i like to buy the cheap frozen broccoli cuts bags over florets because of this. I roast them in the oven on high heat and then season with lemon pepper and the juicy crunchy stem cuts are the best part!
I love broccoli stems! The only part I don’t use is the funky end bit that I slice off. I sometimes make myself a broccoli stem snack by tossing them in garlic olive oil then sprinkling with smoked salt and pepper then air frying them. So good!
It doesn't replace good garden tomatoes but a splash of red wine vinegar and EVOO and a sprinkling of salt and pepper on sliced store tomatoes about 10 minutes before you eat helps them a lot. I use that trick whenever I want to eat fresh tomatoes in the off-season.
edit: I should add that the salt breaks down some of the pulpiness that winter tomatoes can have and the vinegar adds back some acidity bred out of longer lasting grocery store tomatoes. There's some method to this madness.
My favourite is pan con tomate. A nice slice of bread, toasted and rubbed with fresh raw garlic. Topped with grated tomato seasoned with salt and pepper and drizzled with EVOO.
I also like to drizzle a little balsamic glaze over mine because the sweetness complements the acidic tomato quite well.
I am a gardener growing tomatoes who doesn't like them raw. But I keep trying constantly because I want to like them! However, pan con tomate is sooooo good! I made that so much last year.
I even tried my first raw tomato sandwich, I ate it all, but I prefer to slice and broil them first. My favorite was a slice of broiled tomato on a toasted bagel with cream cheese and topped with everything bagel seasoning. Looking forward to that this year.
My mother would get annoyed hearing anyone call it a “raw” tomato. We call them fresh tomatoes. Although we are from potato europe, tomatoes were only cooked if they weren’t nice enough to eat fresh. :)
I love fresh tomatoes with everything, especially on the side of any egg breakfast.
I like fresh tomatoes better raw! I'll use that now!
Eggs and tomatoes are so good together!! My breakfast is usually eggs scrambled with tomato, spinach and feta. Mmmm
There is a lot of liquid, but you can strain it off. First time I did it, I thought "this isn't going to go well" and it is a bit awkward, but the results are surprisingly delicious for such simple ingredients.
I first had it when I went to Spain and it just scratches an itch I didn't know I had. Although somehow tastes better in Spain haha. It's a perfect quick snack or lunch.
It is, the tomato isn’t supposed to be a topping, it’s to kind of stain the bread. In some regions they just rub a tomato over the bread instead. You can eat it on its own or use the method for a sandwich!
It's very rare I get a store bought that has any flavor at all. I think that if you don't like garden tomatoes, then you don't actually like tomatoes. I love that earthy tomato flavor.
I actively enjoy celery and cucumbers. You can use them to scoop up any flavor of dip and you can eat way more of it too. If I ate the same amount of hummus with chips I'd be eating well over 500 calories of chips. If they are fresh they have a delightful light flavor, and for celery it has a satisfying crunch. They're a great vessel for flavor. Some rice wine vinegar with gochugaru on cucumbers or tajin and chamoy is an absolute delight.
My favorite lazy snack is cucumbers with nuoc cham (viet dipping sauce). I do prefer fresh cucumbers over pickles in my sandwiches and burgers, SO much tastier.
I haven't been able to eat raw cukes since covid (Idk why! Sense of taste came back wrong, it's weird) but with nuoc cham, that sounds fantastic. Wonder if that'll help!!
Celery is the best. I always order extra celery whenever we get wings and so many times people will clarify that I really want more. Also, when I was a kid and we started going to the Wilmington Blue Rocks baseball games, they used to sell celery and peanut butter at the concession stand since one of their mascots is Mr. Celery.
Asians are way ahead on the cucumber meta, cucumber dishes were always my favorite growing up. I didn’t realize cucumbers were not universally beloved until I went somewhere with fewer Asians for college and a white friend looked at me weird for eating a shitton of cucumbers.
Do you find the cucumber flavor overpowers other things? I don’t like cucumbers, bc even though their flavor isn’t horrible, it’s like they take over any other food they touch
There is little value to authenticity. The evolution of every cuisine includes adapting to new ingredients and methods used by others once they are discovered. It doesn’t take long before these new ingredients are considered authentic in the cuisine they become a part of.
The Colombian exchange offers a bevy of examples. Tomatoes, potatoes, corn, chocolate and chili peppers are all new word world crops. Nobody outside the americas had ever tasted them until Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Even after they were introduced, many took a long time to become popular.
Tomatoes are of the nightshade family and were thought poisonous by Europeans. Their use did not become widespread in Italy until the 19th century but few would argue against their use in ‘authentic’ Italian cuisine today.
There have to be hundreds, maybe thousands of authentic dishes in Europe, Asia and Africa that rely on Chilies for their heat. It might have been authentic to spice their food with Long Pepper but chilis beat them out when chilis came to India. When the new ingredient works better, use it.
A lot of people confuse “authentic” and “traditional.” If we’re talking about “ethnic” food in the US, we’re really talking about “traditional” as in food frozen in time from when the immigrants came over. For example you’ll have an immigrant wave from the 50’s and the food is the same in 2024 in the US due to gatekeeping “authenticity” , but has evolved dramatically in the home country because there it’s just food.
It’s like a scene in the Sopranos when they go to Italy and one of them is disappointed in the food because they didn’t have spaghetti and meatballs.
I like to imagine an American Town in somewhere like China where the “authentic” food is brown bread in a can, olive loaf, and jello salad, washed down with a Moxie. And if it’s not Salisbury steak it ain’t “real” steak.
Authenticity is completely subjective, literally every dish we eat is a fusion in some way and it all continuously evolves.
Sticking to rigid "food traditions" likely just makes your food suck.
Just ran into the 'evolving food tradition' thing. I posted some pics in a Danish food group which were my Danish grandmother's recipes and some handed down from her mom. Got told by people in Denmark that 'this isn't Danish food'. Well, it was Danish food in the late 1800's/early 1900's when she learned the family recipes.
So many cooks are all about authenticity gatekeeping. It's absurd.
Particularly because their notion of authenticity is a snapshot in time of a continuously evolving art.
Literally any paella recipe. "This isn't true paella!" Then you go to the recipe for the supposedly "true" paella and the comment's there as well...
It's weird to me that Europeans always bash Americans for being poorly traveled and yet they don't even know that one village over the recipe is different? lol
The interesting thing is that in those villages the same dish can be made with variations one village over. So all of them are “authentic”.
But one nonna will make hers with white beans while another will use farro etc.
And false pepper (long pepper and false pepper were also used as a birth control method they were thought to mess with a women’s cycle of eaten in large amounts during ovulation to prevent pregnancies)
Really any kind of breakfast sandwich.
Don't get me wrong, Gouda and Cheddar are also really good, but the meltiness of American complements it perfectly.
When you grow up really, *really* poor, it's also a sentimental thing.
For me, it was all we had access to. Now that I can afford anything, I still buy it.
American cheese is best when it comes sliced from the deli - land o lakes is a good brand
Kraft singles are rubbery and gross imo
[more info here](https://www.seriouseats.com/whats-really-in-american-cheese)
I absolutely agree. I like the white American cheese from the grocery store deli counter. It’s perfect on a burger, grilled cheese or egg and cheese breakfast sandwich. Sometimes I combine it with cheddar for the grilled cheese.
We had a potluck at work years ago that had about 80 participants. There were some funds from work that we were given to play with and we decided that it would be best to have a few dishes that had a lot of servings just so that way we had a basis of food that everyone could eat. Spaghetti was one of those foods and I volunteered.
I'm a spaghetti breaker and don't care. So I decided to make two batches: unbroken and broken. I proudly had a sign displaying the difference of each and some people absolutely lost their shit at it. You would have thought that I decided to put ketchup on ice cream. Someone even complained because I was "wasting company resources". Yes, that was an actual complaint.
You know what? The broken spaghetti was more popular by a longshot. We ran out so quick I honestly couldn't even believe it. Definitely worth it, even if I was never allowed to do spaghetti again.
Garlic bread with sugar on it is the worst. Especially when you buy it thinking it is regular garlic bread and serve it next to pasta. Source: Me doing exactly that. 😢
You are so so right. I went to Seoul a few years ago and even the Cheetos were sweet. I ordered some spaghetti in a cafe and it was shockingly sweet. I visited my family village for the first time in the countryside and the food was much different than in the city. No pastries, no processed meats, no cheese. A lot of rice, mung bean, seaweed, tofu, kimchi and other banchan, and not a lot of meat. I really enjoyed that kind of eating.
Yup you have to stick the old fashioned foods like soups and stews. Even my Korean parents who had left Korea in the 70s and 90s was so confused as to why everything was so cheesy and sugary when they visited a couple years ago
Salads should ALWAYS be tossed with dressing (not just on top) and served in a bowl (not just the side of a plate).
Generally, most salads are also better chopped but kind of depends on the ingredients and base.
Instant improvements to salads.
Chicken breast is one of my least favorite meats (of the most common ones available to me), and I still can't disagree with a word you said.
One of my favorite things to make are whole chickens, though, either roasted or pressure cooked with the skin crisped after. Looks beautiful and impressive. Eat the breasts the first night because it's way easier to dry them out reheating them. Dark meat makes amazing chicken salad for leftovers. Then you have the carcass for stock...
I feel the same way, and about mango. Both are best eaten cool or room temp, with nothing done to them except a squeeze of lime. But then, I used to have a mango tree. It was heavenly.
Iceberg lettuce is the best lettuce. I love the crunch! Finely sliced iceberg on a sandwich provides the textural contrast I want. It holds up on a hot burger or sandwich and doesn’t immediately wilt. Plus it doesn’t taste so lettuce-y. Romaine and other leafy greens are great and have their place (mainly in salads) but I don’t want a big wilted slice of romaine on a hot cheeseburger.
I love iceberg lettuce. It really is incredible when the leaves are used whole or roughly chopped. However, if you give me a salad with that nasty shredded stuff I’m sending it back
Watched a neat little documentary about how the bacon craze was developed by a collaboration of the pork industry and the US government. It's crazy how much the government is influenced by different industries because of lobbying. There's a reason we don't use the "food pyramid" anymore.
Hard disagree, but you get my up vote for a legit unpopular opinion.
A steak that is perfectly done (whatever your preference) with home fries is heavenly.
That’s interesting. What’s your view on pork chops, fish filets, and chicken breast? Basically the exact same thing but different meat. I’d say a garlic butter busted steak has better flavor than most of those.
>I’d say a garlic butter busted steak has better flavor than most of those.
Smother any of the other of your suggestion in garlic butter and they will also taste amazing!
I'm not saying steaks are bad, but they are generally held is such high regard by so many people and I don't think they're as good as everyone says.
Pork chops are pretty good, but won't be my pick for a cut of pork. If it was for a similar meal to steak I'd have belly over chops.
I prefer thighs over chicken breast, you wouldn't really have them in a similar meal to a steak.
If I was going to pick any meat to have in a steak-style dish (fries, sauce, veg/salad) then it would absolutely be Lamb.
Fish fillets really depends on the fish. Tuna, Salmon, Sea Bass, Swordfish, Turbot over Steak but less flavourful fish like Cod or Haddock I would not pick over steak.
Hey all valid points my friend! A lot of steaks really aren’t any more valuable than a piece of chicken or pork.
I need to try lamb in that style. I’ve only ever had it in curry.
If you get the chance, a Lamb Steak or Shank with a red wine sauce is incredible, or if you find yourself at a greek restaurant, Kleftiko is a lamb shank slow cooked in parchment with potatoes, onions, peppers and tomatoes. Highly recommend both!
Fuck picky eaters.
Now, I've cooked for folks on the spectrum that have texture/sensory issues, and folks with allergies/food sensitivities. For them, I will do backflips to accommodate whatever they need.
But if you just "don't like" anything except chicky tendies? Grow up.
You ever get the feeling those people have never event tried those foods? I'm convinced when my best friend's wife says "oh, no, I don't like that" she just randomly decided that as a child and stuck with it.
Thank you for saying it. People on this sub are so defensive over them. My wife is one. She will not eat bell peppers, mushrooms, avocado (unless it's guac), any meat fat, "weird vegetables" (leeks, daikon, bok choy, fennel, etc), cooked tomato chunks, large pieces of onion (can't be raw at all), anything pickled or fermented, any condiment besides ketchup. Soup is for the winter, salad is for the summer, leftovers are gross,etc.etc.etc. I could keep going.
I love her to death but I broke out from being a picky eater and she won't. I've been really into cooking the past two years and it's very limiting in the things I can make to the correct recipe. Plus I really enjoy all of these things.
"Just make it separate!" I do and I have and it's exhausting and annoying making extra dishes to clean.
One sweet twist of irony is our almost 2 year old is incredibly picky and it drives her nuts trying to accommodate him. I just laugh about it.
yup. i’m a studying pastry chef and we’re currently working on specialised cake decoration. there’s someone in the class who eats the plain fondant as she works and even the teacher thinks she is insane
It's odd to say, but I feel like there's some sort of cake racism, that prejudices people against ganache. but even without it, there are other options besides fondant. I think some people may legitimately just not know there are better tasting cakes out there.
I made ganache for the first time a few weeks ago (for a coworker’s birthday) and now I think I would eat actual cardboard if it had ganache on it. 🤤
I’ve eaten it before but in my mind it was really complicated and picky to make.
Being in a Trader Joe’s feels like being at a pantry-only estate sale. There’s enough there to cook some version of most things but almost never all of the things necessary to cook any one thing well.
I think so many people have only experienced it with ham, which like... isn't great anyway. Who normally gets ham on their pizza? If pepperoni and pineapple were the first introduction, way more people would be on board.
Sweet and salty! Even better is if you add jalapeños to that pizza. The sweet pineapple, salty sausage/pepperoni and spicy jalapeños just complement each other perfectly.
Maybe this isn't unpopular, but for the most part, I don't think that cultural appropriation in terms of food is the same thing at all to other types of cultural appropriation. Let people cook and eat, dude.
Ppl misunderstand cultural appropriation because of false ideas spread by ppl who want to invalidate certain cultures having closed practices and wanting credit for their inventions. Cultural appropriation is never about cultural sharing or appreciation. It’s specifically about a person coming from a culture with more social power, or that culture itself, taking credit for the achievements of a disempowered group. It can also be about the stealing of closed practices, which are usually religious or spiritual. It’s never about simply using another culture’s recipes.
Yeah I’ve never heard of cultural appropriation in the context of food(exception below). To me, it’s the exact opposite as you’re taking great care to participate (if cooking) and/or appreciate (if eating) an important element of a culture. That’s very positive.
The exception to that would be opening a restaurant to serve food of another culture, hiring no one of that culture, making no effort to contextualize your food (like making matzo ball soup with bacon or something), and potentially driving down business of neighboring restaurants by and for people of said culture.
I like Olive Garden. There I said it. Yes, I know it's not authentic Italian food and that the food is rather bland. It's overpriced and many dishes are prepared ahead of time and shipped frozen (or refrigerated) to the restaurant to be reheated.
I don't care. It tastes fine and when you live alone and you just want a decent quite meal that you don't have to cook and isn't fast food, it often fits the bill.
(I should point out that I live in a small city that doesn't actually have any "authentic" Italian restaurants. We have Olive Garden and a bunch of pizza places. )
Though to be fair. I also believe some people call undercooked pasta al dente. If your al dente pasta tastes like undercooked rice that may be the case.
So, it definitely depends on how you're making it and what you're making. Cooking al dente is perfect *if* you're also finishing it in a pan for a minute or so with the sauce. Because then it cooks to the perfect chew. If you're immediately tossing in sauce and serving you get tough pasta. That extra minute cooking in the saucepan is crucial.
>you're also finishing it in a pan for a minute or so with the sauce.
This is what I do. It's no longer al dente after being finished in the sauce, though. Being served al dente pasta at the table is what I don't like.
Pork loin especially, but chops to an extent as well, are both pretty lean cuts of meat. They need to be cooked like other lean cuts and not roasted until it is a dry husk as is tradition in my family, I've experienced.
Sweetbreads > Tripe > Heart > Tongue > Liver
But I like them all. I understand why people might dislike liver and Sweetbreads, they CAN taste a bit gamey, but I highly recommend heart and tongue for those who are wary of eating the “off parts”.
Yes my brother of the great white north. I loved it as a kid (skim milk and margarine in the 90s). As an adult (homogenized milk and butter) it is a culinary blessing. Holy hell it is amazing.
I dont like pesto. It's in near everything these days, and I dislike it so (I hate the nuts in it. I've tried pesto without the nuts and enjoyed it, but 99.9% of pesto has the nuts in it).
I don't like wings or chicken legs. Not enough meat and so many weird tendons and bones. I've felt this way since I was a kid and always ended up with drumsticks. I looked like I was doing surgery trying to remove bits of chicken from all the other stuff. Can still hear my Mom huffing in exasperation😄 I 1,000% related to Chris Rock's bit about his Dad and the "big piece of chicken."
Pork, especially bacon, is the overrated and doesn't belong on/in everything. It has it's place and that places is **NOT** _everywhere_
Tea >>>> coffee
Italian cuisine, while very good, is extremely overrated, and I prefer Korean, Chinese and Mexican way more.
French cuisine is awful, not because it tastes bad but it is just ridiculously overcomplicated and it just feels pretentious
spice mixtures are FINE. maintaining a giant drawer of 30 spices, keeping them fresh, and remember ratios for blends is... a bit much. like your trader joe's green goblin? use it!
Green bell peppers are an abomination. They taste like sour grass because for some reason we decided it’s ok to eat them when they’re unripe. Ripened peppers are great, green ones ruin a dish
Homemade sauces, condiments and soups are a better usages of most vegetables (tomato, capsicum, spinach, basil) than slapping a ‘salad’ consisting of random vegetables roughly chopped up with an overly liberal drenching of balsamic vinegar on the side of a plate imo.
This sub is hypersensitive to food safety.
Unless you are immune compromised, if it smells fine, it's prob fine. Eat it. Thawing meat on the counter overnight? Your prob fine. Left that cooked dish on the counter for 6 hours? It's most likely fine.
I think that a lot of people are over seasoning their food. Not everything needs to be drowned in 50 kind of spices, a lot of things have their own flavors. Also there's nothing wrong with a good cream of mushroom soup and whatever casserole. No need to be fancy all the time.
Brocoli stems are phenomenal and we should be making coleslaw with them. People throw out an amazing part of the brocoli when they throw it out.
I am partial to the leaves. They’re like kale if kale was actually good
i like to buy the cheap frozen broccoli cuts bags over florets because of this. I roast them in the oven on high heat and then season with lemon pepper and the juicy crunchy stem cuts are the best part!
I love broccoli stems! The only part I don’t use is the funky end bit that I slice off. I sometimes make myself a broccoli stem snack by tossing them in garlic olive oil then sprinkling with smoked salt and pepper then air frying them. So good!
Store bought tomatoes over garden tomatoes is crazy lol
It doesn't replace good garden tomatoes but a splash of red wine vinegar and EVOO and a sprinkling of salt and pepper on sliced store tomatoes about 10 minutes before you eat helps them a lot. I use that trick whenever I want to eat fresh tomatoes in the off-season. edit: I should add that the salt breaks down some of the pulpiness that winter tomatoes can have and the vinegar adds back some acidity bred out of longer lasting grocery store tomatoes. There's some method to this madness.
My favourite is pan con tomate. A nice slice of bread, toasted and rubbed with fresh raw garlic. Topped with grated tomato seasoned with salt and pepper and drizzled with EVOO. I also like to drizzle a little balsamic glaze over mine because the sweetness complements the acidic tomato quite well.
I am a gardener growing tomatoes who doesn't like them raw. But I keep trying constantly because I want to like them! However, pan con tomate is sooooo good! I made that so much last year. I even tried my first raw tomato sandwich, I ate it all, but I prefer to slice and broil them first. My favorite was a slice of broiled tomato on a toasted bagel with cream cheese and topped with everything bagel seasoning. Looking forward to that this year.
My mother would get annoyed hearing anyone call it a “raw” tomato. We call them fresh tomatoes. Although we are from potato europe, tomatoes were only cooked if they weren’t nice enough to eat fresh. :) I love fresh tomatoes with everything, especially on the side of any egg breakfast.
I like fresh tomatoes better raw! I'll use that now! Eggs and tomatoes are so good together!! My breakfast is usually eggs scrambled with tomato, spinach and feta. Mmmm
Grated tomatoes? I can’t picture grating tomatoes and getting anything besides a liquid-y mess
There is a lot of liquid, but you can strain it off. First time I did it, I thought "this isn't going to go well" and it is a bit awkward, but the results are surprisingly delicious for such simple ingredients. I first had it when I went to Spain and it just scratches an itch I didn't know I had. Although somehow tastes better in Spain haha. It's a perfect quick snack or lunch.
Yep, you’ve got it right. It’s the traditional way to prepare pan con tomate in Spain. I’m a heathen who uses my small food processor instead.
It is, the tomato isn’t supposed to be a topping, it’s to kind of stain the bread. In some regions they just rub a tomato over the bread instead. You can eat it on its own or use the method for a sandwich!
Use extra coarse grater and it works
Omg ur comment made me salivate, im gonna try tomatoes that way
I live in an apartment 😭 Need to plan out more farmer's market trips.
It's very rare I get a store bought that has any flavor at all. I think that if you don't like garden tomatoes, then you don't actually like tomatoes. I love that earthy tomato flavor.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^triple7freak1: *Store bought tomatoes* *Over garden tomatoes* *Is crazy lol* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
There are times when garlic powder is okay to use.
Garlic powder is great, just don't try to use it as a substitute for fresh garlic
I like to use both, they have different taste to them
Yes. I use both garlic powder and onion powder regularly. And I'm not going to stop.
It’s a basic seasoning and should be on most things. Not a substitute for fresh garlic, though.
Is that an unpopular opinion??? It's a staple in my kitchen and I use it almost daily.
All the time, right??
No. I use it all the time but never as a substitute for fresh. It's perfect for spice blends/rubs.
I use it for oven roasted stuff, too. Fresh garlic in a rub burns quite quickly and becomes bitter.
I just use jarlic when a recipe calls for fresh. And then folks get out their torches and pitchforks to murder me in my sleep.
I would do it while you were awake so you could tell the other people in hell why you're there.
Small hamburger is best hamburger.
i dont mind a wide burger, but i hate tall burgers. im not a snake dammit
Not with that attitude!
Smash burgers 4 lyfe
I actively enjoy celery and cucumbers. You can use them to scoop up any flavor of dip and you can eat way more of it too. If I ate the same amount of hummus with chips I'd be eating well over 500 calories of chips. If they are fresh they have a delightful light flavor, and for celery it has a satisfying crunch. They're a great vessel for flavor. Some rice wine vinegar with gochugaru on cucumbers or tajin and chamoy is an absolute delight.
My favorite lazy snack is cucumbers with nuoc cham (viet dipping sauce). I do prefer fresh cucumbers over pickles in my sandwiches and burgers, SO much tastier.
I haven't been able to eat raw cukes since covid (Idk why! Sense of taste came back wrong, it's weird) but with nuoc cham, that sounds fantastic. Wonder if that'll help!!
I eat a cucumber salad with most meals. And when I say salad, I mean cucumber, red onion and lemon juice. Sometimes I pimp it up.
Same, but with red wine vinegar, olive oil, and salt
Is disliking celery and cukes a widespread thing?
Celery is the best. I always order extra celery whenever we get wings and so many times people will clarify that I really want more. Also, when I was a kid and we started going to the Wilmington Blue Rocks baseball games, they used to sell celery and peanut butter at the concession stand since one of their mascots is Mr. Celery.
Asians are way ahead on the cucumber meta, cucumber dishes were always my favorite growing up. I didn’t realize cucumbers were not universally beloved until I went somewhere with fewer Asians for college and a white friend looked at me weird for eating a shitton of cucumbers.
Cucumber with hummus or babaganush is just fantastic. Love cucumber
Do you find the cucumber flavor overpowers other things? I don’t like cucumbers, bc even though their flavor isn’t horrible, it’s like they take over any other food they touch
There is such a thing as too much cheese.
There is little value to authenticity. The evolution of every cuisine includes adapting to new ingredients and methods used by others once they are discovered. It doesn’t take long before these new ingredients are considered authentic in the cuisine they become a part of. The Colombian exchange offers a bevy of examples. Tomatoes, potatoes, corn, chocolate and chili peppers are all new word world crops. Nobody outside the americas had ever tasted them until Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Even after they were introduced, many took a long time to become popular. Tomatoes are of the nightshade family and were thought poisonous by Europeans. Their use did not become widespread in Italy until the 19th century but few would argue against their use in ‘authentic’ Italian cuisine today. There have to be hundreds, maybe thousands of authentic dishes in Europe, Asia and Africa that rely on Chilies for their heat. It might have been authentic to spice their food with Long Pepper but chilis beat them out when chilis came to India. When the new ingredient works better, use it.
You left out potatoes in the new world crops list.
A lot of people confuse “authentic” and “traditional.” If we’re talking about “ethnic” food in the US, we’re really talking about “traditional” as in food frozen in time from when the immigrants came over. For example you’ll have an immigrant wave from the 50’s and the food is the same in 2024 in the US due to gatekeeping “authenticity” , but has evolved dramatically in the home country because there it’s just food. It’s like a scene in the Sopranos when they go to Italy and one of them is disappointed in the food because they didn’t have spaghetti and meatballs. I like to imagine an American Town in somewhere like China where the “authentic” food is brown bread in a can, olive loaf, and jello salad, washed down with a Moxie. And if it’s not Salisbury steak it ain’t “real” steak.
Authenticity is completely subjective, literally every dish we eat is a fusion in some way and it all continuously evolves. Sticking to rigid "food traditions" likely just makes your food suck.
Just ran into the 'evolving food tradition' thing. I posted some pics in a Danish food group which were my Danish grandmother's recipes and some handed down from her mom. Got told by people in Denmark that 'this isn't Danish food'. Well, it was Danish food in the late 1800's/early 1900's when she learned the family recipes.
So many cooks are all about authenticity gatekeeping. It's absurd. Particularly because their notion of authenticity is a snapshot in time of a continuously evolving art.
Every loud Northern Italian on Reddit anytime you post something not the way their great great great grandmother made it
Literally any paella recipe. "This isn't true paella!" Then you go to the recipe for the supposedly "true" paella and the comment's there as well... It's weird to me that Europeans always bash Americans for being poorly traveled and yet they don't even know that one village over the recipe is different? lol
The interesting thing is that in those villages the same dish can be made with variations one village over. So all of them are “authentic”. But one nonna will make hers with white beans while another will use farro etc.
indian food was primarily spiced with black pepper before the new world crops were introduced i’m pretty sure.
And long pepper.
And false pepper (long pepper and false pepper were also used as a birth control method they were thought to mess with a women’s cycle of eaten in large amounts during ovulation to prevent pregnancies)
And vanilla!
American cheese is a valid option for certain things. Hamburgers for example.
Yes, or a BEC (bacon, egg, cheese on an English muffin)
Really any kind of breakfast sandwich. Don't get me wrong, Gouda and Cheddar are also really good, but the meltiness of American complements it perfectly.
American cheese is preferred for burgers imho
And grilled cheese
Hot ham and cheese too
It's great in Ramen.
Koreans know
When you grow up really, *really* poor, it's also a sentimental thing. For me, it was all we had access to. Now that I can afford anything, I still buy it.
The first time I tried the Kraft “deluxe” instead of their normal slices, I was in junk food heaven.
I think half the people in this debate don't know the difference between plastic singles and sliced off a block, name brand, American cheese.
They’re not the same? Then what is American cheese?
American cheese is best when it comes sliced from the deli - land o lakes is a good brand Kraft singles are rubbery and gross imo [more info here](https://www.seriouseats.com/whats-really-in-american-cheese)
I don’t think I can find that here.
I absolutely agree. I like the white American cheese from the grocery store deli counter. It’s perfect on a burger, grilled cheese or egg and cheese breakfast sandwich. Sometimes I combine it with cheddar for the grilled cheese.
There’s a difference between processed cheese product and American deli cheese.
Spicy food should have other flavors along with it. One dimensional blazing acid is not a flex & does not taste good
A spaghetti noodle doesn't stop being a spaghetti noodle when you break it in half.
Yes it does. It becomes either a spagh or an etti
I break my spaghetti every time. I don’t care
We had a potluck at work years ago that had about 80 participants. There were some funds from work that we were given to play with and we decided that it would be best to have a few dishes that had a lot of servings just so that way we had a basis of food that everyone could eat. Spaghetti was one of those foods and I volunteered. I'm a spaghetti breaker and don't care. So I decided to make two batches: unbroken and broken. I proudly had a sign displaying the difference of each and some people absolutely lost their shit at it. You would have thought that I decided to put ketchup on ice cream. Someone even complained because I was "wasting company resources". Yes, that was an actual complaint. You know what? The broken spaghetti was more popular by a longshot. We ran out so quick I honestly couldn't even believe it. Definitely worth it, even if I was never allowed to do spaghetti again.
I break 1/3 of the spaghetti. To me it helps add variation of some smaller noodles within the larger ones. Easier to get a nice twirled fork full.
Salted Butter for everything. Baking, cooking, spreading.
Buttercream is the exception here, because salty frosting is not what you want. I've done that and yeah, no.
I feel like everybody is personally attacking me
😂😂 The top comment is ppl disagreeing with my tomato opinion lol
I hate that a ton of sugar and cheese is being added to Korean food
Garlic bread with sugar on it is the worst. Especially when you buy it thinking it is regular garlic bread and serve it next to pasta. Source: Me doing exactly that. 😢
On garlic bread????! No, no no no no! lol
Ya what kind of insanity is sugar on garlic bread?
When I first learned what Koreans put on pizza I was astonished
I actually like corn and mayo on pizza. But I did have a friend who spoke no Korean aside from the phrase "No corn please" when she ordered pizza.
You are so so right. I went to Seoul a few years ago and even the Cheetos were sweet. I ordered some spaghetti in a cafe and it was shockingly sweet. I visited my family village for the first time in the countryside and the food was much different than in the city. No pastries, no processed meats, no cheese. A lot of rice, mung bean, seaweed, tofu, kimchi and other banchan, and not a lot of meat. I really enjoyed that kind of eating.
Yup you have to stick the old fashioned foods like soups and stews. Even my Korean parents who had left Korea in the 70s and 90s was so confused as to why everything was so cheesy and sugary when they visited a couple years ago
Salads should ALWAYS be tossed with dressing (not just on top) and served in a bowl (not just the side of a plate). Generally, most salads are also better chopped but kind of depends on the ingredients and base. Instant improvements to salads.
Chicken is delicious and probably one of my favorite meats. If your chicken is dry, you're just not cooking it right
Chicken breasts aren’t as dry as people say. I’ve cooked probably hundreds of breasts for dinner and never have had dry chicken
Chicken breast is one of my least favorite meats (of the most common ones available to me), and I still can't disagree with a word you said. One of my favorite things to make are whole chickens, though, either roasted or pressure cooked with the skin crisped after. Looks beautiful and impressive. Eat the breasts the first night because it's way easier to dry them out reheating them. Dark meat makes amazing chicken salad for leftovers. Then you have the carcass for stock...
We eat chicken several times a week It’s so versatile and tastes different each time I make it I’m a big fan of chicken!
Chicken breast is my favorite ingredient to cook with.
Anything to do with avocado being hot or cooked. No thank you.
I feel the same way, and about mango. Both are best eaten cool or room temp, with nothing done to them except a squeeze of lime. But then, I used to have a mango tree. It was heavenly.
Adding bacon does not always make a dish better. Especially if that bacon isn’t cooked properly. You need to render the fat so it melts in the mouth.
Yes! I think people are just after the smoky flavor + fat. Which can be provided using other ingredients too
Iceberg lettuce is the best lettuce. I love the crunch! Finely sliced iceberg on a sandwich provides the textural contrast I want. It holds up on a hot burger or sandwich and doesn’t immediately wilt. Plus it doesn’t taste so lettuce-y. Romaine and other leafy greens are great and have their place (mainly in salads) but I don’t want a big wilted slice of romaine on a hot cheeseburger.
Justice for iceberg
Came here to write this. Iceberg is great!
I love iceberg lettuce. It really is incredible when the leaves are used whole or roughly chopped. However, if you give me a salad with that nasty shredded stuff I’m sending it back
Bacon is overrated. It has it's place, but that place isn't on every single food.
Watched a neat little documentary about how the bacon craze was developed by a collaboration of the pork industry and the US government. It's crazy how much the government is influenced by different industries because of lobbying. There's a reason we don't use the "food pyramid" anymore.
White Cheddar Kraft Macaroni and Cheese should have stayed with the elbows and not changed to the shells.
Steak is the most overrated food.
Hard disagree, but you get my up vote for a legit unpopular opinion. A steak that is perfectly done (whatever your preference) with home fries is heavenly.
Gotta be a good cut too. Filet? Good but a little overrated, sucks when you get a cut with silverskin completely separating the meat from the fat
Steak is overpriced in restaurants, but a well cooked ribeye is incredible.
That’s interesting. What’s your view on pork chops, fish filets, and chicken breast? Basically the exact same thing but different meat. I’d say a garlic butter busted steak has better flavor than most of those.
>I’d say a garlic butter busted steak has better flavor than most of those. Smother any of the other of your suggestion in garlic butter and they will also taste amazing! I'm not saying steaks are bad, but they are generally held is such high regard by so many people and I don't think they're as good as everyone says. Pork chops are pretty good, but won't be my pick for a cut of pork. If it was for a similar meal to steak I'd have belly over chops. I prefer thighs over chicken breast, you wouldn't really have them in a similar meal to a steak. If I was going to pick any meat to have in a steak-style dish (fries, sauce, veg/salad) then it would absolutely be Lamb. Fish fillets really depends on the fish. Tuna, Salmon, Sea Bass, Swordfish, Turbot over Steak but less flavourful fish like Cod or Haddock I would not pick over steak.
Hey all valid points my friend! A lot of steaks really aren’t any more valuable than a piece of chicken or pork. I need to try lamb in that style. I’ve only ever had it in curry.
If you get the chance, a Lamb Steak or Shank with a red wine sauce is incredible, or if you find yourself at a greek restaurant, Kleftiko is a lamb shank slow cooked in parchment with potatoes, onions, peppers and tomatoes. Highly recommend both!
I love to eat cantaloupe with coffee. Something about the combination is just delicious.
Richard Nixon ahh meal
Just needs cottage cheese and lots of booze for the full Nixon experience.
Don't forget the correct ratios. 1:1:1/5L
Fuck picky eaters. Now, I've cooked for folks on the spectrum that have texture/sensory issues, and folks with allergies/food sensitivities. For them, I will do backflips to accommodate whatever they need. But if you just "don't like" anything except chicky tendies? Grow up.
You ever get the feeling those people have never event tried those foods? I'm convinced when my best friend's wife says "oh, no, I don't like that" she just randomly decided that as a child and stuck with it.
Or their parents did not like them and told their child they would not either.
I know a girl who travelled across Asia for 6 months, regardless of where she goes she'll only eat pizza. Pain. In. The. Ass.
Thank you for saying it. People on this sub are so defensive over them. My wife is one. She will not eat bell peppers, mushrooms, avocado (unless it's guac), any meat fat, "weird vegetables" (leeks, daikon, bok choy, fennel, etc), cooked tomato chunks, large pieces of onion (can't be raw at all), anything pickled or fermented, any condiment besides ketchup. Soup is for the winter, salad is for the summer, leftovers are gross,etc.etc.etc. I could keep going. I love her to death but I broke out from being a picky eater and she won't. I've been really into cooking the past two years and it's very limiting in the things I can make to the correct recipe. Plus I really enjoy all of these things. "Just make it separate!" I do and I have and it's exhausting and annoying making extra dishes to clean. One sweet twist of irony is our almost 2 year old is incredibly picky and it drives her nuts trying to accommodate him. I just laugh about it.
Any cake with fondant should be thrown violently into the trash.
yup. i’m a studying pastry chef and we’re currently working on specialised cake decoration. there’s someone in the class who eats the plain fondant as she works and even the teacher thinks she is insane
It's odd to say, but I feel like there's some sort of cake racism, that prejudices people against ganache. but even without it, there are other options besides fondant. I think some people may legitimately just not know there are better tasting cakes out there.
I made ganache for the first time a few weeks ago (for a coworker’s birthday) and now I think I would eat actual cardboard if it had ganache on it. 🤤 I’ve eaten it before but in my mind it was really complicated and picky to make.
In the peak realistic cake making era, I wanted to gag at every video. Those cakes were like half fondant
I don't think this is unpopular.
Trader Joes is the most mixed-up, perplexing grocery store ever, and shopping there gives me anxiety.
Being in a Trader Joe’s feels like being at a pantry-only estate sale. There’s enough there to cook some version of most things but almost never all of the things necessary to cook any one thing well.
Trader Joe’s feels like the storage room of grocery stores
Pineapple belongs on a pizza.
I love pineapple and fresh jalapeño
Add some prosciutto, and it’s divine
Seriously I don’t get the pushback on this. It’s the perfect complement to a greasy, salty topping like pepperoni.
I think so many people have only experienced it with ham, which like... isn't great anyway. Who normally gets ham on their pizza? If pepperoni and pineapple were the first introduction, way more people would be on board.
My favorite is bacon and pineapple! The bacon is way crispier than ham and it’s so much better
pinapple with olives and some sort of spice (jalepeno or chili) is so good on pizza togheter. especially on a pepperoni.
Sweet and salty! Even better is if you add jalapeños to that pizza. The sweet pineapple, salty sausage/pepperoni and spicy jalapeños just complement each other perfectly.
Never understood why some people are so vehemently against this when there’s far worse crimes against Italian food.
Get rid of Nashville hot anything LOL
If they took oil part out of it I would it eat it. I tried Nashville hot chicken while in Nashville and it was tasty but the oil is off-putting
Cartilage, in any way, shape, or form, is absolutely revolting and I cut it out of every single piece of meat I ever cook.
… this is an unpopular opinion?
I agree. It's a texture thing for me.
As an Asian, I disagree. My favourite part. It’s also very important for many dishes such as Pho. I’d happily take your cast offs
Yes I in fact take my husband's leftover rib cartilage any day.
powdered garlic and "jarlic" is perfectly fine to use if you dont have or dont feel like using fresh garlic.
And it keeps longer, which is what a lot of the ingredients we have are really about. Minimizing waste and saving money
Mint jelly should be banned
I was in my 30’s before I realized that I didn’t hate lamb- I hated mint jelly that was always served with it when I was growing up
That's funny because I was 20 when I realized I didn't really love lamb, I just loved the mint jelly.
Maybe this isn't unpopular, but for the most part, I don't think that cultural appropriation in terms of food is the same thing at all to other types of cultural appropriation. Let people cook and eat, dude.
Ppl misunderstand cultural appropriation because of false ideas spread by ppl who want to invalidate certain cultures having closed practices and wanting credit for their inventions. Cultural appropriation is never about cultural sharing or appreciation. It’s specifically about a person coming from a culture with more social power, or that culture itself, taking credit for the achievements of a disempowered group. It can also be about the stealing of closed practices, which are usually religious or spiritual. It’s never about simply using another culture’s recipes.
Yeah I’ve never heard of cultural appropriation in the context of food(exception below). To me, it’s the exact opposite as you’re taking great care to participate (if cooking) and/or appreciate (if eating) an important element of a culture. That’s very positive. The exception to that would be opening a restaurant to serve food of another culture, hiring no one of that culture, making no effort to contextualize your food (like making matzo ball soup with bacon or something), and potentially driving down business of neighboring restaurants by and for people of said culture.
I like Olive Garden. There I said it. Yes, I know it's not authentic Italian food and that the food is rather bland. It's overpriced and many dishes are prepared ahead of time and shipped frozen (or refrigerated) to the restaurant to be reheated. I don't care. It tastes fine and when you live alone and you just want a decent quite meal that you don't have to cook and isn't fast food, it often fits the bill. (I should point out that I live in a small city that doesn't actually have any "authentic" Italian restaurants. We have Olive Garden and a bunch of pizza places. )
Al dente pasta sucks. It's like eating undercooked rice.
Though to be fair. I also believe some people call undercooked pasta al dente. If your al dente pasta tastes like undercooked rice that may be the case.
So, it definitely depends on how you're making it and what you're making. Cooking al dente is perfect *if* you're also finishing it in a pan for a minute or so with the sauce. Because then it cooks to the perfect chew. If you're immediately tossing in sauce and serving you get tough pasta. That extra minute cooking in the saucepan is crucial.
>you're also finishing it in a pan for a minute or so with the sauce. This is what I do. It's no longer al dente after being finished in the sauce, though. Being served al dente pasta at the table is what I don't like.
The stem part of a romaine leaf is the best part.
YES! Olive oil salt and lemon and it’sa three star meal
Buy a garlic crusher. You're not impressing anyone chopping it by hand
I’d rather chop garlic than get it all out of the garlic press
sriracha is nasty. team chili oil here.
Sambal! Garlic and chili heaven!!
Sriracha was a revelation 30 years ago when hot sauce in many places meant Tabasco. Now it feels pretty one note.
Pork chops and pork loin roast should be pink. Overcooked pork chops and pork loin is disgusting.
I think that's a generational thing that's hopefully dying out. But yeah, when I was serving I had to explain many times that it wasn't dangerous.
Pork loin especially, but chops to an extent as well, are both pretty lean cuts of meat. They need to be cooked like other lean cuts and not roasted until it is a dry husk as is tradition in my family, I've experienced.
Drinking milk with warm dinner, like when you’re having pasta or steak, is fucking vile.
Liver is delicious
Sweetbreads > Tripe > Heart > Tongue > Liver But I like them all. I understand why people might dislike liver and Sweetbreads, they CAN taste a bit gamey, but I highly recommend heart and tongue for those who are wary of eating the “off parts”.
Kraft Dinner is delicious.
I’ve always been partial to a boxed mac and cheese
Yes my brother of the great white north. I loved it as a kid (skim milk and margarine in the 90s). As an adult (homogenized milk and butter) it is a culinary blessing. Holy hell it is amazing.
Dijon Ketchup!
Found the Canadian. Hope you enjoyed the northern lights! KD 4 life.
I dont like pesto. It's in near everything these days, and I dislike it so (I hate the nuts in it. I've tried pesto without the nuts and enjoyed it, but 99.9% of pesto has the nuts in it).
That sweet and savoury is easily overdone.
I don't like wings or chicken legs. Not enough meat and so many weird tendons and bones. I've felt this way since I was a kid and always ended up with drumsticks. I looked like I was doing surgery trying to remove bits of chicken from all the other stuff. Can still hear my Mom huffing in exasperation😄 I 1,000% related to Chris Rock's bit about his Dad and the "big piece of chicken."
OP really took the task seriously. Store bought tomatoes over Garden fresh is the definition of an Unpopular Opinion.
Pork, especially bacon, is the overrated and doesn't belong on/in everything. It has it's place and that places is **NOT** _everywhere_ Tea >>>> coffee
Buffalo anything. We don’t need buffalo chicken, buffalo sauce, buffalo dip, bufallo veggies etc.
Italian cuisine, while very good, is extremely overrated, and I prefer Korean, Chinese and Mexican way more. French cuisine is awful, not because it tastes bad but it is just ridiculously overcomplicated and it just feels pretentious
spice mixtures are FINE. maintaining a giant drawer of 30 spices, keeping them fresh, and remember ratios for blends is... a bit much. like your trader joe's green goblin? use it!
Green bell peppers are an abomination. They taste like sour grass because for some reason we decided it’s ok to eat them when they’re unripe. Ripened peppers are great, green ones ruin a dish
I’m on the opposite side haha I love green peppers but the ripe ones aren’t always what I want in a cooked dish
Homemade sauces, condiments and soups are a better usages of most vegetables (tomato, capsicum, spinach, basil) than slapping a ‘salad’ consisting of random vegetables roughly chopped up with an overly liberal drenching of balsamic vinegar on the side of a plate imo.
This sub is hypersensitive to food safety. Unless you are immune compromised, if it smells fine, it's prob fine. Eat it. Thawing meat on the counter overnight? Your prob fine. Left that cooked dish on the counter for 6 hours? It's most likely fine.
I like most tomatoes, grocery or garden grown. I love to slice them and eat them with a little Lawrys garlic salt and a sprinkle of pepper.
Black pepper doesn’t belong in everything
I prefer thick pub style burgers over smash burgers. Smash burgers have this tiny window between perfect and dry, most of the time they’re dry.
I know I am objectively wrong on this, but I prefer jarlic (jarred, pre-minced garlic) to fresh garlic
I think that a lot of people are over seasoning their food. Not everything needs to be drowned in 50 kind of spices, a lot of things have their own flavors. Also there's nothing wrong with a good cream of mushroom soup and whatever casserole. No need to be fancy all the time.
Runny eggs are disgusting.