To not understand the UK's obsession with sprouts?

They certainly aren’t the same sprouts that I remember from childhood.

Sprouts were served up with monotonous regularity with my take it or leave it school lunches. However, they were boiled to a tasteless grey mush.

I don't get it either.

When my brother was about 6 my mum came home and happily told him she'd got him a surprise present. His automatic response was 'IS IT SPROUTS???'

His sad little face when he was told that no, it was a lego set was hilarious.

I'm fairly indifferent to be honest but I don't get the love 😅

They’re fairly popular here in Sweden as they’ll easily grow here, well as popular as a vegetable can be in Sweden. I don’t like brussels if they’re boiled, microwaved/steamed. I only like them if they are oven roasted or pan fried.

Oh, that recipe sounds lovely! We usually roast them in the oven.
Boiled vegetables are always awful in my opinion.

Somehow they are pushed as you must eat at Christmas but actually why is this a tradition!!!

There aren't always good reasons for traditions <shrug>. I'm no gardener, but I'm pretty sure sprouts' growing season means they are ready at this time of year.

I love sprouts and we often have them
With our Sunday roast!

@pinklepea 'Still bet the lovers of Brussel sprouts barely eat them through the year. Somehow they are pushed as you must eat at Christmas but actually why is this a tradition!!!'

No, we've been buying them from Tesco since October. We make potato cakes with sprouts and bacon. A sort of uprated bubble & squeak. They're lovely..

I love them and eat them all year round, but guess I have the right genes - I agree (obviously!) that people who don't like them should be entirely free to pass and have something they do find delicious.

It's just a tradition isn't it? People only eat them Christmas day so they like to have them so everyone can wang on about whether they love or hate them. I actually like them. But my husband doesn't so we won't be having any. But if we were hosting I'd probably insist we did.

Sprouts are just for garnish.

I love sprouts. Steamed & served with bacon, or pan fried with other veg. Sweet & delicious.

They aren't great if boiled to mush, but that's true of most veg.

Par-boil and stir fry with garlic and pine nuts, they are amazing, it's like magic, the flavour they take on.

...plus it's a bit of fun. What can you do with the sprouts, it's a challenge.

I love them, we make a gorgeous Leon recipe with pasta, creme fraiche and Italian sausage. Sometimes at Christmas we have kalettes instead of sprouts, but I haven't found any this year.
I can well understand people hating them, I feel the same way about mushrooms. And I can't understand anyone forcing their guests to eat a food they don't like, just why would anyone do that, it's bizarre.

I like sprouts but not enough to have them on Xmas - but this applies to the whole traditional Xmas Day dinner tbh. I'd eat it all if I was a guest but DP and I are doing a slow-cooked ragu this year, which I much prefer.

Not this again! It's not an obsession. They are just a traditional part of Christmas dinner and are a 'marmite' vegetable that some like and some don't. You don't like them. Others do. What is there to understand?

Yep there was a sprout hating thread a couple days ago. It seems the only people ‘obsessed’ with sprouts are those that dislike them 😂

I eat them a couple of times a week when they're available, love them just steamed with salt and pepper.
I lived in the Middle East as a child and they weren't available there. It was the one veg people used to ask those going on holiday to the uk to bring back!

We eat them at least twice a week,frozen ones are delicious. I need to eat a lot of green leafy veg so it's another way of doing so.

We have them all the time. Standard side vegetable on a roast or roasted with broccoli and harissa. Love them. I'll probably have 10 tomorrow.

It is a seasonal vegetable that was one of the only things still standing during the winter, which gets sweeter as it frosts.

Similar to parsnips, which need to be dug up and stored otherwise they can't be harvested when the ground is frozen.

Hence being on plates over the winter period.

I bloody love them and when I'm not growing them and have to buy them in, I peel and cook the whole lot and freeze them for future roasties.

They are disgusting. I've tried them roasted or sautéed in posh restaurants too before and no no no no. Never.

I eat anything except spouts and offal so I'm not even a fussy eater. Awful things. I can't even bring myself to eat novelty chocolate sprouts.

If you don't understand that's fine. If people insist after you've said no then that is very odd and I'd say "why are you ignoring me, I said no" and get increasingly blunter

They're seasonal.

I love strawberries, but I only buy them in the summer because the under-ripe ones flown in from places like South Africa in the winter are expensive, disappointing and a poor use of air miles.

Sprouts are a bit of a joke feature of a Christmas dinner because the taste is quite love/hate, and it feeds into the "eat your greens" type narrative.

My son is a sprout lover since his first Christmas. I don't buy them year round because it's a bit off a faff for a food that one person loves, one person will tolerate in small amounts, one dislikes and one hates within the household.

Apparently there are 110 varieties of sprouts!!

They really don't - it just slightly masks tbe taste enough to prevent gagging