Heavily depends on how well it is prepared, as brocolli reacts not in a good way to a suboptimal cooking process.
Vegetables provided by child catering services tend to be overcooked, because of keeping them warm.
While that is fine for e.g. carrots, it converts brocolli into a textureless pulpy or even slightly watery-slimy stuff.
Fwiw it's not just child catering. The trend for the parents of baby boomers was very often to just boil the shit out of vegetables, even at home. And many of those boomers would in turn keep doing that as they had kids of their own.
I definitely remember that was still the norm for my GenX parents in the 2000s and they only started properly roasting vegetables on occasion in the 2010s. Though at least they'd use generous amounts of sauce so we always enjoyed our vegetables.
Honestly, this explains a lot. I always had access to "healthy" snacks as a kid so there'd always be things like baby carrots and raw broccoli with buttermilk ranch dressing, and I learned to really like it. Fresh broccoli is delicious, and when you lightly cook it and add a splash of cheese...
Not just keep them warm! Children are considered like, part of the group that food must be cooked to higher temperatures to keep them safe, like the elderly and the immune compromised. So some foods suck ass when cooked like that! Or so my food manager safety quiz told me. Well it told me about the higher temps. It also told me about turtles carry salmonella and a lot about typhoid mary.
That really just means they can't have raw/undercooked meat, the temp to which veggies are cooked and held is unaffected by the age of their intended consumer. Edible raw veggies are more nutritional than cooked for all ages. No one in the food service industry cooks things to different temps based on age, that would make cooking at a restaurant sooooo much more confusing.
Yes and no. Broccoli, like a lot of other veg, contains bitter flavors that kids can still taste, but adults can't. So, for them it may actually taste horrible, even if it is delicious for you.
Huh. I wonder why humans would just happen to be born with the propensity to hate something good for them only to lose that propensity later in life. Like, would there be some evolutionary advantage? Maybe there are toxic plants that contain those bitter compounds and children who don't eat them survive to pass on their genes but adults who have lived and learned what not to eat don't need the same bitterness feedback, so humans evolved to lose it later? Or maybe I'm making stuff up and it's just one of god's practical jokes on humans like when we bite our tongue while chewing.
I don’t know where I heard or read it, so take my explanation with a grain of salt. Most poisons taste bitter, so avoiding bitter tasting things means avoiding poisonous things. Since children have a smaller body weight, the lethal dose is smaller for them. As go grow older, your body mass increases and so does your tolerance to poisons.
But I am not sure why we would not want to avoid poisons in general even if they were not lethal any more.
Because some plants use small amounts of those poisons to avoid being eaten. So losing some of the aversion to the taste gives you a wider variety of food sources once you can tolerate the poison enough.
Maybe you never had those receptor cells. We are talking about 15000 different bitter receptors in kids vs. 5000 in an adult. If you were lacking one in 15k it's not much of a miss.
Having a kid who always ate broccoli since solid foods were introduced, I think it comes down to more of what options the kids have available, and what their taste buds expect.
A lot of "kid food" marketed to parents is sugar filled, processed shelf stable stuff. If you give your kid "fruit snacks" and Teddy Grams as part if their daily food, of course they're going to think broccoli or other veg is disgusting.
So even if they have "double the taste buds" (something that I've never seen or heard a doctor tell me in all these years), but even if that's true, if the palate is used to sugar/ultra-palatable foods, yeah, broccoli will taste like shit.
I always assumed it was because the writers didn't know how to cook and had only ever eaten over boiled broccoli that has no flavour left, instead of garlic and chili roasted broccoli.
I find broccoli discorse fascinating, because it seems like there's a lot of people who feel the need to shower it in praise because it's the default "eww vegies suck" vegetable.
IMO broccoli is ok. it's like median tastiness veg. Makes some dishes good, makes others suck.
But if you look at the dishes where broccoli is good, it's always something along the lines of "we lathered this in cheese" or "dunked in salty oil and roasted". It's good and the broccoli definetely makes it better, but I also question if you just like cheese and oil.
You're describing the most basic of seasoning and cooking. That's a weird position to take, that you don't really like a food unless you eat it raw and unseasoned.
italian and japanese cuisine don’t consider fat and seasoning the “basics” of cooking - quite the opposite actually. these cultures consider exemplifying the inherent qualities of the fresh ingredients more important and it shows in their dishes. just look at a proper italian pasta dish, or some sushi/sashimi…
it’s only a weird position if you come from a culture where “maximize the amount of brain chemicals this dumps out” is the objective of the cuisine…
that’s more of an italian american thing. some italians use olive oil and salt in some dishes - sure, but it’s in dishes where the flavors are supposed to be olive oil and salt.
That's a pretty safe bet, given that oil is a great flavour conductor helping flavour remain on the tongue longer, and cheese being a cultured product brings a lot of complex umami flavours to the table.
Yeah, raw broccoli still sucks ass if it's not slathered in dip/dressing, and unfortunately cooking vegetables destroys most of the nutritional benefits. Cooked broccoli is delicious, but it's essentially just excess carbs at that point.
I didn't say they weren't healthy, just that the majority of nutritional value is gone, which is true. I also didn't say carbs are bad, but excess ones definitively are.
Think it comes down to how it's prepared, I love me some raw broccoli with some vegi dip, or roasted with some light oil and s/p. When I grew up I only had it offered steamed or boiled and it was awful.
Our parents didn’t have the internet, there were barely any cooking shows and cookbooks, while plentiful, didn’t lend themselves well to the daily grind that was increasingly taking up their time.
We got professional chefs on YT showing how to make “Michelin Star broccoli” in 30-second shorts and grocery stores that offer all the stuff we might need.
In other words, our parents were in the dark about cooking, relative to us.
It all comes down to two things. The first is timing, because broccoli is best when blanched and not fully cooked, with an appropriate amount of salt and (optionally) nutmeg. The second is deception, because even the pickiest child will eat broccoli when it's covered with some buttery sauce, like butter and breadcrumbs heated in a pan.
I'm in my 40s, and Brocolli (and all other cruciferous brassica) still smells and tastes like farts to me. It smells/tastes less like farts than it used to, but the overall flavour is still farts. My partner doesn't smell/taste it the same as I do, so we eat it quite often.
As an adult, I just accept that "sometimes, part of my dinner will taste of farts" and move on with life.
As someone else mentioned, many people taste all the foulness and bitterness in these things when they're younger, but as their taste buds age/deteriorate/mature, the foul/bitter flavour can't be detected any more. In other people, they could never taste it, and in others they will always taste it.
In my case, I look at how much I enjoy the taste of blue cheese or beer, compared to how "yucky" they were when trying them as a child.
I wasn't keen on the taste of wine, whisky etc as a child, but I definitely grew to like them. When I was much younger, I drank whisky with coke - now I'd drink it straight, or with a little water. It is better quality whisky, to be fair, but I know my tastes have also changed in that regard.
My tastes did adjust to non-brassica green veg - which I also didn't like as a child, but I'm stuck with crucifer-fart-flavour and red-onion-makes-my-eyes-and-mouth-burn, probably for life.
I didn't like broccoli much just because my mom made that broccoli, cauliflower, carrot mix of steamed vegetables for like every single meal she cooked. No seasoning or anything just plain steamed vegetables and whatever plain protein/canned pasta. I got so sick of it. I'll eat it but it's not something I would ever ask for.
Depends, have you been baked, boiled, broiled, poached, roasted, or broasted? Have you been steamed, sauteed, flambeed, simmered, stewed, or fried? Have you been blanched, grilled, braised, smoked, tempered, or acid-cured?
My suspicion is that a lot of young (American) people have only ever had canned, or horrifically overcooked veggies and conclude on that basis that veggies suck. My SO thought she didn't like green beans until she was 19 and had the ones my dad made and was like "Wait... Why aren't these mushy?".
I just don't care for the texture of it. The flower part of it is completely fine and tasty, but I hate how the stem feels and crunches in my mouth and doesn't taste good either.
That’s also because the Brussels sprouts older generations grew up on and the ones they sell now are not the same thing. They are significantly less bitter than a few decades ago due to selective breeding.
The other big difference is that people actually know how to cook these days.
The brussel sprouts I got force-fed every Christmas as a child were boiled, slimy, plain and gross.
The Brussels I cook these days are cut in half, then tossed in olive oil with salt and black pepper, and oven baked to caramelise the insides and char the leaves a little for that yummy browning. Delicious!
It's no wonder people hate something when they never tried the good version of it.
Yes, I'm a vegetable enjoyer, and I don't have a major problem with broccoli, but definitely not a great testing vegetable. They don't have a nice bite like radishes. In addition, the texture isn't great. Celery and carrots have a satisfying crunch, bell peppers and cucumbers are nice and juicy. IMO the best thing that broccoli has going for it is that it has a lot of surface area to pick up dips, sauces, etc. But, on its own, it's not great.
They're mini cabbages that are super easy to fry or roast. I love them. I just wish my wife liked cabbage because it's a bit of effort to cook for one person and you want them freshly cooked
Roast broccoli and roast brussel sprouts and roast asparagus. Give me greens, evoo, salt pepps, and 425 degrees for some amount of time, and we're good to go.
Cut the sprouts in half, brush lightly with something flavorful (olive oil and salt works, but bacon grease is another option) and roast until crispy on the outside. They're amazing.
Fun fact this is actually new! A Dutch scientist, Hans van Doorn, identified the specific chemicals that cause bitter taste and very quickly bred the bitterness out of modern cultivars
holy shit that's amazing. That guy needs the Nobel equivalent of food awards, because I started seeing them pop up in restaurants and it made me very happy but I did know why 😆
90 Comments
Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de · 70 pts · 294d
Heavily depends on how well it is prepared, as brocolli reacts not in a good way to a suboptimal cooking process.
Vegetables provided by child catering services tend to be overcooked, because of keeping them warm.
While that is fine for e.g. carrots, it converts brocolli into a textureless pulpy or even slightly watery-slimy stuff.
rustyfish@lemmy.world · 32 pts · 294d
Zagorath@aussie.zone · 28 pts · 294d
Fwiw it's not just child catering. The trend for the parents of baby boomers was very often to just boil the shit out of vegetables, even at home. And many of those boomers would in turn keep doing that as they had kids of their own.
azertyfun@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 293d
Roasting vegetables only became a (semi) widespread thing in the '90s. It sounds stupid but before the '80s the idea of chucking broccoli in a stove pan or oven just wasn't part of the Western home cooking canon - that was reserved for meat.
I definitely remember that was still the norm for my GenX parents in the 2000s and they only started properly roasting vegetables on occasion in the 2010s. Though at least they'd use generous amounts of sauce so we always enjoyed our vegetables.
FosterMolasses@leminal.space · 1 pts · 288d
Honestly, this explains a lot. I always had access to "healthy" snacks as a kid so there'd always be things like baby carrots and raw broccoli with buttermilk ranch dressing, and I learned to really like it. Fresh broccoli is delicious, and when you lightly cook it and add a splash of cheese...
RebekahWSD@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 294d
Not just keep them warm! Children are considered like, part of the group that food must be cooked to higher temperatures to keep them safe, like the elderly and the immune compromised. So some foods suck ass when cooked like that! Or so my food manager safety quiz told me. Well it told me about the higher temps. It also told me about turtles carry salmonella and a lot about typhoid mary.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 293d
That really just means they can't have raw/undercooked meat, the temp to which veggies are cooked and held is unaffected by the age of their intended consumer. Edible raw veggies are more nutritional than cooked for all ages. No one in the food service industry cooks things to different temps based on age, that would make cooking at a restaurant sooooo much more confusing.
happydoors@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 293d
Was a kid, can confirm.
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 43 pts · 294d
Yes and no. Broccoli, like a lot of other veg, contains bitter flavors that kids can still taste, but adults can't. So, for them it may actually taste horrible, even if it is delicious for you.
telllos@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 294d
Broccoli is one of the less bitter vegetables. Kids tend to like it. I think kids don't like overcooked tasteless broccoli.
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 294d
And they grew the bitterness down over the years, too.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 293d
I hated raw broccoli as a kid, didn't "like" it until I had fully-cooked, soft broccoli, so I'd say your hypothesis is flawed.
TootSweet@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 294d
Huh. I wonder why humans would just happen to be born with the propensity to hate something good for them only to lose that propensity later in life. Like, would there be some evolutionary advantage? Maybe there are toxic plants that contain those bitter compounds and children who don't eat them survive to pass on their genes but adults who have lived and learned what not to eat don't need the same bitterness feedback, so humans evolved to lose it later? Or maybe I'm making stuff up and it's just one of god's practical jokes on humans like when we bite our tongue while chewing.
colmear@discuss.tchncs.de · 10 pts · 294d
I don’t know where I heard or read it, so take my explanation with a grain of salt. Most poisons taste bitter, so avoiding bitter tasting things means avoiding poisonous things. Since children have a smaller body weight, the lethal dose is smaller for them. As go grow older, your body mass increases and so does your tolerance to poisons. But I am not sure why we would not want to avoid poisons in general even if they were not lethal any more.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 293d
Because some plants use small amounts of those poisons to avoid being eaten. So losing some of the aversion to the taste gives you a wider variety of food sources once you can tolerate the poison enough.
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 294d
The idea is that some kinds of food are hard to digest or otherwise problematic for kids, while adults can eat and digest a broader diet.
blinfabian@feddit.nl · 8 pts · 294d
fake: ive always enjoyed brocoli
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 294d
Maybe you never had those receptor cells. We are talking about 15000 different bitter receptors in kids vs. 5000 in an adult. If you were lacking one in 15k it's not much of a miss.
Psaldorn@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 294d
Kids have double the taste buds, they taste everything more. #TheMoreYouKnow
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 294d
Having a kid who always ate broccoli since solid foods were introduced, I think it comes down to more of what options the kids have available, and what their taste buds expect.
A lot of "kid food" marketed to parents is sugar filled, processed shelf stable stuff. If you give your kid "fruit snacks" and Teddy Grams as part if their daily food, of course they're going to think broccoli or other veg is disgusting.
So even if they have "double the taste buds" (something that I've never seen or heard a doctor tell me in all these years), but even if that's true, if the palate is used to sugar/ultra-palatable foods, yeah, broccoli will taste like shit.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 293d
It's not everyone, but many kids do have a high sensitivity to bitter tastes.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 1 pts · 294d
TIL I'm still a kid.
Brokkoli smells like farts to me. I'm not eating something that smells like farts.
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 294d
The smell is a typical cabbage smell, so you probably won't like other cabbages either.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 4 pts · 294d
True that! Sauerkraut and boiled red cabbage is fine, though.
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 294d
Well, it is fermented, respectively boiled. Which reduces or destroys some of the sulphur-based molecules that cause this issue.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz · 22 pts · 294d
I always assumed it was because the writers didn't know how to cook and had only ever eaten over boiled broccoli that has no flavour left, instead of garlic and chili roasted broccoli.
kartoffelsaft@programming.dev · 20 pts · 294d
I find broccoli discorse fascinating, because it seems like there's a lot of people who feel the need to shower it in praise because it's the default "eww vegies suck" vegetable.
IMO broccoli is ok. it's like median tastiness veg. Makes some dishes good, makes others suck.
But if you look at the dishes where broccoli is good, it's always something along the lines of "we lathered this in cheese" or "dunked in salty oil and roasted". It's good and the broccoli definetely makes it better, but I also question if you just like cheese and oil.
salacious_coaster@infosec.pub · 12 pts · 294d
You're describing the most basic of seasoning and cooking. That's a weird position to take, that you don't really like a food unless you eat it raw and unseasoned.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 293d
Right? I roast mine in the oven, so I must just like heat.
jwmgregory@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 293d
not really?
italian and japanese cuisine don’t consider fat and seasoning the “basics” of cooking - quite the opposite actually. these cultures consider exemplifying the inherent qualities of the fresh ingredients more important and it shows in their dishes. just look at a proper italian pasta dish, or some sushi/sashimi…
it’s only a weird position if you come from a culture where “maximize the amount of brain chemicals this dumps out” is the objective of the cuisine…
LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 293d
jwmgregory@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 293d
that’s more of an italian american thing. some italians use olive oil and salt in some dishes - sure, but it’s in dishes where the flavors are supposed to be olive oil and salt.
i agree broccoli with olive oil is p good tho
Dojan@pawb.social · 8 pts · 294d
That's a pretty safe bet, given that oil is a great flavour conductor helping flavour remain on the tongue longer, and cheese being a cultured product brings a lot of complex umami flavours to the table.
Witchfire@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 294d
Most people prefer their food cooked and seasoned, yes (if you call salt seasoning). That said, you can eat it raw if you so prefer.
I honestly think the stem is the best part. I love gai lan for that reason.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 293d
Of course salt is seasoning, what a ludicrous equivocation.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 293d
Yeah, raw broccoli still sucks ass if it's not slathered in dip/dressing, and unfortunately cooking vegetables destroys most of the nutritional benefits. Cooked broccoli is delicious, but it's essentially just excess carbs at that point.
Gladaed@feddit.org · 7 pts · 293d
No. Cooked vegetables are still healthy. And so are carbs. You don't have to eat raw food.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 292d
I didn't say they weren't healthy, just that the majority of nutritional value is gone, which is true. I also didn't say carbs are bad, but excess ones definitively are.
wabasso@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 293d
Median? Ok I want a list of a few above the median.
queermunist@lemmy.ml · 19 pts · 294d
Everything changed when I had to start cooking for myself.
Turns out, my parents didn't know how to cook broccoli. Or... Most vegetables really. Real steak'n'taters folks.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 293d
Everything changed when the broccoli nation attacked
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 12 pts · 294d
Broccoli and cauliflower are the only foods I detest. I hate their taste. I hate how they feel in my mouth. And I hate their smell.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 1 pts · 294d
Real. They smell like fart and the taste isn't much better.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 293d
Eating raw cauliflower is my top hated textural experience on Earth. So far.
Alenalda@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 294d
Think it comes down to how it's prepared, I love me some raw broccoli with some vegi dip, or roasted with some light oil and s/p. When I grew up I only had it offered steamed or boiled and it was awful.
4am@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 294d
Our parents didn’t have the internet, there were barely any cooking shows and cookbooks, while plentiful, didn’t lend themselves well to the daily grind that was increasingly taking up their time.
We got professional chefs on YT showing how to make “Michelin Star broccoli” in 30-second shorts and grocery stores that offer all the stuff we might need.
In other words, our parents were in the dark about cooking, relative to us.
Jumi@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 294d
I recently forgot my broccoli on the stove and finally understood why there are people who don't like it.
4am@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 294d
You were steaming it, that’s why there are people who don’t like it
Blanch those fuckers and then paint em up with olive oil and salt and oven roast them. Works awesome for kale too
Jumi@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 294d
No, I didn't like it because I FORGOT it and it turned to mush
rustydrd@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 294d
It all comes down to two things. The first is timing, because broccoli is best when blanched and not fully cooked, with an appropriate amount of salt and (optionally) nutmeg. The second is deception, because even the pickiest child will eat broccoli when it's covered with some buttery sauce, like butter and breadcrumbs heated in a pan.
fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 294d
I'm in my 40s, and Brocolli (and all other cruciferous brassica) still smells and tastes like farts to me. It smells/tastes less like farts than it used to, but the overall flavour is still farts. My partner doesn't smell/taste it the same as I do, so we eat it quite often.
As an adult, I just accept that "sometimes, part of my dinner will taste of farts" and move on with life.
As someone else mentioned, many people taste all the foulness and bitterness in these things when they're younger, but as their taste buds age/deteriorate/mature, the foul/bitter flavour can't be detected any more. In other people, they could never taste it, and in others they will always taste it.
In my case, I look at how much I enjoy the taste of blue cheese or beer, compared to how "yucky" they were when trying them as a child.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 2 pts · 294d
I don't seem to grow out of these. Weirdly, I do like the taste of high-proof liquor; I wonder if I'd also dislike that if I'd tasted it as a kid.
fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 294d
I wasn't keen on the taste of wine, whisky etc as a child, but I definitely grew to like them. When I was much younger, I drank whisky with coke - now I'd drink it straight, or with a little water. It is better quality whisky, to be fair, but I know my tastes have also changed in that regard.
My tastes did adjust to non-brassica green veg - which I also didn't like as a child, but I'm stuck with crucifer-fart-flavour and red-onion-makes-my-eyes-and-mouth-burn, probably for life.
tiredofsametab@fedia.io · 5 pts · 294d
In Japan, it's piiman which is a type of small green bell pepper
SatyrSack@quokk.au · 5 pts · 294d
JargonWagon@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 294d
I'm glad someone already posted this, cause if not, I was going to look around for this pic.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 293d
Bro that was me my whole life. Never understood kids not eating brocolli and peas cuz i always loved em ha
lightnsfw@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 293d
I didn't like broccoli much just because my mom made that broccoli, cauliflower, carrot mix of steamed vegetables for like every single meal she cooked. No seasoning or anything just plain steamed vegetables and whatever plain protein/canned pasta. I got so sick of it. I'll eat it but it's not something I would ever ask for.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 292d
Ye thats not great. I need pepper and butter
lightnsfw@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 292d
I like garlic powder and soy sauce myself
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 293d
cooked broccoli tastes like the farts they make.
steamed broccoli is lovely with some lemon pepper.
fresh broccoli is great with some ranch or sourcream dip.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 293d
Steamed broccoli is cooked broccoli.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 293d
there's steamed and then there's cooked.
cooked being soft mushy and slimey.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 292d
That's not what cooked means
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 292d
oh...chat, am I cooked?
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 292d
Depends, have you been baked, boiled, broiled, poached, roasted, or broasted? Have you been steamed, sauteed, flambeed, simmered, stewed, or fried? Have you been blanched, grilled, braised, smoked, tempered, or acid-cured?
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 292d
PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 293d
My suspicion is that a lot of young (American) people have only ever had canned, or horrifically overcooked veggies and conclude on that basis that veggies suck. My SO thought she didn't like green beans until she was 19 and had the ones my dad made and was like "Wait... Why aren't these mushy?".
swelter_spark@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 292d
My mom's cooking, tbh. I enjoy some things only when I cook them myself.
Snowpix@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 294d
I just don't care for the texture of it. The flower part of it is completely fine and tasty, but I hate how the stem feels and crunches in my mouth and doesn't taste good either.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 293d
Brussels sprouts, too.
BorgDrone@feddit.nl · 7 pts · 293d
That’s also because the Brussels sprouts older generations grew up on and the ones they sell now are not the same thing. They are significantly less bitter than a few decades ago due to selective breeding.
tiramichu@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 293d
The other big difference is that people actually know how to cook these days.
The brussel sprouts I got force-fed every Christmas as a child were boiled, slimy, plain and gross.
The Brussels I cook these days are cut in half, then tossed in olive oil with salt and black pepper, and oven baked to caramelise the insides and char the leaves a little for that yummy browning. Delicious!
It's no wonder people hate something when they never tried the good version of it.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 293d
How far back does that go? I can remember liking them as far back as the early 80s.
BorgDrone@feddit.nl · 4 pts · 293d
They started changing about 30 tears ago. https://www.iowafarmbureau.com/Article/Its-not-your-imagination-brussels-sprouts-do-taste-better-How-gene-editing-is-changing-how-we-grow-and-eat-food
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 293d
I still liked them when they were more bitter, then!
BorgDrone@feddit.nl · 1 pts · 293d
I never had them back when I was a kid because my mother hated them so she never made them. The first time I had one was in my 20’s.
BleatingZombie@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 293d
I love brussel sprouts, but they give me the weirdest sinus headache/nausea, so I can't eat them (much)
madjo@feddit.nl · 2 pts · 293d
I don't like broccoli... I've tried it in several ways, it's not to my taste
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 293d
it just doesn't taste like much
crunchy is nice, but it makes a mess
steamed is great texture, but little flavour without adding to it
it's not like carrots that are delicious both ways without adding anything
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 293d
Some people are more sensitive to bitter than others. Especially so for children. It's where the kids not liking vegetables meme comes from.
CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 294d
Broccoli is mid, at its best.
merc@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 294d
Yes, I'm a vegetable enjoyer, and I don't have a major problem with broccoli, but definitely not a great testing vegetable. They don't have a nice bite like radishes. In addition, the texture isn't great. Celery and carrots have a satisfying crunch, bell peppers and cucumbers are nice and juicy. IMO the best thing that broccoli has going for it is that it has a lot of surface area to pick up dips, sauces, etc. But, on its own, it's not great.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 294d
All brassicae are delicious
Grass@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 294d
I'd agree if brussel sprouts were fantasy horror and not real
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 294d
They're mini cabbages that are super easy to fry or roast. I love them. I just wish my wife liked cabbage because it's a bit of effort to cook for one person and you want them freshly cooked
switcheroo@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 293d
I love broccoli. Steamed, grilled, whatever. It's good. Toss in a sauce, hell yeah. A touch of butter? Delicious. Mm hm.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 294d
absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz · -1 pts · 293d
Boiled broccoli is terrible!
Steamed broccoli is great!
You don't need to add extra stuff on correctly steamed broccoli.
Brussels sprouts however, are just bad. No way to cook them that doesn't taste awful. They should be the childhood horror vegetable.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 293d
Roast broccoli and roast brussel sprouts and roast asparagus. Give me greens, evoo, salt pepps, and 425 degrees for some amount of time, and we're good to go.
_stranger_@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 293d
Cut the sprouts in half, brush lightly with something flavorful (olive oil and salt works, but bacon grease is another option) and roast until crispy on the outside. They're amazing.
HalfBakedChef@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 293d
Fun fact this is actually new! A Dutch scientist, Hans van Doorn, identified the specific chemicals that cause bitter taste and very quickly bred the bitterness out of modern cultivars
_stranger_@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 293d
holy shit that's amazing. That guy needs the Nobel equivalent of food awards, because I started seeing them pop up in restaurants and it made me very happy but I did know why 😆