The Nause-AA: Round of 64, Flight Upchuck
Today’s write-ups by Sarah D. Bunting. To vote, scroll down; to see the bracket, click here. We’ll leave these open a few days, so tell a friend (or queasy enemy).
Remember: This time, you’re voting for the food or taste you like the least. Against, not for, Survivor-style.
1 blue cheese vs. 16 chocolate
I should just say right up top that I hate, like, four things in this entire draw. The foods I hate, I really really hate, but it’s still a pretty short list — and no way is blue cheese on it. The more a cheese reeks of cat pee and ancient Trappist mold, the more I want to spread it on a piece of crusty bread and follow it with a sip of Sauvignon. In fact, I will probably vote for chocolate in this round, because I love cheese so deeply and don’t really care much about chocolate. I don’t hate it; I just don’t care. Still, blue cheese coasts into the next round.
1 blue cheese vs. 16 chocolate
- blue cheese (80%, 696 Votes)
- chocolate (20%, 178 Votes)
Total Voters: 874
Loading ...8 yogurt vs. 9 creamed vegetables
Yogurt has many more health benefits, and leads to far more hilarity when trying to consume it in the presence of certain orange cats, who will climb your leg regardless of whether you’re wearing pants, purring wildly, determined to divest you of your Dannon. The average creamed vegetable, meanwhile, is disgusting, fattening, and redundant — but my fantasy-football team isn’t named Institutional Starch for nothing, and the same steaming blob of creamed spinach that will send most of you running for the nearest barf bag is one of my favorite foods of all time. And yogurt is sometimes really sour, and also I fuckin’ hate those Activia ads, so I think yogurt triumphs here. [“The word ‘creamed’ paired with vegetables makes me ralph. Also, because of the beneficial lactobacillus cultures, Dr. Mathra sings ‘Bac-ter-i-aaa!’ in tune with those ads now.” — Keckler]
8 yogurt vs. 9 creamed vegetables
- creamed vegetables (84%, 764 Votes)
- yogurt (16%, 148 Votes)
Total Voters: 912
Loading ...5 finned seafood vs. 12 tarragon
Tough call. I’d vote tarragon, because I like it less than I like a perfect slab of bluefish broiled in a foil jacket with infused mayo…but that description just had a few of you bralfing into your hands, so there you go. [“VOOORRRRPPPHHH!” — Keckler] That said, I didn’t know how passionately tarragon haters (“tarragontagonists”?) felt about the seasoning until I mentioned that I was growing some and my sister-in-law YELLED out, “EW, TARRAGON!” I…what? Really? So it’s deeply felt, but it’s also probably niche. [“It’s the black-licorice-ness of it that makes it so awful. A little goes a long, long way. Tarragon may be my cilantro.” — Keckler] Seafood, no problem.
5 finned seafood vs. 12 tarragon
- tarragon (59%, 511 Votes)
- finned seafood (41%, 350 Votes)
Total Voters: 861
Loading ...4 clams vs. 13 puddings: rice, tapioca, etc.
Heh, “clams.” …Okay, seriously: I love puddings. The gloppy presentation and smooooooth texture will classify it as untenably revolting to many; I love it (as long as the diner doesn’t dick it up with raisins on the top). I think the childhood associations (and sweet teeth) for some will outweigh the texture issues and the presence of pudding skin for others. And I also feel like, if I added up all the food-poisoning stories I’d ever heard, clams would get the blame most often. Clams FTW.
4 clams vs. 13 puddings (rice, tapioca, e.g.)
- clams (75%, 662 Votes)
- puddings: rice, tapioca, e.g. (25%, 226 Votes)
Total Voters: 888
Loading ...6 crab vs. 11 Parmesan
Heh, “crabs”! …Sorry. I like crab fine. A spicy crab cake with a little paprika-sauce happening and some sweet corn: good stuff. I like Parmesan fine too, but fresh Parm only; the stuff in the green can is a sickening clumped-up mess that smells like someone got carsick in a gym locker. Why didn’t we rank that bullshit higher? I’m-a go nuts and predict an upset for Parmesan.
6 crab vs. 11 Parmesan
- crab (60%, 490 Votes)
- Parmesan (40%, 328 Votes)
Total Voters: 818
Loading ...3 raw oysters vs. 14 oatmeal/grits/hot cereal
That scene in whichever Ramona book where Ramona stares at the blue oatmeal in her classroom and then sprolfs all over her desk put me off oatmeal for 15 years, and I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one. Not to mention that oatmeal is one of many, MANY dishes that people insist on air-mailing into the shitter by putting RAISINS on it. Occupy Oatmeal Cookies! But the raw oyster is a seafood (strike one) and slimy (strikes two through seventeen). I love a platter of Wellfleets and I drink every drop of the brine, but Dirk can’t even watch me eat them, so it’s definitely a thing. Oysters, easily.
3 raw oysters vs. 14 oatmeal, grits, and other hot cereals
- raw oysters (85%, 748 Votes)
- oatmeal, grits, hot cereals (15%, 134 Votes)
Total Voters: 882
Loading ...7 goat cheese vs. 10 egg whites
Goat cheese should win this going away. I like it, but I completely get the hate; it’s sour and it sticks to everything and it’s pretty hew-y, objectively speaking. But I absolutely DEEEE-SPISE cooked egg whites, with that weird under-density and the SWEAT ON THEM, blearrrrf. That’s the devilment in a deviled egg, people.
7 goat cheese vs. 10 egg whites
- egg whites (66%, 557 Votes)
- goat cheese (34%, 291 Votes)
Total Voters: 848
Loading ...2 mayo-based salads vs. 15 milk
I have loathed milk since childhood. I love all other dairy products, but milk…I just…hurgh, I can’t. I had to drink a glass every night with dinner as a kid, and the number of times I sat there, alone, with the glass getting slowly warmer, the skin of fat congealing in my nightmares…I can’t take that fatty sour top note. It’s so repulsive to me that I put water on my cereal. WATER! But a lot of people love milk, or just hate macaroni salad more, and macaroni salad is weird and I don’t like it either. I love my mom’s potato salad (celery tops and red onion: tell a friend!), though, and it’s not milk, so that’s my vote. Not your-all’s, though, I’m guessing. Sick-nic favorites for the win.
2 mayo-based salads vs. 15 milk
- mayo-based salads (69%, 604 Votes)
- milk (31%, 275 Votes)
Total Voters: 879
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Tags: barfing Dirk Birthworthy Dr. Mathra feline fun times food Gen hew institutional starch Keckler N Candy AA shut up buttermilk shut up raisins Survivor The Nause-AA
Dislike of creamed veggies?? Whatttt? But what of my delicious Jalepeno Creamed Spinach Casserole To Be Eaten with Cut Up Toasted Pitas? And my Merchant/Ivory Creamed Corn With Cayenne Pepper over Saffron Pilaf?
DELICIOUS, people. Who wants recipes?
Back on the Vomit Track, Finned Seafood and Egg Whites can bite me (see last rounds for my rants). All seafood can bite me. When the polar Ice Caps melt and the seas rise, Our new Fish Masters will exult me and carry me about like the little mermaid while the rest of you toil in the mines! Believe it!
I’m de-lurking because this is too fun to pass up. I enjoy parmesan, but I chose it for sentimental reasons. When kids barfed in my elementary school (probably due to eating rice pudding, horlffph), the janitor showed up to pour orange powder on it. I was convinced until age 12 that the orange powder was…… parmesan from the green jar. To this day I can’t smell parmesan without thinking someone has vomited.
And now I’m having second thoughts about that whole “I enjoy parmesan” thing.
Holy Lord. Reading these comments is going give me a stroke from trying to stifle my giggling whilst at work.
I love milk with all my heart. I will sometimes wake up in the middle of the night just to chug down gulps of it straight out of the jug. Lactose Intolerance is right under Shark Attack on the list of things I never want to happen to me.
That being said, oysters can go fuck themselves. It’s like having a slowly-leaking eyeball in your mouth. Blarf.
What is parmesan doing on here?!?!?! I had that stuff in the green can as a kid, and yeah, it’s pretty much nothing but salt. But delicious, nutty, rich parm reg melting on top of your pasta… I could faint with the sheer tastiness of it. I AM SO CONFUSED.
Raw oysters, on the other hand, can return to the sea from whence they came and we can all stop sacrificing perfectly good lemon wedges to their evil ways.
@Jen S 1.0: Out of curiosity, did you learn Ismail Merchant’s way of cooking corn from Laurie Colwin’s book, the way I did? (Somehow, that dish does not fall, for me, in the category of creamed vegetables. Creamed corn – meaning canned kernels, imperfectly pureed, with WAY too much sugar and water, with blorfy, half-digested niblets floating in it? Unspeakable. Fresh corn, sautéed with butter and salt and cayenne, maybe a little minced shallot, with a splash of cream? Irresistible. TOTALLY different kettle of fish … er, corn. No, it is.)
Skim milk is grey. One does not eat things that are grey.
@Sars I should also mention that we lived in the tropics at the time so warm milk made even less sense.
@Jen S 1.0 – I do! If only for the fact that I want to know how the name involves Merchant/Ivory. But also because that first dish sounds fantastic.
Oh my god. MILK. HAAAAAATE. I have hated milk for as long as I can remember, and, thanks to my understanding parents, have not actually HAD a taste of plain milk in so long that I can’t remember what it tastes like. Just that it is DISGUSTING. Thinking about having a sip…I need to go lie down.
Now, the fact that I adore yogurt (plain, vanilla, and honey, primarily; fruity yogurt can get weird fast), cheese, and cottage cheese probably makes me a bit weird, given the active milk HATE.
I hate milk as much as I hate 747 cockroaches (the large flying kind), and I hate those with a “can’t even kill ’em, cuz that would mean having to get CLOSE to them” phobia.
On the other hand…love mac salad and potato salad. Because I love mayo. Yum. Hee.
Yes! Milk-haters, unite!
I too spent many an evening staring at a warm cup of milk on the kitchen table for hours, unable to hork it down. I cannot drink that shit to this day. When my husband finishes his cereal and then proceeds to slurp down a huge bowl of it?
HORRRRRRGHGHGHGHG.
However, I am currently eating like ten tons of goat cheese a day, because we’re trying to get pregnant. I figure front-load it now and maybe 9 months without won’t feel so hideous. Maybe.
@Tarn: “I’m always the first one in my family to finish a bowl of ice cream because I’m racing against time, trying to beat the melty warm-milkyness.”
YES. My husband buys vanilla milk and mint milk at Wegman’s for a treat. I tried them, and it’s just like drinking melted ice cream. Gross. Oddly, chocolate milk does not elicit the same reaction in me.
Milk was (and continues to be) the bane of my existence.
Unlike everyone who feels that the freer of fat it is, the better, I am of the opinion that if I ever can drink milk, it is within thirty seconds of leaving the fridge, and whole milk, nothing less.
The idea that all premade-milk was 2% was disturbing to me as a child, and continues to be to this day.
I *HATED* milk, and it was the only thing (other than tap water) we had to drink as kids. Every breakfast, lunch and dinner was accompanied by a glass of milk going slowly warm and gross and leaving a ring of white yucky at the top.
Two months ago I finally found myself enjoying sweetened vanilla almond milk, and soy milk in my tea, and find that cooking and simple baking is not destroyed with such a substitution, thankfully.
But man, my parents were furious trying to get me to drink that glass of milk!
(I can’t even talk about my hatred of all things mayo, and by semi-extension, most condiments. When I reveal that tidbit, I generally use with the line “I don’t use condiments; I practice unsafe food” which usually gets a laugh!)
a ring of white yucky
FLLRRRGGGFF
@Sandman: You know what other food is gray? Sardines. Anchovies. FINNED SEAFOOD.
I REST MY CASE.
(No, I don’t. I could keep going for hours.)
Oh my God, this comment section is so beautiful.
To the ladies out there who are dreading having to avoid goat cheese and blue cheese while pregnant: you don’t have to do this! Soft cheeses are more likely to carry listeria, but that is only true if they are unpasteurized. Most of the stuff you find in US grocery stores is pasteurized. A lot of nicer (or locally made, or imported) cheeses are not, and you’ll have to go without those (if you choose), but that’s a pretty small quibble compared to some of the other things you’re supposed to avoid. If you’re craving soft cheese, at least you have an option. Unlike my craving for a lovely, hoppy IPA which cannot be satisfied as there are no n/a IPAs on the market and n/a beer is TERRIBLE vile swill anyway.
OK, on that note: chocolate vs. blue cheese is insane to me as those are both required elements on my dinner tray for my last meal on earth. I did vote blue cheese just because there are some types that I don’t love, while I have not and probably will not come across chocolate that I don’t find at least acceptable.
Man, people really hate milk….
I confess I don’t know how chocolate made the list. I understand that many people don’t love it–don’t have a sweet tooth, or prefer fruity desserts, etc.–but are there really people who HATE it? It pained me to down-vote blue cheese as I sit here enjoying my lunch (green salad topped with gorgonzola and balsamic vinegar), but really…
Good LAWS I hate milk, and so does my mom…but she used to drink buttermilk FROM THE CARTON while pregnant with me. Blork!
And OH, how I read and re-read Ramona Quimby, Age 8 with a sick fascination for the barf story. Oh, Yard Ape.
Deeply dispassionate about this entire flight, oddly…I’m just agog at the seething hatred of milk. Milk? It’s just so innocuous and homey! It probably came from a red and white carton! With a smiling cow on it! (Granted, my cousins grew up on a dairy farm, where the whole side of the barn was emblazoned with MAKE MINE MILK in letters 15 feet high, visible from I-5.) But…but…what do you folks dunk your Oreos in?
The onomatopoetic renderings of barf sounds are hilarious, and yet…ghulpf…are starting to…hhhuhh…get to me oh damnhhhHHUUUEEARFFF
4vs13 is brutal. I hate both things, yet I also love both things, in specific dishes: clams in clamcakes, and puddings in my mom’s homemade pies. I have to abstain on this one while I agonize over it.
I too am baffled by the tarragon hate. A friend introduced me to a restaurant that serves honey mustard with tarragon with its chicken fingers. This concoction is delicious on chicken, and even better on French fries.
That place is in the neighborhood of excellent clamcakes. I think this bracket has inadvertently planned my weekend.
Seriously, somebody has a problem with pudding skin?! As long as it’s Jell-O Chocolate — the cooked kind, since the instant crap doesn’t GET a skin — we’re good. That’s the part I save for last.
@Sandman and Scout, yes, both recipes were! For the curious, check out Colwin’s Home Cooking, and More Home Cooking.
If Sars permits, I’ll gladly post my variations on these. Coooommmmeee to the Creamed Vegetable Side….
Oh, and Sars: I just sent my sister a link to this page and told her to pay special attention to the vomitopeia. So I would TOTALLY vote in your Barf Brackets.
@Jen S 1.0: Oh, how I love Colwin’s books! I have them all. There are certain things I use from More Home Cooking all. The. Time. (Her renderings of Delia’s Smith’s Damp Gingerbread and Elizabeth David’s Flourless Chocolate Cake are on my Can’t Live Without ‘Em list.)
With frogprof, I would totally vote in a Barf Bracket, but I might need a lie-down after. I’m highly suggestible (waves @Kim) and I was feeling a mite queasy this afternoon. The onomatopoetic verisimilitude was giving me the collywobbles.
Holy Lord. Reading these comments is going give me a stroke from trying to stifle my giggling whilst at work.
I love milk with all my heart. I will sometimes wake up in the middle of the night just to chug down gulps of it straight out of the jug. Lactose Intolerance is right under Shark Attack on the list of things I never want to happen to me.
That being said, oysters can go fuck themselves. It’s like having a slowly-leaking eyeball in your mouth. HhrroaoaAALKGrr.
Evidently Krissa and I are soul sisters. Hi, Krissa!!! Ever try putting a dab of cream in your glass of milk to make it richer? (Sorry, milk-haters. Just pass your glass right on down here!)
Some years ago my nutritional consultant told me how gross and unhealthy cow milk is, and encouraged me to drink goat’s milk if I absolutely must have the stuff. He was probably thinking of fresh-off-the-farm unpasteurized organic goat milk; what I tried was the conventionally-produced variety from the grocery store. This I sniffed (hmmm…) eyed the cup suspiciously, and gingerly had a taste. One taste.
After I poured the entire container out, someone observed that fresh-from-the-goat milk is actually quite good, but he admitted it does get kind of rank when it’s been sitting around for any length of time. “Rank” doesn’t even begin to describe that experience though… licking the actual goat would have tasted better. HwwWORff!
YES TO THE MILK HATE!! Sars I can so relate to sitting there, knowing it’s getting warmer and more viscose with every passing second that I don’t just pinch my nose and down it while gagging. The weird thing about my childhood is that for YEARS my parents never made me drink it (I am not kidding when I say I can vividly remember my 5 year-old self drinking tall glasses of Pepsi with dinner!!??) then my mom read a book about nutrition or something and bam, I started getting my sandwiches on “syrian” bread and being forced to drink milk with dinner. Usually I would make my little brother drink it when my mom turned around to load the dishwasher. I used to eat my cereal bone dry. With a spoon, of course, I’m not an animal. But even today, I can’t even watch someone drink a glass of milk – the way it coats the side of the glass and don’t even get me started on the ipecac that is skim milk. Luckily I toughened my mental game enough to be able to give it to my infant son via bottle/sippy cup without puking directly on him.
Holy Lord. Reading these comments is going give me a stroke from trying to stifle my giggling whilst at work.
I love milk with all my heart. I will sometimes wake up in the middle of the night just to chug down gulps of it straight out of the jug. Lactose Intolerance is right under Shark Attack on the list of things I never want to happen to me.
That being said, oysters can go fuck themselves. It’s like having a slowly-leaking eyeball in your mouth. HUORLG.
I don’t get the milk hatred, unless you’re lactose intolerant. Even now, I drink a glass with my dinner every evening. But then, my uncle and aunt had a dairy farm, so milk was an integral part of my childhood. Whole milk, unpasteurized, straight from the milking machine to our refrigerator. Yum!
with cow hairs floating in it HRRRRLLLFFF
Okay, here’s my variations on Ismail Merchant’s Creamed Corn and Spinach and Jalepeno Casserole. Again, the orginal recipes can be found in Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking and More Home Cooking.
(Sars, I totally understand if you don’t post this, it’s LONG.)
Easier one first:
Creamed Corn
2-3 ears FRESH corn (do NOT use frozen or *shudder* canned corn. The results will be of horror and despair.)
Butter to cover (that is, to lightly coat the corn kernels)
Salt
Cayenne Pepper
Cream
Husk and de-thread corn as much as possible. Cut it from the cobs with a sharp knife into a bowl. In a large skillet, melt butter gently over medium heat. Add corn and stir gently to coat. Salt and Cayenne pepper to taste (just a hint of salt to bring out the sweetness of the corn.) Stir 2-3 minutes. Add a splash of cream. (How much varies. You can add just a splash, or use up the half-empty cream thingy you have left over. I add a bit at a time and allow it to cook down between doses so the dish is rich and thick. I also add a dash more pepper for every addition of cream.)
Cook until soft, but not falling apart. Serve alone or over rice (I make a nice pilaf, but plain rice will do.)
Eat with your favorite beverage (Ginger beer is great with this.)
Jalepeno and Spinach Casserole
2 packages frozen spinach (the block kind)
4 Tbps butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 Small onion, minced
1 clove minced garlic
1/2 cup EVAPORATED milk (do not use condensed)
Black Pepper
Celery Salt
8 oz Pepper Jack Cheese, grated or diced
Handful of jarred jalepenos, minced
Bread crumbs (the dry kind sold at the store are fine)
1 bag pita breads
Heat oven to 300 degrees.
Cook spinach according to package directions–basically boiling it in water until it is loose and not a frozen block. Drain into a colander, reserving 1 cup of the spinach water. (I do this by putting the colander on top of my measuring cup and pouring in the spinach. I take the colander off and let it finish draining in the sink, while pouring the cup contents down to 1 cup’s worth.) Set spinach aside.
Melt butter in a large saucepan (really, a big one; the size you’d make a batch of soup in.) When butter is melted, turn down heat to low and add flour. Blend together but do not let brown.
Turn heat back up. Add onion and garlic, mix until onion softens a bit. Add the spinach LIQUID slowly until mixed in. Add evaporated milk, pepper, and celery salt, stirring constantly. Add cheese a handful at a time, stirring until each addition melts completely. When all cheese is added, put in spinach and jalepenos. Mix well until blended.
Pour into casserole dish that will easily hold contents without spreading too thin or bubbling over sides. Top with bread crumbs. Bake 45 minutes. The finished casserole will be loose, like a semi-dip.
When done, remove and set aside to cool a bit. DO NOT turn off oven.
Take 2 or 3 pitas, cut up into “chip” size segments. Arrange on cookie sheet, place in oven for 7-10 minutes. The idea is to crisp them up a bit without burning them.
Use pita chips to scoop portions of casserole into your food hole until you can’t move.
Enjoy, everybody!
I grew up allergic to cow’s milk and chicken egg whites (fortunately grew out of them). I cannot stomach any kind of egg except hard-scrambled, so any situation where the yolks and the whites are separated in their individual parts… yeccccch. Whites more than yolks, but yeccccchh!! And hard-boiled eggs reek on top of it.
Because of the allergies, the only milk I was allowed to have was goat’s milk. And as stated above, it is foul. Even now that I can have cow’s milk, I think that — by itself — it is nasty. I admit to liking chai with milk, and I will have milk in cereal… but I WILL NOT drink the leftover milk. It is only there to soak the cereal a bit. I am totally on board with the milk-haters.
I’m one of the people who doesn’t generally like chocolate, which garners me many an odd look. But I think there’s a huge difference between dark chocolate and milk chocolate. I hate dark chocolate. It is bitter and nasty. Sweet milk chocolate is usually fine. (Though I don’t like chocolate cake or chocolate ice cream, so who knows.) I still like chocolate as a whole better than stinky cheese, though.
How is it possible that people dislike chocolate more than blue cheese? It looks like somebody left it out on the counter too long and tastes like ass, and it’s friend Gorgonzola can take itself out of here too . Sorry, I don’t hate that many foods, but blue cheese (or the snooty bleu cheese) is one. In case you were wondering.
Goat cheese is amazing, did no one read Heidi??
I have found my people! Milk haters FTW!
“Cow hairs”? COW HAIRS! Euurhghhakk. No fair, Bunting.
Also, if you’re cutting corn off the cob as in the recipe Jen S 1.0 relays above (which, yum!), here’s a tip: I snap the cob in two first. This gives a flatter end so I can stand the cob on a board or in a shallow bowl with one hand, and cut down the cob with the other. The shorter half-cob gives less momentum to kernels as they fall (fly) off, and they tend to scatter less. Somewhat less. If you cut a lot of corn off the cob you might invest in a Corn Zipper: http://tinyurl.com/d2bh4o2
[buffs nails] My work here is done.