DON'T TURN MY STOMACH

I was listening to a piece on the Disgusting Food Museums in Germany and Sweden and thinking how fascinating for us as humans to be so reviled by what they show in these culinary curiosity exhibitions. From Italian cheese infested with maggots to Chinese eggs marinated with our urine it is simply a manifestation of the famous Roman saying “de gustibus non est disputandum” meaning simply we should never argue about taste. You have every right to be disgusted by whatever is delicious to my taste buds and vice versa but you cannot deny me my pleasure.

    We regularly see lists of food combinations that are just off the wall partnerships but some people might actually love them and they cannot be judged wrong for such values. We have regular heated exchanges on the pineapple with pizza debate or the love hate relationships that say marmite or mustard create. When you have proper and honest discussions with people on their food preferences then you will discover the real variety of our extraordinary range of taste.

     Every person will have several idiosyncratic views on what food they eat, with these picky preferences mostly stemming from childhood, so never mind whole countries and cultures with their weird and wonderful gastronomic concoctions, sometimes going back centuries if not further in time. The French writer Proust had this all sussed by stating it was our first early encounters with ingredients and dishes that shaped our future adult lives.

A lot has been researched and written on the subject of taste, indeed two of the books I recommend are The History of Taste and Food and Culture which really cover all the bases you could ever need. The thing now is with food is moving so fast that these books are far out of date as the advent of molecular gastronomy, all year availability of ingredients from anywhere in the world, the internet and lab made proteins all projecting food development into the fast lane.

   I often get asked about my own foodie dissuasions and like everyone I have a list of the things that let’s just say world not be my first choice on the menu or buffet. Okay I have had the crunchy insects, grilled rat, deep fried fish heads and other gooey unsavoury bits abroad on my travels but closer to home there are plenty of things that I will still avoid. Of course in professional cookery one has to sample everything to know what it should taste like and to be able to prepare it but that does not mean you have to enjoy it.

   Some of my foibles are very subtle like not liking the skin on crumbed chicken just does not make sense to me so KFC was never a runner for me even if I was a fast food fan. Another one is cucumber skin and seeds, when all I like to eat are the actual white fleshy parts. With eggs I will always break them into a plate to remove any of the impurities like bits of membrane, shell and specs which probably comes from my food safety awareness and that my mother did it.

   When it comes to menus while eating out, I would not be going often for game or offal but more lightly fish or white meat and maybe red meat after that. I would not be keen on any fish skin or bones even in the smaller eat whole species and on meat I would always leave the fat or skin aside even though it is tasty. I am a lean meat only eater not for health reasons but the poor rendering down some fat gets upon cooking.

I am fine on most fruit and vegetables but on spicy dishes I have to draw the line at mild. So even us chefs have a picky side.  As a child my favourite school lunchbox sandwich was cold breakfast sausages on buttered bread with tomato ketchup which I would detest now and while even younger I was to be found regularly sitting in the rhubarb patch in the back garden munching away on raw stalks, so make what you will of that Monsieur’s Proust and Freud.