Peaked too soon
May 26, 2018 5:37 PM   Subscribe

 
I literally just ate some in my dinner salad. Spinach, fresh mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and vinaigrette. Lovely.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 5:45 PM on May 26, 2018 [8 favorites]


Sun-dried tomatoes had moved into the realm of the passé, along with items like raspberry vinaigrette, cold pasta salad, and red velvet cupcakes.


That...sounds like an awesome take-to-work lunch, actually.
posted by darkstar at 5:51 PM on May 26, 2018 [53 favorites]


I still like sun dried tomatoes in a couple of things I make. I've always loathed raspberry vinaigrette.
posted by sfred at 5:55 PM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I made a recipe recently that called for them, and I had a hard time finding them. I hadn't noticed they had gone. Last year it was beets. Now it's scorched brussels sprouts.
posted by acrasis at 5:57 PM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


What Ever Happened To The Sun-Dried Tomato?

The article correctly cites the issue (for the TLDR out there) - Overuse and the flooding of the market of poor quality "sun-dried" tomatoes. There was a time when everybody and my mother-in-law were using tomato raisins (as we call the cheaply made ones) in everything but not what they were good in. But when you get the good ones? Like a summer of nice weekends. We have another issue with them... my partner has a mold allergy and poorly made dried fruit (like mass produced sun dried tomatoes) is a particular issue for this (and she knows from dried fruit having grown up on moos for Sunday lunches).
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:59 PM on May 26, 2018 [10 favorites]


I use dried tomatoes (don't ask me if they're sun-dried) and it comes as news to me that they're out of style, but I guess I can remember them being more ubiquitous when I was a kid in the '90s. I remember seeing an airport kiosk that sold SUNDRIES and making the wrong inference.

Every now and then, I'll find very cheap clamshell boxes of tomatoes, buy 5 pounds or so, halve them and bake them at 300° for three hours. They turn out moister than sun-dried tomatoes (and they don't keep), but somehow the flavor is even more concentrated. Mmm...
posted by aws17576 at 6:04 PM on May 26, 2018 [20 favorites]


Can whatever happened to them happen to avocados next?
posted by delfin at 6:07 PM on May 26, 2018 [10 favorites]


Where are the corianders of yesteryear?
posted by thelonius at 6:11 PM on May 26, 2018 [9 favorites]


delfin, I don't think sun-dried avocados would be very good
posted by aws17576 at 6:12 PM on May 26, 2018 [41 favorites]


somehow the flavor is even more concentrated. Mmm...

A couple years ago I got it into my head to make tomato powder (I have no idea why I wanted to do this - likely, since I'm Canadian, for a home made ketchup powder). So we loaded up on fresh summer tomatoes, sliced and dehydrated the things within an inch of their existence. So I went to powder them and decided to taste them first - they were awesome! Delicious concentrated tomato flavoured chips! I never did end up making them into powder.
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:13 PM on May 26, 2018 [10 favorites]


TLDR: Sun-dried tomato hasn't had a hit single in years, but it's still a big player in the industry, working as a producer for several better-known foods, including three types of pasta and a best-selling vegetable. It also has a credit as "Eat team: Food advisor" in the movie version of Eat, Pray, Love. Most critics agreed that the first third of the movie ("Chapter One: Eat," a 37-minute montage of Julia Roberts eating) was the best part. Pay close attention; around the 20-minute mark Julia Roberts hails a cab while eating a big sloppy submarine sandwich; sun-dried tomato has a cameo as the pedestrian arguing in the background with Michael Pollan's character.
posted by compartment at 6:14 PM on May 26, 2018 [58 favorites]


Better than sun-dried tomatoes are blistered tomatoes, kinda like what aws17576 describes. I had a good friend who helped run a large organic farm that would grow kajillions of multicolored cherry tomatoes. Any that didn't sell in a given week (to restaurants and at the farmers market) were up for grabs, so we'd blast them at 500* until a little black, then I'd take them to work to use the kitchen's fancy dehydrator. We'd dehydrate them til kinda smooshy, then seal them up in olive oil. Oh man. Sometimes we'd add herbs. I can eat those like candy.
posted by Grandysaur at 6:23 PM on May 26, 2018 [15 favorites]


Packed in oil, they'd last forever in the back of my fridge.
posted by Grandysaur at 6:23 PM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I still use sundried tomatoes in a couple of things. (And I'm really amused that some chefs are still using them but have to call them "blistered tomatoes" or "tomato conserva" so that customers don't know they're eating an unfashionable food.) I also like cold pasta salad, and red velvet cupcakes are ok, although they're mainly a delivery system for cream cheese frosting. (And the main problem with cupcakes in general is that there's always too much of the frosting. They need to adjust their cake-to-frosting ratio.) But yeah, I lived in New York in the early-to-mid '90s, and I remember them being everywhere. Poor sundried tomatoes got overexposed.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:25 PM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


What Ever Happened To The Sun-Dried Tomato?

It’s drunk, living with its sister, obsessed with recapturing its days of glory.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:27 PM on May 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


But what about the sun-dried tomatoes? Ugh. I picked them off, because they're disgusting?
posted by asperity at 6:28 PM on May 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


They are still a welcome part of my pantry. I love them chopped up in my pesto pasta salad. Whenever I find a bagel place that serves sundried tomato cream cheese I am utterly giddy.
posted by gatorae at 6:29 PM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I still like sun dried tomatoes in a couple of things I make. I've always loathed raspberry vinaigrette.

I would gladly see more sun-dried tomatoes in exchange for ranch dressing and honey mustard.
posted by TedW at 6:36 PM on May 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


And the main problem with cupcakes in general is that there's always too much of the frosting

And this is where we part ways, friend. May cupcake bakers never hear your hair-brained idea. Look, you can always take some damn frosting off, ok? It’s not like I can add more. Leave my mile-high frosting alone.
posted by greermahoney at 6:38 PM on May 26, 2018 [27 favorites]


No, no. Frosting, much like a sundried tomato, is good in small doses. It's a tasty accent, not the main attraction. Stop putting 4 inches of it on my cupcakes, I'm tired of awkwardly scraping it off and making a mess.
posted by gatorae at 6:48 PM on May 26, 2018 [25 favorites]


I made a bunch from a couple trophy sized, really abundant tomato plants a couple years ago. We are still using them. I love sun dried tomatoes.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 6:54 PM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


‘People like this; I’ll find a way to put it on my menu’ — I don’t think that’s the way chefs should work. That’s the path to mediocrity.”

I love Ruth Riechl but man, "people like this food" is actually a pretty good reason to put something on a menu. Not every restaurant needs to be headed by a creative auteur.

My only problem with the ubiquitous sundried tomato/basil/angel hair pasta dish is paying $15 or better for $1.75 worth of ingredients and no more demanding technique than I myself possess.
posted by Miko at 6:56 PM on May 26, 2018 [22 favorites]


I just added three jars of sun-dried tomatoes to my online shopping cart.

Along with some feta-cheese stuffed olives.

See what you made me do‽
posted by darkstar at 7:09 PM on May 26, 2018 [12 favorites]


I like the flavor of sun-dried tomatoes, but every one I've encountered has been far too chewy to the point of being downright leathery. I'm absolutely going to try aws17576' One Weird Trick as an alternative.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:13 PM on May 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


My only problem with the ubiquitous sundried tomato/basil/angel hair pasta dish is paying $15 or better for $1.75 worth of ingredients and no more demanding technique than I myself possess.


I’ve often felt this way, and it’s amplified by my frugal upbringing, but I’ve mellowed in my old age. Obviously, the lion’s share of that $15 is due to factors that are not the food, specifically, but the time, space, convenience, labor, and atmosphere in which to eat it.

Of course, I don’t generally crave those things too much, so I don’t tend to eat out often, anyway. But occasionally, if it’s a special occasion, etc.

***

Also, count me in with the “there’s too much frosting on cupcakes these days” crowd.

/shakes fist at sky, sips diet ginger ale
posted by darkstar at 7:16 PM on May 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


Obviously, the lion’s share of that $15 is due to factors that are not the food, specifically, but the time, space, convenience, labor, and atmosphere in which to eat it.

Thanks to a dozen years of restaurant work I'm aware of that cost structure, but understanding the economics not going to make me order something I can make equally well or better at home for much less. There's just no reason to order it. If I didn't know how to cook, maybe I would because that's the only way I could eat it.
posted by Miko at 7:20 PM on May 26, 2018 [8 favorites]


Any amount of frosting on a sun-dried tomato is too much frosting.
posted by ardgedee at 7:26 PM on May 26, 2018 [28 favorites]


I’m with Reichl here. Chewy, hard, and leathery. Every so often I see one in a menu item I want to order and do a quick calculation of whether I ought to ask to omit them or just pick them out. But thankfully, as noted, those occasions are fewer and farther between every year.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:37 PM on May 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


I still see them often. Once in a while I’ll use them when I make pizza; you have to get good ones though.
The 90’s thing I don’t miss is that hollowed-out loaf of pumpernickel filled with creamy spinach dip. That shit was EVERYWHERE.
posted by chococat at 7:55 PM on May 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


every one I've encountered has been far too chewy to the point of being downright leathery.

Yeah, maybe I just never had a good one, but my reaction to this is -- good riddance.

And speaking of tomatoes, why are those which restaurants put in their salads (almost invariably) so bad? The worst sort of supermarket out-of-season tomato (even in late summer!) and in really good restaurants, too.

Also re: cupcakes -- I thought when no frosting, it's a muffin.
posted by Rash at 8:00 PM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


The great thing about food that has "peaked" is that it is widely available. It's pretty easy to find seared tuna salads, merlots, and tiramisus anywhere you go! Don't think of the foodstuff as being in the "realm of the passé," think of it being a naturalized citizen into your native cuisine. It becomes a little less exotic, and a lot less worth of note. Sriracha is tasty, and it might be your house hot sauce, but Maybe You Don't Have to Title Your Menu Item around It.

Sun-dried tomatoes are hit-and-miss. The really lovely Apulian ones (purchased in bags, dried, with no oil around them) mold easily. The ones preserved in olive oil can't survive my refrigerator. They're pleasantly chewy when I open the jar, but they toughen into shoe-leather after some weeks (months??) in my refrigerator. It's very distressing.
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:28 PM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


This is timely, I saw some at the supermarket just yesterday and thought, "when was last time I ate those?" and I couldn't remember.

Didn't get them, but I did get a bag of candied ginger, which when diced and added to any number of sauces is really special.
posted by Caxton1476 at 8:29 PM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I'm willing to give them another shot, now that I know that there was a shitty domestic knockoff masquerading as them for a while. I was shopping for olive oil today, and remembered to check if the oil was bona fide.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:02 PM on May 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


that hollowed-out loaf of pumpernickel filled with creamy spinach dip.

You probably just never had it done right
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:08 PM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


This is timely for me too. I just recently bought a jar packed in oil, after not buying them for, oh, a decade? Funny how that happens. For me they are reminiscent of 90s low fat pasta salads that I used to eat thinking they would help me lose weight (I was wrong, I eventually discovered low carb and lost weight like that).
posted by peacheater at 9:08 PM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


On a sadder note though, why does the US do this to foods? I'm probably feeling this extra hard right now because in Spain right now and simple things like pan con tomate (crusty bread rubbed with tomato and olive oil) and aioli are just so damn good.
posted by peacheater at 9:13 PM on May 26, 2018 [9 favorites]


nth'ing oven roasted tomatoes. Use parchment paper, quite a lot of salt, and be generous with olive oil. They're so moist that they don't really qualify as "dried" tomatoes, but that's a benefit. What we don't use, we freeze, and use in salads and sauces during the winter. Not quite as convenient as oil-preserved since you end up with a big block of the stuff, but so be it. You should oven roast some sweet peppers and some spicy peppers at the same time. No, I don't have times and temperatures in the back of my head, but lower-ish like 350 and 45 minutes to an hour?
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 9:16 PM on May 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


On a sadder note though, why does the US do this to foods?


Oh...don’t get me started on bananas. What the US supermarket has done to bananas over my lifetime ought to be prosecuted in The Hague.
posted by darkstar at 9:21 PM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


simple things like pan con tomate (crusty bread rubbed with tomato and olive oil) and aioli are just so damn good.

You can make that here in California, and from personal experience I can tell you — it tastes just awesome, especially when you bought everything at the farmer’s market and walked home to make it.

Can whatever happened to them happen to avocados next?

And you seemed like such a nice person!
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:25 PM on May 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


And speaking of tomatoes, why are those which restaurants put in their salads (almost invariably) so bad?

Sysco doesn't carry anything better.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:31 PM on May 26, 2018 [23 favorites]


You can make that here in California, and from personal experience I can tell you — it tastes just awesome, especially when you bought everything at the farmer’s market and walked home to make it.
I bet! Too bad I live in MA, with approximately a two week window for good tomatoes (and last year even the heirloom tomatoes at the height of summer were somewhat disappointing). But will add it to my list of things for this summer.
posted by peacheater at 9:42 PM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


Oh...don’t get me started on bananas. What the US supermarket has done to bananas over my lifetime ought to be prosecuted in The Hague.
Oh man, I miss good bananas. I grew up in India and the two foods I miss the most are good bananas and mangoes. I fill up on bananas when I visit but I haven't had a good mango in over ten years, since I never visit in summer when they're in season. One year I will brave the heat for my beloved mangoes.
posted by peacheater at 9:46 PM on May 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


Sun-dried tomatoes are pretty good in pasta salad, which is pretty good if you add a lot more vegetables so it's not just pasta and dressing. I guess pasta salad is nostalgia food now?

My tomato plants are in; nothing better than a ripe, home-grown tomato. I may put in some strawberries. Both are so very much better than the varieties that are bred to be stored and shipped. I would like to try the homegrown versions of bananas and mangoes.
posted by theora55 at 9:59 PM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


I made a cold pasta salad this afternoon. Plain old macaroni with fresh spring peas, fennel from the garden, shallots and a champagne aoli. It was yummy, even if it is passe.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 10:05 PM on May 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


They go well with pork. In Rome I had some in a late-night porchetta sandwich at a place called (really) "Donkey Punch"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:40 PM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


pan con tomate (crusty bread rubbed with tomato and olive oil)

Which to be truly sublime should be toasted lightly, then rubbed with garlic as well, topped with some Manchego and toasted a bit more under the broiler to soften up the cheese.
posted by wierdo at 10:45 PM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


I ate an Indian mango once (in Toronto, cuz duh) and it was like I'd died and gone to heaven. In an instant I realized that every mango I'd eaten until then (even atafulo) was a lie.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:04 PM on May 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


Which to be truly sublime should be toasted lightly, then rubbed with garlic as well

I ate this for lunch every day last September. It was the only way to use up all the tomatoes coming from my garden. Rubbing the garlic on the toasted bread was magic -- the bread acted like a grater and the garlic clove would dwindle to nothing between my fingers.

(Since we're all just sharing recipes now, here's my cold pasta salad: farfalle, thinly sliced red onion, cubes of feta cheese, halved cherry tomatoes, walnuts, olive oil, vinegar and oregano. Plus pickled nasturtium seeds when I have 'em. This thread is making me hungry.)
posted by aws17576 at 12:08 AM on May 27, 2018 [7 favorites]


I needed some yesterday and found I had none. Now on my shopping list.

They seem to have been replaced by what are called “semi-dried” here which are wetter - I like the chewiness of sun dried better.

I’m also on team less frosting.
posted by rivets at 2:08 AM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


What Ever Happened To The Sun-Dried Tomato?

It moved onto the bottom shelf in Aisle 3, next to the olives, just down from the canned tuna.

“They used to be a chef’s way of saying, ‘I am hip! I know what’s new!’” Reichl says. “But when they weren’t new anymore, people got tired of them. We were discovering all sorts of other ingredients, and sun-dried tomatoes just didn’t have that same kind of cachet.”

If you're the kind of nong who will only eat delicious things when they're trendy, well, sucks to be you; all the more deliciousness left for me.
posted by flabdablet at 2:13 AM on May 27, 2018 [8 favorites]


A cupcake without frosting is not a muffin! A muffin is a completely different baked good, or should be if you're doing it right. The way people ruin muffins by filling them, or frosting them, or making them dense like cupcakes is a terrible thing and a constant disappointment to me. Don't make me have this arguement on metafilter for a second time.
posted by stillnocturnal at 2:32 AM on May 27, 2018 [16 favorites]


I am so much buying sun-dried tomatoes now! The recipe I am going to cook from asks for raisins, and I know my kids hate raisins in savory food, and sun-dried tomatoes is the perfect replacement that I had completely forgotten about till I read this. I thought they were really irritating during the 90's because they were on everything, but of course that wasn't their fault.
posted by mumimor at 2:49 AM on May 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


If you need something sweeter than tomatoes but not as sweet as raisins, don't forget about dried apricots.
posted by flabdablet at 3:26 AM on May 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


ushering in a push toward home cooking.
If the '80s is when you started home cooking because it was trendy, you grew up in a difference social class than I did.
posted by clawsoon at 3:37 AM on May 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


Honestly, I never liked them anyway.
posted by kyrademon at 3:41 AM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I prefer what some supermarkets in the UK call 'sunblush' tomatoes, which are dried low-and-slow in the oven. They are much less leathery than sundried: you get some of the raisiny quality, but with more acidity and freshness. The term appears to be a trademark, but they are easy to make.
posted by GeorgeBickham at 3:46 AM on May 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


They go well with pork. In Rome I had some in a late-night porchetta sandwich at a place called (really) "Donkey Punch"

I just perused their Yelp page. Looks good. Satan's on the drums, while there's a Elvisified Creation of Adam going on.

I approve.
posted by mikelieman at 4:28 AM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I think sundried tomatoes are absolutely vile, it is one of the few ingredients that will make me skip a dish entirely. Not just because they are gross but also because it suddenly calls into question the wisdom of the chef.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.
posted by lydhre at 4:43 AM on May 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


I remember when they seemed to be everywhere. I absolutely cannot stand them. I try to avoid them, but sometimes I’ll be eating something and go “ugh, what is that? Oh god, it’s a sundried tomato.” And then I’ll make some crack about Oakleys and Sugar Ray or something (1998 called, heh heh) because I’m an awful person to be around.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 8:43 AM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Yeah. If I’ve accidentally eaten something with sundried tomatoes in it, my reaction is always, “Did somebody already fail to keep this down? Did they just re-plate the puke?”
posted by Sys Rq at 8:47 AM on May 27, 2018


I will never understand the appeal of red velvet cake. It’s like if you made a a really lousy chocolate cake, but used a ton of red food coloring instead of chocolate. The frosting is okay enough, I guess, but it’s just frosting, so meh.

I’ve got a friend who absolutely loves the stuff. Loves it. And while I appreciate his enthusiasm, I will never understand it. “It’s red velvet cake!!!”, he says, as if the reason for his joy should be self-evident.

It isn’t.
posted by panama joe at 8:48 AM on May 27, 2018 [8 favorites]


Agreed, although I've never tasted any, because I've read the recipe in Big Secrets. A whole bottle of red food coloring? Good grief.
posted by Rash at 8:59 AM on May 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


I love Big Secrets, and remember Poundstone's description of the red velvet cake batter as being the color of red nail polish. Wikipedia sez that red velvet cake originally used non-Dutch-processed chocolate, buttermilk, and vinegar(?), the latter two ingredients bringing out anthocyanin in the cocoa which gave the cake its red color. (I wonder if ruby chocolate--recently on the blue--may get its color from anthocyanin.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:12 AM on May 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


Yeah, red velvet cake has vinegar and buttermilk in it. I think that velvet cake is actually a category of cake: there's also lemon velvet cake, which has buttermilk and lemon. Velvet cakes have more acidity than typical cakes, which somehow leads to a particular velvety texture. I've made red velvet cake without the food coloring, and it's fine.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:40 AM on May 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


Cupcakes are mere baked conveyances for frosting. They keep us frostingists from being shamed (wrongly!) in public for buying and eating frosting with a spoon, which would be our only other option. How dare you contribute to the public oppression of frostingites. I am aghast that such frostinger-exclusion behavior is tolerated on MetaFilter.
posted by tzikeh at 10:25 AM on May 27, 2018 [7 favorites]


Can whatever happened to them happen to avocados next?

You take my avocados from my dead cold hands.
posted by corb at 10:50 AM on May 27, 2018 [7 favorites]


I really don't see MeFi as a nest of frostingophobia. I, myself, am frosting-curious.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:11 AM on May 27, 2018


Velvet cakes have more acidity than typical cakes, which somehow leads to a particular velvety texture.

That “velvety texture” can also be achieved by baking a regular sheet cake and leaving it uncovered in the fridge for two months. And that wouldn’t taste like Play-Doh.

Yes, the cream cheese frosting is good. But that’s what carrot cake is for.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:35 AM on May 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


Leave my mile-high frosting alone.

We few, we happy few...
posted by klanawa at 12:26 PM on May 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


More for me, though I tend to make my own out of surplus cherry tomatoes from my garden. I freeze them and eat them all winter long.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:46 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


As for the red velvet cake, when I see it awaiting me, my first thought isn’t “Drat, it’s not Mom’s German chocolate cake,” even though that was my favorite flavor, or “Darn, it’s not a hunk of Grandma’s dense, iced lemon pound cake,” even though that’s the cake that gave me the most pure joy. It’s “Yay, cake!”

As for frosting, I was once tempted just to buy a can of frosting to snack on, instead of ice cream. But I didn’t do it, because I wasn’t five.

Regarding tomatoes, I grew up in Georgia on delicious, ripe, home-grown and roadside-stand Better Boys. Thick, meaty slices of which would adorn grilled hamburgers, or with salt and pepper exalt the humble tomato-and-mayo sammich, or regally array themselves with thick slices of Vidalia onion on a side dish for dinner.

They are an iconic reminder of youthful bliss and a foretaste of Paradise. But when I see a sun-dried tomato before me, my heart does not break for those lost archetypes of crimson perfection. Instead, I think, “Woo-hoo tomatoes!”

I guess, basically, I just really like me some food...would be the central point, here, I think.


And dang, but we had some good food in the South
posted by darkstar at 1:12 PM on May 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


I've always seen red velvet cake as chocolate cake with serious commitment issues. I wouldn't say no, but why would you bake such a thing when you have other options (I'm making one soon for a friend's birthday though, there's no accounting for taste)
posted by stillnocturnal at 4:12 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


In the fourth grade a girl in my class opened her lunch box, took out a spoon and a can of chocolate frosting and ate frosting for lunch like it was no big deal. There was NO CAKE (and no sandwich).
posted by marimeko at 4:36 PM on May 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


Let he who has never eaten Nutella, cookie butter, or gianduja by the spoonful cast the first stone!
posted by praemunire at 6:05 PM on May 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


What's with all the BAN [FOOD I HAPPEN TO DISLIKE] FROM EXISTING in this thread? Eat what the fuck you want and mind your business.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:35 PM on May 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


In an instant I realized that every mango I'd eaten until then (even atafulo) was a lie.

I felt that way about pineapple and peaches for a long time until I actually had a good one. A revelation.
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:45 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


What's with all the BAN [FOOD I HAPPEN TO DISLIKE] FROM EXISTING in this thread?

I guess you flagged it all and the mods deleted it, because I’m not seeing any.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:49 PM on May 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


Especially avocados.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:49 PM on May 27, 2018


praemunire: "Let he who has never eaten Nutella, cookie butter, or gianduja by the spoonful cast the first stone!"

Okay, here I am. AMA.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:32 PM on May 27, 2018


I am hearing that people hate cupcake frosting and my brain hurts wtf you lizard people
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:33 PM on May 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


Let he who has never eaten Nutella, cookie butter, or gianduja by the spoonful cast the first stone!

I feel I have a somewhat unique claim to expertise on this topic, having once been gifted three entire crates of Nutella and bread stick snack packs. I was usually very conscientious to maintain a proper ratio of bread sticks to Nutella, because getting too much Nutella without something to balance it is a decidedly suboptimal eating experience.
posted by shponglespore at 8:42 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Okay, here I am. AMA.

How do you deal with the crushing existential despair?
posted by praemunire at 8:53 PM on May 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


Pizza, mostly.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:15 PM on May 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


Well it's clear you are all struggling to agree on a couple of things, so let me set the record straight:

Sun dried tomatoes are inferior to almost all other forms of tomato. Maybe the bland-as-shit beef tomato is behind it in the pecking order. Sun dried can GTFO; they definitely cross the line between enjoyable and "why am I eating this garbage?".

Frosting on cupcakes is all well and good, but a huge pile of frosting normally implies that the cake itself is too dry to stand on it's own two feet. Give me a moist cake with a sparse-to-moderate frosting any day.

Mods, you can probably lock this thread up, now that I've set everyone on the path of righteousness.
posted by trif at 6:16 AM on May 28, 2018


> Let he who has never eaten Nutella, cookie butter, or gianduja by the spoonful cast the first stone!

I have no idea what gianduja is (I can google it myself, tyvm) but the first is pretty disgusting without a moderating substance like pastry or a cracker, and the second is pretty disgusting in any circumstance.

(On googling: Okay, gianduja is basically Nutella without the palm oil and added sugar. I would give it a fair try.)
posted by ardgedee at 6:24 AM on May 28, 2018


sun dried tomatoes are okay i guess as long as they are used sparingly, diced tiny and not whole; when they are whole it's like chewing a wad of tomato flavoured duct tape.

red velvet cake is good when done right. "done right" does not include an entire bottle of food coloring and a single teaspoon of cocoa.

less frosting is better. there should not be a 1:1 cake to frosting ratio.

justin's nut butters version of nutella is the superior version, good day.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:43 AM on May 28, 2018


I'm kind of over the sun dried tomato as well, but mainly because it became so ubiquitous it is difficult to find good ones. They're just sour and chewy. (But I still love fresh tomato season, which in Britain lasts about two weeks.)

Other things I have noticed are becoming a "too" trendy:

- Burrata cheese: Used to be that I didn't see this very often so if I ever saw it on a menu I had to have it and it would be amazing. But just last week I saw it on the menu of a very mediocre Italian restaurant at an airport. It's over.
- Avocado: Yes, I still love an avocado! But I don't trust it on a menu anymore, especially in Britain because you just never know if it's going to be worth it, especially when it's November.
- Korean food: They need to stop calling everything bulgogi. There's a 'Japanese' chain here that serves pulled pork covered in ponzu sauce and sriracha and they call it bulgogi. SMH.
- Sriracha: It's like the only hot sauce used these days on everything and it's really annoying. I love hot sauce and there are tons of variations that bring different flavours and heat! But Sriracha has been overly successful and overly dominating.
posted by like_neon at 3:30 AM on May 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Broodwich -
I feel like this was the beginning of the end for sun dried tomatoes. If Master Shake won't eat them on his evil sandwich, then nobody should.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:12 AM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


« Older 21 Songs About or Featuring Drinking   |   Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto. Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments