"What IS That!?!"

It always surprises me how conservative people are with their food choices! Like how can you live your whole life never trying different things?

Ok, I understand when people wonder what I'm having when they see me pour a glass of Kefir or snack on some quinoa - those are genuinely rare foods in our culture, and its cool that people are curious.

But last week my friend came over and I started making myself a sandwich with avocado. She looked totally disgusted as I spread it on the bread, and asked me what the hell I was eating.

SERIOUSLY!?! Never tried an avocado!?!

There was also one time at work where my supervisor couldn't get over the "weird little candies" I was eating with my lunch - they were chickpeas for god sakes!

Does it ever surprise you how.. unadventurous people are with their food? Or vice versa, are you one of those people who have stuck to meat+potatoes for dinner since childhood, and aren't really interested in trying new things?

my mom's foreign and i used to be "that kid" with the weird lunch box at school. i could understand if kids didn't recognize dolmas (stuffed grape leaves) or artichokes, but RICE?! come on. probably the single most popular food on the planet and yet nobody had tried it.

when in asia (before i stopped eating meat) i used to love baby octopus tentacles. i also used to eat chicken hearts. when i look back on this it's pretty weird!

Original Post by margie83:

Original Post by cptbunny:

You can have pet pigs, cows and chickens in the US too. =P

 

I've never eaten an avocado or chickpeas. And a bunch of other things people mentioned, it's not because I live in a hole, it's just because I just never had it.

I've eaten pig ears (gross...) though! Portuguese foods are pretty nasty anyway. Soup with bird intestine... or soup with chicken feet (they look like little alien hands!). So uh, yeah. :x

 im puertorican..and my mom has made pig feet that only she and my dad would eat..the rest of us were pretty grossed out! ha!...

I remember pig feet...

*shudder*

It makes me feel pretty cultured, when I come upon these people who don't know what simple fruits and vegetables are, and who refuse to try them. I have tried a ton of different kinds of food, and I am only 19! Indian, Cuban, Lebanese, Greek, Thai, Japanese, French... All you have to do is eat out once in a while!

It's just crazy to me to think of someone genuinely not being able to recognize what a raisin, or an artichoke or a ginger root looks like. It's almost as if that person would have had to deliberately not pay attention to their surroundings for years and years to never even come across common things like those. Raisins, REALLY?!

As for me, I'm vegan, so I get to answer the question "Well what can you eat?" quite a lot, and tons of people have never heard of the things I say, which are totally normal and common place. Grains, nuts, legumes, soy, fresh produce...

But the specific instance I can remember involves me telling my cousins that I enjoy getting some of my proteins and healthy fats from nut butters. At their blank stares I said, "...you know, like peanut butter?" They nodded and went "oooooh, okay." I said, "But my absolute favorite is almond butter!" and back the blank stares came. "What is almond butter?" "...you know like, peanut butter but with almonds?" Stares. "Hmm... how do they do that?"

UHM, the EXACT same way they do with peanuts!!! Is it really rocket science? I feel like people are just playing dumb sometimes. It drives me, well, NUTS!

Original Post by flonklar:

Original Post by margie83:

Here in America we treat our dogs like children..so if we ate a dog, it would be like eating one of our kids..(sounds weird)

Well, I wouldn't eat the PET dog, any more than I would eat a PET pig.  But if the dog was raised as a food animal, I'd love to try it.  I love all kinds of food and will try anything once, though I wouldn't eat an "endangered" animal.  I have heard of a "mythical" Chinese "7-Snake Soup" that would be my ultimate goal in gourmandization.   &nb sp;

They don't eat pet dogs. It's generally limited to one breed of dog (Jindo--- a breed only found in Korea), however, I have some friends who've ventured to the market where they sell the dogs to dog restaurants and there were some other dogs there, too.

My issue with eating dog is not the fact that it's a dog but because of how it's killed. 

I am also amazed by ignorance of some people when it comes to food choices. I mean come on... have you never seen mung bean sprouts before?? (they're delish btw). Some of the foods I eat are probably not so recognizable though. Chicken feet, beef omasum, honeycomb tripe, nori, tendon, pork blood... but one day in the cafeteria I was eating pita bread with humus... and my peer gave me a weird look, asking me what the "baby-food" was. Deary me!!! Never seen humus before?? Woah... climb outside of your box