Gag Me With a Used...Spoon (Worst)

Member Name: mattygroves10

Product:	Worst
Date:	15/11/05 (244 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I won't eat them . . .

Disadvantages: . . . so there's more left for you .

I am convinced that many foods are acquired tastes. I am further convinced that different countries, even with similar languages and cultures (well...vaguely similar - just go with me on this) have different favourite foods - and one culture's delicacies are another's barf-causers. Take haggis for example - to me the idea of eating sheep's offal wrapped in a sheep's bladder or stomach or whatever (where, as if I need to remind you, urine is stored...) is repugnant, yet I love scrapple - a Pennsylvania dish which is hard to describe. It's sort of like a sausage meat loaf - you slice it and fry it. It's basically spiced internal pig organs. Reading the ingredients on the packet is generally a 'bad thing' - last I looked, the first ingredient was 'lung'. Eueeuch. But I love it.

What I'm trying to get at is there are foods that are considered almost 'staples' here in the UK, which I wouldn't touch with a barge pole. There are foods - full stop - that I can't stomach. So, below, my ten worst foods - especially food which are considered especially English...in a vague order (well, the order in which I think of them, anyway). Let's just say that nine and ten are truly my least favourite foods.

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1) Brussels Sprouts (and greens)
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Brussels Sprouts. My husband and daughter love these. But for me...yuck. OK, they're kind of cute to look at, but I don't like sprouts, I don't like cabbage. Boiling sprouts smell to me like pee. And what's this 'greens' thing - green WHAT? In my experience, vegetables have names, not just colour descriptions.

Now, there ARE more stomach churning vegetables (lima beans, anyone), and I CAN eat sprouts if politeness dictates I must. But really, I'd rather not.

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2) Banana Flavoured anything
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Now, I like bananas. I hate, however, banana flavouring. Banana flavoured sweets don't taste like banana, they taste like medicine. The same is true with banana mousse...Ditto banana flavoured milkshakes.

I used to work with a lad in the armpit of London, who had a weakness for banana flavoured milkshakes; even the SMELL makes me gag. Urg.

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3) Pork Scratchings
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Pure pork fat. Actually, if I'm truthful, I used to like these. But once, I ate too many. I belched up pork fat all afternoon. I haven't touched them since.

Seriously, this whole idea of a packaged snack food that is not only not low fat, but is 100% fat, and so hard that my husband regularly loses fillings as a result of eating them is absurd. Yuck.

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4) Blackcurrant ANYTHING
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Ribena? Gross. Blackcurrant jam? You can keep it. Blackcurrant anything is not common in the States, so I never tried it until I came here. I'm sure it must be an acquired taste - impossible to like unless you've been eating it since you were 2. I find it bitter, with a nasty, nasty aftertaste.

Now blueberry or raspberry jam is a different story. Love 'em. Grape jam is normally consumed by children - you can even buy peanut butter with grape jam stripes already incorporated. Not MY cup of tea, but the kids love it - and it's a lot nicer than blackcurrant!

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5) Mushrooms
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Fungus. Dirt. Yuck. OK, I exaggerate. I'm not the kind of person who picks mushrooms out of a dish or off a pizza. It's just that, given the choice, I'd rather leave them out.

And I absolutely cannot eat anything that describes itself as being 'smothered in mushrooms.'

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6) Salad Cream
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Give me mayo, any day. I find salad cream cloying and artificial tasting, and won't buy it. Mayo, on the other hand, I could almost eat straight from the jar. If I'm making tuna or egg salad, I use LOADS of mayo...but never salad cream.

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7) Meat Flavoured Crisps
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Why, oh why, do potato crisp manufacturers assume that we can't handle our crisps tasting of...well...potato. 'Roast Chicken and Stuffing Flavour', 'Roast Beef and Mustard Flavour...' I mean...why?

I'm not a vegetarian; I'm a confirmed carnivore. But if I want to taste roast beef, I'll EAT roast beef - I don't want my crisps to taste of ersatz meat...or mustard.

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8) Twiglets
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The curry flavoured Twiglets I can cope with. It's the original flavour. Why make a snack that's shapped like a bit of tree anyway? And why don't I like them...well, that leads me to number...

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9) Marmite
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I think you have to be weaned on Marmite (or, indeed Vegimite) to like this stuff. It is, without a doubt, the single most disgusting thing you can put on a piece of bread.

Both my husband and my daughter eat this stuff - I gag just making a sandwich (for someone else, of course) with it. You know how, if you get a bit of butter or jam or whatever on your fingers, you might lick it off? If I get Marmite on my fingers, I wash my hands. Very thoroughly.

Who in the world invented this stuff? I mean, who would think that a brown sludge made primarily from yeast and salt would be appetizing? Didn't they smell it? Didn't the smell put them off? Go figure.

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10) Offal
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I don't do internal organs. Liver? Can't even stand the smell of it cooking. And don't even TALK to me about kidneys - you know what THEY'RE used for in a living animal - the production of urine. Urg.

I won't eat tongue, kidney, liver, brawn...none of that (though, oddly, I do like paté. Go figure). Just seeing those body parts in a butcher makes me heave.


Well, there you have it. Mattygroves' ten worst foods. Yes, I know that some of you will tell me that liver, or marmite, or sprouts are among your favourite foods. Look at it this way - since I won't eat them, there's all the more left for you.

Summary: Ewwwwwww Yuck