Food can be polarizing.
Marmite for example.
Recently two foods came up which divided the family.
The first was a flat filled pre-packed pancake my Grandchildren love. They brought lots on our recent holiday, so naturally I tucked in.
Expecting nutella I grimaced and actually spat it out. Ugh! I got crystals and off sour paste! Foul! I very nearly hurled!
Informing my grandkids their latest wrapped pancakes were crystallized and completely off, they said
"No Grandad. Those are Hershey's Cookies and Cream pancakes! We love 'em!"
That Hersheys pancake was easily one of most distasteful things I've ever eaten. How can our American friends stand it? Have they not tried Cadburys? Now that's chocolate!
Equally divisive is aspic.
I always loved meat in jelly like brawn and such. Lidl do a pork and pepper in aspic slice pack at the mo and it's quite delicious. On the other hand my Continental Missus detests the stuff, called Sülze in her mother tongue, which a particularly fearsome nursery teacher made her eat in a sandwich when she was four. Needless to say her life has been aspic free ever since!
Are there any polarizing foods in your life readers?
What about your childhoods?
I'm with you on modern American candy, such as Hersheys and Reeses. Memory is a funny thing, but I recall both brands tasting wonderful back in the day. Today, chocolate and peanut butter have been replaced by sugar, sugar and more sugar, plus some sort of wax that imitates the intended texture of the candy. Its so synthetic, its distasteful (get it?) The wife and I call it "robot candy" - tastes like a robot made it, and its for robots only! SFZ
ReplyDeleteI'm with you when it comes to Hershey chocolate, there is no comparison to Cadbury Milk Chocolate, but then in the US Hershey make Cadbury items under licence so there is a choice.
ReplyDeleteSince Cadbury was taken over by Kraft Foods in 2010(?) their chocolate doesn't taste the same to me, possibly because the bars have shrunk so much, There is nothing left to bite into.
In the US I have been shopping at a chain of stores called Trader Joe, they import Belgium chocolate bars that are more like Cadbury than Cadbury these days.
An even nicer range of chocolate bars are from New Zealand; Whittaker's
As regards polarizing foods, I always compared my mother's home made Cole Slaw against all others and would look forward to visiting the UK and sampling it again. On day I asked her the recipe and was floored when she reached into a kitchen cabinet and took out a bottle of Heinz Salad Cream! Who knew!
Polarizing? I live in a mixed marriage.
ReplyDeleteMy missus loves Vegemite, I only want Marmite -and I don't mean the sweep slop made under that name by Sanitarium Foods.
Like Woolworths, Marmite wasn't protected by international trademarks and in Australia, the name was grabbed for a sound alike product.
Genuine imported Marmite has to be relabeled as "Our Mate" and it never shares shelf space with the other spreads.
As such it's very difficult to find, sometimes hiding out in the International food aisle.
I'm currently running out of my last jar and when I can find it -and not at the moment, it's around £5 a jar!