Random thing you loathe right now.

Robear wrote:

So does yogurt taste like vomit? Many foods have unpleasant undertones *until you get used to them*, at which point they are normal. American chocolate could be an interesting alternative in the UK, if it were not for the marketing, in my opinion.

I was just horrified by the level of snark and condescension involved in the comparison.

Yogurt, cheese, and sour cream do all smell lightly of vomit. Is this another 'parsley isn't soapy to everybody' thing?

Charlie Brooker (creator of Black Mirror, who began his professional life as a newspaper columnist) once wrote a fantastic piece about trying Hershey's for the first time. If you don't like snark and condescension, look away now..

Considering how much imagination the Americans have, and how much they like food, it's surprising we're so much better at making chocolate than them. And we are better. I can still vividly ­recall trying Hershey's chocolate for the first time. The name held a certain glitzy allure: after all, I'd heard it mentioned in countless Hollywood movies. Like Oreo cookies and M&Ms, it was one of those brands you faintly revered even though – at the time – it wasn't available­ in British shops. So when I eventually got my hands on an authentic Hershey bar, it was quite an event. I stared at the iconic packaging for about five minutes, as though it were a prop from the set of Ghostbusters, before unwrapping it with care, breaking a bit off and preparing to savour what would surely be the most powerfully glamorous chocolate ­experience imaginable.
.
But the moment the product itself hit my tongue I was plunged mouthwards into an entire universe of yuk. In terms of flavour, it tasted precisely like I'd swallowed a matchbox full of caster sugar five minutes earlier, then somehow regurgitated it into my own mouth. And the texture was crumbly, dusty – slightly old even, as though this was a chocolate bar that had been found in the pocket of a civil war soldier and preserved specifically for my disenchantment. It was so ­horrible, I charitably assumed there was something wrong with it. I was eating it in England (someone had brought it back from the States), so perhaps it had gone off somehow in transit. But no. Subsequent encounters proved I'd got it right the first time. Hershey's tastes downright bad.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...

Robear wrote:

So does yogurt taste like vomit?

Absolutely, yes. Plain yogurt that doesn't have a bunch of sugar added? Totes vomitey.

Robear wrote:

Many foods have unpleasant undertones *until you get used to them*, at which point they are normal. American chocolate could be an interesting alternative in the UK, if it were not for the marketing, in my opinion.

Newp.

It's not the marketing (cos there isn't any), it's the radically different flavor profile that doesn't taste like chocolate to a British palate accustomed to it's own chocolate. It's why American brands use different recipes for the "same" candybars on different sides of the Atlantic.

All that said, you can absolutely buy Hersheys in the UK, you'll just have to hit up a specialist retailer. There IS a demand for it, and it's being met already. As with British candy over here, I suspect it's largely catering to an ex-pat market, but it's out there.

Charlie Brooker also frequently reviewed video games. As well as have some truly hilarious shows and segments over the years.

Vector wrote:

Charlie Brooker also frequently reviewed video games. As well as have some truly hilarious shows and segments over the years.

I remember rolling on the floor at TVGoHome, which was one of his: satirical versions of the TV listings (which gives you an idea of how long ago we're talking, when TV listings were still a thing.

Archive here - it's him at his most assholey.

Fun trivia fact: The fake show "C*nt" from TVGoHome was made into a real TV comedy called Nathan Barley, which Brooker co-wrote with the great satirist Chris Morris (Day Today, Brass Eye, Four Lions).

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

Yogurt, cheese, and sour cream do all smell lightly of vomit. Is this another 'parsley isn't soapy to everybody' thing?

Judging from the responses here... Yeah, I guess it could be....

Robear wrote:

But describing all American chocolates as tasting like “vomit”? Yeah no. Not unless yogurt, cheese, butter, sour cream, etc all get tagged with the same label.

Bah.

You got your revenge when Kraft bought out Cadbury’s and they’ve been changing the recipe of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk ever since.

Dairy milk is a shadow of what it was. Thanks for that. And yes, Hershey’s does taste of sick.

And thus the chocolate forum wars began. In the end we will all lose this war. Your favorite chocolate will be targeted by some company cost saving measure and then will then taste awful. RIP Butterfinger.

Gorge yourself on your favorite candy while you can or else you shall find yourself with nothing but memory.

Capitalism and entropy are coming for your chocolates.

Stealthpizza wrote:

And thus the chocolate forum wars began. In the end we will all lose this war. Your favorite chocolate will be targeted by some company cost saving measure and then will then taste awful. RIP Butterfinger.

Gorge yourself on your favorite candy while you can or else you shall find yourself with nothing but memory.

Capitalism and entropy are coming for your chocolates.

And your tag!

IMAGE(https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/56194823/i-just-like-to-eat-chocolate-chocolate-is-my-favorite.jpg)

It's worth bearing in mind, on stuff like this, that a big part of what you taste or smell is psychological, and heavily influenced by your expectations and so on.

Years ago my mind was utterly blown by some research I read about. Basically, if you have people smell the same chemical out of jars labeled "parmesan cheese" or "vomit", then not only do they think the smells are different, and not only do they prefer the one to the other, but if you scan their brains you find that different areas are used while they process the smells(!).

We like to think that our senses give us raw data about the world, which we then interpret, but whenever science looks closely at the matter we find that the brain does all kinds of preprocessing before we're consciously aware of any sensation. Hence optical illusions, hence the McGurk effect, etc, and taste and smell are no exception to the rule.

(On an incredibly related note, having followed related subjects for a long time, I'm like ~85% confident that wine-tasting is complete bunk.)

Stealthpizza wrote:

And thus the chocolate forum wars began. In the end we will all lose this war.

I put ketchup on my hotdogs.

I just don't know why everyone is battling over which is better, "sh*t" or "crap", when there is actual real chocolate out there that tastes good.

Ranger Rick wrote:

I just don't know why everyone is battling over which is better, "sh*t" or "crap", when there is actual real chocolate out there that tastes good.

Nah this is where the real flavor is at
IMAGE(https://i1.wp.com/happyhealthymama.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/P2256273.jpg?ssl=1)

Ranger Rick wrote:

I just don't know why everyone is battling over which is better, "sh*t" or "crap", when there is actual real chocolate out there that tastes good.

It's not about the chocolate, it's about which nation is morally purer because of its chocolate.

It’s academic for me at this point, as I became lactose-intolerant in my teens. It’s all dark chocolate for me these days. I’m just defending my idealized filtered memories of childhood delights from the villainy of Empire.

I never met a chocolate I didn't like. White chocolate (wax) comes close, though.

fenomas wrote:

(On an incredibly related note, having followed related subjects for a long time, I'm like ~85% confident that wine-tasting is complete bunk.)

Oh definitely. Has been proven in blind tests with $5 bottles of wine.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Stealthpizza wrote:

And thus the chocolate forum wars began. In the end we will all lose this war.

I put ketchup on my hotdogs.

Going full circle: "America's Test Kitchen" tested various standard, 'premium' and organic ketchup brands a few years ago, and their conclusion was that whatever you grew up with was the best. You might appreciate these other tomato-and-umami-based sauces, but they could never be your favorite ketchup.

fenomas wrote:

(On an incredibly related note, having followed related subjects for a long time, I'm like ~85% confident that wine-tasting is complete bunk.)

Good news, you're only 15% wrong!

Robear wrote:

It’s academic for me at this point, as I became lactose-intolerant in my teens. It’s all dark chocolate for me these days. I’m just defending my idealized filtered memories of childhood delights from the villainy of Empire.

Don't worry if the British don't like the flavor of something you enjoy(ed). They invaded half the world for spices and decided they don't like any of them. I wouldn't look to them for flavor advice.

(To head it off, yes, I know lots of their food isn't bland, but their reputation isn't entirely undeserved)

I thought the single most popular dish in the UK for the last decade or so was chicken tikka masala?

I used to think American chocolate was bad because it was stale from being shipped over here (Australia) but maybe this butyric acid thing has more to do with it.

A friend told me about the vomit ester being in Parmesan cheese in university or maybe college and I do think about it sometimes when eating it and feel hypothetically gross for a second, but I still love Parmesan.

Also I do think Cadbury has gone to sh*t, the recipe had to be changing because they still claim "a glass and a half in every block" but f***ing shrinkflation has affected the block size.

After a bout with a stomach virus, I couldn't stand the smell of Parmesan for several weeks.

I got sick in 2013 from some stomach bug going around at my grandma's nursing home. I had it, mom had it, wife had it, sister in law, it was awful.

Last meal I ate before it hit me was Sir Pizza in Nashville. Probably my FIL fave pizza, we would get it all the time. But I haven't had it since and even thinking about it... Ugh. I know it wasn't the pizza but I just can't

Having split my life roughly 50/50 between the two countries at this point, I'm mostly convinced that any criticism you can leverage at one food culture is mostly valid against the other.

Both cuisines are melting pots of a bunch of different other cultures.
Both have amazing and awful food at both the cheap and expensive ends of the spectrum.
With both, you don't have to look far to find awful, and you don't have to look that much further to find superb.

Jonman wrote:

Having split my life roughly 50/50 between the two countries at this point, I'm mostly convinced that any criticism you can leverage at one food culture is mostly valid against the other.

Both cuisines are melting pots of a bunch of different other cultures.
Both have amazing and awful food at both the cheap and expensive ends of the spectrum.
With both, you don't have to look far to find awful, and you don't have to look that much further to find superb.

Boo, Voice of Reason, boo!

Jonman wrote:

Having split my life roughly 50/50 between the two countries at this point, I'm mostly convinced that any criticism you can leverage at one food culture is mostly valid against the other.

Having also split my life between two countries, I don't feel that to be true at all. But that's probably just because in my case one of the countries is Japan.

#blessed #sushi-life #sorry-not-sorry

My sensible self accepts I need to get a new phone for security.

But the rest of me wants to wah wah about Slack being unavailable for me now (browser version also unusable) because this phone can't go past a shelved version of Android. It's really bad timing because I'm in the hospital and miss the more-instant-than-forum human connection.