☛ Food 4 thought ☚ - A Food discussion thread!

[Herlock Sholmes]

The texture is a bit more crispy than a dougnut, but it's still soft to bite for the most part.

[Korriander]

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being loads), how much do you love food?
10. Easily.

What's is your favourite dish and why?
I sort of have two. One that can still be made and one that can't be made anymore.

The one I can still make is my dad's version of saurkraut. It's delicious! Every time it is made, I eat it for every meal until we run out. My lips end up so numb!

The dish I can't make is one of my grandmother's beef stews. Technically, we have the recipe, but the canned beef she used in the past is something we have never been able to find. I think it may be out of production. We've tried substituting, but the beef she used is part of what makes it so good. One day I may find it, but I highly doubt it. I can only just keep tweaking it to try to find something similar, but nothing will ever be like my Mawmaw's stew.

If you could live off one type of cuisine for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
German. Chinese is a super close second, but German food is something my dad has always made and mixed in with our everyday cooking (since he basically grew up in Germany). I have a lot of family recipes that derive from the ones my dad grew up on, so it's a kind of comfort food.

What was the last thing you ate?
Chinese late last night. We went to a buffet for Christmas, so I ate a bunch of different things.

Name a dish that's a tradition in your country that other's might not know?
Um...American food has some kinds of traditions, but I guess one I can sort of draw in is Currywurst? It's technically German, but we would eat it at my home. Basically, when US soldiers were in Germany, they felt a bit homesick and wanted hotdogs with ketchup, so Germans sort of made their own. It's basically a hotdog (or a sausage) that has a tomato-curry ketchup sauce. We eat it with french fries and dip the fries in the curry sauce, too. It's so good!

Do you cook yourself and if so, what do you enjoy cooking?
Yes, I cook quite a bit. I love baking (and have been baking since elementary school). For meals, I generally like cooking simple things like grilled cheese sandwiches (I add jalapeño peppers when I make them!). They are quick and easy to make, and I usually serve them with either a classic tomato soup or a chile-tomato soup.

Who's your favourite Chef? Cook etc?
I'm a big Gordon Ramsay fan. I watch tons of his shows. Otherwise, I don't watch many food shows/channels.

Do you prefer sweet or savoury foods?
Savoury. I actually can't handle a ton of sweetness. I like it on occassion, but I prefer salty/spicy foods.

Anything else you'd like to ask the group?
Has anybody else had to deal with family members that can't taste? My dad lost his senses of taste and smell when I was little. Of course, this lead to some very interesting meals (especially when he'd try new seasonings). The main thing he can "taste" is spicy food because he can feel the burn of it, so we make tons of spicy foods; however, spicy food does not go with everything. It can be really hard to plan and match foods without having him get bored. We got lucky in that my brother recently started to actually enjoy and eat spicy food, but it makes it difficult to cook when we have guests unless we just keep hot sauces nearby.

[K9.]

@Korriander - Welcome for a start :3 It's great to come across someone else who loves food just as much as me. Both saurkraut & Currywurst sound amazing, I looked them up online and they do look delicious! I will keep an eye out for them in the future but here in the UK I've not had much German food.
Gordan ramsay all the way!
I too enjoy my savoury food more than sweet, I can't handle too much sweet but give me crisps etc I'm all over them.

Good question about your dad, I've never met anyone who has had issues with their taste buds, I can imagine its extremely hard to keep food exciting and I would hate to be in your dads position. Try adding foods with more texture and colour to his diet to maintain interest in food so like create more texture by adding nuts, seeds, beans and wholegrains to your meals, or add grated vegetables or fruit. You could also try serving cold foods alongside hot foods to possibly give more feeling and interest during meal time.

[Kaan]

FINALLY a thread that has some quality content that I can browse through

- On a scale of 1-10 (10 being loads), how much do you love food?
10. 10 all the way.
- What's is your favourite dish and why?
My favorite dish would have to be either veggie sushi or avocado toast... maybe anything with avocado... hmm.
- If you could live off one type of cuisine for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
Definitely Japanese. It has a really big range of foods from authentic Japanese to dishes influenced by Western countries and variety is a HUGE thing for me when deciding what to eat haha
- What was the last thing you ate?
Sourdough pretzels!
- name a dish that's a tradition in your country that other's might not know?
In Korea, we have fermented skate! It has a super sour smell and it burns your throat a little bit when you eat it. It's super rich in ammonia so you have to eat it with some kind of sauce to mask its flavor or you'll suffer lol
- Do you cook yourself and if so, what do you enjoy cooking?
YES I LOVE COOKING and I do it quite a bit! Once I get in the kitchen I lose track of what I'm supposed to do so I end up making 2-4 things very often... What I make varies on what recipes I've been browsing through that day. Yesterday, I made some soft pretzels and homemade corn tortilla chips and today, I made a loaf of French bread, some steamed buns filled with sweetened red beans, and potato leek soup haha (not to be that one person but ever since I turned plant-based I've been in the kitchen more to experiment and cook since I had no idea what to eat! cooking is such a good way to get creative and test spice ratios and ingredient substitutions and more!! it's so much fun honestly)
- Who's your favourite Chef? Cook etc?
Does favorite food blogger work? My favorite would have to be hot for food or Minimalist Baker but if we're talking about chefs or cooks, I would say Gordon Ramsey because he's so good at cooking but also because he's just so amusing to watch haha and Jamie Oliver is really fun to watch too! I used to be OBSESSED with Jamie's 15-Minute Meals!! I loved watching him set the timer and cook super fast and plate the food really effortlessly haha (but obviously every dish turned out flawless and looked simply delectable lol)
- Do you prefer sweet or savoury foods?
Savory over sweet any day. Of course, when I eat some savory food, I end up craving sweet but I have so many favorite savory foods compared to favorite sweet foods.
- Anything else you'd like to ask the group?
Anybody have any special dietary needs or on non-omnivorous diets like vegetarian, vegan, etc.? Also, what does everybody think was the stupidest food trend over the years? The best food trend?

[K9.]

Hey Kaan, welcome!

I love both Sushi & avocado anything. I think Avocado's are defintely in my top ten favourite things to eat.
You seem like you really enjoy baking and your cooking sounds really impressive. I've never tried to make any breads and I can't imagine it's easy.
A few different more recent food trends I'd come across where Raclette, Swiss/French raclette is a cow's milk cheese that's traditionally melted at the table and poured over veggies, charcuterie, and potatoes. It became really popular here in the UK in festivals etc. I never managed to get to try it but I've not had chance to really. I also noticed Cauliflower rice became quite a big thing in 2016 too which I'd never seen before. Again..not tried this yet, but will do soon I'm sure now everyone's going to be healthy eating through the first few months of the year. What trends did you notice?

Does anyone diet the start of the year?

[Kaan]

Yes I love baking a lot! There's just tons of waiting involved when the bread has to rise and all, but other than that, the rest can sometimes be pretty easy or pretty hard, depending on what bread you make. You should try some time! When the bread comes out of the oven all hot and soft and you dig into it... gosh it's the best thing ever.

I've seen raclettes a lot on sites like Instagram and Facebook! They do seem super interesting.
Oh man cauliflower rice. I just don't understand the hype. I prefer regular rice over any other kind of "rice" but that may be just me. I've seen a lot of people on low-carb diets grab bags of cauliflower rice at Trader Joe's and I HAVE wanted to try it but I feel like it just won't feel right lol

As for trends, I've seen this huge trend of people buying bottles and bottles of kombucha and drinking them for "gut health". I've tried kombucha before but it didn't help me in any way at all haha also there's this huge obsession with turmeric for all those Instagram stars and YouTube health stars... turmeric oats, turmeric lattes, turmeric smoothies, turmeric muffins... I'm not a huge fan of the taste of turmeric alone so I'm not gonna saying anything buttttt.... meh.

Also there are a lot of sweet-turned-savory foods emerging. I recently saw foie gras ice cream on Instagram and I thought it was disgusting LOL

I honestly don't diet at the beginning of the year because dieting deprives me of good food and fun cooking sessions. I think it's best to just start eating whole foods and lay off the junk as much as possible if you want to get healthy. Striving for health is better than working for weight loss because health most definitely does not mean a low body weight, you know?

[K9.]

I love the smell of freshly baked bread, and the taste...goodness its heavenly so I should try doing it more, normally someone in my family will make it and I just get the easy part of eating the goods haha.

Ive never heard of kombucha, but it seems interesting. I doubt I'd ever try it though and from what I've seen online there are several documented cases of serious adverse effects, including fatalities, related to kombucha drinking, possibly arising from contamination during home preparation. turmeric smoothies and muffins?! what is that about?! I'd use it in savoury dishes like curries etc but that's as far as my turmeric intake goes. Does it have some pronouned dieting effect or something?

Ewww....Theres nothing worse than sweet and savoury foods mixed up in my opinion. To me it just messes with my taste buds and I can't handle the weirdness. I either go for sweet or savoury. The most crazy I'll go in this case is like a chilli chocolate cake which to me is pretty tasty because its a chilli and not a massively savoury thing.

I've tried a few times to diet, most times I fail and just end up binge eating after a week of strictly no decent food. I heard that dieting plans like slimming world and weight watchers is good because you can still eat normal but it's all in moderation and all the fat is mostly cut out [cutting fat off bacon etc is allowed]. I might look into that way of dieting in the future but as for now, I'm not in the best state to diet and I don't want to so I'm not. I feel if you don't feel fully up to dieting then it's pointless trying right?

[Nolan]

- On a scale of 1-10 (10 being loads), how much do you love food?
Ten, easily. Probably not the best thing.

- What's is your favourite dish and why?
I don't have a favorite favorite, just a bunch that are up there. However if you give me a category (favorite candy bar, favorite ice cream flavour, etc) I'll be able to answer that. To answer my own categories, a classic Hershey is always nice, and mint chocolate chip.

- If you could live off one type of cuisine for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
Salad, because you can do anything. Want tacos? Throw everything in a bowl and mix it up, you got a taco salad. Loopholes are fun.

- What was the last thing you ate?
Goldfish. Too lazy to go downstairs and get lunch.

- Do you prefer sweet or savoury foods?
Depends. Sometimes I'll have phases where I really hate sweet food, and other phases where they're all I want to eat. Not good, I know. So I'm split on the question.

- Anything else you'd like to ask the group?
Yes, actually! For my baking final in school, our task is to design and create a dessert menu with five options based around an ingredient (mine is chocolate, which I assume can be milk or dark as someone else has white as theirs). I'm thinking of including an option for a brownie with either walnuts or hazelnuts and a mousse topping and a classic dish of dirt (chocolate pudding, oreo cookies, and gummy worms, for those who don't know). I don't want to pull random recipes off of sites, so I want to get ideas for recipes from other people. With that said, if you have a chocolate dessert you really love, please let me know! Post here or PM me, PMs are preferred in case I forget to check back here. Anything is fine to suggest; I'd really love to hear a cake recipe if anyone has one they love.

[Kaan]

kombucha poisoning????? wow I have NEVER heard of anything like that before. I probably shouldn't make my own and drink a bit less cause it's super expensive anyway lol

and yes I agree! if you don't fully feel like you want to change and you don't put all your efforts into it, it's not going to work out for you. if you don't feel like it, then don't force yourself!

@Nolan
hi!! your baking final sounds interesting! are you studying to become a pastry chef or something of the sort? culinary schools always sound so exciting to me lol

a chocolate dessert that I really love would have to be either chocolate truffles or a chocolate-espresso cake... saltine crackers layered with caramel and chocolate are really good too. I also really like puff pastry filled with homemade chocolate-hazelnut spread.

wow that's a lot lol

[Nolan]

@Nolan
hi!! your baking final sounds interesting! are you studying to become a pastry chef or something of the sort? culinary schools always sound so exciting to me lol

a chocolate dessert that I really love would have to be either chocolate truffles or a chocolate-espresso cake... saltine crackers layered with caramel and chocolate are really good too. I also really like puff pastry filled with homemade chocolate-hazelnut spread.

wow that's a lot lol

I'm not, I just took the class because I love sweets (most of the time) and want to learn to not be such a klutz in the kitchen. It also sounded really fun, and it is.

Chocolate truffles or a puff pastry is a good idea! I've never had saltines like that before. Might have to try it out sometime.

Culinary school also sounds fun because I heard, at the one my teacher went to, you had to work in a restaurant as part of their program. I admire people who can do that since I know I'd never be able to keep up with everything if it gets busy.