Vegetable foul

In my efforts to try new recipes and new ingredients, I decided to give radicchio a shot. I bookmarked a recipe recently, Radicchio with Pappardelle, and with the pappardelle left from last night's meal, I thought this was a good moment to try it.

I've said before, I don't like bitter vegetables. I can eat rocket and dark salad leaves with a bitter edge to their flavour but I'm not very keen on them. I thought that since this recipe involved cooking the radicchio, the flavour should mellow out a bit. Well, kind of ...

I julienned the radicchio and thought I'd try a little bit raw, just to try! Chewed, choked, gagged, spat. It was foul. I looked at the pile of shredded leaves and thought, surely I'm getting my vegetables mixed up here. Nobody could eat this raw, right? But Mum said yes, she eats it raw. Okay ... I asked her to try a bit, to make sure the whole thing wasn't off. She chewed, gave me a surprised look and said it wasn't bitter at all. Um. Right. I tried another piece - chew, choke, gag, spit. Foul. And it is extremely rare for me to spit out food. I can usually manage a taste even if I really don't like it.

At that point Mum suggested I add some cabbage to the dish in case I still didn't like the cooked vegetable. Good idea. Because I tried several pieces of the cooked stuff and it was slightly less revolting than the raw but only slightly. I went on a hunt and search through my dish to pick out the bits of bacon, pasta and cabbage (which was, again, delicious.) Mum ate her whole meal quite happily.

Different tastebuds. Definitely different tastebuds.

But hey, I tried it! And I had two very nice mandarins afterwards.

Random unedited snippet

Ray/Greta/Mikey soon after the three of them get together. Mikey and Greta have been together for awhile. All in their mid- to late-twenties. Basic 'verse information here.

( Ray/Greta/Mikey - questions )