5 or 6 years:
  • Olives
  • Avocados
  • Raw tomatoes (but see the caveat below)
  • Aubergines
Things I like, but only under strictly controlled conditions:
  • Tomatoes: raw is fine, but flesh only, i.e. no seeds. Raw tomato seed material is thoroughly nasty slimy material and should not be considered for consumption by right-thinking human beings. To coin a phrase I used earlier today: that's not food.
  • Cheese: opposite to the tomato rule, i.e. cooked is fine, raw not so good. Mozzarella on pizzas, mascarpone in pasta sauce, gruyere in gratin dauphinoise, parmesan stirred into pasta, all fine. Raw cheese, particularly the thumping great doorstops of luminous yellow rubbery stuff that seem to be Britain's contribution to the world of cheese, not good. Mozzarella I can just about stomach raw, but only because it doesn't really taste of anything. Goat's cheese is OK raw too, as it's just pleasantly salty rather than rankly cheesy.
  • Pizza: leaving the cheese issue aside as we've already covered it - I have some firm views on what should be allowed in pizzas, not necessarily conforming to any notion of Americo-Italian "authenticity", just personal whim and prejudice. Specifically: ham, pepperoni, onions, peppers, mushrooms, olives, all OK. Fish in any form, much as I like it in general, never on a pizza. And as for comedy toppings like spicy chicken, chilli con carne, etc., well, the least said the better. The only slightly wacky one I like is pineapple: I have an occasional weakness for Pizza Hut Hawaiian pizzas.
Things which are and always have been the devil's work:
  • Celery
  • Cauliflower
  • Capers. That's not food.
All beginning with "c". Interesting....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

um...
my thoughts on your 'food posting'.

I USED to love olives. Until I quite liderally filled a lavatory bowl with half-digested olives after a bout of controlled,(but only just), projectile-vomiting at work about a year ago. I will have to try and 'get back on them' soon...

Cheese. You are entitled to your opinion of course, but you ARE wrong though, and well you know it. Have a quiet word with yersel when you get a moment, you'll come round.

Fish on pizzas. Only one fish I'll consider on pizzwarhs. That'll be anchovies, and they are ABSOLUTELY COMPULSORY.

Pineapple on Pizzas. "Girl food"!
Avocados. "Girl food"!

Capers. Thought you might like these if you like olives. Dunno why really, but they are certainly NOT the 'devil's work').

Celery. Agree with you completely.
Good to stick in a bloody mary (if you ever drink that crap)and that's it. Never NEVER to be eaten. That said, Anna pops chopped up celery in her 'Udder stew' and her 'C.C.Carne' and they are SUPERB, so I MAY have to reconsider...