We like to think of food as beautiful, delicious, and clean, but often the most tasty food is gross if you examine it closely.
I love shiitake mushrooms. I find them scrumptious. But they’re fungi. As a rule, when you say fungus, my mouth doesn’t start watering for a taste. I imagine something that makes me want to wear shower shoes.
But mushrooms aren’t the only fungi we eat. Miso is fermented using the fungus Aspergillus oryzae. Soy sauce, beer, wine, and cheese also make use of fungi.
Bacteria? Keep that away from my food at all costs! Isn’t that why we refrigerate immediately? Isn’t it why we wash our hands after handling meat? Don’t we have LOTS of kitchen rules to keep us safe from bacteria? Of course we do.
And yet, bacteria fill many of our foods and even enhance their flavor. Consider yogurt, aged beef, kombucha, sauerkraut, buttermilk, bleu, Swiss, provolone, Gouda, and cheddar cheese. All of these are better because of bacteria.
In addition to bacteria, some cheeses contain high amounts of mold. And here we go again…mold reminds me of moldy bread, black sheetrock, and…the shower. It sounds gross. On the other hand, I love the taste of bleu cheese dressing over a wedge of iceberg lettuce on a chilled plate! In fact, I love bleu cheese so much, you can hold the bacon.
Sake may be full of mold too. At least the perception of this one’s easy to fix. Drink more!
All of these gross-sounding things are only that – gross sounding. They taste delicious. Not only that, they may be good for your gut health.
I saw a TikTok this weekend about worms on salmon at the store. Again, that sounds gross. And yet, they’re harmful as long as the fish has been cooked before you eat it.
We haven’t mentioned the sound of cutting through chicken bones or the blood that gathers in the bottom of a bag of fresh meat, but those are gross too.
I recently bought some goat milk and poured it over cereal. I really didn’t like the taste. A few days later, I ate some goat cheese. I love goat cheese. But because it tasted so much like the milk I hadn’t enjoyed; I couldn’t stand to eat it.
I’m not saying we should relax kitchen or food safety rules. Food borne illness can be deadly. But I’m pretty sure we sometimes waste food that seems gross but wouldn’t really harm us. It’s more about distorted perception.
When you think about it, why not eat cow tongue, pig intestine, lamb brains, buffalo testicles, snake, crickets, and grasshoppers? Lots of delicious food is gross!
