What's your most hated vegetable?

This one's for Kris. (Hat-tip to Rebecca Blood).

I'll confess to swede turnip. I loathe it. It's watery, it has a weird texture, and it tastes bitter, foul. My mother used to mash it with butter (mmm, butter) and it was still watery, bitter and foul. It's one of the few things I really can't eat. Actually, kidney is probably the only other one.

I don't like parsnips much, but they can be good roasted, or mashed with carrots and butter. I'm not keen on carrot either, but I'll eat it boiled or roasted. It's better grated and baked with orange juice and butter. Silver Beet (NZ spinach) not a favourite, but it's OK stir-fried with butter. Or, if you're really desperate and it's the day before payday, you can make it into two vegetables: the stems cooked in butter and then made into a white sauce, and the green parts stir-fried. And I really don't like eggplant in most of its incarnations, although I have had it casseroled with other vegetables in butter, and it was good.

It seems that I've hardly ever met a vegetable I didn't like, as long as the butter is at hand.

Comments

[Kris]

Heh. "A little bacon can go a long way." INDEED!

[Adele]

I really hate the smell of cauliflower - when I was a kid I used to go into my room and shut the door when Mum cooked it. Also dislike alfalfa, again due to the smell. Am quite indifferent to avocado, eggplant and zucchini.

Try lemon juice on silverbeet - makes it much more palatable.

[Grandma Flea]

I'm with you on the swede turnip thing. Ugghhh!

[JoVE]

Hmmm. I'm having trouble coming up with one. Mat grew Mizuna last year (salad green, good early season here, might be Japanese) and I wasn't that keen on it. Also other bitter lettuce type stuff like endive.

Swede turnips I'm okay with. The little white and purple ones not so much.

But I agree, butter makes everything better.

[Alida South Africa]

I avoid eating peas! Can't stand them.

[Lesley]

Are you originally, like me, from NZ?? Mashed carrot and parsnip seems to be a New Zealand specialty!! Love it but swedes and turnips will never again pass my lips. I went to boarding school where they were the staple vegetable. Definitely with you on the butter - never marg!! Love silver beet though - and eggplant any way except raw!!

[Lesley]

Oh. After all that I didn't state a 'most hated' vegetable. Okra wold be it. Ate it once and never will again.

[Lara]

I can eat just about everything. Swede, okra, brussels sprouts, bring it on.

Avocado used to make me feel physically ill, but I'm getting over it. It's technically a fruit, but I'm still claiming it.

[Kate]

swede turnip = rutabaga?

love it, but don't care for chard. or artichokes, which even butter cannot improve.

[Kate]

and i forgot about okra ::shudder::

[Joanne]

Ah, but swede, parsnips and carrots, along with celery (which I personally detest in all its forms) add a lot flavour to Jewish chicken soup. Since you cook them all until they're dead, you get to throw them out without any guilt (whoops, I nearly said guild) feelings!

[missfee]

okra

love swedes, turnips and brussel sprouts and like Kris I suggest bacon and don't hold the butter

[catsmum]

loathed veggies up till adulthood but mainly because my mother was the worst and laziest cook in the country so 'veggies' meant Deb Potato Whip, and overcooked frozen peas and beans ... then I married into an Italian family and found out what veggies COULD taste like.
Thank you MIL
still don't like swedes, beetroot or uncooked tomato though