Here are my 10 favorite flavors:
1. Salty-sour - I feel like from everything I’ve heard about pregnancy, I have been pregnant before. Like in a past life. Or something. Not like I was pregnant in my sleep and ugh, this has taken a dark, unintentional turn.
I get intense cravings for pickles and could eat an entire jar in one sitting if I truly let myself be myself (a monster). Salt and vinegar chips were something my mom craved when she was pregnant. Perhaps I acquired my taste for those in the womb. She also ate spicy things because she is a spicy woman and she said I kicked her, as a fetus. I like spicy things. I’ve never kicked my mother.
2. Salty-sweet - Alida at The Frenemy wrote about brunch, “ I spend a lot of time battling the Braveheart war of whether I want sweet or savory Sunday eatings and because I’m wearing Spanxx, I feel super slim and feel like I can have both. I would anyway.” That is sooo spot on for me. Why make decisions when taking a bite of something savory and then sweet or vice versa is the most indulgent/genius eating technique ever??? But also, I can’t eat a lot of sweets. I can’t and I don’t enjoy it as much as pickles. I feel sick when I try to eat a full plate of a belgian waffle or sweet pancake.
I tell everyone this story and I don’t know why because it’s not a flattering story about myself nor a significant one and I can’t remember in what context I would think to bring this up -- but one time in the third grade my mom packed me a salami sandwich and twinkies for lunch (this was a one time thing -- she usually packed very well balanced, healthy lunches, much to my dismay). I ate everything. Then I went to the bathroom and threw up (again, not a regular thing for me). My friend asked me what was wrong and I told her that I have a sensitive stomach. Huh.
3. Wait, how can I list 10 flavors? I didnt even know that many existed?
4. Sour - the exterior of a Warhead candy (spit that shit out before it gets sweet. yuck). Sour Belgian beer. Tequila chased with a lime. Anything that makes the front of your brain tingle.
5. Kisses - hahahahahhahaa
6. Stinky - People call this “umami” but I feel like a douchey culture reappropriating bag when I say that. It’s where fish sauce and pussy meet. Or it’s just fish sauce. Or like, sherry. No wonder old men dig it. Cheers. It’s fucking good and weirdly sexual. Like scratching yourself and smelling it. I know you fucking do it.
7. Wow I’m already at number 7?? Fat - This is the worst. By worst I mean best and I feel like Paula Deen over here because I keep a jar of pork/beef/heart fat in my fridge and I spoon some of it into my hash, or butter my pasta with it. It makes things rich and meaty. Then I wonder if I’ll have to start taking those cholesterol pills my parents take 20 years early. Basting your meat in butter is the only way to pan fry it. Seriously.
8. Meat - The other day I made bolognese sauce with my friends Ross and Megan and we deglazed the pan with some red wine and then added the tomatoes. The result was a much meatier taste. -- and, aside: the recipe called for no salt. I have never seen that before. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not necessarily talking about just biting into meat. I’m referring more to a meaty essence that gets in things that gives your food a richer, earthier flavor. Like licking a cow.
9. Honey - I could say sweet but I don’t mean sweet as a favorite flavor. Tasting “raw” honey or honey straight from a honey comb is something completely else. It’s like if flowers were candy.
10. Garlic - Korean people have this dish where they wrap some barbecued meat up in lettuce and just grab a clove of garlic and eat it all together and it is so awesome. I’ve never wanted to just eat a clove of garlic but when I saw this laid out with the rest of the banchan, I was on board.
Another anecdote about garlic: My grandma made mjadra like I have NEVER seen it before. Everytime I try to look up a recipe for it, it is not like hers at all. She makes hers into a thick, grey, disgusting looking, goopy gruel. It looks disgusting but it's delicious. I don’t know why that boggles me so much, but it does, because her’s was the best. You could have it cold or hot. Plain, with pita, or on white bread. In all the recipes I’ve seen for it, I have never seen garlic listed as an ingredient but she put in a ton. I tried to make it like hers in college and added a whole garlic. The whole thing. And I still couldn’t get it to taste like garlic inside that thick porridge. Years later, I’d find out the secret was smushing the garlic in a mortar and pestle to get all the garlic juices and oils out.
Okay, I sort of cheated a little but that’s 10 so suck it, losers.
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