Friday Five
Dec. 6th, 2002 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivka1) Do you have any food restrictions (stuff you can't eat), and if so, what kinds?
Most of my readers probably already know that I'm allergic to most raw fruits: anything with a core (apples, pears), any non-tropical fruit with a pit (peaches, plums, and cherries aren't okay, but mangoes and avocadoes are), compound berries (raspberries, blackberries), strawberries, blueberries, and any kind of nut. I can have all of these foods when they're cooked, except for almonds. If I'm exposed, my mouth and throat itch, burn, and swell - to the point where ripping out my throat with my own hands starts seeming like a reasonable idea. In extreme cases I have trouble breathing.
I avoid veal for ethical reasons. As a teenager, I was a vegetarian - also for ethical reasons - but that fell by the wayside when I was twenty.
2) What are five foods you can always eat?
I can eat just about anything, but five foods I am always ready for are sushi, olives, fresh asparagus, lamb, and good-quality bread. Do I have to stop at five? I also love shellfish of any kind, duck, fresh spinach, smoked salmon, and caviar. Do I have to stop at ten? I love key lime pie, barbecue from Corky's in Memphis, red bell peppers, ice cream, most strongly-flavored cheeses, fresh ripe avocadoes, Greek roasted potatoes with lemon and garlic, tuna steaks grilled medium rare, dark chocolate, and bouillabase. Okay, twenty things are probably enough. I guess.
3) What are five foods you can't stand?
Organ meats of any kind (my trip to Romania in 1997 was especially perilous in this regard, because they tried to serve me both stomach soup and deep-fried brains), raw onions, fatty meat, cream of wheat cereal, canned peas.
4) What are five cuisines/styles of cooking you either hate or really love (please specify ;)?
I love sushi. The other Japanese foods I've tried haven't really impressed me, but I could eat sushi every day of the week. I love Greek food - we have great Greek restaurants here in Baltimore. I love Pacific Northwest regional cuisine. I love fondue. I love very fresh, very authentic Mexican food.
5) What are five foods you would love someone forever for making for you?
Cream of crab soup with sherry, as served at the Purple Orchid restaurant. A homemade cake for my birthday. Chicken broth and crackers carried to me when I'm sick. A leg of lamb roasted with lots of garlic, especially if I get to keep the leftovers. All the caviar I can eat, as sometimes provided by Ben.
Most of my readers probably already know that I'm allergic to most raw fruits: anything with a core (apples, pears), any non-tropical fruit with a pit (peaches, plums, and cherries aren't okay, but mangoes and avocadoes are), compound berries (raspberries, blackberries), strawberries, blueberries, and any kind of nut. I can have all of these foods when they're cooked, except for almonds. If I'm exposed, my mouth and throat itch, burn, and swell - to the point where ripping out my throat with my own hands starts seeming like a reasonable idea. In extreme cases I have trouble breathing.
I avoid veal for ethical reasons. As a teenager, I was a vegetarian - also for ethical reasons - but that fell by the wayside when I was twenty.
2) What are five foods you can always eat?
I can eat just about anything, but five foods I am always ready for are sushi, olives, fresh asparagus, lamb, and good-quality bread. Do I have to stop at five? I also love shellfish of any kind, duck, fresh spinach, smoked salmon, and caviar. Do I have to stop at ten? I love key lime pie, barbecue from Corky's in Memphis, red bell peppers, ice cream, most strongly-flavored cheeses, fresh ripe avocadoes, Greek roasted potatoes with lemon and garlic, tuna steaks grilled medium rare, dark chocolate, and bouillabase. Okay, twenty things are probably enough. I guess.
3) What are five foods you can't stand?
Organ meats of any kind (my trip to Romania in 1997 was especially perilous in this regard, because they tried to serve me both stomach soup and deep-fried brains), raw onions, fatty meat, cream of wheat cereal, canned peas.
4) What are five cuisines/styles of cooking you either hate or really love (please specify ;)?
I love sushi. The other Japanese foods I've tried haven't really impressed me, but I could eat sushi every day of the week. I love Greek food - we have great Greek restaurants here in Baltimore. I love Pacific Northwest regional cuisine. I love fondue. I love very fresh, very authentic Mexican food.
5) What are five foods you would love someone forever for making for you?
Cream of crab soup with sherry, as served at the Purple Orchid restaurant. A homemade cake for my birthday. Chicken broth and crackers carried to me when I'm sick. A leg of lamb roasted with lots of garlic, especially if I get to keep the leftovers. All the caviar I can eat, as sometimes provided by Ben.
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no subject
Date: 2002-12-06 12:26 pm (UTC)In France, at a restaurant in the country, I learned the importance of humility in ordering. Looking at a particular item (I am not going to attempt the French here because I can't remember it exactly), I decided to order what I thought was lamb in wine sauce. I didn't ask the waiter, who in fact spoke reasonable English, what I was ordering because I knew, right? It was in wine sauce, and but it was veal.... veal kidneys. Blecchhh. Brian liked it, though.
no subject
Date: 2002-12-06 12:47 pm (UTC)I avoid veal for ethical reasons.
What makes veal worse than other meats? I ignorant.
no subject
Date: 2002-12-06 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-12-06 01:07 pm (UTC)Ick. Yah, I can see why that's yucky (and stuff like that is part of why I flirt with vegetarianism every once in a while).
But my understanding (based on, like, 10-year old information picked up while I was on another continent) is that, for example, egg chickens are in much the same situation. Is veal an order of magnitude worse, or is it just slightly over a boundary for you?
Re:
Date: 2002-12-06 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-12-06 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-12-06 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-12-06 02:42 pm (UTC)And you can get free-range chicken eggs. I think free-range would pretty much do in the veal's 'quality'.
<nod> I have a really good free-range butcher near my house, and until recently, I bought a lot of my poultry products from them (I've gotten a bit lazy, lately). I've never asked them if they have eggs, though, stoopid me. The first time I had organic, free-range chicken at a friend's house, I was just amazed at the difference in the taste. My butcher's chicken isn't quite the quality of that first time, but it left a lasting impression.
As a result of this conversation, I started reading a bit more about the differences between organic chickens and free-range chickens. Seems like even free-range chickens are generally debeaked, which kinda squicks me.
It's also appears that Canada doesn't have the kind of climate that generally support free-range profitably. (For some values of profitably). Hurm. I feel another flirtation with vegetarianism coming on.
no subject
Date: 2002-12-06 01:21 pm (UTC)Oh good, I have 10 months to practice.
no subject
Date: 2002-12-09 07:30 am (UTC)Thankyouthankyouthankyou!
Re:
Date: 2002-12-09 08:03 am (UTC)It's apparently called oral allergy syndrome (http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/foodfacts/orale.shtml), and is linked to pollen allergies. Do you get hay fever?
Don't be too quickly relieved about the berry issue. I developed berry allergies late - anywhere from eight to seventeen years after I developed my first fruit allergy, to cherries. On the other hand, my father is allergic to the other fruits but never developed an allergy to berries, and he's 66 years old.
I'm so relieved to see that I'm not completely weird.
Well, not for your allergies, at least. I couldn't really pass judgment on any of the rest of it. (Speaking of which, do I know you?)
no subject
Date: 2002-12-09 09:16 am (UTC)And yes, I do get hay fever. It's a Noble Family Tradition (tm).
As for weirdness...we're all afflicted with it in one way or another, aren't we?