Of Things That Do Not Taste Good to Me

I have a short list of foods I do not like. Note, this is a very short list, because I love food and pretty much like everything I encounter. I've been this way since I was a child, and the foods I can't abide have also remained the same since childhood.

I don't care for celery, thought I have tried. I think it's the only vegetable I've ever tried that I just don't like. I can't seem to do anything about it. My Mom always cooked with it, and I pretty much always ate it, but only because it was part of the dish and I didn't want to be insulting by picking through my food. Now, I never buy it, grow it, or cook with it. I just don't see a reason for it's existence.

I wish I could like shrimp, because everyone seems to enjoy it so much. Here again, I've tried, and I just can't seem to get the stuff down my hatch. It won't go. It's the texture, I'm pretty sure.

I like the idea of olives, but again, no luck. They don't appeal to me. I eat them if they happen to be in something, but it's pretty much the same story as celery. Sad, I know.

Then there's the class of things I call “hoi foods”. “Hoi” because the chewing thereof makes me go “hhhhhhooooiiiiiii”. These are mainly black licorice and caraway seed.

Caraway seed is probably the most offensive food on my list of Things Which I Do Not Care For. It assaults my senses so utterly that I shudder even at the thought of it. In fact, before I knew caraway by it's flavor only and didn't even know it was a spice, I thought that the flavor came from rye because I always tasted it in rye bread. Up until just recently, I thought I abhorred rye bread, until I learned that it is usually made with caraway seed added. I found that I can greatly enjoy a good rye loaf-- without the caraway.

I tell you all this, not to make myself look like even more of a weirdo, but rather in order to relate a story that I thought of tonight while I was cooking supper.

When I was little, my family used to, on very rare occasion, order pizza from a local restaurant. This pizza joint also happened to be a "playhouse theater", which was kinda like Chuck E. Cheese, but slightly more upscale and with live entertainment. And on the very rarest of occasions, we actually got to go there, which, of course, was our day-to-day childhood dream.

We loved this place because it was just so dang much fun, though I can only imagine now how my parents dreaded the money flying out of their wallets in every direction just by entering the building. But eventually, my enthusiasm for the place was dampened because of... their pizza.

There was just something strange about that pizza. I remember the first time I encountered it. I'm not sure how old I was, 6, 7, 8? I don't know. Maybe they had just changed their sauce, or something. We were having their pizza at home and I took a bite and, oh, I remember it so vividly... I gagged, I choked. I said something tasted funny. I think my parents took this somewhat seriously because I didn't usually complain about food. But no one else tasted anything amiss. But oh, it was gross to me. There was this completely repulsive flavor and I didn't know what it was. It was just awful. I couldn't describe it because I had never encountered such a horror before. I knew it had something to do with the sauce, and I tried so hard to articulate it. I think my parents eventually decided I was just being oversensitive or something. I remember being very upset because I liked pizza so much, but I just couldn't stand this stuff. From then on, I would ask where the pizza came from, and my little child's heart would sink just a little if I heard it was from that particular place. I would resign myself to being hungry, or choke down just enough to keep my tummy from grumbling too much.

So now, as an adult, I have finally identified what it was in that sauce that so repulsed me --See, Mom and Dad? I wasn't crazy!-- because it repulses me still to this day.

It was caraway.

Who puts caraway in pizza sauce?

Shudder.