Cooking

When I was a kid, I was eating cereal and toast. A piece of toast fell in the cereal and me, being a kid, I just cut it up with a spoon and ate it anyway.

To my surprise, it made the milk and cereal warm and buttery, and made the toast slightly soft and milky. It was delicious!

And so ever since then, when I have cereal and toast, I dunk the toast in the cereal. Everyone thinks this is weird. EVERYONE!!

To which I reply "Great! More for me!"

I like 100% dark chocolate. Like Lindt 100% cocoa dark chocolate. I once pranked my office. I got reactions from "This is chalk. I fucking hate you." to "I like dark chocolate, let me try some... What the FUCK!! This tastes like burnt tires!"

My peanut butter and jelly and egg and bacon and cheese and hot sauce and maple syrup sandwiches

cold sauerkraut. Personally i think its weird as fuck to serve hot or lukewarm pickled cabbage but what do i know?!

Nothing tbh, not in the sense you mean. Mainly because anyone that judgy isn't allowed to stay in my life long.

However, I do have one oddball thing I enjoy that has never been enjoyed as much as I do by anyone. Tbh, lukewarm "it ain't so bad I'll waste it" is about the best I've ever gotten.

Peanut butter, bologna, and bread & butter pickle sandwich. Just a thin layer of pb on each slice of bread, a slice of bologna on each side, then sliced pickles in between. Sometimes I did the bologna only on one side, and it hits different.

It sounds like it should fail hard. But it's synergistic. It's like throwing cheddar on your pb&j, or your apple pie. Or dunking tortilla chips in your chili.

Now, I can't say it's some kind of taste explosion, it isn't. None of the ingredients are a flavor bomb. But the way the pickles cut through the fats, and the textures rumble through the mouth make it a good treat now and then.

Also, I have had heated discussions about how and when both margarine and miracle whip are useful, or even superior, in specific cases. I despise food snobbery to begin with, but there's people that just get so fucking smug about those two things that it's ridiculous. Nobody has to like them, but don't be a dick. And don't pretend like they don't have properties that are distinct from similar products.

Like, margarine is never going to taste better than actual butter to the vast majority of the human species. But it does react different than butter, shortening, or lard when baking. If you want the range of spread and texture it gives, good luck nailing the right mix of other fats from batch to batch. It's possible, but a pain in the ass. It also works very well as a spread, so if you don't mind the chemically flavor, it works well on toast.

Miracle whip, yeah, sweetish mayo seems weird. But any application where you'd be adding something sweet to begin with, it tends to be more evenly sweet. So, sweet pickle juice as an ingredient is awesome, but can be overpowering as well as uneven for salads and some sandwiches. A teaspoon of MW alongside a tablespoon of your mayo of preference in a salad, or deviled eggs, lets you adjust things more finely.

It's also really nice on sandwiches where really strong mustards are present. That hint of sweet alongside the usually egginess works. Extra so on hot sandwiches. Not gonna put it on a blt where it would drown out the maters, but a thick roast beef with a horseradish mustard? Yeah, it's pretty fucking bomb there.

High percentage dark chocolate. I also dip salt and vinegar chips into more vinegar

Fries. They're my absolute favourite food. Apparently that makes me common.

Any time we eat spiral cut honey ham (a couple holidays a year) my favorite thing in the world is eating it with a metric fuckton of extra hot horseradish. Im not a huge fan of hot peppers, but the particular heat and sweetness of horseradish with the super sweet and savory of the honey ham.. it's incredible

Oh I also get judged for my Thanksgiving plate. I mix up my mashed potatoes, gravy, a little stuffing, and turkey, and then shove this mix into the middle of a roll and eat it that way.

Pizza snobs are the worst when it comes to judging people over food they like.

Actually, wait, there is a worse group. The people that lose their minds when someone else likes a steak "well done".

Sardines

This reminds me of a lunch food item back when I was in middle school called sirloin steak. Basically a thick patty made of ground beef with gravy.

It is unfortunately in the distinct shape of doo doo and all the kids laughed at me for it but I couldn’t help myself. It tasted so good I got it anytime it was on the menu.

Anchovies. I wouldn't say judged but I'm alone in my love for them. Everyone in my house likes kimchi. It is loud smelling, I can sort of understand your family.

Make them a kimchi grilled cheese, or the kimchi/butter noodles - sometimes having it cooked lets it "click" for people, that was the gateway kimchi for everyone else in my house.

At work it's licorice, though the old lady directly across from me does like it. I can imagine not liking it, but yum it's my second favorite candy.

Mayonnaise. Yeah yeah yeah a white chick from the Midwest loves mayo, but like it's tangy, it's creamy, and it's incredibly versatile

I can only eat blue cheese when everyone else is out of the house.

Cold Refried Bean Sandwich (BLT Beans-Lettuce-Tomato)

Bread Spread a thin-ish layer of cold refried beans (I prefer black but any will do) Onions Tomato slices Lettuce

Anything I make or eat really. Some things I remember getting visceral reactions from were:

PB + J sandwich with a slice of cheddar.

PB, Thai chili sauce, and tamari with tuna.

Milk with ice.

Non homogenized milk fat on a cookie.

Curry with oatmeal.

I live in Asia, and I'm constantly mocked for eating steamed rice with milk and sugar/sweetener.

This would be weird and gross for westerners.

Here in south east Asia, it's fine to eat sticky rice, coconut milk, some kind of sugar (palm sugar most of the time) and durian.

My family just use normal rice and that got me a few looks when I mention it.

I love insta ramen. I really do, and you can do a lot of variations, and I am not saying stuff that is like cook a meal and add ramen. Just simples stuff that is extra delicious.

For example, if I like the seasoning I sometimes save extra seasoning packages to make it extra seasoned.

You can make it and drain most or all water, add seasoning and butter and that is it, awesome.

You can drain some or all water and add heavy cream or even just milk, butter and extra seasoning. I like this chicken of beef bouillon, but any seasoning that you like works, just need to be something that dissolves easily and you don't need to cook for a long time you extract flavor.

If you are feeling fancy you can add some hotdogs.

That is it, I love it and would eat more and pass on a lot of dishes for insta ramen but when I do people think I am only choosing ramen because I don't like the other options, like a last resort, but cound not be further than the true. I tell people I really like it and prefer it, but they have a hard time believing me.

I don't know if this counts, but grease. Especially pepperoni grease, the orange stuff. I will just run my finger through it and lick it off, or sop it up with bread of some kind (garlic knots are great for this).

I'm trying to get more people to try hotdogs and chocolate syrup. Its the most american thing I've come up with but it isn't bad and makes it sweet instead of savory like ketchup does. Obviously I don't do it every time but once in a while

Haggis is delicious and I like anchovies on pizza.

Canned meats like tuna or spam (technically it's not spam as it's chicken/beef (and not branded spam)) but it's meat in a can in general. It's largely a smell issue in my house and my family hates the smell.

Also sodium but we don't talk about that.

It's usually wild game or unusual cuts of meat. I'm happy to say I've converted almost everyone who tried it to lengua tacos, and fish cheeks, though!