Me too. Love that movie. "America is in grave danger. We are under alien attack by a popular dessert...." to quote the General in his warning message.
But you should never judge a food by it’s appearance. Try everything and then decide. I now know I’d rather eat vomit out of a sweaty sock than try olives or red kidney beans again. But that’s the point, I tried them.
I love olives. Red kidney beans... less so. Especially when they're mashed up as red bean paste. I once had to go on a business lunch with a Japanese chap in Tokyo. He was anxious to show me Japanese culture, and bought me some taiyaki (fish-shaped doughnuts with a filling), and I couldn't very well tell him I a) I love taiyaki and knew what they were and b) I hated red bean paste. I had to smile politely and eat them.
Sorry, kiddo, I am way too old and experienced to be successfully preached to about not judging food by its appearance. If it makes you feel better, I don't judge books by their covers unless the cover happens to include a bare-chested hunk with long flowing hair dramatically embracing a half naked woman with flowing hair and an ecstatic expression on her face. I leave those on the shelf with the cottage cheese and balut.
Food is always judged by its appearance. People eat with their eyes. If that weren't true, we'd chuck everything into a blender and toss out the rest of our kitchen appliances and wares.
You could have an entire debate on how much aversion or attraction to certain foods is due to evolution or upbringing and social impacts, similar to sexual attraction. With food it's even simpler sometimes - the gag reflex may not always be understood but it can't be ignored. I've found certain foods to be, as far as flavor, acceptable to eat, but totally inedible due to their texture. Not gonna name any names though and offend anyone.
I've never and will never try haggis, but I have eaten pig snouts, pig's knuckles and cow brains. They're actually not bad.
I have never owned a smartphone. Pretty normal for older folks, but as a younger one, there's always been that pressure to be on-call at all times with this stuff. #nope. I have never (yet) been wrong in a first impression of a person. My judge of character is pretty much spot on. I have never eaten at a fancy restaurant. (But I'm dying to. I'm not even going to wait for a date or any of that stuff. Me and my sister are going to treat ourselves once this covid thing is over. Screw the high prices, right?)
To hell with the olives and kidney beans, what did the vomit in the sweaty sock taste like? As this thread is a kind of confessional, I can disclose that I detest Harry Potter books/movies/merchandise, in that order. When my two were aged 5-7, they begged me to drop the first Harry Potter book and re-read some Roald Dahl. We were about 100 pages in and I was bored out of my mind. First time we tried The Witches, didn't get past the first page preface, they were so terrified. And I associate cottage cheese with my father's weight loss efforts. Only partially successful and that because it was gross.
My husband maintains that every culture has at least one food developed solely for the purpose of grossing out all other cultures: balut in the Philippines, lutefisk in Norway, escamoles in Mexico, Rocky Mountain Oysters in my part of the world, casu marzu in Sardinia, and haggis in Scotland, for example. How do I know all this, picky eater than I am? Food Science 101 and International Agriculture, Spring Semester, circa 1975. It took me thirty years after Food Science 101 to be able to eat canned tuna again; I only do it now to be polite.
I've heard that catfish stew is pretty bad. My great uncle Fred had a story about it that he would always tell. His son-in-law Rodney (who was from South Carolina) opened a restaurant in Tennessee near where Uncle Fred lived, and Uncle Fred would go over there and try the recipes. One day Rodney cooked a catfish stew, which is apparently the national dish of South Carolina or something. Uncle Fred tried it and thought it was some of the worst tasting food he'd ever had. He looked up at Rodney after the first few bites and said, "Rodney, do you really eat this stuff in South Carolina?" "Yeah, we eat it all the time." "Well, no wonder we lost the war." Cue laughter. I'm guessing that it was Rodney's recipe that was bad, but I don't know.
You know what kind of fish ends up in stew? The shit that's too far gone to serve unadulterated on a plate.
Yeah, you can time a trip to the store during one of those orchestral/cinematic interludes and not miss anything.
Catfish is properly deep fried: crusty on the outside, meltingly delicious on the inside. No one makes it properly here, so when I go "down home" I eat it every time I go out to eat. Winners of The Best Catfish in Arkansas Award are located in Glenwood and Lewisville, and that's saying something. Cat fish stew... I don't think so.
