How Diverse is your Palate?

[Chou Toshio]

So I recently went on a business trip with some Indian and Chinese co-workers to California, and the biggest challenge was: Finding a place where everyone would eat.

To me, this was absolutely baffling, a total culture shock! I mean, here we are in California where you can get basically EVERYTHING and ANYTHING you'd want to eat... American fastfood, Mexican, Italian, French, Chinese, Thai, Korean, Indian, etc. etc. On top of that, I've brought my co-workers to a totally new country where they can try any NUMBER of new experiences!

But guess what?

The Chinese just want to eat Chinese food.

The Indians only want to eat Indian food.

(and moreover, they're almost 100% averse to going to eat each others', not even once... srsly!??)

Let's just go eat Chinese Food! Let's just go eat Indian food! Let's eat MEXICAN because we're in CALIFORNIA. Mix it up!

I mean, having grown up in Hawaii, to me the most normal thing is to eat a great diversity of foods in a given week; it's a given principle that people get bored and have a preference for diversity in food. My typical diet (at home) would be about 25% Japanese, 15% Chinese, 10% Local (Asian influenced Hawaii cuisine), 10% Italian, 15% Vietnamese, 5% Korean, 3% Thai, 3% Filipino, 3% Hawaiian, 11% miscellaneous-- with diversity within each genre too! I mean just in Japanese there's Udon/Soba, Nabemono/Shabu Shabu, Donburi shoku, okonomiyaki, curry, Japanese Ramen (as opposed to Chinese Lamien which will appear somewhere in the week as well!), sushi, etc. etc.

So diversity is what's on the menue-- and despite this great available diversity of cuisines, it's STILL possible for me to get bored of literally EVERYTHING simultaneously!


And yet, here I am on this trip with my Indian and Chinese colleagues. The Indians only want to eat Indian. The Chinese only want to eat Chinese-- and I'm throwing my hands up.


Ultimately, we settled on eating Thai practically every meal (except when I could break away with the Chinese to eat Chinese, or break away with the Indians to go eat Indian). Thai has Curry for the Indians and East Asian food for the Chinese, and generally is heavily influenced by both their food cultures, so it kinda worked...

And it's not just the Chinese and Indians.

I've found Japanese people are more willing to try different things-- but go into a Soba shop in Waikiki, and 90% of the clients are Japanese tourists, same with Ramen shops.

To a western state American, this is baffling-- I'd never travel to a foreign country and seek out a McDonald's or Hawaiian food for instance... Germans and British seem to be on the same wavelength, and are usually stoked to try new things (my German buddy at a Cantonese restaurant: These are the BEST EGGS i've EVER EATEN IN MY LIFE!!!). On the other hand, my experience has been that Italians just want to eat ITALIAN (and make it themselves), while the French just wanna eat French.


What are your thoughts?

Do you love eating your hometown/home country's food everyday?

Do you love eating the same cuisine everyday, but it's something foreign?

Or do you love a great culinary diversity?

How much do you like new cuisine experiences?

 

[Ununhexium]

I will honestly eat anything (albeit not much). I eat any kind of food and I am extremely open to trying new things. The first time I ate fried calamari I was like "eww squid" but it turned out to be awesome. So yeah, I'll try anything and everything given the chance.

 

[Outlaw]

My stomach is pretty racist and won't allow me to eat things that aren't bbq/fried meat and potatoes.

 

[macle]

i eat a lot of americanized versions of foreign food.

 

[v]

I often eat french food in the form of croissants, baguettes, brillet-savarin cheese, and cordon bleu, german food in the form of schnitzel, italian in the form of pizza/subs, arabic food in form of lamb (best terrestrial meat) and the occasional reluctant falafel, "chinese" food tho mainly crab rangoons which arent rly chinese lol but i do eat like dumplings when I can general tso chicken etc, and generic (american?) food obv (burgers, eggs, fries, steak, etc), I dont think they have a nationality rly. I'm also a huge seafood fan, tho ive never had sashimi or sushi before and dont rly plan to. I like fried white fish (flounder, pike, cod etc) as far as "fish" goes, but im a sucker for shellfish too. fried clams and calamari are probably my two favorite dishes. lobster is good but overrated imo, I really only like the claws. other random seafoods i would gush about: swordfish, scallops, new england clam chowda (incidentally the only soup I eat)

o and peking duck totally forgot that, fuck poultry other than duck imo

all this said I am a picky eater so I think diversity in your palate is more related to a sense of adventure rather than particularity of taste

also lol I dont think calamari is a very exotic foos ununhexoum, it's a pretty common seafood dish in my experience. you would be hardpressed to find a quality seafood establishment that does not serve fresh calamari. fried calamari was a staple of my diet last summer, but prices for the stuff have gone up for some reason (lobster too for that matter /:) so it's hard to justify eating it weekly or even monthly for me

 

[elcheeso]

Yeah like macle was saying, it's really important to note that "foreign" food in most of the West is altered to suit the country's palate to begin with, i.e. things white people like to eat. One of my favourite dishes is laksa, and in Australia you'll find three main versions, chicken, chicken + bbq pork or combination (chicken, bbq pork and prawns). It originates from Malaysia/Singapore/Indonesia, and in those places (probably due to having a muslim majority or large muslim minority) you'd basically never find it done with bbq pork, chicken is far less common and it's usually done with either prawns or (I think?) fish cakes. I have a feeling that I probably wouldn't like laksa from any of those places, but who knows?

I'm also a pretty picky eater despite eating foods from a pretty huge variety of cultures (I voted 6-8). I like trying new things, but I am also very much a meat and potatoes (or rice) kind of guy. If a vegetable is low in carbs, chances are that I'll hate it and will avoid eating it if I can, I generally can't stand eating anything other than the fleshy part of meat (so no skins or fat), and I'm also pretty big on avoiding weird textures. I love the taste of mushrooms, but I can't eat them because their texture is fucking gross as shit, especially if cooked. Basically, if it's meat, has a delicious sauce or soup, some of the few vegetables I don't hate and a heavy carb side (rice or potatoes or noodles), I'm down to try it.

 

[MikeAU]

What a great thread! Basically, I am open to try anything (within reason) except for exotic animals, parts of their body (i.e chicken feet, brains, etc). I love the food culture of almost all cultures, especially the authentic and non-bastardised western versions. There is nothing better then finding small, authentic and good quality places whether it be for thai, middle-eastern, indian or european food! Similarly, I appreciate the offering of your top-end restaurants that offer authentic meals. Idk why, but when I travel I love to immerse myself in culture -- in a new/foreign place the best thing you can do is walk outside and be apart of the world around you and get a real feel for what happens.

Yeah like macle was saying, it's really important to note that "foreign" food in most of the West is altered to suit the country's palate to begin with, i.e. things white people like to eat. One of my favourite dishes is laksa, and in Australia you'll find three main versions, chicken, chicken + bbq pork or combination (chicken, bbq pork and prawns). It originates from Malaysia/Singapore/Indonesia, and in those places (probably due to having a muslim majority or large muslim minority) you'd basically never find it done with bbq pork, chicken is far less common and it's usually done with either prawns or (I think?) fish cakes. I have a feeling that I probably wouldn't like laksa from any of those places, but who knows?

I laughed when I read this as I recently had an experience with a group of friends, long story short, out of this group of friends I am the only Caucasian/Aussie/Part-European of the group -- everyone else is like from Singapore, China, India, Pakistan, etc. However we were at yum-cha and every person there with the vegetables came and tried to give them to me -- I like them so naturally I purchased one plate of the green vegetables -- which apparently is a big no at these places as the prices are highly inflated. My friends all sniggered and called me 'guilo' which was kind of annoying but I know it was only in jest so I laughed it off. It's quite frustrating sometimes that as diverse my liking for other cultures food is and the frequency at which we have it, these jokes always come up. Its a bit of fun but sometimes it annoys me

Overall, I eat fairly bland mainly due to a structured eating and exercise regime I have and to better deal with my reflux issues (triggered by oily and spicy foods) so I do not need to take antacids/medication. However, quite regularly, at least once a week I will either eat out at either indian/thai/korean/vietnamese/middle-eastern or european restaurant or cook from scratch a dish.

If you are interested in cooking your eastern/indian style dishes I would highly recommend checking out Christine Manfield she is an anglo-indian chef in australia and I find her recipe's to be quite authentic and also not overly complicated.

I think without diversity when it comes to food everything would be quite bland and boring -- besides, it is one of the greatest aspects of a multicultural community/society.

 

[phalanx]

I heard the indians Love chinese food and vica-versa.
odd things are the Italians seem to love the good old British fish and chips.
been to plenty of places in the world, and having the local food is what you should really do. although food available in Britain is quite diverse, can go and get practially anything from anywhere nowadays.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Hawaii, where I grew up, is a place where many cultures (and many authentic restaurants) are gathered together, and eating from all sorts of cuisines is just the typical way of life (and all sorts of things too-- some things you guys have mentioned like raw fish, octopus/squid, tripe/intestines, chicken feet are all pretty typical menu items for me...).

I'm staying at my in-laws place right now in rural Japan, and I had some pretty awesome miso flavored intestines to snack on with my beer, and an incredible all-fern salad with Yuzu Ponzu (Yuzu is a type of citrus fruit-- greatest thing since the lemon, lol). So many unique mountain vegetables here during this season (including several types of fern...), it's pretty incredible. If I settle in Japan, I'll probably go with my father in law to harvest wasp larvae in the fall (those buggers are actually pretty tasty! Much meatier than the candied crickets many Japanese like anyway...).

MikeAU you got good taste my friend.

People say that foreign food is "westernized" in the states, but it really depends on the state, and also on the shop. If there are shops "for white people", than there are authentic ones as well! In any case, if you catered to the "white palate" in Hawaii, you'd be catering to the minority... (especially since white people there are into authentic ethnic food-- you'd be hard pressed to find a white person in Hawaii who isn't a master with chop sticks)

elcheeso that laksa looks absolutely awesome. I've never had it before (never lived in a place with many Malay/Indonesians before either...). I share a love for soup noodles though... I mean, I could go through a week of Char-sieu Ramen, Pho, kuai-tiao ruea, Tsukimi Soba, Korean Naengmyeon, Nabeyaki Udon, and still be ready for some Yukgaejang, Yuntun Mien or Malatang the next monday. Not to mention stir-fried or stewed noodles or straight-up pasta.

In China I really fell in love with the Muslim cuisine noodle shops, which make 3-7 different types of noodles in a huge diversity of styles from scratch on each serving for what seems like pennies to a westerner. Ahhhh... I don't miss life in China too much but there are some things I'll definitely miss...


phalanx-- of course people are different, and I can't generalize about everyone, especially as if everyone from the same country had the same attitude for food (especially in a country with over a billion people...); I was just recounting my own experiences.

BTW, the britts get a bad rap in terms of cuisine (compared to say the Italians, French, Spanish, Greek, etc.) but I definitely love me a big slice of Shepard's pie here and now (though I'll make myself white rice to go along with it, lolz), and fish and chips is a gift to humanity. I went with my family once, and I think my dad gained 2 kilos or so from wolfing down his English Breakfast every morning. lol

Of course London is so international, and you can get authentic anything there that tastes amazing. G2 say the Cantonese there was as good as any I ate in the US (and any I ate in Canton too for that matter...).

 

[GatoDelFuego]

I like this thread! Unfortunately, there wasn't really anything between "3-5 different cuisines" and "1 native cuisine with some variation." Whenever I cook, I usually last a few days off of leftovers, but I'm never one to just stick to "american" food at all. I'd get much more sick of eating chicken and burgers every night than a chimichanga every night of the week.

I like to think my palate is pretty diverse--my tops are thai, mexican, and indian. I'm still very new to cooking myself, having just moved into an apartment of my own for the summer job I have, and so I coulnd't make any of the foods I love to eat if I tried. I do like to try new culinary cultures, but I'm very hampered by my own personal tastes. I just despise fish, so half of asian food is out for me (which is why I love thai so much, to be honest), and I really don't like an excess of cheese, which ruins a lot of italian dishes I love. I know that it sounds really "american" of me to say thai is my favorite type of meal--I have no clue why, but for some reason thai food is more commercialized than even chinese or japanese in most places.

 

[im still obnoxious and my mom still doesnt like me]

Hmm...Japanese food has always been my favorite,but I also like eating American(think Fridays)and Chinese food.

 

[Diana]

Personally, I try to eat foods from different cultures, mostly for the sense of adventure. It's not easy sometimes, having been living in Ohio all my life, as this really is a place that things were "Westernized" for so long. Luckily, things seem to be rapidly changing. All of the sudden we have little authentic shops and restaurants popping up everywhere as the demand for it increases, and things I never even thought of before recently are now easy to get and quite tasty. There's a great Bolivian place I can't get enough of, and I still wish that El Salvadoran restaurant near Cincinnati was closer to me... Oh well, we have plenty of options from around the world now so I can't really complain.

What I also find interesting, from different vacations around the USA, is how diverse it can be even just inside one country. Maine has far different food than Louisiana, for just one example. I definitely try to get to somewhere local when I'm traveling, though in some places that's easier than others (see: 140 miles without services in Utah, only to come across something closed because it's Sunday.) Some of my favorite places I've had food were coastal Maine and New Orleans.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Louisiana is REALLY special though-- Creole & Cajun are cuisine cultures in and of themselves (and absolutely fantastic). I love Louisiana food like... well, can't find a good analogy for how much I love southern cooking...

 

[Ampharos]

Living in Texas means that BBQ and Tex-Mex pretty much have to be staples of your diet, but I will jump at any opportunity to eat anything Cajun (I am of the opinion that New Orleans has the best food anywhere in the United States), and I'm also a fan of Chinese, Italian, and Hibachi (Americanized, of course).

 

[Cresselia~~]

I love Thai food, Japanese food and some softcore Chinese food that doesn't involve intestines/ stomachs/ liver and other organs.
Italian food is also great.
Sometimes I also eat fusion foods, such as macaroni in Chinese soup.
Oh, and McDonald's is quite popular here.

But sorry, no British food. I don't take British food. It's horrid.

 

[s_aman]

When you visit India once, you will get the true picture. Here, the North Indians don't like Southern food and the people of South India won't eat northern food at any cost. Although, we all like foreign cuisines (Chinese is quite popular here), we won't eat food from other parts of our own country, due to the so called different cultures. :-/

 

[noobcubed]

But sorry, no British food. I don't take British food. It's horrid.

I feel like here in Britain we are losing track completely of our culinary heritage. Several reasons:

1) Our cuisine isn't seen as fine dining, in the way that France's or Italy's is. Classic British dishes like fish and chips or roast beef tend to be very simple affairs. As such many people don't feel like there is much to hang onto.

2) We don't sit down at the dinner table and eat together any more - in stark contrast to Southern Europe, where the practice is sacrament. And there is much less incentive to cook when you're eating alone, because you don't have anyone else to make an impression on, and because the effort required per hungry mouth is proportionately higher.

3) We have absorbed influences from around the world, both through the high immigration in Britain today, and, somewhat regrettably, from our colonial past. And then we have bastardised everything. In my second year at uni the flat would get a huge Chinese takeaway order maybe once a week. In the summer one of us went to China, and she never had a Chinese takeaway again, because it was just so vastly inferior to what she had been getting abroad.

4) You know that things have gotten bad when Chicken Tikka Massala is the most popular dish in Britain. It's by far the worst curry around... what's that, it was actually invented in Glasgow, home of the deep-fried Mars Bar? What's that, it actually contains Heinz tomato soup as an ingredient? What's that, there is actually no Hindi word for "curry", because what we interpret as "curry" is actually a range of dishes so disparate that their creators do not even see them as a unified concept, but because our taste buds are so blunt we cannot separate them, so is it any surprise that when we try to create our own it falls flat? Gah... this is everything that is wrong with the country...

 

[Cresselia~~]

I feel like here in Britain we are losing track completely of our culinary heritage. Several reasons:

1) Our cuisine isn't seen as fine dining, in the way that France's or Italy's is. Classic British dishes like fish and chips or roast beef tend to be very simple affairs. As such many people don't feel like there is much to hang onto.

2) We don't sit down at the dinner table and eat together any more - in stark contrast to Southern Europe, where the practice is sacrament. And there is much less incentive to cook when you're eating alone, because you don't have anyone else to make an impression on, and because the effort required per hungry mouth is proportionately higher.

3) We have absorbed influences from around the world, both through the high immigration in Britain today, and, somewhat regrettably, from our colonial past. And then we have bastardised everything. In my second year at uni the flat would get a huge Chinese takeaway order maybe once a week. In the summer one of us went to China, and she never had a Chinese takeaway again, because it was just so vastly inferior to what she had been getting abroad.

4) You know that things have gotten bad when Chicken Tikka Massala is the most popular dish in Britain. It's by far the worst curry around... what's that, it was actually invented in Glasgow, home of the deep-fried Mars Bar? What's that, it actually contains Heinz tomato soup as an ingredient? What's that, there is actually no Hindi word for "curry", because what we interpret as "curry" is actually a range of dishes so disparate that their creators do not even see them as a unified concept, but because our taste buds are so blunt we cannot separate them, so is it any surprise that when we try to create our own it falls flat? Gah... this is everything that is wrong with the country...

I think lacking cooking lessons in schools also contribute to this lost.
I studied in the UK when I was 13~19 years old.
I asked the teacher why we don't have cooking class, and why we aren't allowed to cook in school. Because in Hong Kong, cooking class starts at the 13 age group, plus that the food from the school kitchen was dreadful.
The teacher said something like cooking class for a girl's school would cause controversial issues from feminists.

I just think that it's a lost. I could cook way better than the kitchen staff, and my guardian loved my cooking.
I stay with my guardian during half terms and other holidays in case I don't fly to Hong Kong, and I cooked nearly all the lunches during my stay.

Then you have university students not knowing how to cook the simplest of things. Or are incredibly lazy.
Some of them just whop everything in the microwave and eat the stuff without sauce or seasoning, especially when it comes to vegetables.
This is like a huge NO in Chinese culture, because you should always put some seasoning with your vegetables.

Also, even for fish and chips, we think that it's lazy cooking too.
Fish and chips are fried, but they do not put the fried stuff onto a net to filter the excessive oil. So the oil ends up soaking the bottom of the fish and chips and it loses the crispiness. This is a very bad trait.
Whereas, for example, in Japanese cooking, you always always put fried food onto the net before serving.

I don't know. Everything just look lazy to me.

 

[Chou Toshio]

When you visit India once, you will get the true picture. Here, the North Indians don't like Southern food and the people of South India won't eat northern food at any cost. Although, we all like foreign cuisines (Chinese is quite popular here), we won't eat food from other parts of our own country, due to the so called different cultures. :-/

Just my Indian friends love what they called "Indian-ized Chinese food," but couldn't stomach the California food, since the Chinese food there is pretty much authentic (at least at the places me and the other Chinese wanted to go to)-- they were much happier with the Americanized Chinese fast food like Panda express.

I think Cantonese food (the most common type of Chinese abroad) is unappealing to them especially because it is the mildest style of Chinese cuisine, completely lacking the spice and curry they're used to in their Chinese food. Also lacking in the sheer salt/sweet/sour of Chinese fast-food in its American-ized and Indian-ized forms.

Maybe they would like Sichuan cuisine though! Since it's spicy~

more on my thoughts on Chinese

In Chinese cuisine, I think (if I'm not wrong)-- The West (Sichuan) is "Spicy," The North (Beijing/Dongbei) is "Salty", the Eat (Shanghai) is "Sweet", and the South (Guangdong, ie. Canton) is "Subtle".

The West-- When it comes to "Ma-la", the core flavor of Sichuan cuisine, I'll take the "La" (spicy) but would rather ditch the "Ma" (numbness). I like my food spicy, but I'd rather be able to feel the inside of my mouth while I eat it. The numbing spices that bring the "Ma" flavor of sichuan food are just not to my liking unfortunately. :/ This is one case where I'll take the westernized version and ditch the authentic flavor. >< Take out the "Ma" though, and I LOVE the dishes and ingredients themselves-- Mabo Dofu and Chili Shrimp, probably the two most well known sichuan dishes internationally, are loved world wide for a reason. I'm also a huge fan of Sichuan Iron Chef Chin Kenichi.

The North-- Northern food is awesome (specially with all the vinegar) and I can handle the salt, but only with a LOT of rice, which of course totally jars up against northern Chinese tradition (since rice isn't even their staple up there...). I'll ask for a bowl of rice with my Jiaozi dumplings, and northerners will grimace in disgust (to the, this is the equivalent of eating a spaghetti sandwhich-- carbs on carbs).

The East-- Shanghainese food is not my thing for the most part... I just can't stand that it feels like everything is drenched in sugar. Way too sweet for my taste, though soup-filled dumplings are a stroke of absolute genius, and Shanghai is supposed to be the king when it comes to Sharkfin soup (and sharkfin truly is the treasure of the sea).

The South-- Cantonese always has been and always will be my comfort zone, and my favorite of the main Chinese cooking styles. Subtle flavors brought naturally by ingredients, and lots and LOTS of rice. Also, Hong Kong's wonton min style, enjoyed throughout the world by Cantonese, is an irreplaceable comfort food for me, and is the dish that STARTED my love for noodles.

I feel like here in Britain we are losing track completely of our culinary heritage. Several reasons:

1) Our cuisine isn't seen as fine dining, in the way that France's or Italy's is. Classic British dishes like fish and chips or roast beef tend to be very simple affairs. As such many people don't feel like there is much to hang onto.

2) We don't sit down at the dinner table and eat together any more - in stark contrast to Southern Europe, where the practice is sacrament. And there is much less incentive to cook when you're eating alone, because you don't have anyone else to make an impression on, and because the effort required per hungry mouth is proportionately higher.

3) We have absorbed influences from around the world, both through the high immigration in Britain today, and, somewhat regrettably, from our colonial past. And then we have bastardised everything. In my second year at uni the flat would get a huge Chinese takeaway order maybe once a week. In the summer one of us went to China, and she never had a Chinese takeaway again, because it was just so vastly inferior to what she had been getting abroad.

4) You know that things have gotten bad when Chicken Tikka Massala is the most popular dish in Britain. It's by far the worst curry around... what's that, it was actually invented in Glasgow, home of the deep-fried Mars Bar? What's that, it actually contains Heinz tomato soup as an ingredient? What's that, there is actually no Hindi word for "curry", because what we interpret as "curry" is actually a range of dishes so disparate that their creators do not even see them as a unified concept, but because our taste buds are so blunt we cannot separate them, so is it any surprise that when we try to create our own it falls flat? Gah... this is everything that is wrong with the country...

This post makes total sense to me. While I was in London (where practically EVERYONE from ALL over the world is), I was shocked by how prevalent foreign foods were, and how surprisingly rare it'd be to find fish and chips, or a pub for that matter by comparison. Also, the sheer quantity of health-bar/food places (yogurt, sandwhich, salad, granola, etc.) is almost disgusting.

That said, I think if you want to eat authentic ethnic in London, you can pretty much eat authentic anything...

I went to China town and was really impressed. And after going to China, I can say that London's China town is a pretty authentic replication of that country-- lol. The food of course, is fantastic and spot on. Also, it goes without saying probably that in London I had the best Indian food in my entire life-- and I've gone to eat Indian with quite a few Indians (in London, Japan, the US, and even in Hong Kong).


Like I said though, I love me a beer with some Shepard's pie!
(doesn't meant I'm going to pronounce "H" in hERB or stop calling french fries french fries though)

 

[Trax]

As an Australian, I really don't know what you'd call our native palate -- I suppose British (though which part of Britain varies wildly based on your location). Regardless I've eaten foods originating in at least 6 different countries this week (quick list: Indian, Scottish, German/Swiss, Turkish, Italian, and Greek), which is pretty normal for me.


Also, as a comment, British food makes a lot more sense when the mid-day meal is your largest, rather than the evening meal.

 

[aVocado]

I'm really picky and sensitive when it comes to food. I don't like trying anything that looks or sounds even remotely weird to me, and I never touch seafood except for fried fish- think fish and chips.

Being in Kuwait (therefore, middle east, and specifically, the gulf area) the traditional and native food here is mostly rice with different things. Rice with chicken, meat, or fish, and then another type of rice with another type of chicken (cooked with different spices) and/or meat, etc. It's mostly rice, with a bit of bastardized Indian food (beryani etc). There isn't much diversity in what I eat, but I mostly like foreign (western) foods. My favourite is Italian, and I like most american (steaks and burgers, that kind of thing) and british foods, and I absolutely can't eat almost all asian foods. Indian isn't bad either.

 

[jumpluff]

Yep, I'm really fussy, to the point that it's unhealthy and I'm trying very hard to find foods I can tolerate. I've always been this way and struggled to overcome the physical reaction (part of it is sensory, you have no idea how sensitive I am to flavour...). It really limits what I can eat even that is common in Australia, let alone other cuisines.

I only eat very simple and bland foods with a certain consistency, as well as sweet foods. I have an aversion to my food touching, etc. Most people tell me to eat rice, but I find it really rubbery when it's fried and don't like mixing it with other foods. I don't like most meats, I don't like many vegetables. Mostly I just eat fruit, bread and cereals, chicken, and potatoes, sometimes raw carrots and beans. I grew up eating steak and potatoes every night as well...

I'm malnourished but it's not just a result of my diet... I worked really hard to improve my intake of the nutrients I'm deficient in and the results didn't improve at all despite eating steak and sunflower seeds and so on and so on every day and even being on iron supplements (for example), so my doctors think I also have malabsorptive problems. Nonetheless, as far as nutrients go, my diet is horrible. I often don't eat dinner either.

I don't really care about variety though. I ate the same thing for lunch (which became my big meal now I go to school physically, I also eat it quite early) every day since March and will likely continue to do so for the rest of the year. If I find something I can keep down, I'll eat it for months. I find that thinking of what to eat is a huge problem for me every day otherwise.

I envy nonpicky eaters their experiences and ease with food, and I'll try my best to become more like you.

 

[noobcubed]

jynx: I agree with you halfway on the "British cooking is lazy" thing, but I think actually it's more that Brits are just ignorant about food. It's not that we can't be bothered to season vegetables, it's that we don't know how to. (Also, vegetables tend to be boiled rather than fried or roasted, which means that any seasoning we did add would all just be dissolved in the water anyway rather than absorbed into the vegetables. So bland vegetables are an inherent flaw in the culture.)

Chou Toshio: I wish I could have as wide a diet as you but I live in a family of unadventurous eaters, which makes introducing new meals difficult. But I do do a lot of the cooking, which should help a bit.

Arikado: I love that you use the word "bastardized" to describe your nation's cuisine too. It's such a great word.

Arikado jumpluff: Don't worry, you aren't missing out by not eating weird foods. They all taste like chicken anyway :p (Which, by the way, is a really rubbish way of promoting exotic meats. Chicken is the cheapest meat in the world! Why would you buy alligator or ostrich or whatever if it tastes the same and is way pricier?)

 

[Mackenzie]

tl;dr

I would actually love eating a variety everyday, however at home our meals usually consist of frying (sometimes with a lot of oil) and eating fried foods everyday is kind of bland, repetitive and unhealthy but since I'm living with my family and at a young age I tell myself it wouldn't be that bad, yet (I'm actually quite thin). I can only eat different types of food during the weekends (which is still fortunate for me to be honest) when my parents would invite me over to research on recipes from other countries like Paella, salads, and different soups (usually italian based).

//offtopic; personal experience; aka limitations
However with the onset of acne during my teen years (and yes, even past puberty I still am taking care of my skin), it has thus led me to look for several websites to address the issue, and yes you guessed it right, I've read some accounts on the correlation on dairy and skin, chocolate and skin, stress and skin and whatnot; to sum it up I've been led to believe that diet is related to acne (which eventually puts a limitation to the 'variety' that I'm talking about).

So yeah, similar to jumpluff's experience, it would be too hard for me to eat certain food groups too, given that I have this obsession of looking at food labels and if I see something there that can be detrimental to my skin/ overall health (yes, I've been browsing several websites about skin health and stuff) I wouldn't want to eat it.

But yeah, like what my mom would say, it wouldn't be too bad as long as you're having a balanced diet (I still don't drink milk tho not that I'm allergic to it, but I'd rather put nut milks on my morning tea/coffee). Speaking of which, I hope to adapt a pesco vegetarian diet someday, if only I'll have the money to spend (by that time :/), since knowing that not only would it help my skin, but my overall health as well. I guess I could help myself to some food (that I treat as bad for my health) so long as I take it lightly (I mean why don't we just use full milk if we seldom drink milk chocolate instead of all this half and half whatnot right?!).

 

[Chou Toshio]

noobcubed is totally right about weird ingredients sometimes just coming out un-surprising
wasp larvae tastes like salted peanuts
candied grasshoppers taste... just like candied shrimp; both too sweet and too much exoskeleton
Ostrich-- actually tastes more like Lamb, which means it's just another type of steak
Alligator-- is actually really good, but as mentioned, just another kind of chicken (deep fried it's somewhere between popcorn shrimp and chicken mcnugget-- actually, probably close to deep fried catfish or tallopia if that helps...)


sometimes though, something really is special and all its own (like Chicken feet)

When it comes to rare ingredients of dining though, there are 2 sets of "3 king" ingredients I must try cuisine for before I die though (when I have more money...)--

The "3 Kings" of French-- Caviar, Foie Gras, and Truffles, of which I've only tried the second (which is good!). Sturgeon is the "royal fish" in Europe and the "Imperial fish" in China, but I've heard it's just similar to very fine Carp?? (and Carp is pretty meh as far as fish goes...) Sturgeon's are also falling fast and take forever to become adults, so not something you'd want to promote fishing of...

The "3 Kings" of Chinese-- Swallows Nest, Abalone, and Sharksfin. Abalone, I don't really get what's the big deal (besides it being so expensive...) since it's just another shellfish. Sharksfin tastes AMAYZING for something with almost no flavor, and I can totally appreciate why there's such a huge black market for the stuff (though I'm totally against the over-fishing of sharks). Swallows Nest, definitely something on my to-do list...