The Nause-AA: Round of 64, Flight Barf

August 15, 2012

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME HATE-BALL?! LET'S GET READY TO CHUNDER!

Since I came to no real consensus in Suffering Succotash about the most hated food -- though an awful lot of people talked about tomatoes -- we're going to make this determination ourselves with our highly scientific polling system.

Head on over to Tomato Nation to register your displeasure: remember vote with your gag reflex, vote for the most disgusting choice, vote to vomit!

1 cilantro vs. 16 garlic I get the cilantro hate, but I don't have the hate. I have the dislike. I dislike abundant piles of it. I brush its wilted mass off my pad thai, but it won't ruin a dish for me. I'm okay with it in reasonable amounts in my guac, in my raita, and even in this amazing pea dish from a local Greek restaurant. However, you won’t see me sipping a cilantro-infused cocktail (they exist. In San Francisco.) ever. Garlic, however, I adore beyond belief and would add it to almost anything. Cilantro is far more famous for being hated than for being loved, so it’s clearly beating garlic’s lily white ass.

8 veal vs. 9 coleslaw Ew and EW! Okay, so the veal thing with me is less about ethics (I know! I know! Stone me later!) and more about not thinking it’s any great shakes in the taste department. I’ve had it as a pureed soup (don’t ask; I found pureed veal between my shoulder blades after making that) and as osso bucco and I still don’t get the hype. Coleslaw is just flat-out nasty. I really like cabbage but not when it’s all bound up in some gloppy mayo sauce that’s just a bowl of botulism waiting to happen. ["In my family, it's made with not one but TWO other top-seeded barf bombs: blue cheese, and raisins. …I need to lie down." -- SDB] I think that there are a lot of ‘slaw haters, but there are also rabid ‘slaw lovers. Additionally, I think there are way more vegetarians and ethical persons who will vote against veal for their various reasons (and who are waiting to stone me now), so veal will get out of the pen. This time. (Okay, you guys can stone me now.)

5 scallops vs. 12 licorice/anise I do love me some perfectly cooked scallops, all crispy golden on the outside and juicy, firm meat on the inside. Even Dr. Matha, who is allergic to them in a gastrointestinal, rather than anaphylactic way, loves them and has a bite every now and then to see if he’s over his allergy. But licorice?! BARF. Still, scallops are seafood, and there are more fish flouters out there than licorice-a-phobes, so scallops swim on.

4 mussels vs. 13 coconut I know Glark calls coconut “the devil’s pubes,” which is an awesome description even if never fails to bring to mind that Sex and the City episode when Samantha found a grey hair Down There, but I love coconut to distraction. Mussels, well, mussels, I used to love until I food-poisoned myself with one and now am off them for life. I think enough people love coconut and hate seafood as a group – especially bottom-feeders, like mussels, which are the scrubbing bubbles of the ocean’s toilet – that mussels will muscle through to the next round.

6 lobster vs. 11 bologna/olive loaf et al. We had to have bologna even if I STRENOUSLY disagree with its inclusion, because it’s one of the very few foods Dr. Mathra hates so much I can’t even say the word “bologna” without him clapping his hands over his ears and yelling, “STOPITSTOPITGROSS!” I’ve never had olive loaf but I do know how Bunting feels about it and also how I feel about any food except meat and bread being appended with “loaf.” (Midwestern sandwich loaf anyone? HURL.) (Also, “loaf” kind of sounds like the sound you make when throwing up. LOAF! LOOOAAAF! ["Also also: 'pinching a loaf.'" -- SDB]) All that aside, as many people hate lobster for being in the fish category and also for basically being an insect -- a delicious, wondrous, butter-loving sea insect, but an insect all the same -- lobster will pincer out bologna/olive loaf.

3 organ meats vs. 14 tofu All in this category are repulsive: tofu for trying to be like meat and organ meats for being too much like meat. Also, I feel about organ meats the way others do about bottom-feeders: they are the body’s garbage can and sewer system. All bad stuff goes in there. I’ll take my meat as God intended: chops, ribs, steaks, legs, and breasts. Not livers, hearts, kidneys, tendons, pancreas, brains, eyeballs, and lungs. HAWARF. There are more vegetarians who swear by the sweaty, suspiciously wet tofu than there are meat eaters who love organ meats, so hearts and lungs and brains will soldier on. (Seriously, tofolks, what’s with all the water?!)

7 cottage cheese vs. 10 egg yolk I used to hate cottage cheese and, in fact, I still kind of do. Unless it comes from Cowgirl Creamery. No joke, their Clabbered Cottage Cheese is the awesomest. Firm of curd, light in the mouth, and not at all watery, it’s craveable. All other cottage cheeses can go dump themselves, but that one stays. Egg yolks are weird. They’re either too runny or too chalky, and for some people – devilled, fried, or Scotched – egg yolks will always whiff of poop or farts. And that’s not unusual, by the way. It’s a scientific fact that some people lock into that sulfur scent and others don’t note it at all. Crazy genetics! I don’t totally hate egg yolks, but it’s because of them that I no longer enjoy lemon curd. It just always tastes of raw yolks to me, and I hate that because I used to adore lemon curd and make it all the time. I think we underestimated the yolked power in this one, and I’m going to call it for egg yolks running through.

2 mayonnaise vs. 15 parsley This is where I'm going to be a picky-foodie. So, I hated any evidence of mayo on my sandwiches as a kid and I wouldn't allow it, especially when white bulbs of it ballooned through the holes in my sandwich bread. (Also, my mom made herself PEANUT BUTTER AND MAYO SANDWICHES! I mean, there's not enough gagging in the world to rid yourself of that image.) And don’t get me STARTED on Miracle Whip. (Crap. We forgot Miracle Whip.) Anyway, the foodie thing is that I love home made aioli, especially when I don't break a wrist doing it myself, so you might think that makes me a snobby picky-foodie, but it really doesn’t because there’s something way more revulsive about processed egg and vinegar and oil than what you make at home. Also? Homemade doesn’t quiver and shiver as much. (MORLFF) Parsley, however is the anti-MORLFF for me. I find its flavor soothing and cleansing when I’ve overdone it on richer foods. I know people hate it, but they don’t hate it as much as mayonnaise, so the condiment will quiver-shiver to the next round.