"I have a friend who puts ketchup on cake."
September 8, 2019 10:38 PM Subscribe

Recently, Reddit user u/jordwumble asked other users, "What is a clear and objective food crime that people are getting away with because we're fighting about pineapple pizza?" A bunch of people started ratting out themselves or other people for the heinous food crimes they've committed. Here are the most disturbing replies. (Buzzfeed)
posted by Johnny Wallflower (278 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite

A surprising number of these feature mayo.
posted by gryftir at 10:50 PM on September 8, 2019 [8 favorites]

The peanut butter and sriracha doesn’t sound bad at all, really.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 10:50 PM on September 8, 2019 [29 favorites]

The pears with cheese seems like a fairly ordinary pairing. And thinking about it, I've had noodle bowls with peanuts and siracha, so the sandwich isn't that weird flavor-wise, it just doesn't fit with my family resemblance concept of "sandwich."
posted by gryftir at 10:59 PM on September 8, 2019 [22 favorites]

Cheese and pears is a totally classic combination with proven deliciousness. That the cheese is shredded makes no difference. Soy sauce and grapes also makes sense because it's a salty sweet umami tanins thing - grapes are great as a contrast in many savory dishes, and soy sauce goes wonderfully with sweet.

But some of these, and I'm looking at you watered down ranch dressing drinker - some of these are definitely crimes.

My food crime, which I will defend until death, is liverwurst and fig preserves on crackers.
posted by Mizu at 11:00 PM on September 8, 2019 [21 favorites]

I am so glad I didn't encounter this Reddit thread until the stores were closed. Oreos with OJ sounds delightful.
posted by darksasami at 11:06 PM on September 8, 2019 [6 favorites]

Sliced pears inside a grilled cheese is a delightful thing, I'm not sure what's going on there. The soy sauce and grapes makes sense to me as well, although I feel it'd work better with roasted rather than fresh, kinda like balsamic. I might investigate that one.

I'm also concerned about the amount of mayo being dolloped into everything. Yeah, it's a bit maligned these days, but dear me that cereal has enough empty calories without adding a spoon of bleh.
posted by Lykosidae at 11:07 PM on September 8, 2019 [4 favorites]

The only food crime is eating bad food when you don't have to.
posted by hat_eater at 11:08 PM on September 8, 2019 [11 favorites]

Oh god reading some of these I preferred the poop posts
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:10 PM on September 8, 2019 [10 favorites]

Ketchup on pizza just seems inefficient. Tomato sauce + tomato sauce? Whatever the extra flavor you want, you could probably just modify your pizza sauce recipe to get it.
posted by zompist at 11:16 PM on September 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

Yeah, a lot of these sound like people performatively rejecting stuff that would either be common fare or approximate a common flavor combination in cuisines other than their own. Where by "their own" I mean not just geographically but socio-economically. Ten dollars says I can find a dish that becomes much more palatable if I only replace the mayonnaise with aioli.
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 11:16 PM on September 8, 2019 [13 favorites]

just gonna out myself here: pepperoni and chocolate ice cream. it's been like a decade but i'm pretty sure i would still love it.
posted by JimBennett at 11:27 PM on September 8, 2019 [5 favorites]

Ketchup on pizza just seems inefficient. Tomato sauce + tomato sauce?

You're missing the important "+ tons of sugar".
posted by pompomtom at 11:29 PM on September 8, 2019 [8 favorites]

Chocolate ice cream on fresh hot pancakes. If you've eaten it, you say "of course" and if you haven't, you should.
posted by davejay at 11:30 PM on September 8, 2019 [12 favorites]

Isn't peanut butter with sriracha basically peanut sauce minus the soy sauce? I would eat the heck out of that.
posted by makoi at 11:31 PM on September 8, 2019 [6 favorites]

Ketchup on pizza just seems inefficient. Tomato sauce + tomato sauce? Whatever the extra flavor you want, you could probably just modify your pizza sauce recipe to get it.

Where this combo stemmed from for me was school lunch. The famous "square pizza" in American school lunchrooms, often with a side of french fries, hence the ketchup. Of course, in a "you got peanut butter in my chocolate" sort of way, the pizza would touch the ketchup and you'd eat it. Et voila, tastes great. So, it's not really a "recipe", per se.

I've also been to a pizza restaurant that had bottles of french dressing on the table. No idea what's in French dressing, but it seems related to me.
posted by readyfreddy at 11:35 PM on September 8, 2019 [4 favorites]

I love ketchup on scrambled eggs. As I got older I realized how unhealthy it is to make enough scrambled eggs to get myself any definition of full and I needed to bulk them out somehow, so one of my favorite breakfasts is now leftover pasta fried in a bit of oil until slightly browned, with a few eggs tossed in and scrambled, and then covered in ketchup. Sometimes I’ll even cook pasta just for this.

I like to think I have good taste in food otherwise but this is one of my guilty pleasure foods. I’ve never tried to get my wife to eat it and we have an understanding that she doesn’t mention it when I make it.

I blame my Czech/Polish heritage for this.
posted by mikesch at 11:41 PM on September 8, 2019 [11 favorites]

The peanut butter and sriracha doesn’t sound bad at all, really.

Fix & Fogg (NZ, natch) make this which is basically the same concept but better because it is smoky as well as spicy.
posted by aramaic at 11:43 PM on September 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

Peanut butter and sriracha sounds great. I eat something similar - unsweetened peanut butter with sambal oelek (the salty, not too spicy kind from Huy Fong). Honestly for me it works better than PB&J.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 11:43 PM on September 8, 2019 [4 favorites]

I had mayo & rice as a side dish at a churrasqueria in Argentina. It wasn't really much different from a really bland macaroni salad.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 11:47 PM on September 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

ice cream on pancakes seems fine. ice cream on doughnuts is tradition.
posted by Clowder of bats at 12:07 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

I, too, have Laverne & Shirley to thank for my fondness for milk and Pepsi.
posted by ursus_comiter at 12:42 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

One of my favourite sandwich combinations is peanut butter (unsweetened... I don't think they sell sweetened peanut butter here) with sambal and cucumber.
If you're at all familiar with the Indonesian kitchen (and because of the former Dutch colonies, we pretty much all are) then any combination of peanuts + spiciness will make complete sense.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:50 AM on September 9, 2019 [17 favorites]

A surprising number of these sound pretty delicious. I had a neighbor that would eat a raw potato like an apple. A sweet Vidalia onion is a delight to eat straight up. Rice and mayo is basically a pasta salad. I'm still a bit weirded out by my father's buttermilk with lots of ground black pepper.
posted by zengargoyle at 12:59 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I love horseradish. There’s a pretty good chance I would eat french toast topped with creamed horseradish and enjoy it. Unfortunately I can’t test that because I went vegan.
posted by danielparks at 1:16 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

A surprising number of these feature mayo.

You can make ice cream with it, you know.
posted by automatronic at 1:26 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

A surprising number of these sound pretty delicious.

I'm just going down the thread favouriting all the ones I want to try. Keep MeFi* weird, y'all.

*It stands for MealFixing, right?
posted by a car full of lions at 1:31 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

i have made oatmeal with guinness instead of water or milk and it's amazing, both in general and for the hangover caused by the rest of that guinness. i would probably try that chocolate quinoa.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:39 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

why is this here
posted by Bwentman at 1:46 AM on September 9, 2019

[Meta]Please don't link to a vulture aggregator like Buzzfeeds for stories that can be perfectly followed in their original place. [/Meta]

That said, the second item on that buzzfeed link said mayo on rice and that's a perfectly cromulent thing to do in e.g. Japan. A bit deculture perhaps, but not a crime.

And pineapple on pizza is great. Fight me.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:52 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

Peanut butter and sriracha sounds great. I eat something similar - unsweetened peanut butter with sambal oelek (the salty, not too spicy kind from Huy Fong).

Yeah. this is a standard sandwich filling in the Netherlands, for people who want a bit of a kick to it. Best one is the Surinam peanut butter brands which come with Madame Jeanette chilis already in it.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:58 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

ice cream on pancakes seems fine.

If you go to any Dutch pancake house you find far stranger things served on pancakes.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:01 AM on September 9, 2019 [10 favorites]

My favorite food as a kid was Kraft mac and cheese with cream corn, applesauce and bacon bits.
posted by snofoam at 2:04 AM on September 9, 2019

This is my orange snack/mini-meal:

A section of Tillamook smoked cheddar cut from the long, 10 oz. bar paired with a small (about 5 fl. oz.) cup of orange juice.
posted by D.C. at 2:22 AM on September 9, 2019

MartinWisse: If you go to any Dutch pancake house you find far stranger things served on pancakes.

I like cream cheese/salmon/arugula.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:41 AM on September 9, 2019

The thing about pineapple on pizza is that you're supposed to roast the pineapple first so you get that caramelisation.

Icecream on pancakes sounds completely reasonable, even chocolate icecream. It's not too far removed from cream, which isn't too far removed from butter, which is a staple pancake topping to my eyes. I can see cheese and pears working; pears are sweet and a little tart, and you could easily match that with a nice cheddar in the same way you would a dried apricot.

I think the biggest food crime I've committed was a vegemite and potato chip sandwich. Frankly, potato chip sandwiches on their own feel like a food crime, but then add the very salty vegemite to it and aaaah. It was pretty good, though.

(I've had a poor strike rate with sending vegemite to non-Australians - about 50% of the recipients found ways to enjoy it. A Brazilian friend told me that she paired it with cream cheese, which reminded me that vegemite and cheese is how most Australian kids are acclimatised to vegemite and something we forget as we start trying to feed it to Americans to laugh at their reaction.)
posted by Merus at 2:44 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

There's pretty much nothing that doesn't go on pancakes, since they are appropriate for both sweet and savoury toppings (assuming not-sweet unleavened pancakes here, not like scotch pancakes). Ice cream on pancakes is not only fine it's quite common and a classic in much of Europe. You'd be raising a lot more eyebrows by trying to justify it in terms of butter than by just going with the ice cream with no comment.

A lot of this list seems like it's coming from a very specific (white middle class American?) and narrow food culture, in that much of it doesn't strike me as that strange, having lived in various places in Europe and Asia.
posted by Dysk at 2:49 AM on September 9, 2019 [13 favorites]

(I'll also never understand anyone who gets upset at pineapple on pizza but will happily eat sweet and sour pork. Pineapple and pork, they go together! Ask any British pub which serves gammon steaks topped with pineapple rings!)
posted by Dysk at 2:51 AM on September 9, 2019 [12 favorites]

From my mispent youth. Ahem.

Whole tomatoes and chocolate digestive biscuits - both must be chilled - take a bite from each and repeat until sated. This may take some time.

White bread with burger relish, iceberg lettuce, salted chips and Philadelphia or cheese spread.

Ketchup sandwich with butter or spread on white is still a regular occurence for me. I discovered this as a kid and it still works.
posted by Chairboy at 2:57 AM on September 9, 2019

I've had a poor strike rate with sending vegemite to non-Australians - about 50% of the recipients found ways to enjoy it.

I'm an Australian who has never gotten vegemite or marmite. (Perhaps my parents being European immigrants had something to do with it; you might have to be 2nd-generation Australian or later.)
posted by acb at 3:00 AM on September 9, 2019

Peanut butter (old fashioned style, please) - sriracha with just a drizzle of molasses is awesome. Another favorite is peanut butter and pickled jalapenos, which never fails to raise eyebrows at work but is my favorite quick pantry-based lunch.
posted by St. Oops at 3:02 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

Vegemite on milk chocolate, strawberries in hummus, also I just put Vegemite on a lot of stuff that could do with a salty, savoury boost.

But the one that always gets people is vodka and balsamic vinegar, 50/50. Small portions.
posted by Acid Communist at 3:10 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

Chairboy: As a kid I always ate white bread and butter with ketchup and then shook Kraft grated parmesan cheese on top to really elevate it. Instant pizza! Such scorn from my family.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 3:21 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

Does anyone...doubt...some of these? There's a whole - speaking of performative - narrative about "disgusting people use too much mayo" that I see on the younger and less moderated parts of the internet, so when I see a reddit thread about people putting, like, a random very large amount of mayo on something unlikely, my first thought is that the narrator is fifteen and making it up.
posted by Frowner at 3:26 AM on September 9, 2019 [13 favorites]

I really like mayo - I am an American who dips her fries in mayo, I like Hawaiian mac salad, I would argue that it might be the superior lipid to put on the outside of toasty sandwiches. But I once witnessed someone take half a hardboiled egg and plop an equal amount of mayo on top of it - to form, essentially, what looked like a whole egg - and eat it in one bite. In short, I understand why you might doubt the veracity of many of these claims, but I personally believe them.
posted by Mizu at 3:34 AM on September 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

Peanut butter and sriracha cookies are incredible
posted by knapah at 3:52 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

Does anyone...doubt...some of these? There's a whole - speaking of performative - narrative about "disgusting people use too much mayo" that I see on the younger and less moderated parts of the internet, so when I see a reddit thread about people putting, like, a random very large amount of mayo on something unlikely, my first thought is that the narrator is fifteen and making it up.

Are you from the US?
posted by groda at 3:58 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

I would eat mayonnaise with a spoon. I'm not proud of it, but I won't run from what I am.
posted by Scattercat at 4:03 AM on September 9, 2019 [16 favorites]

Once I was at a Subway, and this business-formal woman in front of me was getting a six inch sandwich with just cheese and meat. When they asked what else she wanted, she said "lots of mayo." So the employee put a pretty heavy slurp of mayo and said "anything else?" And the woman asked for more mayo. So the employee just took the bottle and went back and forth on the sandwich a handful of times until there was kind of a heap of mayo on it. They started to wrap it up, and I'll never forget the pause before the woman said "no... more."
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 4:15 AM on September 9, 2019 [28 favorites]

I've always referred to my husband as a food pervert, but most of his crimes have to do with either excessive blandness or not understanding how recipes work (if 1 tbl. of thing is good, then 3 tbl. must be better! And also 3 tbl. of everything else that's in the same cupboard as the original ingredient, they're all related and thus basically identically the same).

My major food crime is milk and salt and vinegar potato chips together. Do not knock that until you've tried it.
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:22 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

I would eat mayonnaise with a spoon. I'm not proud of it, but I won't run from what I am.

My wife introduced me to the wonder that is Duke's Mayo. Up until about a year ago, I would have told you that a comment like this is heresy, but if you've ever had Duke's, you know what the fuck I'm talking about and this kind of a statement is just a fact.
posted by Fizz at 4:24 AM on September 9, 2019 [19 favorites]

Duke's is the only thing I miss about South Carolina.
posted by Scattercat at 4:29 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

Very few, if any, of these are crimes against food. They're just idiosyncratic preferences. Gluten-free bagels are a crime against food.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:32 AM on September 9, 2019 [18 favorites]

Back in college I once made a Fuzzy Navel using orange Tang instead of orange juice.

And by "once" I mean "many times".

And once I tried just mixing the Tang powder directly into the peach Schnapps. I don't remember if I liked it. I'mm'a say "yes."
posted by JohnFromGR at 4:34 AM on September 9, 2019 [12 favorites]

I'd posit that the true crime is the continued existence of listicles with random 'reaction' images between them.
It was a funny format about 10 years ago, for about 15 minutes.
posted by signal at 4:35 AM on September 9, 2019 [15 favorites]

My father ate peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches for lunch almost every day. It's actually not horrible.

I will resort to putting ketchup on a slice of pizza only if the pizza is day-old and cold out of the fridge. I mean, you gotta wake the thing up somehow.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:37 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

A lot of these things remind me of the fake Twilight Zone Intros generated by a specific Twitter/Mastodon bot; in particular, the ones which try to evoke a sense of a very dated uncanniness through transgressions of culinary norms freighted with pearl-clutching moral judgment (“she is about to understand what is the true potential of human depravity as her neighbor calmly applies candy corn to her chicken fried steak”)
posted by acb at 4:40 AM on September 9, 2019 [7 favorites]

Gluten-free bagels aren't intrinsically a crime against food. However, charging $4.30 for one, toasted, with butter -- is. Looking at you What-a-Bagel on Spadina.

Natural peanut butter, soy, sriracha, rice and ground beef with some chives and pepper is one of my go-to quick lunch bowls. So yeah, this feels just kind of like one could have said "what interesting food pairings do you find tasty" and left the shame aspect in the crisper to get moldy and be thrown out next weekend.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:43 AM on September 9, 2019 [10 favorites]

I spent a lot of time at my grandma's as a kid, and we would always eat onion bagels with peanut butter. Toasted.

I don't think this is all that wild (similar to how sriracha + peanut butter isn't wild) but 1) I honestly have no idea where my southern, white-bread-country- folk grandmother got this combo, and 2) people look at me like I'm nuts when I mention it, so.
posted by nightrecordings at 4:47 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

Also, my husband hates this concoction but my Punjabi father in law makes this cold salt-and-pepper buttermilk drink (just buttermilk literally mixed with a dash of salt, dash of pepper) and it's amazing. Father in law and I have a very similar palate.
posted by nightrecordings at 4:50 AM on September 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

salt, pepper, butter, toast. This is kind of a thing here in our house and I've been advised by many Americans that this is a bizarre combination, though like so many of these recommendations, once you try them, you realize it's not that weird at all, that people are doing them because these combinations create complex flavour profiles.
posted by Fizz at 4:51 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

Sushi pizza is a thing and it is a delicious thing - generally a crispy, deep-fried cake of sushi rice topped with spicy mayo, radishes, green onions and slices of raw fish.

That said, I once ordered it in a dodgy sushi place in Atlanta and got wet soggy Uncle Ben's topped with plain raw fish and mozzerella cheese.
posted by xthlc at 4:52 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

Also, my husband hates this concoction

Your husband sounds like a god damn genius.
posted by Fizz at 4:52 AM on September 9, 2019 [7 favorites]

I used to get a drink at one of the middle eastern groceries that was primarily yogurt, mint and salt. Well, more salt than mint. It was the best, most refreshing thing in the world on a hot day after a hard bike ride. And probably out-Gatoraded Gatorade on the electrolyte stuff.

Can’t find it where I live now. There are similar items here but the balance is off and they taste bad — usually they’re too sweet and have off flavoring. I’d make it myself if I had that specific recipe.
posted by ardgedee at 4:59 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

most refreshing thing in the world on a hot day after a hard bike ride.

Salted lemonade! Black salt, fresh lemon/lime juice, lots of ice, some mint-leaves. You're welcome.
posted by Fizz at 5:01 AM on September 9, 2019 [9 favorites]

I learned from my aunt: Peanut butter and mustard. Sometimes with a bit of mayo. YUM
posted by Goofyy at 5:08 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

Sweet bagels and/or sweet cream cheese. Like the guy next to me in line the other day who ordered a blueberry bagel with strawberry cream cheese. Just go get a piece of cake, dude.
posted by sallybrown at 5:11 AM on September 9, 2019 [7 favorites]

ardgedee: I used to get a drink at one of the middle eastern groceries that was primarily yogurt, mint and salt. Well, more salt than mint.

Sounds like Ayran except that I've never had it with mint. But I can imagine that it would work. Regular Ayran is just yogurt, water and salt and yes, very refreshing. Good stuff.
posted by Too-Ticky at 5:11 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

“Fuck this thread I’m out”
posted by growabrain at 5:15 AM on September 9, 2019

“Fuck this thread I’m out”

Just add a little mayo to that.
posted by Fizz at 5:23 AM on September 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

ardgedee: I used to get a drink at one of the middle eastern groceries that was primarily yogurt, mint and salt. Well, more salt than mint.

Sounds like Ayran except that I've never had it with mint. But I can imagine that it would work. Regular Ayran is just yogurt, water and salt and yes, very refreshing. Good stuff.

Could also be called doogh, if from an Iranian store/restaurant. One of my best friends growing up was Persian, and I've had doogh with mint many many times. In fact, I can't recall ever having it without mint. You can get a carbonated version in bottles, but the homemade stuff I've had is usually flat.

The same drink, or a similar one, is called t'an in Armenian, and I used to get it a lot in LA.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 5:23 AM on September 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

My mother told me that the girls she went to school with ate sardines with condensed milk (in case it's different elsewhere, here in South Africa condensed milk is basically milk that has been boiled until it's incredibly sweet, sticky white paste).

The girls at my school baked chocolate cake, and stirred peppermint flavoured toothpaste into the batter.

As a game, can you think of three foods that are all disgusting together? As in, food 1&2 is just as vile together as food 2&3, and also food 1&3? Quite tricky. Rule: all must be OK to eat by themselves, so for example toothpaste or poop would be cheating.
posted by Zumbador at 5:31 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

For staff meetings my office does a breakfast buffet thing with bagel fixins and fruit. One coworker always makes a bagel with cream cheese, lox, and blueberries. Like, blueberries sitting right on top of the lox. I don't know what to make of it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:34 AM on September 9, 2019

for Zumbador's game: pickled herring, channa masala, and coffee toffee ice cream.
posted by wellred at 5:34 AM on September 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

I'm one who'll put ketchup or jam on more things than I'm comfortable admitting to, so I never judge when people have combinations of food that seem like I wouldn't like them. There was a sandwich in Korea that was popular (I saw some vloggers posting about it a year or so ago) that featured some combination of eggs, crab salad and strawberry jam that they all were scared to try, then said, "Oh! Savory and sweet and bread and it weirdly works!" and I figure a lot of oddball combinations turn out like that.
posted by xingcat at 5:36 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

Wellred channa masala is kind of sweetish not so? Might be quite nice just with the ice cream.
posted by Zumbador at 5:39 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

ctrl-f "dipping pizza in ranch dressing." No results.

Oh thank god.
posted by slkinsey at 5:40 AM on September 9, 2019

oh, see, no, I don't think so. Texture is also a factor. Horrors.
posted by wellred at 5:44 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

Here is a good example of why you want to read the long, rambling Reddit thread instead of the summary.

Abbreviated version: "I had a friend stay with me and he would put ketchup and mustard of every Pringles chip he ate."

Unabbreviated version: "I let a guy couch surf at my place for a while and he would sit with a tube of pringles, a thing of ketchup, and one of mustard, and eat the whole tube, squeezing ketchup and mustard on each one.

"He also tried to fuck my mom. Some days I struggle with which of those irritates me more."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:44 AM on September 9, 2019 [49 favorites]

When I was a kid (and necessarily home alone) I would mix instant oats, chocolate milk powder (quik) and coconut shreds in a bowl and eat it dry. Trail mix from hell.

For a few years until recently I would have a jam and cheddar sandwich for breakfast which a lot of folks seemed to think was weird?
posted by hearthpig at 5:45 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

I spread a layer of honey on my plate before putting fried eggs on top. But I also love to eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches while drinking orange juice.
posted by dobbs at 5:47 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

But the one that always gets people is vodka and balsamic vinegar, 50/50. Small portions.

Oh. I would try that. Sounds like it'd really clear out your tubes.

Very few, if any, of these are crimes against food. They're just idiosyncratic preferences. Gluten-free bagels are a crime against food.

I was recently in a gluten-free bakery to pick up a cake for a party, and I noted their proud selection of gluten-free, paleo-friendly bagels. They looked exactly like the bagels for dogs that Einstein Bagels used to stock. Apparently they were one of the bakery's best sellers.
posted by sciatrix at 5:50 AM on September 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

“so one of my favorite breakfasts is now leftover pasta fried in a bit of oil until slightly browned, with a few eggs tossed in and scrambled, and then covered in ketchup” Mikesch, what you’re describing sounds like a gringo version of migas. Eggs and crushed tortilla chips, and usually some combination of cheese, vegetables, and salsa.
posted by adamrice at 5:52 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

As far as I'm concerned, the greatest food crime is those restaurants that do a house version of tiramisu with weird flavourings just to be different. No. You do not fuck with the tiramisu, or, for that matter, the creme brulee. Leave it alone!

My personal food weirdness is I enjoy microwaved pizza dipped in ketchup. I'm not even sorry. You do have to microwave it like a slice at a time tho because it gets gross pretty fast
posted by stillnocturnal at 5:52 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

Also when I eat beans on toast I eat the beans first so I can enjoy the soggy toast alone.
posted by stillnocturnal at 5:52 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

I like Honey and Bovril sandwiches.
posted by Burn_IT at 5:53 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

Came to see if western mefites will cite peanut butter unironically as an integral component in peanut sauce; was not disappointed. Congratulations* also for the addition of soy sauce.

*By that I mean I've found a new element to horrify Southeast Asians with, because western/European 'peanut sauce' is a legit food crime in these parts. (Usually just starting with "and they use peanut butter!" is sufficient).
posted by cendawanita at 5:54 AM on September 9, 2019 [9 favorites]

You do have to microwave it like a slice at a time tho because it gets gross pretty fast

yes, it becomes immediately gross the second the ketchup touches it
posted by sciatrix at 5:54 AM on September 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

The pasta with scrambled eggs sounds a bit like a pasta frittata. The ketchup is a bit odd, but scrambled eggs and pasta is a thing.
posted by Anne Neville at 5:56 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I love Tiger Tail ice cream.. I can only find it in small rural ice cream shops now though. I assume it is because people still like it there and it is traditional, not because they haven't run out of the supply they bought 30 years ago.
posted by fimbulvetr at 5:58 AM on September 9, 2019

I like my baked beans with a big dollop of cottage cheese. The hot/cold sweet/tangy contrast delights my mouth.
posted by fings at 5:58 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

The same drink, or a similar one, is called t'an in Armenian, and I used to get it a lot in LA.

I know it as lassi, from Indian restaurants in Hong Kong. Don't see it anywhere near as often here in the UK, especially not the salt (rather than sweet) version.
posted by Dysk at 5:59 AM on September 9, 2019

From the Reddit thread...

Previous boss of mine used to eat packaging peanuts straight out of recently arrived shipments

"What's the problem? They're made from corn starch."

I confess, I am this person. I prefer them to Cheetos (which are the same thing, just coated in flavor cheez dust). It reminds me of the taste of Communion wafers.

It's very unpleasant when you think you're getting a corn-starch-based one and it turns out to be Styrofoam, though.
posted by sciatrix at 6:02 AM on September 9, 2019 [23 favorites]

Also, my favorite flavor of ice cream is Tiger Tail, which is black licorice and orange, which many people seem to find repulsive and I am finding it increasingly difficult to find. Was very common 30 years ago.

One of the nice things about living in Sweden is that salt liquorice* is abundant. One of the many forms it is available in is salt liquorice ice cream, which is literally in every supermarket here.

* generally salmiakki (i.e. Finnish-style salt liquorice, made with ammonium chloride rather than sodium chloride)
posted by acb at 6:03 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

I can not read this first thing in the morning.
posted by DJZouke at 6:03 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

I confess, I am this person. I prefer them to Cheetos (which are the same thing, just coated in flavor cheez dust). It reminds me of the taste of Communion wafers.

Given that packing peanuts aren't nominally edible, there's nothing stopping the manufacturers from making them using glues which, whilst harmless to the touch, are toxic if digested.
posted by acb at 6:05 AM on September 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

cendawanita: western/European 'peanut sauce' is a legit food crime in these parts. (Usually just starting with "and they use peanut butter!" is sufficient).

Can you explain why that's so bad? I feel that if you'd start with the good peanut butter (the kind that is made from peanuts with a bit of salt and nothing else) it would be okay. Wouldn't it?
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:05 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

I know it as lassi, from Indian restaurants in Hong Kong. Don't see it anywhere near as often here in the UK, especially not the salt (rather than sweet) version.

Does it have mint in it? I always order salt lassi if a restaurant has it (they usually don't, here in the US), but I feel like the dominant flavor has always been cumin when I've had it. So it sort of feels more distinct from ayran/doogh/tan, at least in my mind. I'd be interested to know if mint is a common addition to lassi in India or elsewhere (I am now very curious about the differences between Indian restaurants in the US and Hong Kong, for example).
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:14 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

The places I had it in Hong Kong didn't use cumin, and did add mint sprigs (but it wasn't like, mint flavoured).
posted by Dysk at 6:18 AM on September 9, 2019

Ketchup on pizza is so common in Romania that pizza restaurants keep bottles on the table. "Nicer" pizza places offer both regular and spicy ketchup.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:19 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

Basically, once it gets to being a butter/paste, you've gone way past any kind of usefulness for actual Southeast Asian peanut sauce. It made sense back in the day for sure, because it must have been hard to get actual peanuts but now that you can, you should.

First, for the texture (you start with crushed peanuts), then the flavour which will be a little smokey at the end, and not for love or money you can get it with peanut butter (watch your Indonesian/Thai/Singaporean/Malaysian friends carefully at their first try, the puzzle will be, 'why does it taste so undercooked?')

And then, the other crime is because it's 'Asian', other Asian-y stuff is ok like soy sauce. Or what I commonly see: coconut milk/cream AND lime. Nooooooo. (That's usually my second part of my horror story retelling)

Some variations do have coconut milk and sour tones but a basic one is basically: dry fry the peanuts. When it's cool, crush it with a bit of water in the blender. Then add it to the onions and chilli paste sauteing in oil. Then some kind of brown sugar (regional variations of course like palm) + salt. Add water. Bring to boil.

If you want to try the variations with the coconut milk please don't add it in like you got them on a bulk discount. It's just to enrich the taste. If you want a sour note, then what you add is tamarind juice, not anything from the lime family.
posted by cendawanita at 6:19 AM on September 9, 2019 [76 favorites]

Thank you! That is a much more comprehensive answer than I could have hoped for and it makes tons of sense. Also, now I'm hungry...
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:22 AM on September 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

I spread a layer of honey on my plate before putting fried eggs on top.

Julia Turshen’s first cookbook recommended spreading Greek yogurt under fried eggs on the plate and it’s great. Also love buttered toast with Greek yogurt and lots of pepper and Maldon salt.
posted by sallybrown at 6:23 AM on September 9, 2019

In any case, I'm definitely guilty of western food crimes... I just ate my own homemade sandwich of supermarket bread, sliced/Kraft cheese and caviar... Because I got a small free bottle from a foaf who came back from Norway. Apologies to Norway and France (yea it was French sliced cheese)
posted by cendawanita at 6:28 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

I salt my bananas to this day because as a kid I saw Mr. Bentley do it on Sesame Street while painting numbers on wooden stools.

S'good. Try it.
posted by davelog at 6:31 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

I used to eat peanut butter and salsa sandwiches, which seems weird until you try this amazing Sweet Potato and Peanut stew, which uses some of the same flavors (onions, tomatoes, cumin, garlic) and is delicious so you should make it tonight.
posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 6:32 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

peanut butter on a crisp dill pickle is very good
posted by FirstMateKate at 6:32 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

I just ate my own homemade sandwich of supermarket bread, sliced/Kraft cheese and caviar

Aw, man. If you had just swapped out the sliced cheese for cream cheese, you would have had something good.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:34 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

I ate a peanut butter and pickle sandwich for lunch every day for most of elementary school and wow did it weird the other kids out.

Still tasty.
posted by skycrashesdown at 6:37 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

As a kid, I tried milk and Pepsi because it was LaVerne DiFazzio's favorite drink. It wasn't terrible, but I didn't like it enough to do it twice. Haven't thought about that in a long, long time, but I can flash-back to that EXACT moment in my childhood really, really vividly.
posted by SoberHighland at 6:42 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

...how did I get to this age without ever having heard of Tiger Tail ice cream? Now I desperately want some.
posted by theatro at 6:44 AM on September 9, 2019 [7 favorites]

Chocolate milk and Pepsi is divine. Favorite drink of my childhood.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 6:44 AM on September 9, 2019

Speaking of raw onion eaters, this little kid who mistook a raw onion for an apple is one of my personal heroes, for their sheer commitment to their chosen course of action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnC8xGGEPRM
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 6:46 AM on September 9, 2019 [10 favorites]

Yeah, peanut butter is like basic black; goes with most anything.

The time I served at a convenience store opened my eyes to the range of things teenagers will dunk their pizza in. Bleu cheese dressing, ranch dressing, Thousand Island dressing, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, hot "cheese" sauce, etc. It wasn't until readyfreddy's comment above that I made the connection to school lunch pizza. When I was in school, we only had it occasionally, but I've since learned that lots of schools had/have it all the time, I guess so it's not surprising at all. Once again, Metafilter connects the dots!

I knew a kid who used to put tartar sauce on the dry, flavor-free instant mashed potatoes served in the cafeteria of one school I attended, because it was the only condiment freely available. Ketchup was being strictly rationed at the time, despite it's proposed classification as a vegetable in the Reagan years. The only butter or margarine that existed was the one ice-cold pat that came in the exact center of a slice of bread.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:47 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm now envisioning a tofu Thai ban mi: a good long roll spread with peanut butter then a good squirt of sriracha, some quick pickled carrot and daikon, baked tofu marinated in shoyu and mirin, garnished with cilantro and fresh jalapeño slices. Hell yeah, I would eat the shit out of that. Might have to make it for dinner this week!
posted by slogger at 6:48 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

Ketchup on pizza just seems inefficient. Tomato sauce + tomato sauce? Whatever the extra flavor you want, you could probably just modify your pizza sauce recipe to get it.

I've several times ordered pizza that turned out to be made with ketchup. It's pizza-ish (the sauce is tomatoey and red, at least) and certainly edible especially if you are hungry, though not great to my tastes. But it is definitely a Thing that people do. (I'd argue the greater crime is the pizzas that use ridiculously sweet sauce bases, like sweet BBQ sauce, but obviously people love those, so I chalk that up as different folks/different strokes.) I've also known lots of people who spread ranch dressing on their pizza (or dip from it on the side); gross to my taste but a very common thing in many places.

A lot of this list seems like it's coming from a very specific (white middle class American?) and narrow food culture, in that much of it doesn't strike me as that strange, having lived in various places in Europe and Asia.

Yeah, it's a mix of things that are just plain unusual/quirky (like drinking diluted ranch dressing) and other things that are more normal in some other part of the world but unusual in places like the US (like mayo & rice).
posted by Dip Flash at 6:55 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

As a kid my siblings and I would make "hors d'oeuvres" by putting a slice of American cheese on a Ritz cracker and microwaving it to melt the cheese, then adding a slice of dill pickle on top.

I will also admit to having enjoyed mayo on pizza thanks to Hot Truck in Ithaca, NY where you could get french bread pizzas with all sorts of toppings. WGC G+G (wet garlic and cheese - meaning cheesy garlic bread with tomato sauce and cheese - with grease (mayo) and garden (shredded lettuce)) was my standard Hot Truck order.
posted by misskaz at 6:56 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

...how did I get to this age without ever having heard of Tiger Tail ice cream? Now I desperately want some.

Yes, I've never heard of such a thing but now I am ready for a field trip to rural Minnesota to try to find some.

I fear that even after the revolution we will still be doomed to live in a country with a bunch of terrible people who don't like licorice, anise or five spice.

(Also, do you know what's good? Sweet potato bread or sweet potato muffins with five spice powder in the batter. Roasted or fried potatoes with five spice are also good.)
posted by Frowner at 6:56 AM on September 9, 2019 [7 favorites]

My family's Polish christmas cookie recipe is basically a super delicate frosted butter cookie with a bunch of anise in both the cookie dough and the frosting and I love it so much. I know I've overdone it with the anise oil (my grandma's recipe was stingy with measurements) when I sample the frosting and my lips feel tingly.

I think we have some hope thanks to the trend in cocktails being toward the chartreuse/amaro/campari side of the spectrum lately.
posted by misskaz at 7:00 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

Also, do you know what's good? Sweet potato bread or sweet potato muffins with five spice powder in the batter

This sounds delicious, by the way.
posted by thivaia at 7:00 AM on September 9, 2019

Some surprising omissions from this list of so-called food "crimes".
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:01 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

I learned from my aunt: Peanut butter and mustard. Sometimes with a bit of mayo. YUM

Haven't tried this yet but I'm canceling all of my plans for tonight and will report back
posted by nightrecordings at 7:06 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

I think we have some hope thanks to the trend in cocktails being toward the chartreuse/amaro/campari side of the spectrum lately.

Oh, speaking of booze: this recipe for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster sounds awful, getting most of its taste from a one-two creme de menthe/Galliano's combo, but I swear to god it's delicious despite being 110% alcohol. Mint + anise is a surprisingly tasty combination.
posted by sciatrix at 7:08 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

No, no, no! How is that Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster supposed to be like having your brain smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick? Here's the recipe for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster punch I recently made; adjust proportions to your taste:

Lemonade (American-style, not European-style; I used Turkey Hill)
White tequila
99 Peaches overproof peach schnapps
A splash of lemon extract
Halved or quartered lemons, squeezed into the bowl and then tossed in
Dry ice (very important!)

Garnish each serving with edible gold foil.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:18 AM on September 9, 2019 [14 favorites]

how did I get to this age without ever having heard of Tiger Tail ice cream? Now I desperately want some.

It is a bit of a weird Canadian thing so unless you grew up in Canada I wouldn't feel too weird about being ignorant of it. When I was a kid you'd see it everywhere but it isn't as common as it once was. Depending on the dyes used in it, Tiger Tail had the added bonus of discolouring your next bowel movement which when you're a kid is both disturbing and awesome.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:31 AM on September 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

My grandmother used to make a desert that was pears, shredded cheese, and a glob of mayo sitting on a big piece of iceberg lettuce. I usually drank my entire glass of drink choking that down.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:35 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I put sriracha in an ice cream sandwich. Only once, but I would absolutely commit a spree of such delicious crimes
posted by oulipian at 7:35 AM on September 9, 2019

Also mayo on pizza (like covered white) is a hispanic thing. I've seen it a lot.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:36 AM on September 9, 2019

milk in cola is basically just a warm ice cream float.

red wine in cola is basically just cold vomit.
posted by logicpunk at 7:36 AM on September 9, 2019

I thoughr pizza always came with canned corn on top before I left my corner of the world. I will never forget the look of horror on an American's face when I complained about it not being offered as a topping option...
posted by lesbiassparrow at 7:46 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

leftover pasta fried in a bit of oil until slightly browned, with a few eggs tossed in and scrambled, and then covered in ketchup . . . a gringo version of migas

Indeed, and you must realize that there's no way it's healthier than just scrambling enough eggs to get full - you're just adding a shitload of empty carbs and oil to an otherwise mostly neutral protein source.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:49 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

I prefer them to Cheetos

I have eaten these a couple times, but after thinking about it again I'd be very concerned about the allowable amount of insect and animal droppings/parts in corn byproducts that aren't intended for food. Especially after that AskMe the other day when someone revealed how many roaches end up in pre-ground coffee.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:53 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

I think there was an article linked here some time ago that talked about different cultures' approaches to combining flavors. Some cultures like a dish to go all-in on a particular flavor or pair of flavors; other cultures like dishes to cover more bases flavor-wise. If you're used to having food that's just "about" one or two central flavors, you might think it's super weird or "contradictory" in a sense to encounter a more diverse combination of flavors.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:57 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

Indeed, and you must realize that there's no way it's healthier than just scrambling enough eggs to get full - you're just adding a shitload of empty carbs and oil to an otherwise mostly neutral protein source.

Oh yeah, that’s a given. But I first started doing this when we were at peak cholesterol panic and I just kind of kept doing it. Even today scrambling 6 eggs together and eating them just feels wrong somehow.

Also, I love migas and make it frequently. I hadn’t really thought about any connection between the two until now.
posted by mikesch at 7:57 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

So many of these are hardly misdemeanors.

In college, my typical breakfast was toast, slathered with jam (any flavor), a slice of cheese, topped with a fried egg. Try it - it’s good.
For brunch last weekend, my sister and I made corn fritters with fresh corn, topped with pico de gallo, raita, or plum chutney. Now that rocked; I ate 8.
posted by sudogeek at 7:59 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

lesbiassparrow: "I thoughr pizza always came with canned corn on top before I left my corner of the world."

Deeply curious, which corner of the world is a thing in? Do you use plain corn, creamed corn, some other regional variety? And what pizza toppings are traditionally paired with corn?
posted by Secret Sparrow at 8:00 AM on September 9, 2019

Depending on the dyes used in it, Tiger Tail had the added bonus of discolouring your next bowel movement which when you're a kid is both disturbing and awesome. MeFi food post collides with classic poop comment. Best of the web.
posted by theora55 at 8:07 AM on September 9, 2019 [7 favorites]

Sweetcorn is a pretty common pizza topping (on American-style pizzas, eg from Dominos) in the UK - usually on the vegetarian pizzas.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:10 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

Corn/ranch/mayo on pizza makes me think of South Korea. Now that I think of it, a lettuce/cucumber sandwich with a layer of Ssamjang and crunchy peanut butter sounds really good! (I could eat Ssamjang on almost anything, and I am so thankful for my Korean-American friend for introducing me to it)
posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 8:12 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

I’m not an expert in food trends but i do follow fashion and the widespread performative disgust for mayonnaise actually suggests to me that we’re on the verge of mayo becoming “cool” again. Kinda like what happened with mom jeans, but condiment style.

I used to eat anchovy wrapped capers on lightly buttered toast in college, which grossed an old roommate. She, on the other hand, used to eat some concoction of bisquick and ground beef that i found deeply upsetting.

I totally agree about mayonnaise disgust being largely performative. I think there is an ignorant association made between fifties-style Americana and mayo which makes it a target for young (especially white) people. I also imagine that this sentiment will fade once people realize mayo is more popular with several groups who aren't white at all.

I can't agree with your second sentiment. Meatcakes are a delicious poor people staple and aren't upsetting at all. When you have very little money to spend, discount store ground beef and generic Bisquick can feed you all week. Salt and brown the beef in a large pan - it being cheap, it will be high fat and leave a lot of liquid - and stir in bisquick until a brown meaty slop forms. From there, cook it like a giant pancake. That stuff will fill you up quick. As a bonus it goes with whatever condiment you can throw at it, from syrup to white sauce.
posted by FakeFreyja at 8:15 AM on September 9, 2019 [13 favorites]

I like my baked beans with a big dollop of cottage cheese. The hot/cold sweet/tangy contrast delights my mouth.
My family always serves baked beans with cottage cheese -- it's really good!

I'm pretty sure the ice cream shop down the street from me in Toronto (Lansdowne Cone) has Tiger Tail in regular rotation. It's a great flavour, but maybe hard to combine with others in a double scoop.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:17 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

milk in cola is basically just a warm ice cream float.

Along similar lines, a vanilla soy latte is a type of three-bean soup.
posted by acb at 8:17 AM on September 9, 2019 [34 favorites]

dobbs: Also, my favorite flavor of ice cream is Tiger Tail, which is black licorice and orange, which many people seem to find repulsive and I am finding it increasingly difficult to find. Was very common 30 years ago.

Ha. Me too. I find it's reliably available at No Frills and Loblaws because President's Choice still makes it.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:20 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

red wine in cola is basically just cold vomit.

You are very wrong, because I got drunk on kalimotxo before seeing 300 in the theater in Spain when I was 21, and I had a fuckin blast. I don't understand Spanish, and I had no idea what was going on, which probably helped, in retrospect.

Later that year when I was in Berlin, I went out to a pizza with a group of people that included a guy from Luxembourg, and he ordered a sprite with white wine. The server was visibly grossed out by the request, but the guy assured us that "it's a Luxembourgish drink."
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 8:33 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

The time I served at a convenience store opened my eyes to the range of things teenagers will dunk their pizza in. Bleu cheese dressing, ranch dressing, Thousand Island dressing

Pizza Hut (and domino's, I think) in Hong Kong (in the early 2000s at least) offered as many pizzas on their menu with thousand island dressing as the base sauce, as they did pizzas with tomato sauce. Dressing is not a good base sauce for pizza if you ask me, but it was super popular.
posted by Dysk at 8:36 AM on September 9, 2019

Batman: "I don't think pineapple is a valid pizza topping. It's a food crime."

Commissioner: "Batman, there are hundreds of criminals in this city getting away with actual crimes because you and I are standing here discussing..." (turns around, Batman has vanished)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:41 AM on September 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

Obviously the ketchup/mayo/ranch debate is going to tinted by socio-economic class, but I feel the Brazilian guy has a point: sushi soup seems likely to kill people.
posted by pwnguin at 8:56 AM on September 9, 2019

Ice cream on pancakes seems completely normal. I pretty much never have waffles without ice cream and waffles are just crispy pancakes. Tiger tail still available in grocery stores here. Bet it would be good with waffles.

I love ranch with pizza; especially if it has pineapple.

Anyone else have brown sugar and cinnamon on toast? It was my Mom's go to treat when I was a kid.

The man next to him got a bowl of soup too. European guy put sour cream in his soup, while the American guy put ketchup. They both looked at each other, like "What the fuck are you doing."

Edit: since a lot of people are asking, I think it was cabbage soup with meat, kind of like a watery stew or something.

A big dollop of sour cream is just how you eat Borscht. This is about as WTF as ketchup on a hamburger.

Also all the shock of things that people add to Kraft Dinner make it obvious they don't live some place where KD is practically religion. Ketchup is the least of what we add to it.

And the onion thing doesn't seem all that weird at all, sweet onions especially are delicious. Though I vividly remember my first experience at about five years of age with pickled white onions. They looked like some sort of candy and they definitely were not.

Apple pie and cheddar isn't weird right?
posted by Mitheral at 9:04 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

No. You do not fuck with the tiramisu, or, for that matter, the creme brulee.

I can't speak to tiramisu, but I love crème brûlée, both in its traditional form and the many variations I have tried. I especially love places that offer a crème brûlée sampler, usually three different mini-crème brûlées. (Crèmes brûlée?) Really, it's an excellent canvas for adding other flavors.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:05 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

Just putting this here so you can all sign up: ASOM Association de Sauvegarde de l'Oeuf Mayo (Sorry, it's a FB page, but that's where you find them)
posted by mumimor at 9:17 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

Back in college I once made a Fuzzy Navel using orange Tang instead of orange juice.

Anything is a mixer if you're desperate enough and the liquor is bad enough to need it.

A perennial favorite when I was in college was "Shasta" brand soda, which as I recall was K-Mart's house brand, and sold in 3L bottles. The red Hawaiian Punch-esque flavor was probably mostly sugar by weight and had a... unique flavor. (I won't go so far as to say it was unpleasant, but I suspect if you gave me a glass of it right now, the Suck Fairy would have hit it hard.) I'm not sure if it was designed as a mixer a la Mountain Dew, but the amount of plastic-bottle Orloff vodka you could make disappear into it was, frankly, frightening.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:20 AM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

The place was like a museum of mayonnaise. This being just at the height of the culte de la mayonnaise then sweeping Belgium, oversize exhibits of the ovoöleaginous emulsion were to be encountered at every hand. Heaps of Mayonnaise Grenache, surrounded by plates of smoked turkey and tongue, glowed redly as if from within, while with less, if any, reference to actual food it might have been there to modify, mountains of Chantilly mayonnaise, swept upward in gravity-impervious peaks insubstantial as cloud, along with towering masses of green mayonnaise, basins of boiled mayonnaise, mayonnaise baked into soufflés, not to mention a number of not entirely successful mayonnaises, under some obscure attainder, or on occasion passing as something else, dominated every corner. “How much do you know of La Mayonnaise?” she inquired. He shrugged. “Maybe up to the part that goes ‘Aux armes, citoyens’— (From Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon)
posted by chavenet at 9:22 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

But I once witnessed someone take half a hardboiled egg and plop an equal amount of mayo on top of it - to form, essentially, what looked like a whole egg - and eat it in one bite.

The technical term for this is a mayonegg.
posted by dephlogisticated at 9:22 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

Hot Truck in Ithaca, NY

RIP. There's still Shortstop, but it's not quite the same.

WGC, garden, hot & wet
posted by zamboni at 9:22 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

aryan or dooq is my favorite thing. And kefir with salt and pepper and mint + a splash of soda will do fine on a hot day.
posted by mumimor at 9:24 AM on September 9, 2019

Similar to tracing "ketchup on pizza" to school lunch dunking, I think a lot of the weird combos people get into start as "lazy plate of whatever was in the fridge" which then becomes a beloved treat for one individual.

Anyway, I'd die for curried chicken salad/sliced brie/red grape wraps right now.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:24 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

mandolin conspiracy: "dobbs: Also, my favorite flavor of ice cream is Tiger Tail, which is black licorice and orange, which many people seem to find repulsive and I am finding it increasingly difficult to find. Was very common 30 years ago.

Ha. Me too. I find it's reliably available at No Frills and Loblaws because President's Choice still makes it."

From mandolin conspiracy's description I was expecting black ice cream with a ribbon of orange winding through it. That it is the other way around doesn't exactly put me off of looking for it...
posted by chavenet at 9:26 AM on September 9, 2019

I want to see the tigers from chavenet's universe.
posted by zamboni at 9:32 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

MartinWisse: "[Meta]Please don't link to a vulture aggregator like Buzzfeeds for stories that can be perfectly followed in their original place. [/Meta]"

The original link is included, so I don't really see the issue.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:33 AM on September 9, 2019

Some of these are obviously innocuous, like dipping a sandwich in a milkshake.

Some of these are just sound policy. Cheese and pears is great. That's, like, the basis of several great salads, sandwiches, and cheese plates. I don't care if it's shredded.

Those people putting ketchup and mayonnaise where it doesn't belong, tho. Someone has to do something about this!
posted by es_de_bah at 9:44 AM on September 9, 2019

just gonna out myself here: pepperoni and chocolate ice cream. it's been like a decade but i'm pretty sure i would still love it.
...
You do not fuck with the tiramisu, or, for that matter, the creme brulee.

I went to a fancy French restaurant once and they had an appetizer that was chorizo in creme brulee, and I'm here to tell you it was one of the most delicious friggin things I've ever put in my mouth.
posted by solotoro at 9:45 AM on September 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

i dont really believe in objective food crimes, i think most things can be tasty in the right context (I draw the line at david chang's defense of shitty diner tomatoes in a blt).

i dont really like ketchup - its too sweet and obliterates the taste of most things you put it on like a non-garlicky non-spicy sriracha - but i gotta say that a few trips to Canada have brought me around to the idea of Ketchup flavored potato chips. And i could see a certain overlap between yellow mustard and salt-and-vinegar flavoring for chips.

Basically, other than trying to fuck his mom, i kinda get where pringles, ketchup, and mustard guy was coming from.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:45 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

Mindyou, cinnamon-raisin bagel (the sweeter the better) with cream cheese and well done bacon. Change your life if you work at a breakfast place and need a quick caloric-protein bomb.
posted by es_de_bah at 9:48 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I like a hard boiled egg dipped in mayonnaise. It's a quick, easy, and surprisingly filling breakfast that doesn't put you to sleep like a stack of pancakes.

More than once in my life (and perhaps you, reader, are grimacing at this post) someone has expressed shock and horror at the idea that somebody would eat a hard boiled egg dipped in mayo, but I mean.. it's basically the foundation of egg salad. And that is a legitimate food sold at delis.

Duke's mayonnaise is available in a convenient squeeze pouch that is excellent for this use case.
posted by bananana at 9:55 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

No shame, but the one that repulses a lot of my friends is peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches, with dill pickle and lettuce.
posted by sugarbomb at 9:57 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

According to my parents, when I was three I saw my dad dip a French fry in mayonnaise and I burst into tears. I have no memory of this, but it sounds about right because those are my mayonnaise feelings. In Japan, I might not have tried so hard to learn Japanese except that I had to constantly explain the concept of "no mayo" at restaurants. Seriously, Japanese food is full of surprise mayo.

Will mayo make a comeback as a retro fetish? As a "no mayo" pioneer, I'm gonna say it never went away. It still lurks in restaurants, calling itself aioli or claiming to be acceptable because it's chipotle or sriracha, but it is still mayo and no.

In my family we put yoghurt on our pancakes, but that's more of a food eccentricity than food crime.
posted by betweenthebars at 10:00 AM on September 9, 2019 [9 favorites]

When I was 12 years old, my family moved from Philadelphia to St. Louis. Shortly after the move, I unwittingly ordered a "Philly Cheesesteak" in a restaurant. People, I was served a strip steak. On a toasted roll. Covered in cream cheese.

I mean there's just so much to unpack there.
posted by panama joe at 10:08 AM on September 9, 2019 [12 favorites]

I think I first heard of cheesesteaks via The X-Files. Not being familiar with the concept, I envisioned them as actual steaks made out of cheese, somewhere between haloumi and fried mozzarella.
posted by zamboni at 10:13 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

"The most disgusting, white-trashiest thing I've ever seen you do."

Really?

I mean, I pretty much take pizza dipped in ranch dressing as: "You have ordered pizza in college"

Ranch dressing poured on pizza topped with potato chips: "You have ordered pizza while high at college."
posted by thivaia at 10:30 AM on September 9, 2019 [17 favorites]

I mean, I pretty much take pizza dipped in ranch dressing as: "You have ordered pizza in college"

And if you have ordered pizza in college while in western New York, replace ranch with blue cheese dressing and you'll be dipping your pizza in that.
posted by bananana at 10:36 AM on September 9, 2019 [7 favorites]

The thing about pineapple on pizza is that you're supposed to roast the pineapple first so you get that caramelisation.

I agree, but millions of people (probably) will happily eat pizza with raw pineapple. Here in Canada, "Hawaiian" (ham and plain pineapple) is the second pizza choice (right behind pepperoni-green bell pepper-mushroom) when you're ordering a bunch of pizzas for the team or the kids party. Everyone loves this shit
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 10:40 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

Mitheral: Apple pie and cheddar isn't weird right?

Mom always said, "Apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without the squeeze."

Dad used to dollop his scrambled eggs with a big wobbly spoonful of grape jelly. Usually I'm a big proponent of dollops or handfulls of various things being on or scrambled into my eggs—I can't even come with any other exceptions...peanut butter?—but grape jelly? Yuck.

Oddly enough, PB&J with a layer of the fluffy, fancy style of scrambled eggs sounds pretty good.
posted by carsonb at 10:44 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

Here in Canada, "Hawaiian" (ham and plain pineapple) is the second pizza choice

Well, of course! Hawaiian pizza was invented in Ontario.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:46 AM on September 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

Cooked eggs and sweet - so gross, to me. If my eggs touch my maple syrup, or my toast and jam or honey, forget it.

And yet I will happily eat HK style baked goods like egg tarts.

Ketchup is ok with scrambled eggs, but that's the absolute ceiling of sweetness I would want.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 10:46 AM on September 9, 2019

I think a lot of the mayo divergence depends on the type of mayo you’re exposed to—it’s hard for those who know only Miracle Whip to see how people with access to Duke’s use mayo, and it’s hard for people who’ve only had store-bought mayo to understand dipping fries in fresh-made mayo. It’s similar to whipped cream—I had never had anything but Reddi Whip as a kid and didn’t understand the appeal of putting this watery garbage on top of ice cream.
posted by sallybrown at 10:52 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

Per the FDA, Miracle Whip ain't mayo.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:58 AM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

I mean, I pretty much take pizza dipped in ranch dressing as: "You have ordered pizza in college"

To me it says, "You have ordered pizza someplace where the local base-level quality of pizza is not very good."

This 2005 Article "Ranch Dressing : Why do Americans love it so much?" has some interesting information on ranch dressing, in particular this:

Once ranch was available in a bottle, Americans fell in love with its rich-yet-inoffensive taste. It is devoid of potentially objectionable ingredients, such as chili sauce (a key component in Thousand Island) or anchovies (found in Caesar and Green Goddess). And perhaps more important, ranch is fattier than humdrum Italian, which is basically a gussied-up vinaigrette. Ranch dressing, which arrived at a time when mayo had gained a reputation as a diet-buster, was essentially a socially acceptable form of the gloopy condiment. It quickly became the preferred way to infuse otherwise healthy dishes with a palatable amount of fat.

Pineapple goes on gammon ergo pineapple goes on ham-bearing pizza. QED.

Beyond that I decline to disclose my many actual food cocktail crimes on the grounds that they may incriminate me.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 11:09 AM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

Diet Coke and milk is delicious (thanks to Laverne's prospective roommate, who differed from our heroine in eschewing Pepsi for Coke!) as is diet root beer and milk; both taste like their respective floats. I have converted others to my evil ways, including serving it to my brother without telling him what he was about to drink.
posted by carmicha at 11:17 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

CocaCola, a big slug of half & half, and a shot of espresso gently floating on top.
posted by carsonb at 11:21 AM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

I rather enjoy rice and ketchup.
posted by Splunge at 11:23 AM on September 9, 2019

> Dad used to dollop his scrambled eggs with a big wobbly spoonful of grape jelly.

Just a hurried version of the grape jelly omelette, which pulls over a million results on google so I don't feel like a freak for eating a lot of them growing up. My dad loved grape jelly omelettes.
posted by davelog at 11:23 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

Fried butter sticks! :) IIRC, a form of this was in my Betty Crocker Boys and Girls Cookbook way back when.
posted by Melismata at 11:25 AM on September 9, 2019

I'm not in general a huge fan of pineapple on pizza, though I've had some amazing versions of it, so I think for me it's a question of the quality of the ingredients.

I haven't had Tiger Tail since I was a kid, but it does seem to keep coming up in odd places. I really do need to hunt some down soon. And thanks to mandolin conspiracy I now know where to start the hunt!

On the idea of 'Weird' food parings the guys at Sortedfood have done a a couple of videos on the topic. While generally they were wary of the suggested pairings, they mostly seemed to enjoy most in the end.
posted by cirhosis at 11:27 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

I have never felt a need to surpass my engineering-student experience with a well-worn gumboot full of Cheezels in VB. Having seen the view from the top of that mountain, lesser food crimes seem a little pointless.
posted by flabdablet at 11:40 AM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

A few years ago, a friend was having a Richard Nixon-themed party (don't ask) and on the way over I stopped off to buy ketchup and cottage cheese, cos' Tricky Dick really ate that kind of stuff. Upon entering his apartment, and before I could hand it over, he asked me if I'd bought ketchup and cottage cheese, then laughed uncontrollably when I produced it. As I was the first one there, we found a passage mentioning this on Wikipedia, printed it out and put it in front of a large plate of it we prepared. No one touched it, but as the party wound down I told him I felt we were obligated to try it. It wasn't bad! It wasn't great, but hardly awful...
posted by AJaffe at 12:03 PM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

A few years ago, a friend was having a Richard Nixon-themed party (don't ask) and on the way over I stopped off to buy ketchup and cottage cheese

Did you remember the pineapple?
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:15 PM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

acb: One of the nice things about living in Sweden is that salt liquorice* is abundant. One of the many forms it is available in is salt liquorice ice cream, which is literally in every supermarket here.

* generally salmiakki (i.e. Finnish-style salt liquorice, made with ammonium chloride rather than sodium chloride)

I once asked a coworker who was taking a trip to Sweden and Finland to bring me back some salmiakki, and he was like "What's that?" so I explained what it was, and showed him some pictures of packages.

He did some back for me, but when he handed it over he said: "Here's your gross candy."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:18 PM on September 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

As a game, can you think of three foods that are all disgusting together? As in, food 1&2 is just as vile together as food 2&3, and also food 1&3? Quite tricky. Rule: all must be OK to eat by themselves, so for example toothpaste or poop would be cheating.

Taking a stab at Zumbador’s game:

1. Bitter melon
2. Butterscotch syrup
3. Rosewater
posted by nightrecordings at 12:23 PM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

Ikea's liquorice (Godis Lakrits) is a good introduction to salted liquorice. Half the bag is sweet and the other half is salty, and the saltiness is like 20% of the typical Dutch zoute drop.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 12:24 PM on September 9, 2019

1. Bitter melon
2. Butterscotch syrup
3. Rosewater

Damn. Talk about bringing your A-game.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:24 PM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

flabdablet dipped in the beer, or mixed up and dissolved, or softened like dumplings, or what? I am either curiously horrified or horrifiedly curious.

Edited to add: the boot business I am just going to have to let pass by. I went to Engineering Skule too.
posted by hearthpig at 12:26 PM on September 9, 2019

Clowder of bats: "ice cream on pancakes seems fine. ice cream on doughnuts is tradition."

Clowder of bats, I cannot thank you enough for this link. It actually brought tears to my eyes. Just as the first paragraph in the article, I too went to visit (my brother) at Easters in 1978, and ended up at the UD eating one-eyed bacon cheeseburgers (all the way) and topped it off with a grills with. Because of that weekend, I too applied and attended UVa. The summer I spent in C'ville, the UD was practically my meal plan. Backed up by the White Spot of course.

I hope you are a Hoo too and had similar experiences.

My confession is peanut butter and mustard. Sometimes, if I have chopped onions around, I add that too.
posted by AugustWest at 12:45 PM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

The best use of peanut butter and mayonnaise is getting gum out of hair.

However, my mother's Christmas Eve egg-salad-with-potted-meat-onna-ritz-cracker hors d'oeuvre is ambrosia. Hummus is a decent substitute for the potted meat in the vegetarian version.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:58 PM on September 9, 2019

Last week I ordered some curry with an extra portion of raita. In the middle of the night, with dim lighting, I went into the kitchen and made myself a big bowl of left over vindaloo and then scooped several spoonfulls of white stuff on top. I quickly discovered that someone at the shop had mixed up the raita and the rice pudding. It was much more unpleasant than I would have expected.

But, both salty tea (suutei tsai) and gin and milk convince me that I can be wrong about food combinations. (The first is genuinely good. The second is as good as drinking the components separately.)

As a game, can you think of three foods that are all disgusting together? As in, food 1&2 is just as vile together as food 2&3, and also food 1&3?

This is a fun game. Chocolate, smoked oysters, and licorice? (I know people in New Zealand eat chocolate-filled licorice. . . but, it still counts, if you ask me.) Cinnamon, watermelon, and pastrami? Peanuts, hot fudge, and ice cream?
posted by eotvos at 1:02 PM on September 9, 2019

Cottage cheese, sweet peas, and a liberal sprinkling of Accent is a delicious dish. Don't @ me
posted by FakeFreyja at 1:03 PM on September 9, 2019

Duck confit, croquembouche and salmon sashimi!
posted by Frowner at 1:06 PM on September 9, 2019

A few years ago, a friend was having a Richard Nixon-themed party (don't ask) and on the way over I stopped off to buy ketchup and cottage cheese

Please say that someone brought Watergate Salad.
posted by thivaia at 1:26 PM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

Apple pie and cheddar isn't weird right?

Good lord, no. My go-to apple pie topping is a slice of extra-sharp cheddar that’s been broiled for a few seconds plus a scoop of Haagen Dazs vanilla bean, and it’s perfect in so many ways.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 1:31 PM on September 9, 2019

Jaegermeister, tapioca pearls, and gefilte fish.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 1:32 PM on September 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

Tiger Tail had the added bonus of discolouring your next bowel movement

Oooh, there's a good FPP idea, thanks!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:36 PM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

"The recipe for blue #2 is Blue #1."
posted by carsonb at 1:40 PM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

My food crimes are barely misdemeanors by the standards this thread has established, but I used to love crumbling up saltines into a bowl and pouring the leftover oil from a jar of artichoke hearts over them and then eating them with a spoon, and have even resorted to sipping that oil out of a wine glass.

An entire bag of ruffle style potato chips and a softened cube of butter were a standard after school snack grades 6-12 — oh, and I used to save up pecan pith and eat that after I got tired of the nuts themselves, and I ate massive quantities of in the shell raw peanuts.
posted by jamjam at 1:48 PM on September 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

Soft tofu, caviar, and Jello (any flavor).
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 1:56 PM on September 9, 2019

Two years ago we gathered some Americans together for a Thanksgiving dinner at a pub in the UK Midlands. The night was one long hilarious misadventure, capped off by a creme brulee that was made with pork fat, not even joking.
posted by iamkimiam at 1:56 PM on September 9, 2019

I like it when children get creative. My 8 year-old once made Macaroni and Cheese using orange juice instead of milk. Doesn't seem ot have repeated it recently
posted by mdoar at 1:58 PM on September 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

My Dad is partial to a banana sandwich on white bread...with brown sauce. *heave*

My favourite burger when I was growing up was a Hawaiian burger. Beef + pineapple + thousand island dressing in a bap seems like the sort of thing people yap about (you will prize my pizza-pineapple from my cold dead hands), but even now, 30 years and more than a decade of vegetarianism later, the thought of it still makes me drool.
posted by billiebee at 2:26 PM on September 9, 2019

Honestly, the only really gross food example I know of (as opposed to things that are not for me but I could see the appeal of) is the lactose intolerant dude who used to eat his cereal with Diet Coke.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:31 PM on September 9, 2019

the lactose intolerant dude who used to eat his cereal with Diet Coke

Ha! My ex-best friend hated milk so she used to put Sprite on her Rice Crispies.
posted by billiebee at 2:35 PM on September 9, 2019

the lactose intolerant dude who used to eat his cereal with Diet Coke

Ha! My ex-best friend hated milk so she used to put Sprite on her Rice Crispies.

This is sincerely the most distressing thing I've read in this entire post.
posted by ApathyGirl at 2:43 PM on September 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

To commit a thread crime but not a food crime: You know what works well together? Butter and soy sauce. Between comments I am eating a delicious dish of sauteed cauliflower finished with melted butter and a few drops of soy sauce.

It's a great combination to finish vegetables or enrich a savory batter. You want to go light on the soy sauce so that it gives you a faint savory/rich/nutty background.
posted by Frowner at 3:25 PM on September 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

Recently I tried hash browns and super salty out the jar grocery store salsa, and I learned that being a lonely bored man with bacon grease can sometimes produce beautiful results.
posted by saysthis at 3:30 PM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

The soy sauce and grapes makes sense to me as well, although I feel it'd work better with roasted rather than fresh...

...roasted grapes?
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:49 PM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I really, really enjoy John West mackerel in olive oil blend stirred through steel cut oats made with milk. Sometimes I add green onions, crispy fried shallots, maybe some chipotle.

"It's like a congee," I say to my friends who enjoy congee. "Please come back."
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 5:25 PM on September 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

I have always liked peanut butter and dill pickle sandwiches. Chuck Wendig, however, dares to put mayo on them (and bacon, but that's way beyond ok, because, well, bacon.

Mayo in general is OK, in moderation, and I don't mind pineapple on pizza. However, I abhor ketchup.
posted by lhauser at 6:59 PM on September 9, 2019

My grandfather got me started eating BLTs with mayo on one side and peanut butter on the other when I was a kid, it's really good. I haven't really done any other pb&m based sandwiches, but I'd be willing to try them.

I'm also on the butter + soy sauce train.
posted by polymath at 7:11 PM on September 9, 2019

<ctrl><f>pork floss

I don't get mayonnaise-hate. Sure in excessive quantities, maybe.

Maybe.

I like spreading a thin layer of mayo on a saltine and top that with crispy pork floss. I can go through a sleeve of premium plus before I realize it.

The new ketchups coming in lower sugar versions is fantastic. Ketchup on eggs if great, especially scrambled or omlettes, but a pan-fried vine ripe tomatoe jazzes things up even better.

Who doesn't add maple syrup their crispy bacon?

The aversion to pineapple on pizza makes no sense. The tanginess and texture complements pork really well, and a fried slice on a burger is teh yums. I even like pineapple in my poke.
posted by porpoise at 7:15 PM on September 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

Frowner Butter and soy sauce.

Is "Asian Kraft Dinner" - plain white rice isn't really interesting, but can be made so relatively cheaply with butter (or lard) and soy sauce. Try grinding some fresh black pepper, too, to your roast veggie finishes.

Maggi sauce can lend a different flavour profile to generic soy sauce, but there are a ton of different kinds of salty brown sauces.

--

Oh, and cheese with pears? Brie is a classic pairing with pear. I admit, American cheddar might pair less well...
posted by porpoise at 7:22 PM on September 9, 2019

I admit, American cheddar might pair less well...

Thin sliced pear (not too ripe), gruyere, and salami on pumpernickel. Dab of dijon

Excellent.
posted by thivaia at 7:40 PM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

John West mackerel in olive oil blend stirred through steel cut oats made with milk. Sometimes I add green onions, crispy fried shallots, maybe some chipotle.

I would probably pay actual restaurant money to eat this if you used fresh mackerel or, oh, oh oh

eel

Excuse me, I'm salivating...
posted by sciatrix at 7:42 PM on September 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

People seem to be put off by my liking for ouzo and cola but I'm not sure if this just comes from people I know not liking ouzo. Aniseed and cola is a good mix.
posted by solarion at 8:07 PM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

Oh hell yes on butter + soy sauce. Anyone that hasn’t experienced that combo on grilled corn on the cob is seriously missing out.

On the ketchup front, I made it to my thirties thinking I hated it (I really dislike tomatoes), and one day had the realization that it’s basically an American version of cheap sweet and sour sauce, which is a guilty pleasure of mine. I still don’t seek it out, but I can now see its utility.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 8:10 PM on September 9, 2019

I don't want to live in a world where butter+soy sauce is considered weird. I mean, how different is melted butter from coconut milk really?
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:38 PM on September 9, 2019

...roasted grapes?

Yeah! Have you ever encountered those cherry tomatoes still on the vine and seen someone just stick that whole thing in a roasting pan with some salt and olive oil and roast it? You can do that with grapes, too, they go great with sausage or other pork things. This is apparently a Roman thing? I don't know, I just know that sausage and grapes is really yummy. Anyway I imagine that a bunch of grapes tossed in soy sauce and maybe sesame oil? and roasted would be pretty banging.
posted by Mizu at 8:42 PM on September 9, 2019

Cheese and pears is fine. Ice cream on rice...actually, I can see that. (Related: Rice Krispies mixed into ice cream is delicious.)
posted by SisterHavana at 9:06 PM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

My mom used to fix fried okra at home. This wasn't the fried okra you get nowadays, fried in a thick coating of batter. She's cook it coated in corn meal and ?? I don't really know, but the coating was pretty light.

I went through a phase of eating ketchup on it. Well, ketchup on the side, where you could dip the fried okra in it like you do with french fries.

I'm another mayonnaise fan. I love mayonnaise sandwiches. Bread + mayo, that's it.

We used to make pineapple sandwiches for picnics when I was a kid. Pineapple rings, white bread, and mayo. They tended to get a little soggy. I don't see that much anymore.
posted by Archer25 at 9:07 PM on September 9, 2019

For reasons generally attributable to my mom, any Chinese food I get that comes with sweet and sour sauce and hot mustard, I mix them together. Eggrolls, for instance.
posted by rhizome at 9:09 PM on September 9, 2019

dipped in the beer, or mixed up and dissolved, or softened like dumplings, or what?

Recipe:

1. Bring in a gumboot from outside the back door.
2. Empty a party-size pack of Cheezels into boot.
3. Empty a longneck of VB into boot.
4. Serve.
5. Provide stolen shopping trolley for postprandial naps.
posted by flabdablet at 9:38 PM on September 9, 2019

Dad liked his apple pie with rat cheese, which is the sharpest cheddar you can get your hands on.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:34 PM on September 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

Jaegermeister, tapioca pearls, and gefilte fish.

I feel like implicit in the rules is that the things by themselves not be foul, otherwise natto, durian and hákarl would be a winner. Maybe another version (probably tricky) is 3 things, any of which by themselves are gross, but any combination of those 3 things is nice?
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:57 PM on September 9, 2019

eel

Huh? Oh.

Jellied eels with incompletely jellyfied bones is horrendous, but tinned pike conger (old fisherman brand, with salted black bean) is my soul food (as a Canadian HKer at college in Iowa in the 90's).

It's eel-like, but the (preserved) flesh is a little coarser. True eel has very fine muscle bundles and has a smoother mouthfeel. But their ribs are really thin and bite-y.
posted by porpoise at 12:08 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

See this is the thing about this post: is cottage cheese and pineapple an unusual dish? If so, then put me on the list. Definitely passed down in the family.
posted by rhizome at 1:25 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

See this is the thing about this post: is cottage cheese and pineapple an unusual dish? If so, then put me on the list. Definitely passed down in the family.

You can buy it ready-made in the UK.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:50 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Back in the 80's when I tended bar, the vodka paralyzer was probably the most-ordered cocktail in Western Canadian pubs and sports bars. It consisted of 1/2 each of vodka and kaluha, over ice in a tall glass, and cream and coke added in equal parts, together. I never drank them, found them disgusting but they were so popular. A later refinement was the sambuca paralyzer, with sambuca instead of vodka. Doubly disgusting, and the glasses would be so hard to clean, too.
posted by alltomorrowsparties at 2:08 AM on September 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

Jaegermeister, tapioca pearls, and gefilte fish.

I feel like implicit in the rules is that the things by themselves not be foul, otherwise natto, durian and hákarl would be a winner.

I like gefilte fish! I know not everyone does, but there's good gefilte fish out there. It gets a bad reputation because the cheap canned stuff is pretty bad. Besides that, Jaegermeister is fine by me, and tapioca pearls are objectively delicious in boba.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 4:21 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

As for the 'eating raw onions' thing, I used to do that when I was four or so. We were on a vacation in an area of the country that is very rural, and it was onion season; we took long walks every day, and I was usually trailing behind the adults. After a few days my mother found out why I was so smelly.

My mom used to eat whole raw onions with salt almost everyday. A few years ago she said to my wife "I have no idea what I did, but none of my kids will eat onions". She also chain smoked and none of her kids smoke either. So the near deadly atmospheric miasma of my childhood had at least partial upside. I only started cooking with onion in my forties.
posted by srboisvert at 5:19 AM on September 10, 2019 [4 favorites]

I don't have anything in particular against ranch dressing. It can be delightful on a crunchy chopped salad. But on the kind of pizza that is usually subjected to this treatment, it's like slathering bland fattiness onto already-bland fattiness. And on quality pizza it's superfluous.

You seem to have missed out on the part of the constitution that mandates all Americans pursue superfluous sophonsification. It is part of the doctrine manyfest destiny.
posted by srboisvert at 5:42 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

It consisted of 1/2 each of vodka and kaluha, over ice in a tall glass, and cream and coke added in equal parts, together.

Ooh, a Colorado bulldog! Yum yum yum!
posted by Melismata at 8:30 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

There is no food item that's de facto "foul" by itself.

There's also no food item that is objectively good. Everything comes down to personal taste.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:38 AM on September 10, 2019

100% agree. I just would prefer people to say, "I love dinuguan" or "I think dinuguan is great" rather than (even jokingly) "dinuguan is objectively awesome."
posted by Chrysostom at 9:31 AM on September 10, 2019

I mean, fair, but I think the impulse to gross out one's friends and really lean into the horror of things that one finds delicious is something of a universal joy--at least, in places where people can be relatively assured that everyone is on more or less an equal footing. White people dunking on durian is definitely not great because that's not on equal footing; people dunking on oreos in orange juice seems pretty fair, since those are both fairly hegemonic foodstuffs that are clearly enjoyed by many people, just not together. And for me a lot of the joy in a thread like this comes from both performatively squealing in disgust and gleefully leaning into triggering similar performative disgust on others. From that lens, focusing on the grossness of unfortunate pairings of food that everyone agrees is plenty likeable in its component parts seems pretty neutral, especially when other people are invited to express equal disgust at more hegemonic pairings (e. g. cendawita upthread commenting on peanut butter in pad thai).

(I just linked one of my good friends here and I think I'm going to live off the sheer level of shrieking disgust over the eel in oats for some time.)

It stops being fun when someone gets hurt, and... well, okay, what I was seeing was people checking in on the boundaries of others along race and class lines throughout. The presence of people going equally gleefully "oh but that's delicious omnumnomnomnom" is also, I thought, something of a useful counter.

Are folks feeling hurt? Or just pausing and verifying that the real boundaries are still being respected under the play?
posted by sciatrix at 9:37 AM on September 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

You know, you say no one would eat that, but I've definitely been served cornbread with chocolate frosting on it masquerading as cake, and if sushi was less expensive I bet someone would - -

*grin*
posted by sciatrix at 10:23 AM on September 10, 2019

I would 100% try chocolate-dipped corn dogs.

On the other hand, I saw “sea salt” mint toothpaste in the drugstore last night and grimaced.
posted by sallybrown at 10:24 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

On the other hand, I saw “sea salt” mint toothpaste in the drugstore last night and grimaced.

Some friends and I once went on a binge of coming up with ideas for terrible air fresheners, and the hands-down winner by consensus was "shit and toothpaste."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:31 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Personally I most loathe those flavored scented trash bags. So I can smell artificial pine scent on top of the rotting fruit and old flowers in my garbage. Yum!
posted by sallybrown at 10:33 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

You can buy cottage cheese with pineapple already mixed in, right at my local Tops.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:50 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

The brand i most assoicate with the pre-mixed cottage cheese pineapple combo is Friendship, a decidedly East Coast brand.

I cant say i've ever seen it in a store, but apparently Clover out of Sonoma does make one.

My baby boomer parents, who struggled with their weights/dieting their whole lives, were fans of half a cantaloupe filled with cottage cheese, something i think you could still find on diner menus in places where the 80s never ended.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:27 PM on September 10, 2019

The funny thing about cottage cheese is that good large curd cottage cheese isn't bad. If you grew up with low-fat or fat-free reduced sodium small curd cottage cheese, yes, it's probably pretty blech. But I went on a little cottage cheese kick last year and the regular stuff without weird fillers is pretty decent if you're looking for a high protein thing. I could see a worse lunch than regular cottage cheese and a serving of good, ripe melon.
posted by Frowner at 12:52 PM on September 10, 2019 [3 favorites]

All this about Dukes mayo (vastly preferable to Hellmans, et al) and yet nothing about Kewpie mayonnaise? It is the nectar of the gods.

But making your own mayo with sunflower oil almost beats Kewpie IME.
posted by ananci at 1:13 PM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

I’m pretty surprised by all the surprise at pineapple cottage cheese. I haven’t been to a supermarket on the west coast that doesn’t carry this or a local equivalent.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 1:37 PM on September 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

Cottage cheese as a baked potato topping, with fresh chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper is delicious. And now I want it for supper.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 2:04 PM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

There is no food item that's de facto "foul" by itself. If you don't like a certain food, that's certainly your opinion, but it's a personal opinion. If tons of people around the world eat something, it's not de facto "foul", it's just food that you personally don't like.

Yeah, absolutely. On reflection it was thoughtless, and I hadn't considered the cultural implications of choosing those foods - my apologies.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:34 PM on September 10, 2019 [3 favorites]

My gift to you: fry an egg, properly so the white is set and the yolk is still liquid. Toast bread. Put thin layer of strawberry jam on the toast. Place egg on the toast. Salt and pepper that egg. Yum yum yum. Thank me later.

Honestly though, a lot of what's in this thread is just... perfectly normal foods, maybe not in fashion where you happened to grow up. Plus, the principles of flavor are actually pretty universal -- that contrasting flavors and textures can enhance each other and balance a dish. That's the reason that one guy wanted ketchup and mustard on his pringles: the sweet acid of the ketchup and the bitter sting of the mustard works with the salt of the chips.

So like, I didn't grow up eating vienna weenies in lime jello, but I can still understand that salty fatty meaty weenies would work great with bracing, acid, sweet lime jello -- even if I don't think I'd like that combination, mainly because I dislike both components. It's the same flavor principle at work when a chef spoons a lime-spiked mango salsa over a roasted breast of duck.
posted by fingersandtoes at 3:13 PM on September 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

Those Jif-to-go individual serving packets of peanut butter + hot cocoa packet stirred together was my favorite snack in college. I could steal that kind of stuff from the cafeteria with relative ease and not starve to death on overnight study cramming sessions.

When I was super poor, I used to put pepper sauce on saltines as a snack. (our pepper sauce was usually homemade, but I linked because "pepper sauce" can mean literally anything here since MeFites are global).

Don't think either one is weird, but I also love cottage cheese on saltines (or lately, Triscuits) as a snack. Can't get down with the fruit in cottage cheese situation, I prefer my cottage cheese intake on the salty side.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 3:38 PM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

That was actually my realization as I've restarted eating pinapple and cottage cheese in the past decade or so: cottage cheese is pretty salty itself!
posted by rhizome at 4:00 PM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Saltines and milk + sugar. Everyone seems to think this is weird but it's the best thing.
posted by Admiral Viceroy at 5:23 PM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

this cottage cheese + pineapple discourse does illuminate an anecdote of my friend's mum, who is Filipino and lived in the US for a bit, and she won a contest of some kind by mixing vanilla ice-cream, shredded coconut and (tinned) pineapples, and she taught us that for us to win in a school competition, and my mum was like, what on earth is this. but if this is a popular combo for a time, that does explain it!
posted by cendawanita at 7:14 PM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

My mother loves chicken feet soup (literally whole chicken feet up to the ankle in a clear broth). Which I guess is common some places. We had it pretty regularly when we were poor and raised chickens; hated it, and none of us kids have ever made it for ourselves or know anyone else who eats it.

I’m pretty surprised by all the surprise at pineapple cottage cheese. I haven’t been to a supermarket on the west coast that doesn’t carry this or a local equivalent.

Don't remember seeing this in Canada though IIRC Americans get way more variety in cottage cheese than we do. Here there are a few different dairies/brands and each puts out at most a low fat/1%/2% cottage cheese and some times a low sodium or dry curd. Nothing with flavours that I ever recall seeing and usually not all dairies are available at all supermarkets.

We get several hundred flavours of potato chips though (even a small corner store will have a couple dozen) so I guess it all balances out.
posted by Mitheral at 7:24 PM on September 10, 2019

chicken feet is pretty popular in my side of Asia, and I think in East Asia. It's good, but also the superstition is that it's good luck because the chicken is always seen industriously digging around for things, so if you're inclined to eat it, that means you're as industrious as a chicken. At least, that's what parents say to kids here. I never really got into it until I'm much older though.
posted by cendawanita at 7:29 PM on September 10, 2019

I have to go to my Asian supermarket to buy chicken feet for my epic Passover chicken soup with matzoh balls. The feet are the key secret ingredient, since matzoh ball soup is very simple the broth has to be outstanding, and nothing makes a stock with body and richness like chicken feet. Luckily I don't have to make it kosher - I'm sure I'd have to special order feet ahead of time and I'd never remember. Thank goodness for East Asian food preferences and the many people who make keeping giant slabs of chicken feet in the freezer a profitable thing to do for Uwajimaya. I wish that making dim sum style chicken feet were as simple as making stock out of them, but it turns out to be complicated as hell.
posted by Mizu at 8:12 PM on September 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

Saltines and milk + sugar. Everyone seems to think this is weird but it's the best thing.Saltines and milk + sugar. Everyone seems to think this is weird but it's the best thing.

Grandma used to make oyster crackers with hot milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

And all the talk of chicken feet reminded me that whenever she killed a chicken, the gizzard was reserved for her. (I think the feet ended up in the stock pot.)

This isn't really a combination, but she'd also scrub the top of the woodstove, sprinkle it with salt, and cook sliced potatoes directly on the stovetop.

And I almost forgot Grandpa's bean and onion sandwiches with Frank's Red Hot sauce. (His name was Frank, but that was a coincidence.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:29 PM on September 10, 2019

Your Grandma knew what was up. Chicken gizzards are the bomb.

Never was a fan of chicken feet, but de-boned duck feet? Cooked in a good consomme, cooled, and served with a few drops of quality black vinegar? Fun!
posted by porpoise at 10:35 PM on September 10, 2019

sallybrown: I saw “sea salt” mint toothpaste in the drugstore last night and grimaced.

I have a toothpaste that's salty because it's made with baking soda, and it's also minty. It takes some getting used to but it's the best toothpaste in the world*. I love the tingly clean feeling it leaves behind.

*opinion
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:30 PM on September 10, 2019 [3 favorites]

Chicken gizzards are the bomb.

My brothers and I used to fight over who got the heart when my mom made chicken and dumplings. They're like chicken-flavored bubblegum.

the best toothpaste in the world

You are correct. Tom's of Maine used to make the perfect baking soda toothpaste with peppermint, and I wish they'd bring it back.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:56 PM on September 10, 2019

Pineapple and pizza? ok by me. Pineapple and cottage cheese? ok by me.
But I'd weigh in on the whole apple pie and cheese thing. My grandfather (born 1900 NW Ontario) loved home made apple pie with cheese. And vanilla ice cream if it was around.
posted by baegucb at 1:36 AM on September 11, 2019

This year I have discovered the joy of cottage cheese with strawberries. Next time you are at a hotel with breakfast buffet, get some of the strawberry topping they have for the waffles and mix it in a bowl with the cottage cheese.
posted by soelo at 10:09 AM on September 11, 2019

Oh, I can do this! Tiger tail ice cream, black licorice and ouzo.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 1:56 PM on September 11, 2019

What does cottage cheese taste like? I ate it once when I was 4 years old and promptly puked all over the table, so I've had an aversion to it ever since. I know it's irrational, but I'm afraid to try it now!
posted by GoldenEel at 2:15 PM on September 11, 2019 [1 favorite]

rather be jorting, if you have a Von’s nearby they should have a pineapple cottage cheese from their house-brand dairy (Lucerne), and might have a side-by-side version from Knudsen.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 2:59 PM on September 11, 2019

I discovered lox and cream cheese on a blueberry bagel in middle school and I've never looked back.
posted by Mizu at 4:14 PM on September 11, 2019

brinjal pickle and peanut butter on toast, folks.
posted by aesop at 12:43 PM on September 12, 2019 [2 favorites]

I know it's been said here by sciatrix and others but just want to express agreement that attributing "foulness" as an intrinsic quality of foods that are less common in white and/or Western households is neither kind nor accurate. I don't find bitter melon foul (some folks don't like bitter food but I do) nor do I find rosewater (or butterscotch syrup) foul. I do think it would taste bad to combine any of those three things, because they are all very distinct flavors that would fight to overpower one another. I don't like that this is the direction the post went after I made that comment, and I will take ownership of it because I didn't make a point of addressing the seemingly inevitable "ew 'foreign' foods" head on. Metafilter really sucks when it comes to white people discussing foods that white people have collectively decided to racialize and we need to work on this now. I can show you examples if you really need to see them.

Also durian tastes like vanilla custard with a dash of garlic, it's amazing and gets a bad rap.
posted by nightrecordings at 4:15 PM on September 12, 2019 [6 favorites]

rather be jorting, I hate so say it, but I'm weary of your taste. One for saying that pineapple and cottage cheese is odd, but mainly for saying that SF 'artisinal pizza' is worthy of consideration. California in general is a pizza desert, but it certaily doesn't get any better as folks try to make it fancy.
...
also...anyone ever get down on graham crackers dipped in chamomile? or is that basic?
posted by es_de_bah at 12:14 PM on September 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

GoldenEel - cottage cheese to me is fairly neutral tasting. Like de-fatted milk but without the powdered skim milk taste.

Different preparations and raw materials definitely affects the product.

In my experience, most are fairly neutral, it's usually served cold so that further inhibits taste.

It's the texture; I've had some where it mouthfeels like clots and commercial stuff that's machine chopped into uniform cubes.

For something "gruel"-some, I want more starch or more protein (or more salt). It sits somewhere in between. I guess it'd make a lot of sense pre-refrigeration and you had too many cows with udders that need draining and this was the most expedient thing to do to preserve overcapacity without needing a lot of infrastructure.
posted by porpoise at 7:27 PM on September 13, 2019

Deeply curious, which corner of the world is a thing in? Do you use plain corn, creamed corn, some other regional variety? And what pizza toppings are traditionally paired with corn?

Very late reply: it was plain corn (I never saw creamed until I went to a Canadian grocery store where it horrified - and continues to horrify - me, for no good reason). And this was west of Ireland - Mayo up to Donegal (though in fairness Donegal didn't really do pizza until the 80s to my recollection). I think it was because there wasn't a lot of the usual toppings easily available, like peppers. Now, though it's all craft beer and artisan pizza in the towns going by Sligo and around.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 9:17 AM on September 14, 2019

As a kid, whenever I had tomato soup for lunch, Mom would steal some and put it on cottage cheese, which she loved but I never liked. It wasn't bad per se, but I didn't discover true culinary sin until adulthood.

Two words: Ceviche Sorbet. So bad we had to throw out the bucket and spoon used to mix it. Those who dared try it tried to convince the rest of us it wasn't that bad, but we could tell it was just a ploy to make everyone else suffer along with them. Those intrepid few agreed: it was still better than the time someone used half a container of Old Bay for a gallon of ice cream, but only just.
posted by Blackanvil at 11:15 AM on September 16, 2019 [2 favorites]

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