• The Taste of Food

Posted: **Fri Mar 04, 2011 9:13 am**

We had lunch at an Indian restaurant and I had some dish which I cannot pronounce which basically was a pea soup. The one thing I immediately noticed was the taste of peas, which brought back memories of why I like split pea soup. I realized I have eaten peas but not really tasted peas in a very long time.

Later, wifey had lunch with friends at a national chain. I asked about it later. She made the comment that she doesn't really like eating there because everything tastes the same, which is like not much. I had to admit that the few times I have eaten there and order, say, a sausage cheese omelet, that the sausage tastes like the cheese which tastes like the eggs which all really don't have much of a taste.

What is the experience getting food that has a taste? Do farmer's markets solve that? A home garden? Any other suggestions on where a person can get food that has taste?

Posted: **Fri Mar 04, 2011 11:46 am**

Yes, fresh is best, cook it from scratch from home. No boxed meals, don't eat out to often, its cheaper to eat at home, eating fresh will delight the taste buds. Fresh herbs and spices will add to the experience as well.

There is a reason I now am up to 240,

I like my own cooking.

River

Posted: **Fri Mar 04, 2011 12:27 pm**

You are correct in thinking that farmers' markets are a great idea for local and fresh produce. The more food is shipped, stored and tampered with the more flavor is lost. When I was in Paris I enjoyed food cooked with herbs and spices that was fresh. Oh the flavors and after each great meal I wondered where I could stand to eat when home. Oh and nothing ever tasted salty. Paris was my a ha moment when I realized how good food can be.

I need to take a cooking class. I would love to prepare tasteful and healthy meals. I like the idea of buying fresh from the butcher shop, the cheese shop, the bakery and the green grocer. Purchase what you want for the evening meal oh and stop by the wine shop.

Posted: **Fri Mar 04, 2011 7:30 pm**

I also (like the previous posts) am very sure that freshness of food, and a reduction of chemicals and processing helps to make more flavorful food, but there is also one other thing that can help a bit.... pepper. Cajun recipies are especially good at adding a dose of HOT (red pepper, tabasco sauce, etc), and the HOT helps your mouth salivate so that the accompanying tastes seem enhanced. A similar effect is possible when you go to a sushi bar, and there is the sliced ginger root, that ginger root is useful as a sort of palate cleanser, take a little bit of it between the different types of sushi and you notice that after the ginger cleans the last taste from your mouth, the next taste of the different food is stronger.

Posted: **Fri Mar 04, 2011 7:58 pm**

Foods and blends of foods have their own flavors.

Tabasco sauce and the like kills my taste buds and food flavors. I'd rather have a little saffron, garlic, onion, herbs and hold the salt until just before eating. Some ground Thai Black Peppercorns have a full black pepper flavor and less irritation. My Thai friend liked the standard American Black peppercorns.

Remember, those hot irritating spices are not only preservatives but were used to mask the taste of spoiled food and even deliver the antibiotic with the contaminated meal.

Moi

I prefer French cuisine or old Eastern European stuff. Seems like there is little French in Cajun except the arrogance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale

Link to Pepper hotness scale.

Also -

Recommend, fresh out of the ground potato.

It is different then the same tater from a store.

Posted: **Fri Mar 04, 2011 9:46 pm**

Without trying to sound like an old-timer or some vegan, I will promise you, Arab Nights, that you will notice an utterly massive taste difference between store-bought vegetables and home-grown. Even moreso if you live in a city or in a cold place.

I live in Canada; it's winter now. The tomatoes at the store come from BC or California, as do the fruits, lettuce, etc. Some taste okay, but many truly do not.

Strawberries and Tomatoes: Prime examples. Tomatoes from the store have 'flavour'... they taste tomato-y. Make a sandwitch with one, and it tastes... alright.

Now make the same sandwhich with a tomato from my garden, or your moms. My God. TOTAL difference; it's because it ripened fully on the vine. The store-bought ones were picked green as green can be; passed through a gas that initiated early ripening; then ripened IN THE DARK in a truck on the way to your store. This destroys flavour.

Strawberries, too; the store here only carries ones grown in California, over a thousand miles away. They are ripened just like the tomatos above. They taste vaguely like strawberries. Try one side-by-side with a fresh one from the river-farms 10 miles away during picking season; you will wonder why you ever paid for the ones from the store.

Posted: **Fri Mar 04, 2011 9:52 pm**

StefanIsMe (imported) wrote: Fri Mar 04, 2011 9:46 pm Without trying to sound like an old-timer or some vegan, I will promise you, Arab Nights, that you will notice an utterly massive taste difference between store-bought vegetables and home-grown. Even moreso if you live in a city or in a cold place.

I live in Canada; it's winter now. The tomatoes at the store come from BC or California, as do the fruits, lettuce, etc. Some taste okay, but many truly do not.

Strawberries and Tomatoes: Prime examples. Tomatoes from the store have 'flavour'... they taste tomato-y. Make a sandwitch with one, and it tastes... alright.

Now make the same sandwhich with a tomato from my garden, or your moms. My God. TOTAL difference; it's because it ripened fully on the vine. The store-bought ones were picked green as green can be; passed through a gas that initiated early ripening; then ripened IN THE DARK in a truck on the way to your store. This destroys flavour.

Strawberries, too; the store here only carries ones grown in California, over a thousand miles away. They are ripened just like the tomatos above. They taste vaguely like strawberries. Try one side-by-side with a fresh one from the river-farms 10 miles away during picking season; you will wonder why you ever paid for the ones from the store.

Amen! We're now getting all the stuff from Peru. Difficult to pass up, but just not the same as local.

Posted: **Fri Mar 04, 2011 10:05 pm**

For sure, I got some tomatoes today, I know they will be next to tasteless, tomato flavored at best. I can't wait to get my garden going and have some vine ripe tomatoes later this summer.

River

Posted: **Fri Mar 04, 2011 10:39 pm**

StefanIsMe (imported) wrote: Fri Mar 04, 2011 9:46 pm I live in Canada; it's winter now. The tomatoes at the store come from BC or California, as do the fruits, lettuce, etc. Some taste okay, but many truly do not.

So that's where all our effing tomatoes are going to!

I'm a BC native, and I know for a fact we grow hothouse tomatoes in this province, but do you think I can find even one BC tomato in the local stores? All the tomatoes I've found have been grown in frigging MEXICO.

No wonder they're picked green and artificially 'ripened' in transport, if people are playing musical produce like that.

Posted: **Fri Mar 04, 2011 10:40 pm**

I have some cherry tomatoes changing from dark green to light green, expecting redness shortly.

Lettuce picked daily by the leaf. Growing free range from a previous seed stalk. Some even on the lawn and not in the veggie box. Taste the same.

Grazing in the yard is fun.

Moi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0UcQDUR-fU

BTW Winter tomatoes at local, S. Calif. Costco come from

. Barely passable as a tomato. I like the flavor of a beefsteak or cherry tomato.

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