Taste the taste in your mouth, taste the taste on your tongue

[venta]

Another day for pointless curiosity... how are you at eating things when you don't know what they are? I made sausages at the weekend (post on the topic coming soon), and offered some pieces of cooked sausage to colleagues to see if they could guess what was in it. Both happily chomped down on mystery food without any info. I regard this as completely normal, but am aware that some people would never do it.

So... in the poll below, I'm asking about whether or not you'd eat mystery food I gave you. This is not just a meal I've cooked, this is something "mysterious" I'm inviting you to try. I'm aware some of you probably trust me, and some of you barely know me. Let's assume I'm someone you know well enough to know won't poison you, or feed you fag-ash-and-spider sausages for a laugh, but not someone whom you feel you know well enough to place special trust in.

Let's also assume that I know about your dietary requirements, so I won't give you meat if you're vegetarian, I won't feed you pork if you eat kosher, and I won't give you wheat if you're coeliac. I have perfect knowledge of your dietary requirements, even if they're quite complicated :) I don't know about your likes and dislikes, though, so won't guarantee not to feed you aubergine if you really hate it.

[Poll #1907455]

I feel there's quite enough options already, if you want to be all snowflakey, you can do it in the comments ;)

Comments

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

If you offer me mystery food which you assert is me-friendly, then sure, why not? (Random person on the street, not so much).

I like food in general, particularly interesting food. Usually the worst that will happen is I might not like it - and how would I know that unless I tried it?

This usually works out fine. There was that one time that lnr gave me a me-friendly mystery chocolate which turned out to be a chocolate covered raw brussel sprout (there was context, she wasn't being mean ;-). ). And that was, ahem, not a taste I'm ever likely to come to fully appreciate (sorry!).

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd agree. I just remember (years ago) being in a restaurant with a good friend, and I was eating something like seafood linguini. I uncovered a ... thing. I had no idea what it was, commented on this, and ate it.

He was completely aghast that I would put a thing in my mouth when I didn't know what it was. I guess it having tentacles didn't help :)

I was working on the assumption that if it was in my seafood linguini, it was fundamentally an edible thing that people who like seafood liked. So had no problems at all eating it, even without introduction.

[ceb.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure you can eat seafood at all if you don't subscribe to this principle :-)

[ailbhe]

I am so glad I missed most of the chocolate coverings.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Eep, you and beckcy know each other?!

People should stop doing this to me :)

(Or I should learn that there are only about 200 real people in the world and get over it...)

[ailbhe]

Oh, no, but I know a lot of people involved in a great chocolate covering conspiracy, including locusts and a complete fried breakfast. And I know LNR.

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

'The ones that look like chocolate brazils, aren't'

On account of them being chocolate covered garlic cloves, as it happened.

On the subject of trying food - I expect I would be happier not knowing what something is if my preconceived notion might interfere, but that's generally looking at things like grubs, insects etc. I will arbitrarily rule out trying things like wasabi peas on the basis of too spicy/horseradish-y which I know I won't like.

Mostly, I think I will eat anything with tentacles, especially if they are tiny.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

The chocolate covered garlic cloves I rather liked, and the chocolate covered mushrooms were also surprisingly palatable. To this day, however, the chocolate covered raw brussel sprouts lead me to be ever so slightly wary of LNR bearing unspecified food products.

[lnr]

It wasn't even me who made them!

Have suddenly also recalled the choc covered carnation - and later eating one from the Indian restaurant without chocolate to see if it was still nice. I fear there may have been drink taken!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

They make milk out of them, so why not?

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

I have no objection to people making chocolate covered raw sprouts if they want to; my objection is to being fed the things. This my complaint is with you, not the manufacturer :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of curious now. I mean, I don't really expect chocolate-coated raw sprout to be especially nice, but I don't think I'd expect it to be as vile as it seems to have been judging by the number of people it's traumatised!

(I'd have imagined it would just taste of chocolate and sprout, ie two perfectly acceptable flavours that just don't go together. I guess I do like sprouts, though.)

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

My digestive system has long responded badly to sprouts; in this particular case I actually threw up. (Beckyc merely didn't like it. This is probably why I hold more of a grudge than she does:)

[ewx.livejournal.com]

That incident put me off the idea of mystery food and I wasn't even the subject l-)

[lnr]

Gosh it sounds like you almost forgive me :). That example had come to my mind too!

I recall there were also chocolate covered meatballs, cheese and 'the ones that look like brazil nuts aren't' aka raw garlic.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Awww was I that grumpy? Sorry!!

It was a hilarious practical joke. And I still eat food you give me ;-)