On things I don't like to eat

The theme for this month's IMBB, set by Carlo of My Latest Supper, is things that you hate to eat/others hate to eat. Foods that are taboo, disgusting to one culture though delicacies in another, personal hates. Although untraditional by IMBB standards, this is an inspired topic - food as cultural icon in our multi-cultural age, the ultimate expression of our personality when we are all dressing the same, listening to the same music and so on. We all know someone who hates mushrooms or spinach, who forbids themselves to eat pork while happily getting drunk and stoned, who seeks out their traditional delicacies when away from home with a zeal unparalleled in any other aspect of their life. And my particular food hates, my food fascism, is at the heart of what I consider 'real food' and why I continue my love affair with cooking and eating. I am totally, voraciously omnivorous, with no body part or bug too disgusting that I've balked; yet there are certain things that I have never been able to bring myself to eat.

Allergies. I used to be allergic (or so I was assured by my parents and various doctors) to anything coming from a cow, milk and meat. This was apparently an inherited trait from my Japanese mother, who also has the typically Asian low tolerance for most alcohols (which I luckily did not inherit. My father's genes stood firm in that respect.)

While as a small child I am sure this allergy was probably real, I did not experiment much to find out if it was or not. Apart from the odd bar of milk chocolate on the sly, or biscuits containing whey powder, I didn't posit any serious tests as I was assured by my parents that the one time they had, as a baby, mistakenly fed me cow's cheese, the results wwere so horrific that I would certainly not want to try it again. The thing that I did somewhat empirically test my reaction to were the E numbers in sweets, and these can still bring me out in hot flushes, rashes and itches.

However, on reaching adulthood, I've tested myself much more, realising that there are many potentially delicious things out there for me to eat. I can now say that I am not at all allergic to beef, and I am hardly allergic at all to butter, milk and cream. I adore buttery croissants, creme brulee and creme caramel, and ice-cream.

But still, the smell of butter on hot toast, the thought of eating cow's cheese, milk in tea or cream on strawberries makes me feel absolutely nauseous. It's a visceral reaction to these ingredients when in an unadulterated form that I can't stomach at all. So although sometimes I force myself to eat some of these when in a situation that I can't really get out of (I've trained myself not to gag at buttered toast, for example, when I forget to tell the waitress at the greasy spoon to leave it unbuttered) the lump of cow's cheese is the one I have yet to conquer. I think this is because cheese was always meant to be the thing that made me most sick - the concentrated raw lactose bringing on an almost instant reaction like those I knew from eating bright green sweets. My friends tell me how much I'm missing by not eating lumps of Montgomery cheddar, and I wish I could order late-night pizza like everyone else. Though, when I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras exactly this situation (the late-night pizza) came up and I was starving, so resolutely ate my way through two slices, promising myself to stop if I felt the slightest symptoms of a rash. Nothing happened. It tasted OK, thanks to the blandness of commercial 'mozzarella'. So maybe I can start curing myself of that phobia too.

Processed food. As a result of having very food-conscious parents, I've always hated most processed food. Things like ketchup, salad cream, salad dressing out of a bottle or bottled mayonnaise make me want to retch. Ditto many processed meats (fake ham etc) and pretty much anything that comes out of a jar or can that 'should' be made from scratch. Although I love Heinz baked beans, so long as I don't smell them when they're cold.

But, now living in America, it's a different ball game. Although I still hate these things and would never willingly put them on my food, I find myself eating them. I eat hamburgers which have ketchup and mayonnaise on them, which repulses me, but somehow I still eat them using distraction techniques to make myself forget that they are there. I've eaten Hardees, Arby's, Sonic, even the sandwiches at Lou's on Main Street are loaded with all this stuff and although I always make sure to ask for no cheese, it became really boring to try and request leaving everything else out as well. I eat barbecue sauce, although I wish they put less on it and when I get the option of doing it myself, I use hardly any. American 'salad dressings' (ranch, thousand island, etc) make me nauseous but I've been known to grit my teeth and get through a salad, fishing out the bits which have been least contaminated. The tactic is to avoid looking too closely or thinking about what you put in your mouth. And with time it gets less difficult, which terrifies me. Am I losing my sense of taste discrimination? do all these things really have secretly addictive ingredients designed to break down my carefully constructed high standards?

Ethics. In England, I would never eat at a hamburger chain not just because the thought of ketchup-laden burgers makes me want to vomit, but because I can't stomach their ethics. The same for battery-farmed eggs, non-organic bacon, farmed salmon, anything from the major supermarkets - these are my truly taboo foods. Though of course, one's conduct is never exemplary - I would eat a fried breakfast at Pellici's without allowing myself to think where their eggs came from, for instance. But in terms of my own cooking and where I generally chose to eat out, ethics always won out even if it meant I would go hungry. It was a point of holier-than-thou pride.

Here, of course, these options don't exist. I shop at the Pig or Fuller's; I buy meat from the big brands that I know are causing untold amounts of harm because sometimes I just really need to eat meat and there is no alternative; I eat at Wendy's along with the rest of my band because otherwise I really will go hungry and, to be honest, there doesn't seem to be any point here in keeping up my ridiculous ethical stance when no-one else is. One hungry English girl ain't going to change anything. I hate myself for this, but yet I put my qualms aside every time I pick up a shopping basket or burn a few gallons of gas so I can shop at Super Target rather than the Pig. And I know that if I return to London, I'll be the same ethical fascist as I always was, grateful for a culture that allows me the option to choose what I eat.

Postscript. I've still never eaten Marmite, which I'm convinced I hate, although I love Twiglets.