*tangent. Whenever I tell someone that I don't like eggpant, their first reaction is one of pity. I don't know why, but I see it, and it's there. After that split second when the part of their brains that mediate "appropriate behavior" kick in, their tune changes in a more Hare-Krishna direction. By which I mean--conversion. "oh, I make it so it tastes just like a chicken cutlet." But here are the problemS that I have with that.
1) If I want to eat something that tastes "just like a chicken cutlet," why don't I just eat a chicken cutlet.
In my mind, they respond, "oh, but eggplant is so much better for you."
2) In almost all cases, this is true. the EXCEPTION of course being when you bread and deep fry the shit out of either of them. At that point, I don't really think the health benefit margins are too thick.
3) It is an insult to food to think that the preferred preparation of a food would be to try and mask its taste to taste like something else. Now I realize that this totally imaginary conversation I'm having is about chicken/eggplant cutlets, so getting all philosophical about the place of food is a bit of a reach, if not just completely nit-picky. But you're forgetting something.
I'm having an imaginary conversation with myself. So I can BE reach-y and nit-picky. that said, I respect eggplant enough to realize that people enjoy it. And I am ok not being one of those people. Let's just leave it at that.
end tangent*
This was a blog about an interesting fact about me if you recall. AND is amazing.
Anyways. When I cut open a green pepper, and you get that weird white almost foamy stuff that connects the inner pepper walls to the seedy core. That white stuff. Freaks. Me. Out. I think it's gross and otherworldly. It's a totally green food, why is there white in there. And the consistency is totally inconsistent with the rest of the vegetable. The pepper iscrisp and firm. The alien white crap is limp and fungus-y, and is the vegetive equivalent of the limp "dead fish" handshake. Fuck that freaky white shit. (seen here on the viewer's right side)
On a separate note, I respect garlic for having an outer skin that knows its place. You squeeze (great word--Q & Z, both 10 points) a garlic clove hard enough and that skin will slip right off. It realizes that its function is to act as a barrier up to the point that the garlics innards are being accessed, at which point, its job is over and the quicker it gets out of the way the better. Good on' yah garlic skin.
Not onions. Onion skin will cling and grasp at itself like saran-wrap on, well, saran-wrap. it can be an awful bother. Fuck you onion skin.
I have continued to laugh. I think I'm now officially a fan. Good job.
ReplyDeleteOne of the only vegetables I don't enjoy eating (or see a purpose for) is the green bell pepper.
ReplyDeleteOkay, Matt, I won't hide anymore green vegetables in desserts anymore....mom
ReplyDeleteI clicked on this entry because I thought it said "Interesting Matt face," but it did make me laugh. F-ing onions.
ReplyDelete@Mom: I drew the line at "zucchini chocolate bread"
ReplyDelete@Dina: I will try and figure out a six hundred and eighth face. (ps. 'eighth' is a crazy word because it has a 'hth' in it.)
(1) There was no actual interesting Matt fact in your interesting-Matt-fact blog entry. At least not an explicit one. I call foul.
ReplyDelete(2) Roughly 50% of your entry was about eggplant.
(3)Eggplant does *not* taste like chicken. It has the taste and texture of eggplant. If I wanted chicken parm, I'd have that. But eggplant parm is one of my favorite foods (while I almost never eat chicken parm) for a reason.
(4) It's surprisingly difficult to get good eggplant in restaurants. I have experienced the full spectrum from divine (Maggiano's Little Italy) to great (mom's) to adequate-but-unremarkable (most places) to flavorless and cardboardy (Mount Vernon) to an inedible disgusting concoction that was only eggplant in the academic sense (Bertucci's).
Never get the eggplant at Bertucci's--it's not what anyone from this planet expects. It's some kind of flavorless sliced eggplant (with the friggin skin still on it) casserole. I'm not normally a complainer, but I felt the need to tell the waitress--and then the manager--how disgusting this dish was, and how offended my Italian half was by the presence of such an abomination. The manager practically agreed and offered me any alternative dinner, gratis. But I lost my appetite.
(5) I think that icky stuff inside bell peppers is not unlike the stringy goo inside pumpkins. WTF is up with that? Since the seeds are embedded in it, it furthermore has a disturbingly sexual overtone.
(6) I agree, onions are fuckers. And being an inherently lazy biatch, I use dried onion flakes and umm, garlic powder. So much for my easily-offended Italian half, I guess.
Johnny--you need a reread (as the title implies)
ReplyDelete1. The interesting Matt fact is that the white shit in peppers freaks me out.
2. Your point?
3 & 4. That all might be true, but it doesn't matter cause i wouldn't eat the filthy mother fuc . . . eggplant.
5. There will be no nasty talk about pumpkins on my blog. As a Halloween baby, I won't have it.
6. Onions. Fuck Onions.
and okra. okra freaks ME out.
ReplyDeleteI'm with ya on the eggplant. I once took a bite of Moussaka which is laced with eggplant, and pretty much puked in my mouth. Never again eggplant... Never again.
ReplyDeleteWhat are your thoughts on Rutabaga. I want to like it since it is fun to say. But the shape and overall look of it freak me out.
@Amber I think rutabaga would be on a "try and see if it tastes like poison" basis. I always try. But i'm often betrayed.
ReplyDelete