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One time I talked to an acquaintance about why she hadn’t tried the best taco truck that I love that is literally next to her house. She was like ‘I’m from the Midwest, flavor is just not for me, I know I won’t appreciate it’ and I laughed so much and I appreciated her self-awareness.
I then interviewed her about her fear of flavor and grease in an ethnographic exercise. I told everyone back home about it, and it was like telling them about aliens.
She then told me about how her favorite taco restaurant is this place I would totally never go to, and I finally understood why those places exist. Something for everyone I guess.
She said ‘the lack of flavor is just very comforting for me’ and I was so amazed to hear that, because everyone I’d met til then is a flavor maximalist
Sometimes my wife and I talk about how it must be weird to others that we sort of expect every single meal we eat (whether it’s food we cook or food we buy) to be incredible.
I know it sounds like an exhausting way to live, but where we are from (Singapore / Malaysia), eating poor quality food is seen as a waste of time, stomach space and soul
I think in that part of the world you have to go out of your way to find food that hasn’t been prepared with great care and love, and that tastes ‘bad’
Even the stuff I turn my nose down on when I’m in Singapore / Malaysia / Thailand is like, better than most fancy places ahaha
One of the things my elders were exceptionally proud of me for: she knows how to select good fish, dried mushrooms, and she has great taste in food
People who don’t care about food are treated with extreme suspicion in my culture, almost like.. they are aliens you can’t communicate with.
I was surprised to learn that in other cultures, people who care too much about food are perceived to be odd
One time I saw an internet discussion about ‘what are some things that cause your society to ostracize you?’
The Americans said ‘not liking dogs’
The Singaporeans said ‘not liking food’
@skinnylatte Midwestern soul food. Take it from a boy who grew up in Chicago
Surely Corn Chex is more Midwestern?
@eestileib @skinnylatte Yeah, but too tasty. The rice is blander.
@12thRITS I think you misspelled "tuna noodle casserole," but maybe I'm showing my age. :)
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io this is my confusion when I had a chat with a colleague and she said she "just want to eat the same things and not have to think about food."
(I get bored after eating the same thing twice)
@geraineon I tell people I get annoyed if a *single meal* is not AMAZING and they get so confused. I think we have been spoilt by our homes
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io when I have a single bad meal, I had to compensate by eating again 
I get so mad too!
@skinnylatte this is so interesting to me as a flavor maximalist from the midwest, because i suspect i’d *love* your favorite tacos but i also have a favorite nostalgic “comforting no flavor” place (with imo the world’s best incredibly bland refried bean burritos)
EF @skinnylatte
Makes sense why I'm ostracized in sg now :)
@skinnylatte
My wife and her father are extremely appreciative and interested in good food, but her Mom just doesn’t care at all. It’s the strangest thing. Mom and Dad are both Chinese, so it’s not a cross cultural issue for them.
@skinnylatte This is why haggis exists. To fill this vacancy.
@skinnylatte I spent 5 months backpacking in Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand and Singapore when I was 19 in 1982. That trip basically rendered half the things I used to like eating in Melbourne...inedible.
@skinnylatte Uh oh. I'm odd. Er... again.
@skinnylatte I totally understand both sides. I generally have a terrible relationship with food due to having insane super taster taste buds that are very wonky, so I either tend to go for 'safety' or get ultra picky.
However, I can tell if something is cooked/prepared shit, and yeah, if you love food, don't settle!
@skinnylatte The world is delicious and I have an appetite for its beauty. It's alien to me but I do understand some people just aren't as sensual or as transported by sensation as I am. Though I do always feel a bit sorry for people who just grew up without food culture.
@fifilamoura @skinnylatte The cool thing is, you can grow into one if you're willing and able! One of my closest early adulthood friends back home (Midwest) was Tai Dam and had a huge family. I got invited to a number of occasions, and I swore I would try ANYTHING at least once before asking what it was. That, plus how she was a big foodie, as well as cooking my own stuff and reading about food cultures, including my ancestral ones, meant that I slowly expanded my palate. It can happen!
@fifilamoura @skinnylatte I'm still not sure I can claim a long-standing family food culture (Midwestern Scandinavian-American comes closest, maybe, with adopted French from my husband), but I'm building one my son can claim. And he's willing to try all kinds of foods of other food cultures, and I can't complain about that
@aehdeschaine @fifilamoura I once interviewed a Swedish chef and I was like what was your relationship with food at home and he said ‘I just wanted to make better food than what I grew up with’
But
A lot of Nordic food things (curing, preserving) are also super valid and I’ve learned some of them. I guess the Lutheran dislike of ‘hedonism’ is something I really struggle with
@skinnylatte I think cold climate relationships to food (and obviously available foods) are very different than tropical ones. Very different flavor personalities but deliciousness usually comes down to the quality of ingredients and someone being a good cook because they care about the food they're cooking. @aehdeschaine
@fifilamoura @skinnylatte I'd agree. And I've actually really enjoyed learning about traditional Nordic cuisine! Not a fan of the fermented fish, but the broader preservation practices are fascinating, and the "Nordic diet" counterpart of Mediterranean is really interesting, too. And spice DOES have a long history in the cuisine, but in specific places.
I admit the most flavorful explorations I've done have been in mostly-warmer cuisines. But living in the PNW's growing season really helps!
@fifilamoura @skinnylatte It is interesting that, the more I explore, say Chinese or Mediterranean or Middle Eastern food, the less I crave the few "traditional" foods from childhood. I always want to find a jazzier version, and the craving becomes nostalgia but not culinary appreciation...
@aehdeschaine @fifilamoura there’s a whole genre of food that is ‘Asians hired by colonial Europeans to make food for them, ended up jazzing up their food’
I love Hainanese ‘British’ food, it’s so fun. It’s like curry chicken pot pies and black pepper steaks and really old school food from the early 1900s with more pepper and curry and soy sauce
@skinnylatte That sounds amazing, and now I need to find a cookbook... @fifilamoura
@aehdeschaine Definitely! Taste in food is part biology and part culture/learned. Not to mention having deep psychological meaning for most of us. @skinnylatte
@skinnylatte I feel like that myself, whether I'm eating out or at home. Even if it's simple, a dish should have flavour and texture.
@skinnylatte I’m from England, and I feel much the same. Even traditional foods like carrot soup, I like it to be exciting and cooked well. I wonder if it’s because I grew up on home-cooked food, and I cook all my own food. I get the impression that home-cooking isn’t that common in the US.
@skinnylatte Life is too short to eat bad food. By bad, I mean boring, poorly prepared, distasteful, and badly served food.
@skinnylatte the. lack. of. flavor. comforting … I’m… I’m speechless.
That might explain British food.
@aulia these people tend to be Nordic descended tho. I don’t usually associate the Nordics with worse food than the UK, but there is something about suffering and food and not allowing yourself to enjoy anything that is very interesting. (I blame Lutheranism. Some Dutch and Germans are like this too)
@skinnylatte I’m still dumbfounded
@skinnylatte religions can really ruin people
@aulia I don’t get it. You couldn’t get me to convert to a cult or religion if great and amazing food wasn’t part of the deal
@aulia honestly just fascinated. I want to go and eat all these things in fascination
All the stuff with cheese looks fine
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jesseszewczyk/strange-and-confusing-midwest-foods
Farah 
@skinnylatte Reasons why Panera exists
@skinnylatte I have a friend who gets literally sick by too much flavor and similar to an allergy it starts immediately. They cook pretty well but I am more into flavor and spices, especially hot and smoky. So it is a challenge for me to eat with them. I take it and see it just as another tasting experience ;-)
@skinnylatte ‘the lack of flavor is just very comforting for me’ 
@skinnylatte When I watch American food shows they’re always “turning the volume up” on flavour, if you did that with music you’d blow the speakers and distort the sound. I don’t know how Americans can appreciate something mild like mozzarella if they’re used to a flavour onslaught all the time.
@skinnylatte
I would never say a •lack• of flavor is comforting, but as much as I appreciate flavor maximalism, I also like a lot of simple things whose flavors are mild. As I read this, I’m eating toasted homemade bread (the no-knead recipe I got from you actually!) with good butter on it. No big knockout flavor, but very good and satisfying.
@skinnylatte One of the people who I lived with in college described himself as a “blanditarian,”Cheese pizza was his mainstay.
@skinnylatte l love intense flavor, but I often don’t have the mental energy to choose which flavors I want at a given time. And when I’m prepping food for myself, I tend to minimize effort rather than maximize pleasure. I find something that is palatable and stick with it. I’m currently on a diet where I eat only potatoes. I’m allowed to spice them, but I usually don’t bother. I’ve had periods where cottage cheese was one of my mainstays, though I’d usually dump a bunch of Marie Sharp’s hot sauce on it. I grew up in a mixed household, with an Indian father and an American mother, so we had chicken pot pie as often as curry.