One time I talked to an acquaintance about why she hadn’t tried the best taco truck that I love that is literally next to her house.
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One of the things my elders were exceptionally proud of me for: she knows how to select good fish, dried mushrooms, and she has great taste in food
People who don’t care about food are treated with extreme suspicion in my culture, almost like.. they are aliens you can’t communicate with.
I was surprised to learn that in other cultures, people who care too much about food are perceived to be odd
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Adrianna Tanreplied to Megan Lynch (she/her) last edited by
@meganL yeah she said she specifically seeks out places that are bland and flavorless as that’s her comfort food
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@skinnylatte The flip side of that is "flavor maximalist" sounds kind of exhausting. Like only listening to music at max volume.
Sometimes you just want some background music.
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@drsbaitso haha, I’ve never had food with minimal flavor until I left Asia, and I never want food for fuel, only max flavors. I suspect I would have to go to a health food place in Asia to get anything with less flavor. But I also grew up with food and community at almost every meal, so eating alone as fuel is very new to me and I don’t like it
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@skinnylatte (As an Asian, to me) Living without enjoying flavors seems like one's life is about to end. But then there is comfort, so it allows some people to keep going, I guess.
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@skinnylatte we had a family friend in the Midwest in the 80s who had grown up in a household that didn’t even use alliums, so coming over to our place for dinner was a flavor adventure!
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@pixiecata I don’t know if I told you but it’s pretty easy for me to get to a lot of Filipino food here (in Daly City). It makes me happy
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@skinnylatte sounds like I need to make a trip to Singapore and/or Malaysia
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@rbmath great food 24/7. never have to repeat a food type or cuisine.
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@skinnylatte The world is delicious and I have an appetite for its beauty. It's alien to me but I do understand some people just aren't as sensual or as transported by sensation as I am. Though I do always feel a bit sorry for people who just grew up without food culture.
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@gannet @skinnylatte We don't use alliums in my house either, but in our case it has to do with IBS.
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@skinnylatte I love this! I think, even if I can't live it, it's what I want out of life.
Living in my corner of North America this means I need to go broke or cook my own food. I'm currently doing more of the latter, but oh my the time investment... Coming back from a recent trip to Indonesia, the food is plentiful, good, and cheap there.
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@fifilamoura @skinnylatte The cool thing is, you can grow into one if you're willing and able! One of my closest early adulthood friends back home (Midwest) was Tai Dam and had a huge family. I got invited to a number of occasions, and I swore I would try ANYTHING at least once before asking what it was. That, plus how she was a big foodie, as well as cooking my own stuff and reading about food cultures, including my ancestral ones, meant that I slowly expanded my palate. It can happen!
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@fifilamoura @skinnylatte I'm still not sure I can claim a long-standing family food culture (Midwestern Scandinavian-American comes closest, maybe, with adopted French from my husband), but I'm building one my son can claim. And he's willing to try all kinds of foods of other food cultures, and I can't complain about that
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@aehdeschaine @fifilamoura I once interviewed a Swedish chef and I was like what was your relationship with food at home and he said ‘I just wanted to make better food than what I grew up with’
But
A lot of Nordic food things (curing, preserving) are also super valid and I’ve learned some of them. I guess the Lutheran dislike of ‘hedonism’ is something I really struggle with
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@meganL @skinnylatte this is me sometimes
I like a lot of different foods and trying new things, but when I’m really in need of something soothing or comforting, bland things call to me -
@bluestocking @skinnylatte Surely there's a difference between bland and "lacking flavor", though? Oatmeal is bland, but it doesn't completely lack flavor, for instance. Same for potatoes baked in their jackets.
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@ddr yes! So I grew up with food in Indonesia / Malaysia / just like that and you can see how it’s a big cultural shift
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@epicdemiologist @gannet the Jains and religious Japanese / Koreans make delicious food without alliums!
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@meganL @skinnylatte I mean, I can taste a lot of flavor and texture nuance in stuff other people find really bland and it brings me a ton of pleasure but it’s things other people would absolutely describe as disgustingly flavorless.
