Repulsive trendy food

[TheUnexpectedPickle]

Inspired by the dried fruit hate thread...

Is it only me that thinks most trendy/"healthy" food is overrated at best, downright nasty at worst?

Cauliflower rice does not have the taste or texture of rice. It's just soggy Cauliflower. Reheated it smells and tastes of fart.

Courgetti is wet and dilutes the sauce with its green sadwater.

Pomegranate, mangos and satsumas do not belong on salad, especially with a garlic dressing.

Advocados are only ok.

Siracha is just expensive hot sauce. There are loads that are better.

Overnight oats have the texture of wallpaper paste and are absolutely repugnant.

And nothing, NOTHING, should be served on a shovel or any other nonsense receptacle.

@WeaverofWords
"I would like to add to this the other fakes and dupes: artificial sweeteners, fake red colouring for red velvet cakes, fake chai lattes made from syrup bases, and just general fake fakeness. Gross!"

a resounding yes to this. I do like a decent properly made sour tasting sourdough though. and if you grow your own starter, the starter leftovers make superb american style pancakes.

@Classica cupcakes were trendy in 2008

It was earlier than that surely? I thought it became a thing after people saw them in Sex in the City in the late 1990s?

Foodbowls. So ridiculously fake simple and yet somehow 15 quid. Also drowning in Kimchi which I'm perfectly capable of making by accident in the bottom of my fridge veg drawer thanks.

Also Mochi. Eating them is more like putting your mouth round a diabetic monkey's gonads than anything I would otherwise choose to do. My daughter loves them though so I had to fake enthusiasm through a mouthful of primate-bollock.

Pomegranate does belong in salad though.

I'm tired of the term 'plant based'. It makes me picture cactuses and things. What was wrong with specifying 'vegan' or 'vegetarian' as appropriate?

@Woahthehorsey

Probiotics are good!

DH had the most awful smelling farts, like genuinely offensive, more so than usual, following a course of antibiotics. He took a week of probiotics and they were back to smelling normal. Still no rose garden but a damn sight better!

Or it could just have been his gut flora returning to normal after the antibiotics killed some of it off.

@Norgie

Avocado Quinoa Couscous Kimchi Anything vegetarian. ( Sorry ) Sweet potatoes, aka yams Just about anything ' trendy ' really.

Sweet potatoes are not yams, yams are the big rough ones that look like clubs

Couscous and kimchi aren't trendy, they've just been hopped on by gentrifiers, but are traditional dishes

@WheelieBinPrincess

Green sadwater is very good. I like that a lot.

Why do sweet potato fries have a SURCHARGE of £2.50 when they’re obviously not as good as normal fries and are mostly like chopped up limp orange earthworms. Hardly anywhere does them nice.

Yes this! I’ve only ever had good sweet potato fries once. Nice big chunky wedges, everywhere else they are all soggy and bendy and limp!!

For me:
Bubble tea- sickly nectar
Brioche buns- nasty sweet bread with meat inside. Foul, ordinary buns are fine

Couscous with pomegranate is lovely .

My partner once bought up some of his homemade kimchi...my God, the fucking smell! It stank out my fridge, kitchen, the whole goddamn flat and building! I honestly thought something had died behind a wall or someone had left food garbage rotting in the halls!

Took a good week afterwards to get rid of the smell. He's now banned from bringing it within a 10 mile radius of me!

did we have buddah bowls yet?
according to the dc those are the bees knees.

I don't 'get' them at all.

Quinoa. Stupid esoteric spelling/ pronunciation and tastes like gritty, shitty gruel.

Dried mushroom snacks 😣, thought they'd be salty and crispy , they were dry bland and oily! , had horrible tummy ache for the entire day.

@iklboo Thank you for the recommednation! Will try it. My fave vegan chocolate is good old Ritter Sport Marzipan, cheap and cheerful.

This thread has made me come to a few conclusions.

1. So much of whether someone likes something or not comes down to the quality of the ingredients and the way it's prepared. I think a lot of people saying they don't like something have either cooked it themselves and not known how to do so, or just had it served to them in a way that's not been prepared and cooked correctly.

So many of these food 'trends' have been adopted into the U.K. (who were once world famous for their incredibly bland food!) but have been around for 30-50+ years in other parts of the world. I can tell you now that 95% of the red velvet cakes and cupcakes in the U.K. are shit, and an actual abomination of what a real red velvet cupcake is. A red velvet cupcake is NOT a chocolate cupcake with red food colouring in it, but that is what the U.K. have made them out to be. The original recipe from the Southern USA is actually a very moist cupcake with only a small amount of cocoa powder in them. They got their name because the recipe uses a bit of vinegar in the cakes which made the cocoa powder take on a red appearance. They were not a bright red cake like they are now, but even in the US when following a proper red velvet recipe food colouring is now added in. They should be topped with a proper cream cheese icing that has a tang to it. Most places in the U.K. do not do this.

A good cupcake of any sort should either use real butter or oil as the fat. Oil keeps a cake much moister thanks butter anyway. My pet peeve has always been how dry I found U.K. cakes and cupcakes to be. The bakers didn't know what they should taste like. I have had some lovely cakes here in the past few years, but also some bad ones. It depends on who is baking them. But I have never had an enjoyable fairy cake. All dense hard dry things. But then again, perhaps I've just not had a proper one?

1. As I mentioned before, so much comes down to the palette of the person and how they've been raised. Many people over the age of 40 in the U.K. will not enjoy things like bubble tea, the combination of sweet and savoury (like chicken and waffles), cupcakes, and other different flavour combinations.

1. Many of these 'trendy foods' are considered traditional foods in other parts of the world and cultures. They're hardly trendy, but they've been adopted in the U.K. and have been adjusted to suit the U.K. palate. Old El Paso for example is nothing like real Mexican seasoning, or even that from the US which has a 'Tex-Mex' flavour. I can't stomach the taco seasoning here because they've changed the flavour so it's more sweet BBQ. There is a wonderful range of Mexican spices (can't remember the name of it now) that were sold here in most super markets but I have seen their range start to decrease lately so either people couldn't get used to the flavour or the price. But they tasted very authentic. Bubble Tea has actually been in the U.K. for over 10 years. I know because I was at opening of the first store in Soho, but only now just starting to grow in popularity. But it needs to be prepared right using the right ingredients to be good. The use of syrup flavourings is better than powdered.

At the moment there is a big 'trend' for Turkish And Middle Eastern spices like Sumac, Za'atar, pomegranate molasses, etc. That's just normal food in those countries, but here it may seem to be exotic and trendy. But how do you think sushi and curry got to be so popular here?

I love experimenting in the kitchen and trying new foods and cuisines. This thread has made me laugh, but also showed me how close minded a lot of people are. After my comment about the mushroom coffee, I actually went and looked up the brand I saw on dragons den the other night. I had misunderstood it. I thought it was coffee made entirely from mushrooms - so not actually coffee, but a hot drink made from mushrooms. My mistake. It does have coffee in it. Along with ground medicinal mushrooms which I've known for many years to have lots of benefits. Soooo... I've actually gone and ordered some 😆 Mushroom coffee here I come! It's actually got rave reviews so I'm looking forward to trying it.

For what it's worth I still think fake meat products are full of shit and are a way to try and introduce meat eaters into the vegan world so that it's an easier transition for them. But the ingredient list for those are a mile long and highly processed. I'm positive there will be studies in 20 years showing how bad and toxic they are (there already are btw).

My parents are vegetarian and they are at all the beetroot, cauliflower steaks, beyond meat burgers and other wanky food sold for £15 a plate. Bore off. They prefer a good old bean stew or portobello mushroom burger, IN A PROPER BUN.

I myself hate anything served on more than two plates/bowls, or in a wacky way (We want plates territory). I am suspicious of jus (gravy). My local pub serves good food then bungs pomegranate or "Korean ketchup" on it. They can't serve a chicken burger, it's a Korean Fried Chicken Burger with kimchi, sriracha and honey on it. Barf. I say to the landlord, what wankiness is this? I remember when a packet of crisps was considered cordon blue and he says, it's the wanky clientele. (I hope he's not talking about me )

Disgusting, unappetising vegan or ‘plant-based’ everything, whereas the old vegetarian options were actually quite palatable. Where have they gone? Jackfruit (WTF?) is all over my local pub menu. I’m unsurprised to see this complaint has already been made several times upthread.

Butternut squash noodles. And I actually have nothing against butternut squash. But squash is squash, and noodles are noodles.

Likewise courgettes and aubergines. Ratatouille is my idea of hell; thankfully it’s not a trend anymore.

Quark, tofu and kale: all hideous.

I don’t give a shit whether cream or jam is put onto my scones first.

Protein balls: urgh. I’m not a blue tit.

On the other hand I like avocados, pomegranate seeds in salad, and sweet potatoes!

Proper kimchi is fabulous. I loved kimchi as a child/teen, when I used to be invited to my parents' friend's house, where the cook was Korean. His kimchi was fiery and so flavourful.
The kimchi that you can buy in supermarkets in jars and pots just doesn't come close to the proper kimchi.

The same with kefir, you can get some truly awful offerings. Some brands are better than the others. The Biotiful kefir is one of the best, the original flavour and riazhenka, the flavoured ones are so-so.

Craft beer. Tastes like cat piss and costs to much for what is it also hate burgers with so much crap on them that you can't pick it up lest it fall apart

@WineGetsMeThroughIt after I'd posted my kimchi/ Mochi balls rant I did think I was being a bit bigoted.

I'm not sure I'll ever like kimchi though. I did want to!

Indian and Middle eastern cuisines are mostly vegetarian , miles better than most trendy vegetarian dishes out there.

Anyone tried vegan gluten free pizza? Crust was cauliflower and the cheese was made of cashew,
The couple who made it for us were saying "Mmmm! It’s just like regular pizza right? ". 🤢 no it doesn’t.

Burnt food.

I’m fed up of nice restaurants ruining what would otherwise be lovely meals with deliberately burnt vegetables. Burnt leeks are everywhere.

godmum56 I agree with you. I was talking about the real things (gut bacteria) ; I had not understood that you were talking about the supplements.

Protein balls: urgh. I’m not a blue tit.

Overnight oats should be illegal! They are absolutely disgusting. Just make real fucking porridge, it's very nice.

Avocado slimey, disgusting and bland. The only taste of has is a slight taste of grass.

Pomegranate seeds. 🤷‍♀️ I just don't understand why.