A THREAD ABOUT "HOT FOOD TAKES" Yes, this is spurred by the dude who said you shouldn't spritz lime on tacos (and thankfully, got properly owned). But this is much bigger than that, because I see the same problem in "hot food takes" all the damn time...
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And at the high-end levels of cooking? The best foods are balanced masterfully and create dishes that give you sensations of every flavor profile, mixing and matching. It is the utter ideal for delighting your tongue across the board.
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The thing is we don't grow up eating a lot of food like this. Often, we grow up with bland food. And the truth is we like processed junk food cause those fuckers have that balance shit down to a literal science built for specificity and replication.
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But it's important to remember that we grow up not just with our own specific home tastes, but the cultural proclivities of the societal cuisine around us, and they often skews more than one direction than the other.
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The midwest has a flavor profile that skews sweet and uses white flour and lots of rich fats! The south also loves sweetness and fat, but has a higher tolerance for spice and seasoning and the complex "tang" you get from combining them.
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Go around the world, Mexico loves acidic foods. The mideast and south asian love sourness. I grew up in new england where salty / briny reigns supreme along with an appreciation of subtly sweet seafood. Often these are about region ingredients, but it gives us proclivities.
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So the seeming trouble comes when you go "outside" your flavor profile. When people start trying foods that are acidic or vinegary, it tastes "too aggressive" to them. Same goes for a lot of bitter foods.
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But just because their taste buds react so confidently to this in negative fashion, does not mean they are *correct* for tasting this way. After all, the acid has a huge purpose and makes your mouth water.
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Now, can individual preparations of foods be too salty? Too acidic? Unbalanced? OFF COURSE. Cooking ain't easy, but when looking at common things, you need to realize an entire region doesn't eat a certain way by accident.
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So what it often means is you haven't developed your palate for a bigger range yet. And if there's anything I've learned, openly embracing different flavor profiles is the best way to learn how to love pretty much all regional food.
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More over, it gives you a further understanding of flavor and being able to identify the reason certain foods don't work. You'll eat something and be like "too rich, needs more acid" or recognize under seasoned food. It really leads to eating nirvana.
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And it's important. Because when I was five years old I liked chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, and un-sauced pasta. Why? Because a lot of kids haven't developed their palates and are over-sensitive to acid.
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So what's the point of all this? Next time you unleash a "hot food take," think for a moment if you understand the basics of the flavor involved and it's not because you didn't develop your palate beyond a five-year-old. Spritz the damn lime. Soon you'll see it's delicious.
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Folks, to make clear the caveat: You can instantly tell the difference between hot takes that are playful (THE FRY WARS) and ones that are largely based on xenophobic myopia that try to tell an entire whole culture they're doing their food wrong. That's who I'm criticizing.
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Also two important notes! What we are really talking about in this thread is the idealized range of flavor as most experience. If you have medical reasons for not being able to eat a certain way, then of course that's not something ANYONE should make you feel crappy for...
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And then the matter of digestion is "separate but interlocking" issue if that makes sense. There's so many delicious foods that might give someone stomach issues, but it's different from the taste science I'm talking about here!
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End of conversation
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