I love crispy brussels sprouts. Moister ones can be hit or miss, but get them roasted or make the leaves into chips and I LOVE it. My family didn't make Brussels sprouts growing up so I don't have...
I love crispy brussels sprouts. Moister ones can be hit or miss, but get them roasted or make the leaves into chips and I LOVE it.
My family didn't make Brussels sprouts growing up so I don't have a comparison but I assume they didn't because they tasted worse.
Me, I long for the days when brussel sprouts where bitter, now they are just smaller & cuter cabbages. They do look nicer, but taste wise I almost always prefer white headed cabbage or pointed...
Me, I long for the days when brussel sprouts where bitter, now they are just smaller & cuter cabbages.
They do look nicer, but taste wise I almost always prefer white headed cabbage or pointed cabbage.
I'm going to have to disagree with you. I love a salad made out of modern sweeter brussel sprouts, dressed in olive oil, lemon and maybe some parmesean, it's genuinely one of my favorite foods.
I'm going to have to disagree with you. I love a salad made out of modern sweeter brussel sprouts, dressed in olive oil, lemon and maybe some parmesean, it's genuinely one of my favorite foods.
Well, I was going to add this recipe as the one thing I really enjoy, but didn't find the word "dressed" so decided not to. For me it has to do more with cuteness than taste though. (I also like...
Well, I was going to add this recipe as the one thing I really enjoy, but didn't find the word "dressed" so decided not to. For me it has to do more with cuteness than taste though.
(I also like to add an unreasonable small amount of very finely diced red onions to the salad, as it adds a much needed sting (is this understandable English?).)
Blindfolded I'd switch out the brussel sprouts for almost anything crunchy like kale, carrots, pointed cabbage or apples, as I just find them extremely bland (especially compared to their former glory!).
Honestly as someone who very specifically enjoys the sharp flavor you get from adding stuff like onions to a salad like this, I think "sting" is better than the more common English options in this...
Honestly as someone who very specifically enjoys the sharp flavor you get from adding stuff like onions to a salad like this, I think "sting" is better than the more common English options in this context! It's much more evocative imo.
As a child I was forced to eat Brussels and swore I wouldn't as an adult. I once sat at a table for 10 hours as I refused to eat them. And as an adult I haven't eaten them ever. No amount of "oh...
As a child I was forced to eat Brussels and swore I wouldn't as an adult. I once sat at a table for 10 hours as I refused to eat them.
And as an adult I haven't eaten them ever. No amount of "oh they are much nicer now" or " you are living in the past" will change my mind, I am an adult and I will eat what I want. I made a promise to myself and I will keep it.
It's also the reason I never told my children to eat anything they obviously disliked, it is counter productive
Yeah that kind of power struggle seems futile at best, and scaring at worst. We try to do "you have to try" a very small quantity, and we'll bring it back out every now and again, and there's an...
Yeah that kind of power struggle seems futile at best, and scaring at worst. We try to do "you have to try" a very small quantity, and we'll bring it back out every now and again, and there's an obligation to politely excuse from having more, but beyond trying and being gracious, there's no forcing taste. Either they'll grow to love it eventually unassisted, or they won't ever make it for themselves as adults and that's okay.
Not wasting food is a virtue yes, but also being able to decide when one is full instead of judging by portion size / what's on plate is a survival skill in a landscape of too much dense sugars and calories.
Well, in this context the burden is on the child that wasn't asked if they would like to eat the thing. How about we as adults think about not wasting food in the planning phase instead of...
Not wasting food is a virtue yes
Well, in this context the burden is on the child that wasn't asked if they would like to eat the thing.
How about we as adults think about not wasting food in the planning phase instead of expecting the children to cover up for our bad decisions?
(This of course assumes a possibility of choice, but I've come to suspect that abundance is required to allow for picky eaters in the first place)
Oh absolutely, waste is about not finishing what one has chosen, as a result of incorrectly estimating how much one wanted something to begin with. I always encourage picking up tiny portions for...
Oh absolutely, waste is about not finishing what one has chosen, as a result of incorrectly estimating how much one wanted something to begin with. I always encourage picking up tiny portions for the first bite even if one assumes it'll be tasty or one is hungry, especially when eating out or at a potluck or buffet. Because sometimes the execution is different, a weird spice/method/flavouring is used, or one is actually not hungry.
That is to say, though, I don't automatically assume fault when I see children who exclusively eat (say) nuggets and pizza. We don't know why young humans have preferences, and I don't ever assume it's bad parenting or picky ungrateful child. I don't assume possibility of choice in others, we can't know what things taste like / textures feel like or what is acceptable to others.
My parents made a lot of mistakes, but one thing they got right was requiring us to take a "no thank you" portion of everything on the table. It could be just a couple of spoonfuls. We never had...
My parents made a lot of mistakes, but one thing they got right was requiring us to take a "no thank you" portion of everything on the table. It could be just a couple of spoonfuls. We never had to finish the food, but we had to try it at least once.
..And we were encouraged to try it again every few years because tastes do change. (I hated cheese as a child, and changed my mind in my 20s.)
The result is that none of us kids has a resistance to any particular food. There are foods I won't eat -- no peanut butter for me! -- but I also don't have an emotional reaction to them.
i have brussels at least twice a week and they are by far my favorite vegetable. i have them, toss them in olive oil, salt, and a little oregano then start them in a cast iron pan and finish them...
i have brussels at least twice a week and they are by far my favorite vegetable. i have them, toss them in olive oil, salt, and a little oregano then start them in a cast iron pan and finish them in the oven. from there, toss with capers, lemon, probably a little more salt, and muddica. my favorite!
if i don’t do that, i roast them the sake, let them cool, then put them in a mixed green salad with macedonian feta, a honey/dijon/rich balsamic vinaigrette, with some muddica mixed in.
I tried them cast iron --> oven ---> capers + lemon for Christmas dinner :) thanks for the recipe suggestion. My version was probably 5% of yours at full power though, I'm not used to spending so...
I tried them cast iron --> oven ---> capers + lemon for Christmas dinner :) thanks for the recipe suggestion. My version was probably 5% of yours at full power though, I'm not used to spending so much time cooking a greens.
No :/ it's not bad but it still tastes like a brassica bud/head. I will still eat it, especially in winter, as part of the Western world available rotation, but it's not breaking top 10 if...
No :/ it's not bad but it still tastes like a brassica bud/head. I will still eat it, especially in winter, as part of the Western world available rotation, but it's not breaking top 10 if availability wasnt difficulty. It's behind G. coronaria, water spinach, pea tips, spinach, watercress, choi sum (a brassica), cilantro, hot pepper leaves, Amaranthus dubuis and "A Choi lettuce" for speed and ease of making them yummy from just blanching + salt.
:D I would love to try your brussels sprouts though and readily concede it as skill issue on my end
haha I am very much in the 'i like everything so long as its prepared properly' -- crown daisy is super good, etc. If you find one of the glowbal group restaurants, they do a similar brussels...
haha I am very much in the 'i like everything so long as its prepared properly' -- crown daisy is super good, etc.
If you find one of the glowbal group restaurants, they do a similar brussels sprout -- but theirs is deep fried.
you’ll have to perfect them at home :) i think i also love brussels because of the peeling part. i love using a paring knife. after that one season of the bear, i was turning/peeling mushrooms....
you’ll have to perfect them at home :) i think i also love brussels because of the peeling part. i love using a paring knife. after that one season of the bear, i was turning/peeling mushrooms. it’s so satisfying.
haha yeah -- cut the root part off and then remove any of the shitty leaves that come off. you only want the super tight ones that don't come off with rolling your thumb or anything. Usually its...
haha yeah -- cut the root part off and then remove any of the shitty leaves that come off. you only want the super tight ones that don't come off with rolling your thumb or anything. Usually its only two or three per.
I didn't know there was a Brussels sprouts debate lol. I am very sensitive to bitterness, but I do like some things that are considered bitter. And most vegetables I hated as a child were...
I didn't know there was a Brussels sprouts debate lol. I am very sensitive to bitterness, but I do like some things that are considered bitter. And most vegetables I hated as a child were completely innocent; they were just badly cooked. I'd give that a shot.
Brussel sprouts, at least nowadays, are nowhere close to as bitter as coffee and beer (which, tbf, you've chosen two famously bitter beverages as examples here!). Frankly, imo they're barely more...
Brussel sprouts, at least nowadays, are nowhere close to as bitter as coffee and beer (which, tbf, you've chosen two famously bitter beverages as examples here!). Frankly, imo they're barely more bitter than your average head of celery or romaine lettuce.
Eh, depends. Pre-HRT I used to find even normal cabbage way too bitter (like beer or coffee), among other things. But seems like HRT deactivated some of the respective genes & activated other ones...
Eh, depends. Pre-HRT I used to find even normal cabbage way too bitter (like beer or coffee), among other things. But seems like HRT deactivated some of the respective genes & activated other ones so that doesn't seem to apply anymore. Cabbage is now sweet & I can now enjoy, say, green tea, but I suddenly can't tolerate very sweet things instead. Whereas before, I loved super sweet things.
Edit: I also used to find e.g. coca cola half-bitter because I could taste the benzoate they used as a preservative. Especially in the aftertaste.
I think most people who are sensitive to bitter tastes would still be helped by a comparison that more accurately captures how bitter they taste to most people, which is better captured by the...
I think most people who are sensitive to bitter tastes would still be helped by a comparison that more accurately captures how bitter they taste to most people, which is better captured by the comparisons to other vegetables I tried to provide, though. Plenty of people dislike beer and coffee but have no problem with things like cabbage, for instance, and your previous sensitivity seems pretty idiosyncratic tbqh, at least if cabbage did genuinely taste equally bitter as black coffee. I wonder if you were more sensitive to certain bitter compounds than others compared to most people and that's why? Curious.
I don't know that we do. Whomever we are. Am Brit. I watch a lot of cultural crossover and language difference videos, and usage of the word 'quite' has never popped up. Do you have some examples...
I don't know that we do. Whomever we are. Am Brit. I watch a lot of cultural crossover and language difference videos, and usage of the word 'quite' has never popped up. Do you have some examples of different usage? Or some examples of American usage that I might consider?
So my understanding is that if I say "That's quite tasty" I'm using "quite" to mean something like "very." It's intensifying the thing it modifies. But that with the same phrase, British folks...
So my understanding is that if I say "That's quite tasty" I'm using "quite" to mean something like "very." It's intensifying the thing it modifies.
But that with the same phrase, British folks mean something like "it's sort of tasty but not fully tasty." It's mitigating the thing it modifies. (It almost feels like what I'd mean if I said "not quite tasty" but.... Not quite. Lol)
Fun fact -- the meaning of "quite" actually used to be even more intense than the current American usage! "quite" is first attested in 1300 as meaning "completely, thoroughly, wholly, entirely"...
Fun fact -- the meaning of "quite" actually used to be even more intense than the current American usage! "quite" is first attested in 1300 as meaning "completely, thoroughly, wholly, entirely" and the meaning of "fairly" didn't arise until the mis 19th century.
I've heard reports that the British use of "quite" can either mean "somewhat-but-not-very" as described or be used as a slightly more toned-down version of "really" like how Americans use it, depending entirely on tone of voice and context. But it's entirely anecdotal and may be influenced by the ubiquity of American media. Would be fun to do a little study on the specifics though. I should dig into whether there's been much academic work on the semantics of "quite" already.
we do but I think the difference flattens out in an expression like "to be quite honest", which is a pretty set phrase anyway and to which the word "quite" doesn't contribute all that much...
we do but I think the difference flattens out in an expression like "to be quite honest", which is a pretty set phrase anyway and to which the word "quite" doesn't contribute all that much content-wise. The "quite" in it when uttered by British English speakers is often deliberate understatement I suspect, which smooths over any potential issues in understanding.
I wasn't sure where it landed in "tbqh" because it only sort of makes sense to me to use it as a mitigator instead of an intensifier. Like intellectually, sure, but it's just the opposite of how I...
I wasn't sure where it landed in "tbqh" because it only sort of makes sense to me to use it as a mitigator instead of an intensifier. Like intellectually, sure, but it's just the opposite of how I think about it and I never know whether it's an understatement, some shade, or being used in an American fashion.
Yeah, the whole thing is really influenced by genetics. I genuinely was very sensitive to bitterness/bitter compounds in general, to the point that raw cabbage really did feel super bitter, like...
Yeah, the whole thing is really influenced by genetics. I genuinely was very sensitive to bitterness/bitter compounds in general, to the point that raw cabbage really did feel super bitter, like beer. I was also able to taste compounds many others couldn't - including benzoates, as mentioned above - and they were very bitter to me. Now it's significantly better due to (I presume) epigenetic changes
This post just reminded me of a core childhood memory: a cartoon called The Forgotten Toys, featuring a grumpy teddy bear who absolutely hates brussel sprouts. I've never had any strong feelings...
This post just reminded me of a core childhood memory: a cartoon called The Forgotten Toys, featuring a grumpy teddy bear who absolutely hates brussel sprouts. I've never had any strong feelings on the matter, but to this day I remember the line "I hate sprouts!"
I halve or quarter my brussels depending on the size of them, and stir fry them with sweet chestnuts, some seitan chunks, and a little maple syrup. Nice big steaming pot of that mix on the table...
I halve or quarter my brussels depending on the size of them, and stir fry them with sweet chestnuts, some seitan chunks, and a little maple syrup. Nice big steaming pot of that mix on the table and there's never any left.
I remember them as rancid green snot vegetables when growing up...
I love crispy brussels sprouts. Moister ones can be hit or miss, but get them roasted or make the leaves into chips and I LOVE it.
My family didn't make Brussels sprouts growing up so I don't have a comparison but I assume they didn't because they tasted worse.
Me, I long for the days when brussel sprouts where bitter, now they are just smaller & cuter cabbages.
They do look nicer, but taste wise I almost always prefer white headed cabbage or pointed cabbage.
I'm going to have to disagree with you. I love a salad made out of modern sweeter brussel sprouts, dressed in olive oil, lemon and maybe some parmesean, it's genuinely one of my favorite foods.
Well, I was going to add this recipe as the one thing I really enjoy, but didn't find the word "dressed" so decided not to. For me it has to do more with cuteness than taste though.
(I also like to add an unreasonable small amount of very finely diced red onions to the salad, as it adds a much needed sting (is this understandable English?).)
Blindfolded I'd switch out the brussel sprouts for almost anything crunchy like kale, carrots, pointed cabbage or apples, as I just find them extremely bland (especially compared to their former glory!).
The words I would most likely use are "kick", "brightness" or "freshness", but what you meant came through clearly, so I would call it a success =)
Thanks!
Honestly as someone who very specifically enjoys the sharp flavor you get from adding stuff like onions to a salad like this, I think "sting" is better than the more common English options in this context! It's much more evocative imo.
As a child I was forced to eat Brussels and swore I wouldn't as an adult. I once sat at a table for 10 hours as I refused to eat them.
And as an adult I haven't eaten them ever. No amount of "oh they are much nicer now" or " you are living in the past" will change my mind, I am an adult and I will eat what I want. I made a promise to myself and I will keep it.
It's also the reason I never told my children to eat anything they obviously disliked, it is counter productive
Yeah that kind of power struggle seems futile at best, and scaring at worst. We try to do "you have to try" a very small quantity, and we'll bring it back out every now and again, and there's an obligation to politely excuse from having more, but beyond trying and being gracious, there's no forcing taste. Either they'll grow to love it eventually unassisted, or they won't ever make it for themselves as adults and that's okay.
Not wasting food is a virtue yes, but also being able to decide when one is full instead of judging by portion size / what's on plate is a survival skill in a landscape of too much dense sugars and calories.
Well, in this context the burden is on the child that wasn't asked if they would like to eat the thing.
How about we as adults think about not wasting food in the planning phase instead of expecting the children to cover up for our bad decisions?
(This of course assumes a possibility of choice, but I've come to suspect that abundance is required to allow for picky eaters in the first place)
Oh absolutely, waste is about not finishing what one has chosen, as a result of incorrectly estimating how much one wanted something to begin with. I always encourage picking up tiny portions for the first bite even if one assumes it'll be tasty or one is hungry, especially when eating out or at a potluck or buffet. Because sometimes the execution is different, a weird spice/method/flavouring is used, or one is actually not hungry.
That is to say, though, I don't automatically assume fault when I see children who exclusively eat (say) nuggets and pizza. We don't know why young humans have preferences, and I don't ever assume it's bad parenting or picky ungrateful child. I don't assume possibility of choice in others, we can't know what things taste like / textures feel like or what is acceptable to others.
My parents made a lot of mistakes, but one thing they got right was requiring us to take a "no thank you" portion of everything on the table. It could be just a couple of spoonfuls. We never had to finish the food, but we had to try it at least once.
..And we were encouraged to try it again every few years because tastes do change. (I hated cheese as a child, and changed my mind in my 20s.)
The result is that none of us kids has a resistance to any particular food. There are foods I won't eat -- no peanut butter for me! -- but I also don't have an emotional reaction to them.
i have brussels at least twice a week and they are by far my favorite vegetable. i have them, toss them in olive oil, salt, and a little oregano then start them in a cast iron pan and finish them in the oven. from there, toss with capers, lemon, probably a little more salt, and muddica. my favorite!
if i don’t do that, i roast them the sake, let them cool, then put them in a mixed green salad with macedonian feta, a honey/dijon/rich balsamic vinaigrette, with some muddica mixed in.
I tried them cast iron --> oven ---> capers + lemon for Christmas dinner :) thanks for the recipe suggestion. My version was probably 5% of yours at full power though, I'm not used to spending so much time cooking a greens.
are you in love with brussels now?
No :/ it's not bad but it still tastes like a brassica bud/head. I will still eat it, especially in winter, as part of the Western world available rotation, but it's not breaking top 10 if availability wasnt difficulty. It's behind G. coronaria, water spinach, pea tips, spinach, watercress, choi sum (a brassica), cilantro, hot pepper leaves, Amaranthus dubuis and "A Choi lettuce" for speed and ease of making them yummy from just blanching + salt.
:D I would love to try your brussels sprouts though and readily concede it as skill issue on my end
haha I am very much in the 'i like everything so long as its prepared properly' -- crown daisy is super good, etc.
If you find one of the glowbal group restaurants, they do a similar brussels sprout -- but theirs is deep fried.
Ooooh I would super love deep fried!! (Looks them up) Oh there's a bunch in Vancouver. (Looks further) I can't afford food like that lol
you’ll have to perfect them at home :) i think i also love brussels because of the peeling part. i love using a paring knife. after that one season of the bear, i was turning/peeling mushrooms. it’s so satisfying.
Peeling?! Oh no I don't peel them I just cut off a millimeter of the bottom and half/quarter them, have I been doing it all wrong?
haha yeah -- cut the root part off and then remove any of the shitty leaves that come off. you only want the super tight ones that don't come off with rolling your thumb or anything. Usually its only two or three per.
I didn't know there was a Brussels sprouts debate lol. I am very sensitive to bitterness, but I do like some things that are considered bitter. And most vegetables I hated as a child were completely innocent; they were just badly cooked. I'd give that a shot.
Color me doubtful, but then again I find beer and coffee too bitter.
Brussel sprouts, at least nowadays, are nowhere close to as bitter as coffee and beer (which, tbf, you've chosen two famously bitter beverages as examples here!). Frankly, imo they're barely more bitter than your average head of celery or romaine lettuce.
Eh, depends. Pre-HRT I used to find even normal cabbage way too bitter (like beer or coffee), among other things. But seems like HRT deactivated some of the respective genes & activated other ones so that doesn't seem to apply anymore. Cabbage is now sweet & I can now enjoy, say, green tea, but I suddenly can't tolerate very sweet things instead. Whereas before, I loved super sweet things.
Edit: I also used to find e.g. coca cola half-bitter because I could taste the benzoate they used as a preservative. Especially in the aftertaste.
I think most people who are sensitive to bitter tastes would still be helped by a comparison that more accurately captures how bitter they taste to most people, which is better captured by the comparisons to other vegetables I tried to provide, though. Plenty of people dislike beer and coffee but have no problem with things like cabbage, for instance, and your previous sensitivity seems pretty idiosyncratic tbqh, at least if cabbage did genuinely taste equally bitter as black coffee. I wonder if you were more sensitive to certain bitter compounds than others compared to most people and that's why? Curious.
tbqh = to be quite honest?
yes; I'm not sure where I first encountered that variant but it's become a common part of my vocabulary
Fairly often used by Brits tbqfh.
But Brits and Americans use "quite" differently, don't we?
I don't know that we do. Whomever we are. Am Brit. I watch a lot of cultural crossover and language difference videos, and usage of the word 'quite' has never popped up. Do you have some examples of different usage? Or some examples of American usage that I might consider?
So my understanding is that if I say "That's quite tasty" I'm using "quite" to mean something like "very." It's intensifying the thing it modifies.
But that with the same phrase, British folks mean something like "it's sort of tasty but not fully tasty." It's mitigating the thing it modifies. (It almost feels like what I'd mean if I said "not quite tasty" but.... Not quite. Lol)
I found a website:
Quite vs quite - nuances across the pond
And a video
It does suggest that there may be more overlap now? Or that the British tendency to understate things may counteract that?
Ah I see yes. A subtle one that, but I agree. Thanks!
Fun fact -- the meaning of "quite" actually used to be even more intense than the current American usage! "quite" is first attested in 1300 as meaning "completely, thoroughly, wholly, entirely" and the meaning of "fairly" didn't arise until the mis 19th century.
I've heard reports that the British use of "quite" can either mean "somewhat-but-not-very" as described or be used as a slightly more toned-down version of "really" like how Americans use it, depending entirely on tone of voice and context. But it's entirely anecdotal and may be influenced by the ubiquity of American media. Would be fun to do a little study on the specifics though. I should dig into whether there's been much academic work on the semantics of "quite" already.
It makes sense as an intensifier to me so I'm not surprised it came from that direction.
Mmyes, quite.
The use of tbqh reminds me of my WoW guild days. Almost all of them were from the UK.
we do but I think the difference flattens out in an expression like "to be quite honest", which is a pretty set phrase anyway and to which the word "quite" doesn't contribute all that much content-wise. The "quite" in it when uttered by British English speakers is often deliberate understatement I suspect, which smooths over any potential issues in understanding.
I wasn't sure where it landed in "tbqh" because it only sort of makes sense to me to use it as a mitigator instead of an intensifier. Like intellectually, sure, but it's just the opposite of how I think about it and I never know whether it's an understatement, some shade, or being used in an American fashion.
Yeah, the whole thing is really influenced by genetics. I genuinely was very sensitive to bitterness/bitter compounds in general, to the point that raw cabbage really did feel super bitter, like beer. I was also able to taste compounds many others couldn't - including benzoates, as mentioned above - and they were very bitter to me. Now it's significantly better due to (I presume) epigenetic changes
This post just reminded me of a core childhood memory: a cartoon called The Forgotten Toys, featuring a grumpy teddy bear who absolutely hates brussel sprouts. I've never had any strong feelings on the matter, but to this day I remember the line "I hate sprouts!"
I halve or quarter my brussels depending on the size of them, and stir fry them with sweet chestnuts, some seitan chunks, and a little maple syrup. Nice big steaming pot of that mix on the table and there's never any left.
I remember them as rancid green snot vegetables when growing up...