Food Disasters

Soy sauce as a popcorn topping, I thought It would work as salty, but it was mostly really bitter. Had a bit more success with cheese on popcorn, but it needs to be a parmesan type cheese not cheddar, and you have to be really careful about how much butter you have with it as an excess of melted butter makes the cheese congeal rather than covering the popcorn.

Also tried a new recipe for savoury breakfast flapjacks but probably needed way more cheese than recipe said for it to be palatable.

Yes, I've done that too.

I was delighted when my LA started food re-cycling. Now I can get rid of kitchen disasters. I tried making cheese pie using Tesco instant mash and cheese (yummy) then thought I'd make it healthy by adding Engevita [yeast flakes].Yukk, tasted like oxo-glue! The lot went in the bin. My first wholemeal loaf with my new bread machine was really heavy so I whizzed it up in my blender, thinking the birds would eat it. Three days later, not a scrap eaten so in the bin again :-{  I do love cooking but at 72 still learning.

Chinese 5 spice is a tricky one. (It's nice on chips with some salt and chilli flakes, btw.) I made the Hairy Bikers sweet and sour chicken and thought there was something missing. I put in a tiny little bit of 5 spice and it added a lovely little je ne sais quoi to it. Next time, I put in a little bit more (maybe a ¼ tsp) and the whole dish just tasted of 5 spice (a very minor disaster). So less is more, and none is less.

My main tip for that recipe is to really heat the pan and fry the onions so they start sticking to the pan, then start frying everything else, the caramelised onion "bits" make a huge difference to the overall flavour. I also use apple juice instead of pineapple juice, as I'm more likely to have a small carton of it lying around. And always fresh pineapple chunks or not at all—the tinned stuff is muck.

Not me trying to be clever or anything but I tried making a fruit smoothie once and forgot to put the blender lid on and it went everywhere - all over the kitchen side, cupboards and all over me. Definitely qualifies as a "Food Disaster" for me.

As someone tries new recipes fairly often there hae been a few things I've not liked or that just didn't work, like onions pickled in sherry vinegar and Chinese 5 spice.

Big thank you for sharing that and being honest. I was interested to know as my son struggles to eat a varied diet, it’s more than the usual preferences it’s an outright refusal so he’s down to a restrictive dinner diet of cheese and pasta, cheese and tomato pizzas, sausages and chicken dippers. He’s been this way since he first started eating foods, I remember feeding him peas for the first time and even as a baby he would retch so it’s been a long standing issue. I believe he has ARFID a long with a lot of other autistic traits. Thankfully he does eat most fruits but does also prefer snacking over big meals. 

My issues fall into two categories: particular foods I don't like (smells); and particular combinations of foods I don't like (textures).

I don't like matured cheeses. The smell makes me retch—really retch. From mature cheeses, the smell of butyric acid and isovaleric acid both stand out as individual smells and I don't integrate their combination into a "tasty cheese" smell, I associate them only with other common sources of those acids: vomit and smelly feet, respectively. Nothing that smells like that is going into my mouth.

I tried tea and coffee as a kid, really didn't like them and never tried them again. I have grown to tolerate the taste of coffee in, say, desserts, and I quite like the aroma. However, I feel there is no point in getting hooked on caffeine and becoming one of those boring types who extol the virtues of coffee and how great it is at getting their day started. (Of course it is, you're in withdrawal from your caffeine addiction. Your "hit" only makes you feel normal.)

What caused me most issues as a kid was (and I only figured this out recently) combinations of foods that lacked distinctive flavours and textures. At some point in my day, I need a big hit of flavour and texture, or I will not be happy. As a kid, if similarly boring, bland and untextured meals were served to me day after day, I could start with the "Not again!", move on to "Why do we have to have this?", escalate to "I hate this!" and start slamming doors. It got worse when I was a teen: two or three bland meals a week and after a few weeks I would refuse to eat those meals.

Ah I see, have you always had issues with particular foods and have you found that it’s improved over the years if so?

I'm likely hyposensitive to taste and texture (Autism) and I like experimenting with new things (ADHD), so I'm never afraid to try something new.

Sometimes I'm out of an ingredient and try using something else. It might work, it might not. Usually, it doesn't go horribly wrong, so I might learn something new.

Sometimes I have some boring leftovers and I want to see if I can "do something with them", so I'll mix things together that, with hindsight, should not have been mixed.

The porridge with orange juice was an attempt to simulate Milupa Sunshine Orange, a favourite food of my daughter when she was being weaned. Needless to say, the simulation was imperfect. (Do NOT try my DIY version at home; it's horrible!)

Sometimes it goes right (for me). Did you know that chilli flakes go really well with granola? (If you're just eating some of it dry as a crunchy snack.) A heaped teaspoon of cocoa powder in a chilli con carne also does it no harm.

Interestingly what’s the idea with the food experimentation? Just something you suddenly decide to try or is it planned in advance?