Show me what you are eating!

Strudel

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Perogies with sundried tomatoes, parsley and sour cream.
 
Last Friday night dinner.

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"Where's the beef?" After a stressful week and not having had red meat for a week, I felt the need for a steak, so I picked up a couple of cheap sirloin grill cuts and threw together a his and hers old fashioned steak dinner with mushrooms and garlic mashed potato. As you might or might not notice in the picture, it's not exactly the same across the table. My side: carrots and turnip (I love root veggies). His side: fried bell peppers (capsicum) red onion and zucchini (a green he will eat!). He's not a root veggie or much of a veggie person at all.

I have this theory that intractable tastes are more than learned and come from heritable old genes going way back. At the very least this theory, if off-base makes me more forgiving of closedness when it comes to eating and also as I found recently, a way to intuitively improve one's health when sick.

I would be interested to hear from others. What do you think about tastes? Do they match up with your DNA/genes or known ethnicity?




 
Last Friday night dinner.

IMG-7874.jpg


"Where's the beef?" After a stressful week and not having had red meat for a week, I felt the need for a steak, so I picked up a couple of cheap sirloin grill cuts and threw together a his and hers old fashioned steak dinner with mushrooms and garlic mashed potato. As you might or might not notice in the picture, it's not exactly the same across the table. My side: carrots and turnip (I love root veggies). His side: fried bell peppers (capsicum) red onion and zucchini (a green he will eat!). He's not a root veggie or much of a veggie person at all.

I have this theory that intractable tastes are more than learned and come from heritable old genes going way back. At the very least this theory, if off-base makes me more forgiving of closedness when it comes to eating and also as I found recently, a way to intuitively improve one's health when sick.

I would be interested to hear from others. What do you think about tastes? Do they match up with your DNA/genes or known ethnicity?





Looks like a nice hearty meal. I love root vegetables.

As to your question, I'm not sure. Averages by ancestry might apply, but there are individual differences within countries so maybe what a mother eats during gestation and exposure in early childhood also influence it.

I guess you could say that generally Northern Europeans are more "meat and potatoes", and Southern Europeans incorporate more vegetables? That may well be a function of what easily grows in different places, however, and therefore the foods to which people are exposed. It's also how you cook certain foods, and also the quality of certain foods that can make a difference. I found "native" English food rather difficult when I spent some time there as a young woman. I found the vegetables, in particular, too soft and virtually tasteless. I've been cooking for "foreigners" for decades, in the form of friends, and have found that a little olive oil and garlic can convert quite a few people,, even with sub-par produce. Not all, however. As for meats, our chicken and veal are far superior, but for beef, other than the beef in a few places (Southern Tuscany), American beef is far superior. I never liked beef in Italy, but there are few things I like better than a really good steak. Italians moan about American food, but trust me, when I treat my family and friends from home to a Porterhouse on the grill, a baked potato with chives and sour cream, some seasonal, sweet corn on the cob, and a slice of blueberry pie, they love it. :)

I used to think that you couldn't be what they call a genetic "super-taster" and like Italian food. Yet, I love our food and genetic tests at 23andme show that I am a "super-taster". It's true that I really don't drink espresso except to be polite (only cappuccino in the morning), but like olives despite the fact that I very well recognize they can be very bitter. I suppose I became accustomed to eating them as a foil to fatty cured meats. We don't eat broccoli rabe or eggplant (aubergines) very much in the north, and so I find them very bitter and never really make dishes with them. Most Italians prefer savory to sweet, but my mother was an exception. She would choose a piece of cake over cheese, olives and cold cuts any day. I'm like my father. You know how so many American children when young eat only really bland foods? Well, I was the opposite. I wanted only Italian cold cuts, cheese, olives and bread. My mother was in despair (it was all my father's fault, who indulged me in everything) but my nonna, having raised eleven children, said put it in front of her. If she doesn't eat it she can go to bed hungry. I wasn't quite so strict, but I usually insisted that they try something at least a couple of times before they were allowed to refuse it. I drew the line at cooking for them separately, however. They could fill up on the other things.

People can switch, as well. My husband, raised on all Southern Italian (and American food), discovered he liked my mother's northern cooking much more, and so now I'm far more likely to make risotto and soup and gnocchi than pasta if he's eating at home. I make the pasta for myself or my children. I, on the other hand, have never really adjusted to certain cuisines. I don't like Japanese, or Thai food, or even most Mexican food. I like Chinese food, but only if it's really good, i.e. Chinatown New York good, and even then once a month is fine. I'm afraid I'm not really fond of German or Scandinavian or Eastern European food either. I took to eating before I would go to a bar mitzvah because I found all that Eastern European cold fish and borscht after the service almost inedible. On the other hand, I really like Portuguese and Spanish and French and Greek and even some Middle Eastern food. My children are much more adventurous.
 
Hi Angela,

Thank you so much for your richly detailed reply. Apologies for the pun, but this is so much great food for thought. :) I will share some of my own food/taste preferences thoughts in the next day or so.

Briefly though, I will say that you have raised some interesting tidbits. Like you, I do distinguish bitter, but don't mind it and I also find English style vegetable cooking overdone. I don't know if I qualify as a "super-taster" but would guess that I have a good chance of being one. I didn't get the medical part of the 23andme test, but have the option of adding it at a later date.
 
I wondered about olives, since you mentioned them, Angela. As an olive lover, I can eat them until the cows come home.

While olives themselves are definitely bitter, they also are what I would call briney, but of course that is in large part as to how they are produced and packaged for the North American masses. I like anything briney, but it's the bitter that I find interesting as a taste dissection point. I find it interesting how you point out that it off-sets the meats, which I agree with. Astringent might not be the right word, but I find that the bitterness in olives and also pickles tends to balance out or alleviate the fat in meats.

https://mic.com/articles/107536/if-you-absolutely-despise-olives-there-could-be-a-good-reason-why#.4RBM8e2wE


"Immigrants are often unsatisfied with the canned olives they can buy at their local grocery store. There's a community of people getting unripe, green olives from the tree and pickling them at home. "They like to process the olives the way their ancestors did," Hester said."

Maybe I have some Mediterranean in me after all? I can only get good olives way out of my way in an Italian Bottega, despite "International" sections in grocery stores. 23andme sample has been in analysis stage for 9 days. The tension to know is building :rolleyes:
 
Looks like a nice hearty meal. I love root vegetables.
As to your question, I'm not sure. Averages by ancestry might apply, but there are individual differences within countries so maybe what a mother eats during gestation and exposure in early childhood also influence it.

Yes, exposure does play a huge part temporally and relatively. What, I am more interested in is more inclined toward inherent proclivities despite circumstantial influence, which I think has more bearing on what we want to eat than has been given considerate study.

If gestational eating by the mother has influence it missed me! According to my mother, she craved and ate tons of herring while pregnant with me. The mere sight and smell of herring turns my stomach.
 
^^I'm no lover of herring either, or any cold fish, or smoked fish. It took me years to get used to lox. :)

I guess the stock carried in supermarkets depends on the surrounding population. So far as I can tell, "cured" and "brined" olives are available in all supermarkets chains, i.e. Stop and Shop, King Kullen, Whole Foods etc.

This is a typical "olive bar".
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There are many shelves full of imported Italian olive oil:
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From the regular deli counter I can get Toscano salami, sopressata, mortadella, capicola (sweet and hot). Now, at the Italian import store you can get the imported varieties of that and more, but it's more expensive.

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They even stock fresh baked Italian style breads, although I go to the Italian markets because they get Tuscan bread brought in from the Bronx and Brooklyn.
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^^Some German products are sold in the regular supermarkets around me (imported sauerkraut, a few baked goods), and in certain areas Portuguese products (mostly bread because there are a lot of Portuguese bakeries), but while there are a few Portuguese import stores in one area not too far away, I only know of one German store. I know because I was baking with a German ancestry friend whose family immigrated to America after the war, and we needed vanilla sugar. :) She makes the most extraordinary apple strudel, with like six layers, and other delicious sweets too numerous to mention.

On the other hand, there's still a "little Germany" of sorts within NYC and they still have a few German import stores and bakeries. That's nothing compared to the Midwest, however, according to that same friend, now based in Chicago. It's all about location.

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Lots of German restaurants still to be found in Glendale and Ridgewood too, but they're very far from me in terms of driving time.

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The closest to me is about a half hour by car and I don't think it's very traditional, although I'm no expert.
http://jagerhausnyc.com/blog/

To get the real thing I'd have to drive deep into Queens to what remains of the old German immigrant area.

http://www.zumstammtisch.com/menus.html

I'm a big meat eater, really like Wienerschnitzel and their brat platters, and also like their German salad, potatoes, and of course desserts, so I would definitely go often if it were closer.
 
I love giant hot dogs, those are the best
 
I love giant hot dogs, those are the best
Onion Rings & Beer @Red-Robin LOL

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Getting a Burger with SECRET SAUCE :grin:
 
Angela, I am enjoying your foodie posts. Sorry, I haven't been around to respond. I was away from home for a little excursion. I did get my 23andme results though in the interim, and found out I have some recent Italian and Mediterranean in my ethnic make-up that I wasn't aware of. Pretty cool!

I am now occupied in my free time learning how to use third party tools like GEDMATCH to make more detailed sense of it all.

Wienerschnitzel is one of my faves. I love finding a good Central European restaurant that does justice to it. They are around but not as much as one might hope. When I go back to my hometown to visit family twice a year, getting the foodie good-stuff is always a must. You are lucky for choice being located where you are. :)
 

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