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Disc0Dave asks: How have your tastes changed over time? Is there something that you used to loathe and now crave?
subsub asks: Are there any well-known/celebrated ingredients that you can’t stand? It’s truffles for me. Hate the smell, hate the taste!
I’ve become a lot more open-minded; I didn’t really “get” tofu until I read Fuschsia Dunlop explaining the Chinese (and non-Western more generally, I expect) appreciation of texture as well as flavour. Now I see it as a really satisfying texture that works much better as a foil to strong flavours than something like chicken, which has more of a flavour of its own which deserves to be tasted. The same goes for mushrooms; I don’t love their flavour on its own, but I enjoy the texture, and I think they’re useful for adding savoury oomph, particularly to vegetarian dishes.
I’m utterly ambivalent to truffles – though the cheap oils smell sweaty to me – but I cannot stand parsley. Sorry Yotam etc but it tastes spiky to me, I can’t bear it, which is why you’ll rarely find it championed in my recipes!