What’s your relationship with the veggies? I encounter a surprising number of people — adult humans — who reportedly never eat them at all. Except, they always say with a smirk, french fries and potato chips. This is foreign to me. I’ve always loved nearly every vegetable, since I was a little kid. I don’t know how this happened. I believe my brother is fairly picky in that regard, and we were raised by the same people at the same time.
I’ve been known to order the vegetable plate at home cookin’ style restaurants, forgoing all meat options, for no other reason than I like it. And nearly every weekend I prepare a gigantic salad here at Chez Kay, and Toney and I work on it ’til it’s gone. I love a good salad. In fact, I insist on using so many things, Toney asks me to prepare it with just the core components: lettuce, tomato, onion and cucumber. And keep all the additional stuff separate. I often have radishes, green peppers, and celery on the side. Sometimes other items. Toney doesn’t want to commit to all that, and wants saladic options.
And it’s not just the standard vegetables I enjoy, I also go for some of the more controversial offerings. I love, for instance, brussel sprouts. And just a few days ago I was super-excited to learn that Cracker Barrel had boiled cabbage available that day; I went to town on that shit. I don’t consider broccoli to be controversial, but many people do. I love it. Same goes for cauliflower.
Needless to say, this isn’t because of health concerns, or anything along those lines. No, I’m not super-invested in that sort of thing. In fact, I eat lots of garbage passed to me through laziness holes carved into the side of various “restaurants” around town. I just sincerely enjoy vegetables, and eat them when I can. And I also like fast food, and eat that too.
However… there are a handful of vegetables I don’t like. These are the bad vegetables, in my opinion. They are: any kind o’ squash (probably not even a vegetable, but gets lumped in), zucchini (same thing?), asparagus (blecch), and sweet potatoes (blecch again). I also have only limited exposure to turnips, and don’t know enough to have an opinion. Same goes for okra. I’ve had it in gumbo, and stuff like that. But am not qualified to pass judgment.
What are you thoughts on this? It’s very important that I know.
On a related note, I also like most beans. The one exception that jumps to mind is black eyed peas. Not good. They taste like dirt to me. I’ve tried multiple times, even at great soul food restaurants in the South. Not a fan. Here’s a bowl of Great Northerns I made a couple of weeks ago. My grandmother called ’em “white beans,” and I’ve been trying to re-create the ones she prepared when I was a kid. This latest batch was close, if not right on the money. It’s taken a long time, but I think I’ve finally unlocked the mystery of the sacred white bean. Those are chopped onions on top.
In your opinion, what are the good vegetables and what are the bad ones? And if you have any beanpinions, feel free to share them, as well. Use the comments section, so thoughtfully provided by our WordPress overlords.
Also, check out the latest podcast episode where I tell the story of how I ended up selling meat door to door at one particularly dark point in my life. You can listen here, or wherever you get podcasts.
And I’ll see you guys again soon.
Have a great day!
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Call any vegetable Call it by name
Call one today When you get off the train
Call any vegetable And the chances are good
Aw, The vegetable will respond to you
mustard is required for navy beans. couple tablespoons while they simmer
interesting
I avoid veggies. I’ll do potatoes…but don’t really consider that a veggie. I’m just not a fan of the taste or textures or them. No thanks.
The only vegetables that are bad imo are celery, cauliflower, broccoli – these are bad when rawl. Cooked into something I’m fine.
I’ve gotten on a pickled vegetable kick lately and there’s things in the refrigerator that nobody else will touch: pickled beets, pickled okra, pickled garlic.
I’m not a fanatic about it or anything, I can go without vegetables for a spell and never notice. I am going on an all beef diet as soon as our cow comes back from the meat processor – not kidding. We’ll see what happens. I saw a video of a guy that ate nothing except canned beans for 40 days. At the end of it his cholesterol and b12 were very low but everything else was normal.
Popcorn is a vegetable.
Peas are the devil’s butt nuggets. Other than that, I’ll eat about anything, veggie-wise. Beans are bueno.
Tomatoes are disgusting, but they’re a fruit.
Can’t think of many vegetables I don’t like. Not a huge fan of lima beans. Squash has to be pan fried in butter. Raw spinach can f*** off, and take kale with it.
I like most vegetables. Any kind of pea, lentil or bean is good, except lima beans. I like broccoli (but oddly not cauliflower), asparagus, mushrooms, zucchini. Green bell peppers are my least favorite pepper, but they’re edible. Spinach and kale need to be cooked, as do the “southern” greens (collards et al). Onions, carrots, parsnips, turnips, fennel, celery, tomatoes, all the lettuces are all good. No opinion on rutabagas. Sweet potatoes are nasty. Garlic is far better than good; my freezer contains a couple of ziplocs of homemade Garlic McNuggets. Look up “toum.” You can have my beets and my brussels sprouts. And it goes without saying – yet I’m saying it anyway – that I’ve never met a potato I didn’t like.
Currently waiting for my osso buco to finish cooking.
Rutabaga and parsnip mash, 50/50 ratio, a little butter and sour cream.
I am definitely NOT much of a veggie eater, but I’ll offer this tip: Asparagus prepared on stove or oven sucks…it’s soggy and everything you dislike. However, on the grill, it’s AWESOME. Brush or spray with a little olive oil and sprinkle salt and pepper or your favorite seasoning blend, grill until there’s a char on them, and it will become your new favorite grill thing.
Agree on the asparagus
Me too! Grilled asparagus is one of my favorites. We also throw zucchini and squash on the grill.
Alas, I’m allergic to beans so all of you posting these delicious ways to prepare them has my pie hole watering.
I don’t like the root vegetables – turnips, rutabaga, yams, etc.
And I really tried to like Brussels sprouts. I tried many different recipes and just can’t eat them. Yuck.
I LOVE salad and I really enjoy it when someone else makes it. It’s a time consuming process which I don’t mind on the weekends, but when I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is shred, grate, slice and dice.
Sweet corn on the cob dripping with butter. Heaven!
Most vegetables are ok, with the notable exceptions of beets and zucchini. Love cooked greens, be they kale, spinach, collards, or whatever else. Raw spinach in a salad is better than cheap iceberg lettuce. Butternut or acorn squash is almost candylike, little butter and maybe a dusting of dark brown sugar topping. Same with baked sweet potatoes. Asparagus is great in season, but only fairly thin stalks, otherwise it’s too woody and fibrous. As far as beans, any bean cooked with bacon or ham is one of my favorite winter foods, served with fresh cornbread. All the fairly common stuff like corn, carrots, peas, and so on are good on the side of a plate. But that plate needs to have meat of some kind prominently featured. And don’t get me started on “vegetarian” sandwiches. If it ain’t got meat and cheese, it ain’t a sandwich, it’s a salad on bread. Gross. Fried okra is ok, but otherwise I’ll leave that to someone else. And water chestnuts aren’t even a food product, and should be relegated to the trash bin.
Onions: Very bad. “You don’t have an allergy, just an intolerance – lacking an enzyme that breaks them down for digestion”). Translation: projectile diarrhea and vomiting, simultaneously.
Yes. This describes my relationship with onions. They’re the worst.
Bad:
All gourds (squash, zucchini, eggplant) with one exception for Pumpkin Pie at Thanksgiving
Okra – slimy pods of snot
Celery – the light beer of veggies
Beets
Good:
Most others, but particularly Asparagus and Black-eyed peas.They just have to be prepared correctly.