Hard News: Conversation Starters
401 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 11 12 13 14 15 … 17 Newer→ Last
-
. . . a wellknown scientifically established fact that fern shoots are carcinogenic!
So I believe, and it's borne out by the high rate of stomach cancer in Japan, where pickled fern fiddleheads are a major delicacy. Howevah aparagus, while commonly referred to as such on account of its feathery foliage, is not a fern. It's a flowering perennial. Implicated in causing gout, but not cancer.
There's a cemetery around these parts which produces rampant luscious shoots from the derelict graves, and though I've always loved the stuff, even from my taste-perverted infancy, the thought of helping myself to that particular patch is too much of a stretch.
-
Kia ora Joe - note I didnt actually say asparagus was a fern! (I was hopping from statement to fact as does occaisionally happen here.)
We used to have - what we kids called - an asparagus spread at Leaver Terrace. I liked the foliage (you could find mantis babies amongst it) and the berries, but have never been able to stomach the
vegetable- er, whatever. And since it runs out that I'm susceptible to gout...some kind of genetic protective thingy was at work.And o, re graves. do I empathise! One of the best mushroom patches I know of is similarly located...
-
@Russell
As Emma pointed it, it was coming across a bit arrogant, and you weren't paying any attention to what anyone else was saying, including people who brought those sweet, sweet data.
2 things:
1. Having an opinion about underlying causes of behavior and tastes in society is not arrogant. Or if it is, it is arrogance that should be tolerated in debate. I still stand by my opinion, although I of course admit that it is an opinion. Opining that I am wrong is also an opinion, and it displays exactly the same level of arrogance.
2. Saying that I was not paying attention IS arrogant. It is actually insulting. I read and reread and then reread again everything that everyone said on this thread. I simply disagreed with them, and conflating that with not-paying-attention, is doing exactly what Emma was accusing me of - making attributions about my mental behavior which you have no way at all of being privy to.
I used emotive language to convey the depth of my opinion about the taste of alcohol. This was merely a rhetorical device to counter the constant and ongoing assertions about the lovely taste of this and that kind of alcohol. To say it's yucky is no more emotive than to say it's nice. To add the tedious qualifiers "In my opinion", "Some think" "It could be argued that" and so on, are not conventions that proliferate on this or any other blog. It is taken as read that people are expressing their opinions.
As a point, it's not really very important to what I was trying to say. I'm perfectly happy to concede the point that it is possible that some people like alcohol for reasons of taste. I'm quite happy to keep my opinions about the reasons for their tastes to myself if they are going to cause outrage and antipathy (as they seem to have). My main point was that a great many people also do not like it for it's taste, and they are not inferior in any way for continuing to drink alcohol solely for the intoxicating effects. This mainly includes children. It also includes me, and about a dozen adults I know personally. We are not doing it for religious or any other abstract reasons, it really is a matter of taste.
-
...some kind of genetic protective thingy was at work.
Interesting that, Islander. If you scroll to the bottom of the Wikipedia asparagus page there's some info that suggests that you may be among the 22% with the gift of being able to smell the phenomenon of "asparagus urine".
Who knows, maybe they'll isolate the prolier-than-thou gene, which makes single malt taste like bottled pomposity.
-
Kia ora - well, I can certainly say that I can smell it in any urine(even after the loo's been flushed) - and on my own (I ate asparagus twice)& others' skin. V. interesting link, thanks Joe.
For those folk who dont appreciate single malts - each to their own. For me, they are one of life's treasures - but the genetically prolier-that-thou (I may steal this The Groke - but always with acknowledgement!) may prefer - whatever they prefer. Cheers! Slainthe! And, as we say in the OFR, Slurp!
-
lol, as a prole, Zum Wohl! I fail to appreciate any kind of malt, but I'm glad other people can. I don't know if I'm a super taster, but I've been told my beagle like talent for detecting if there is pot in the house is uncanny to the point of creepy.
-
You're joking - some folks can't smell that ?
<applies cunning italics workaround> -
Asparagus pee, that is..
-
The vast majority of humanity apparently Sacha-
-
Asparagus pee-smell is uncanny. It appears so fast, too!
-
I'm with Sacha, I find that *extremely* hard to believe. Next asparagus season (just a tad late now for my liking) I'm going to try to think of a way of testing this theory that won't get me arrested.
-
Got red, green, yellow tomatoes growing here, and a previously untried variety that's claimed to be almost white. Pushing the envelope on pretension, nyer nyer.
Last summer I grew orange ones. Kinda well, the same orange as you find in the Netherland's national colours - muddy orange. They were low acid and very yummy.
-
A Oh boy... it's a sweet-ish table white, innit? Don't know how to define taste, picking from the second set of questions I'd say medium bodied, tending sweet?
B The Hawkes Bay. (I just know I'm going to be undone by an apostrophe).
C France. (Unless it's a trick question, in which case I'd have to say California, in case it's one of those grapes that got wiped out by the peronospera.)
D Sweet white.And for the trout I'm going to say D.
-
OK, I have a 'Wine Wheel' to give away to the first PAS poster to tell me...
A: the taste and flavor of Pinot Gris
B: one of it's key growing location, (in New Zealand)
C: it's country of origin
D: it's style- Dry, sweet, white or redAnd for multi choice fanatics. What wine type is best suited to to accompanying baked rainbow trout:
A light bodied sweet white
B medium bodied dry white
C full bodied dry red
D full bodied dry white.Pinot Gris has a stonefruit taste to it, dryish stonefruit - like that flavour you get when you are near the pip of a stonefruit. Key growing region in Aotearoa is Marlborough, with plantings coming through in Central Otago, and Martinborough.
It comes from Italy (known as Pinot Grigio), where it's a dry style wine, and can be either fruity, or austere. Alsace (in France) grows it as well, producing good weighty wines with balance of fruit and acid.
And B would be a good choice with the trout.
-
And I should say the wine is usually dry white.
-
I'm sorry, but there's no way that Pinot Gris comes from Italy. Both the words being French ought to counsel against that particular theory.
-
Yep, I was going to suggest Mr Wilson but thought better of the idea, so your suggestion or Mr Tiso is an excellent one.
-
'of' for 'or'... sigh.
-
Flavour: Rotten grapes
Grown: Anywhere there's grapes
Origin: Planet Earth
Style: So I'm told -
I wasn't suggesting I was the winner, rather that nobody had answered all the questions correctly yet :-)
And the Hawkes Bay does in fact grow Pinot Gris, I saw them do it!
-
:
And the Hawkes Bay does in fact grow Pinot Gris, I saw them do it!
What, before your eyes? What did they water it with, asparagus urine?
BTW is there any such thing as a wine wheel? You're either having a lend of us, or you've confused wine with cheese.
-
@Emma Hart
Also, did anyone else do that 'taster' experiment in high school? Of course I can't know remember what the chemical was called
Phenylketoneuria iirc.
-
@JoeWylie
Me too, until I detected what I fancied was a faint undertaste of formaldehyde. Of course I have no idea of the real flavour of formaldehyde, but I'm a firm believer in the importance of imagination in most things.
Well I am more familiar with the smell of formaldehyde (same thing as taste) than i wish to be. If I open a textbook of anatomy with pictures of dissections or prosections or such like in it I smell formaldehyde strongly. It is entirely psychosomatic, must be one of those smells.
-
The thing is, according to the wine wheel, Hawkes bay is not a key Pinot Gris region. And the Wine can't argue.
I bow to the superior wisdom of the wheel. I shall go and strip these frauds of the silver medal they got for a wine that doesn't exist.
What did they water it with, asparagus urine?
Ew!
-
I should point out too that if you're keen to show me this instrument of the devil, I pledge to provide some Lambrusco to wet the occasion with, Steven. Unless the wheel has some reservations (at the mention of such a proletarian, inferior wine, it might shriek and self-combust).
Post your response…
This topic is closed.