Food

[Fin Fang Foom]

Korean fried chicken rules the school.

Kimchi is too cool for school.

[D.A. Ridgely]

A decent respect for the dead requires never eating anything once it has been buried. While I know that not all kimchi is prepared in that manner, I prefer to play it safe and give a pass on all kimchi just in case.

[Timothy]

A decent respect for the dead requires never eating anything once it has been buried. While I know that not all kimchi is prepared in that manner, I prefer to play it safe and give a pass on all kimchi just in case.

Also it tastes like fire and rotted cabbage.

[Fin Fang Foom]

Stick to your pedestrian, bland western food.

[dbcooper]

Kimchi and Korean BBQ are both awesome.

[J sub D]

In naval slang kimchee is synonymous with shit, e.g. "You're in deep kimchee now". There is a reason for this, most experienced sailors have visited Korea and sampled the genuime article. The near universal condemnation of this culinary monstrosity by folks who've eaten and given rave reviews about balut, squid jerky and BBQ monkey meat is not to be ignored.

If you ever visit Pusan, order the dog but skip the kimchee.

[Jennifer]

There's an Asian supermarket near our house -- a real one, where lots of the labels aren't even in English and the majority of the customers are fairly recent immigrants -- and though I've sampled various foods from there, the only thing I'll buy and eat with any consistency are the dried rice noodles. Based upon my admittedly limited sampling, it seems east Asians, compared to Westerners, are FAR fonder of intensely sour foods, or foods that (by American standards) have started to "go bad." The one exception is cheese -- I gather from reading various novels with Chinese characters that the Chinese, at least, find utterly revolting the American habit of letting milk go bad and solidify before we eat it -- but then, compared to Europeans the Chinese adults are more likely to be lactose-intolerant and not bother eating dairy anyway.

At the Asian supermarket I once bought a can of something called "minced spiced crab meat" from someplace like Thailand. I have a recipe where I'll take canned crabmeat, mix it with certain spices and cream cheese, wrap that mixture in crescent rolls and bake -- so I decided to try that with the Asian spiced crabmeat. Even with the bland cream cheese diluting the spices, the result was the most hideously sour thing I ever tasted; while I hate wasting food, one bite of the first crabroll was all I needed to toss the entire batch out in the trash (after first tying it in an airtight plastic bag so the stink couldn't escape).

[Ellie]

Based upon my admittedly limited sampling, it seems east Asians, compared to Westerners, are FAR fonder of intensely sour foods, or foods that (by American standards) have started to "go bad."

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you're not a fan of natto, then.

[dhex]

natto is fucked up. as is fermented soy.

so is thousand year egg.

but kimchee is pretty ok. it's kind of like a pickle that went to hell.

[dbcooper]

natto is fucked up. as is fermented soy.

so is thousand year egg.

but kimchee is pretty ok. it's kind of like a pickle that went to hell.

One of my bros, who's a foodie/pro wine & liquor dude (opening a bar at moment near you), used to make his own kimchee. Some satisfying shit. Korean BBQ action in Oakland's korea-town is some seriously good shit too. Oh man, the day we rented a Dodge Ram and scored a bunch of free Paulaner ...

[Kolohe]

My roommate freshman year of college made kimchi in the dorm room. It went over as well as you expect.

(and he wasn't even Korean. He was a Fillipino who was ethnically Chinese/Japanese who was born in Winchester, Virginia)

[Jadagul]

I finally hunted down the Asian grocery near my new place, and it was...quite disappointing. My girlfriend in Leicester used to go to the Indian grocery to buy cumin by the pound. This was just a supermarket with funny-looking labels.

[Timothy]

I finally hunted down the Asian grocery near my new place, and it was...quite disappointing. My girlfriend in Leicester used to go to the Indian grocery to buy cumin by the pound. This was just a supermarket with funny-looking labels.

I'm surprised that an English person knew where to find seasonings.

[Jadagul]

I finally hunted down the Asian grocery near my new place, and it was...quite disappointing. My girlfriend in Leicester used to go to the Indian grocery to buy cumin by the pound. This was just a supermarket with funny-looking labels.

I'm surprised that an English person knew where to find seasonings.

Hah.

Leicester is Indian central in the western world; it has the biggest Festival of Lights outside of the Indian subcontinent. The gf was actually an amazing cook--she's the one I learned to cook from, with the only problem being her ability to do everything by eye. I asked her for a recipe once, and got the following (over IM):

coook onions/shallots with chicken in butter
add paprika and mustard
cook a little
add brandy and cook off till can't smell alcohol
add veg
add cream

(She helpfully added that she adds cream "until the color is right.")

But yeah, she had an aluminum spice tin in her dorm room so she could add cumin or paprika or whatever by the spoonful to whatever she was cooking.

[Jasper]

Kimchee rocks.

I've had store-bought kimchee, the kind in a jar with no English words, and it's been really good. I've also made my own a few times, and it's just as good. I'll grant that it isn't the stuff buried in clay jars, but I do have to laugh at folks who recoil at kimchee but will put sauerkraut on their hot dogs. It's the same stuff people. Cabbage pickled in brine. The only difference is fish sauce, hot peppers, and garlic go into the kimchee pot too. And if you're not a fan of fish sauce, like me, you just go light or leave it out.

[JD]

Of course, the thing about kimchi is that styles of it vary greatly. I like some of the styles, although I'm not crazy about the most common cabbage+red-hot-peppers style. I know of a lady who as a recent immigrant from Korea lived in a kind of dormitory for immigrant girls; she kept kimchi in the fridge, only to have the matron throw it out because it was "obviously spoiled"...

Natto is OK, actually. I wouldn't eat a big bowl of plain natto, but the same could be said of many Western foods too. Oh, and if you think the Orient has a monopoly on spoiled/sour things, I remind you of Worcestershire, which is basically fermented anchovy juice.

[JasonL]

Kimchee awesome in most of its forms (there's that one thing, kimchified turnip I think, that totally sucks). Natto is vile inedible slimy stinking nastiness.

[JD]

Now sea urchin, that's foul. Tastes like bile.

[Stevo Darkly]

I think I had sea urchin sushi once. It is one of the Four Foods I Won't Eat Again. (The others are raw scallop sushi, boiled tongue and pickled pigs feet.)

[Jennifer]

I've never heard of natto before today, but considering the context of this conversation I'd wager I wouldn't like it. Even things like Americanized versions of Thai peanut sauce are too sour for my taste; when we do stir-fry in peanut sauce I'll also melt some actual peanut butter to mix into my dish. Otherwise, to me it just tastes like the whole thing was soaked in vinegar for a few days.

[Eric the .5b]

Steve did not like natto: http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000169.php

[JasonL]

I think I had sea urchin sushi once. It is one of the Four Foods I Won't Eat Again. (The others are raw scallop sushi, boiled tongue and pickled pigs feet.)

The thing about uni is that it's a pure test of your ability to enjoy a taste decontextualized from appearance and texture. It looks like baby poop. The texture is unique ... I can't think of a softer squishier substance that's still holds a basic shape (with some assistance from the nori).

But, and maybe trust me on this, if you pull uni away from the framework of sushi, and imagine it as something like hummus where you can make a sauce out of it or use it to thicken seafood concoctions, it's really a decadent and enjoyable thing. Like a cream sauce of the sea or something.

[Stevo Darkly]

I've never heard of natto before today, but considering the context of this conversation I'd wager I wouldn't like it. Even things like Americanized versions of Thai peanut sauce are too sour for my taste; when we do stir-fry in peanut sauce I'll also melt some actual peanut butter to mix into my dish. Otherwise, to me it just tastes like the whole thing was soaked in vinegar for a few days.

I actually like sour and vinegary tastes.

The photo of natto in Eric's link looks disgusting, though.

[JD]

The thing about uni is that it's a pure test of your ability to enjoy a taste decontextualized from appearance and texture.

IME, that taste was "vomit", but to each his own. I admit I'm a little puzzled by the fact that so many sources seem to talk about how it's "faintly briny" or "creamy" or whatever, when my experience was that it was foul. Some people have suggested that perhaps I got spoiled uni, but that would mean I got spoiled uni three or four different times at three or four different restaurants. Perhaps it's like a cilantro thing, where it tastes good to some people but others pick up a distasteful note.

[Jennifer]

I've never heard of natto before today, but considering the context of this conversation I'd wager I wouldn't like it. Even things like Americanized versions of Thai peanut sauce are too sour for my taste; when we do stir-fry in peanut sauce I'll also melt some actual peanut butter to mix into my dish. Otherwise, to me it just tastes like the whole thing was soaked in vinegar for a few days.

I actually like sour and vinegary tastes.

I am developing a fondness for them but only in very limited quantities: say, salty French fries with a little malt vinegar, or an occasional salad with some vinegary dressing. But I only like sourness to offset a stronger, non-sour taste; to me, all east Asian food is cooked according to the same recipe:

1. Take an edible substance

2. Put it in vinegar to soak

3. Meet somebody, fall in love, get married and raise a family

4. When your youngest child graduates from college, take the edible substance out of the vinegar, and heat and serve for the graduation party.