Food, Glorious Food

I’ve always loved food and have a terrible sweet tooth. Which is quite obvious, considering how often I mention cake on this blog.  Fortunately, my sugar cravings were kept at a respectable level while I was growing up due to my Mum’s brilliant home cooking. Whenever we had cakies or sweets they were always homemade. In fact, one of my brother’s pet peeves was the fact that we never had bought biscuits!  These days I’m sure he’d prefer the homemade ones, but for some reason back then he just wanted Tim Tams or whatever was popular in the 70’s. Iced Vo Vo's? Scotch Fingers? Something like that, anyway. 

There was a period of time as a teenager when I used to take the whole a Mars a day helps you work, rest and play advertising slogan quite seriously. I managed to eat one nearly every day while still remaining slim. Oh, to have the metabolism of a teenager again!

Unbelievably now (considering I'll eat just about anything that isn't nailed down), I used to be quite fussy about what I would and wouldn’t eat, preferring my Mum’s cooking to any type of take away or packaged food.  If we visited any friends or relatives where we were served frozen apple pie my reaction was one of sheer revulsion. They may as well as have served me dog shit on toast such was my horror. Spoiled little princess that I was. However, you have to understand that I was used to my Mum’s homemade apple pie. And, as my nephew has stated: this is not just apple pie; it’s an experience. Yep, my Mum could have aced MasterChef if it had been around back then. Actually she still could if she wanted to, but she’s nearly 73 and probably sick of all the cooking by now. 

There was always a hot, tasty meal on the table at around 6pm every night when I was growing up. Even though it was often the standard fare of chops and three veg, roast chicken or spaghetti bolognaise, somehow my Mum managed to put that extra bit of love in it to make it taste better than anyone else’s cooking. It was a very rare occasion if we had take away.

Occasionally we would get dressed up and go out for dinner to a local Chinese restaurant.  For a long time I wouldn’t try any Chinese food.  I’d have my chicken and chips, sometimes followed by a banana split for dessert. Eventually my parents managed to coax me into eating the fried rice, then short soup and chicken omelette. And that was exotic for me. I didn’t really taste many new and different foods.

In addition to this, I really haven’t travelled a lot, so I’ve never had opportunities to try different foods. I did go to Holland with my parents when I was ten years old in 1981, but I don’t remember trying many different foods. I stuck with the sweet stuff and lived on custard while there.  I seem to vaguely recall that it was the custom there to smother hot chips with peanut sauce. At the time this struck me as the most revolting thing EVER. Thinking about it now, though, it occurs to me that it was probably a satay type sauce and that I’d really like it now. I was just a weird child. 

I think one of the reasons I’m struggling with my weight as a middle aged woman (apart from my cake and chocolate addiction) is that I’m finding that I just like a lot more different foods now which I would have once found completely disgusting. Certain imaginary (online) friends who shall remain nameless are repulsed by my penchant for Indian food referring to all curry as ‘spicy puke’. Once upon a time I certainly would have shared this view. However, my taste buds have developed and my arse has grown accordingly. My sugar addiction has continued in conjunction with these developing taste buds. Oh who am I kidding, I’m just a big glutton.  Shut up. 

The only extremely strange and bizarre food (to me) that I can remember trying is pig’s ear. I can’t say I found it very appetising. This happened when I was working at the State Library of NSW years decades ago and a lovely Taiwanese lady whom I worked with, invited me to her home for a meal. One of the things she cooked was pig’s ear. Maybe there is another term for the dish but I don’t recall, except that it was made with the pig’s ear.  I only remember the texture being rubbery and chewy and I’m not sure if I managed to swallow it. All of the other dishes the lady had prepared were fine but I definitely couldn’t get into the pig’s ear. Just thinking of it now makes me shudder. But hey, at least I tried it, right? When I Googled the term 'cooked pig's ear' a veritable feast of recipes appeared. I guess it is a popular culinary delight to many people but I think I'll pass. 

I may have to get used to some different types of food, though. In a moment of madness I have signed up for the Get Healthy service and will be starting my telephone coaching very soon; beginning my ‘get healthy’ journey. Oh fuck, I’ve just become one of those people who says they’re on a ‘journey’. If I start mentioning kale and quinoa then you know I've been abducted by aliens and it’s not me writing this blog anymore.  On second thought, I’m pretty sure I’ll leave them with the pig’s ear. 

Linking up with Kirsty from My Home Truths for I MustConfess.

And linking this up yet again for The Lounge.

 

What's the weirdest food you've ever tried?