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Post by terracotta on May 31, 2012 12:15:45 GMT -5
So much talk of taste and flavor but what does it mean to you?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 31, 2012 13:31:59 GMT -5
So much talk of taste and flavor but what does it mean to you? I know it when I taste it... And it depends on species. To me: - A great tomato is mushy, sweet, tart, and has a delicate skin.
- A great watermelon is sweet and juicy.
- A great muskmelon is soft and very smelly.
- Great corn has a tender pericarp (and tastes like cherries).
- Great lettuce is mild tasting and not bitter.
- Great green onions are full of flavor but don't bite back.
- Great dandelions are a cruel joke perpetrated by people that have never tasted them.
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Post by 12540dumont on May 31, 2012 15:37:15 GMT -5
A good honeydew tastes like sugar and is crunch.y
A good cauliflower has a subtle nutty taste after the initial sweetness.
Good spinach is slightly salty and tart.
Good peas should be sweet and have a slight snap.
Good beans should taste beany and should also have a slight crunch when fresh.
Good Eggplant should smell like an exotic flower and have the texture of a good steak. I should never be bitter.
A good strawberry should be sweet and smell like honey.
A good squash should be firm and not stringy and melt in your mouth like a sweet potato, sweet with no bitter aftertaste.
A good grape should explode in your mouth and taste like summer, warm, sweet, silky and fleeting.
Good endive should be neutral to slightly bitter.
A good apple should never be mealy but crisp and tangy-sweet.
A good apricot is hard to find, but should be buttery textured, sweet and the juice should drip down your arm when you bite into it. Ditto for peaches.
A good pear should be slightly grainy,never mushy and taste like pure sugar.
No one has ever had a good Brussel Splat, so they are a mystery.
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Post by templeton on May 31, 2012 17:06:58 GMT -5
No one has ever had a good Brussel Splat, so they are a mystery. Hear hear. My mother served me up two the other night, and in spite of fifty years of experience I stupidly tried one of the nasty bitter little bastards. Yuk. She scoffed my second one. Clearly the aberrant gene that allows people to enjoy sprouts is not necessarily passed on to the offspring from the maternal line. From my observation I think some people need bitter stuff. Certainly Ms T hankers for bitter greens from time to time. If we hold that people desire the foods that contain the nutrients they need, there may well be stuff we desire that may not be initially palatable (I actually think this a gendered thing, but only on the flimsiest of evidence). Deppe touches on this in her second book, although Paul Gautschi's (Back to Eden) somewhat idiosyncratic opinions on sweetness and flavour are different. On a slight digression, I have heard it said that the little bird pecks in all the fruit on a tree, is just birds tasting fruit trying to find one that has the proper nutrients, which once found they will consume. Dunno. The proper potato is earthy and buttery and nutty a good carrot is crunchy and sweet a good snowpea ditto a good tangelo is both sweet and sour, and fragrant a good grapefruit is sour and fragrant with a hint of bitter a good mango is a mango - there is no such thing as a bad mango. Edit- just noticed this was in the cucurbit threads a good pumpkin (winter squash) is nutty and sweet a cood cuke is crunchy, juicy. a good canteloupe is sweet, juicy, smooth, and perfumed T T |
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Post by castanea on May 31, 2012 22:56:43 GMT -5
Good brussels sprouts (and I've had plenty of bad bitter ones) are sweet with a flavor that can almost be described as buttery, combining the best flavor notes of the brassicas. They should not be too soft or too hard.
For almost 40 years I hated brussels sprouts. Every time I tried them they were either mushy and tasteless or hard and bitter. Turns out that the mushy ones are almost always either overcooked or cooked after being frozen, while the bitter ones are picked too early.
A perfect brussels sprout is wonderful.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 1, 2012 5:45:42 GMT -5
I would KILL to have decent sprouts on the east coast. I was SO spoiled by the sprouts grown around Half Moon Bay! Steamed for about 5 minutes then drenched with crushed pecans toasted in butter.... oh man... ::sigh:: I liked to get them on the branch and cut them off myself. That way they don't need to go into the fridge and they'll last a couple weeks.
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Post by Darth Slater on Jun 1, 2012 6:22:17 GMT -5
Fried brussel sprouts in olive oil and garlic rule..you DO have to have good sprouts.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 1, 2012 10:42:38 GMT -5
Just give me the fried pecans or the garlic please. Hold the splats. In the book Pure Dead Magic. The cook, Marie Bain, makes Brussel Sprouts for dinner. They get fed to the critters who yark them up. They critters than decide the name must be Brussel Splats. A dragon and gryphon together could not possibly be wrong.  |
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Post by bunkie on Jun 1, 2012 11:09:18 GMT -5
mmmm...nothing like a HOMEGROWN brussel sprout, even raw!  |
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Post by steev on Jun 1, 2012 22:26:33 GMT -5
I like sprouts well cooked, not crunchy, which I think is boiled with not much water, but enough to leach out some of the bitter (I like artichokes this way, too, for the same reason). Then I want butter or mayo on hot, mayo or salad dressing on cold. Garlic and balsamic is good on them any way.
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Post by castanea on Jun 1, 2012 23:08:49 GMT -5
I would KILL to have decent sprouts on the east coast. I was SO spoiled by the sprouts grown around Half Moon Bay! Steamed for about 5 minutes then drenched with crushed pecans toasted in butter.... oh man... ::sigh:: I liked to get them on the branch and cut them off myself. That way they don't need to go into the fridge and they'll last a couple weeks. Exactly! Those from Half Moon Bay and also down near Monterey are excellent. |
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Post by castanea on Jun 1, 2012 23:09:30 GMT -5
Fried brussel sprouts in olive oil and garlic rule..you DO have to have good sprouts. Excellent! Or fried in butter. |
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