Originally Posted by
Visconti
My first taste, I absolutely hated it, and vowed to never ever eat it again. Over the years, I suppose, when you work and live somewhere, some of the local customs, habits and superstitions rub off on you; I just kept hearing people around saying, "the stuff you eat, you better start eating some stuff to cool you down." So, I sort resorted to, as I had as a kid, pinched my nose and ate my veggies, however much I disliked them. It just strikes me as unfair since all the good tasting stuff seems to heat you up, not cool you down.
I've acquired a taste for it over the many long years, I suppose. However, I still wouldn't sit down and look forward to eating a plate of it, but I was always one of those who naturally never liked the taste of veggies. I read an article or someone tried to posit that I was a supertaster, or something along those lines.
Nothing wrong with that. I know my taste buds have changed over the years. Things like coriander and durian.... right now, I still don't like a strong blue cheese flavour and gag when I smell it.
There are a lot of cooling foods that taste good (assuming done right of course). ma tai ko (I think that's how you spell it... the jelly with the wolfberries and lotus petals in it) is an example... mangosteen... many other sweet fruits...most forms of sashimi that I know of... I agree that there are more "heaty" foods, but it's not too hard to balance out. I like at least partially cooked bitter melon (don't like it raw, but if you stir fry it a bit to retain the crunch it's still good). One version I often get is flat rice noodles with beef and bitter melon in a black bean sauce. BUT you have to get it outside of northern China (I've never tried the stir fried beef in central or southern China outside of HK)... the reason I say that is the beef (or how they prepare it) up there just sucks. If you've had "beef hor fun" or the black bean version outside of China and compare it to the northern part, BIG difference.
Originally Posted by
FlyerEC
tau yu ba! I haven't had this in years... now you're giving me ideas. The only problem is that you can't make just a one person portion. This is like a 4-6 person dish.