• Event_Horizon@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Broccoli tossed in olive oil, cooked in an air fryer until crispy and then sprinkled with course salt. Delicious 👌🏼

    • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      So going to try that!

      My recent go to ( not broccoli though) is toss some fresh spinach in a pan with oil and hit it with lemon pepper seasoning and a little lemon juice.

      Takes like 5 including prep if you don’t mind the stalks.

  • bdot@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    broccoli is like anal sex… if you’re forced to have it as a kid, you’re not gonna like it as an adult

  • PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    My theory on this is that some of the hate for a lot of vegetables comes from either eating canned ones or poorly cooked ones. My girlfriend didn’t know she liked green beans until she started living with my family and my father made her some. My dad sautéed the in butter with garlic, and she only had ever had those extremely mushy canned ones and had concluded on that basis she hated green beans.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    The “kids don’t like broccoli” has a scientific reason. Kids have a lot more receptors for aromas tasting bitter (10 to 15k different chemical compounds taste bitter to them) which reduce to 5k or less when growing up. So some types of food that adults can eat without problems because they lack the receptors have bitter and vile flavours for kids.

    • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      I always assumed this is also why adults love disgusting cheese (I do to a degree as well nowadays). We just lost our sense of taste and call it refined taste.

      • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        The “losing taste” is actually a beneficial thing. Most things that kids don’t like are either risky (e.g. coffee) or difficult to digest (all kinds of cabbage), so it is good that kids don’t like them. For adults being able to expand acceess to available foods helps feeding the horde in difficult times.

    • Drint@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      15 hours ago

      Plant breeders have also been busy reducing bitterness/tannins in various vegetables like brussel sprouts and canola oil, so things are in fact less bitter than 30 years ago.

        • Drint@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          14 hours ago

          I’m mostly familiar with animal feed, where nutritional quality weighs quite heavy during selection. For human consumption I assume there are some base nutritional standards when applying to enter the market with a new breed, but might heavily depend on your region.

    • dalekcaan@lemm.ee
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      13 hours ago

      Doesn’t help a lot of people used to just boil broccoli without seasoning. Doesn’t do the flavor any favors.

      • Crismus@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        My stepmother was that way so I couldn’t stand broccoli growing up. Most vegetables were blan and tasteless without salt and boiled.

        I rarely buy them now because I can’t physically handle cooking every day now. So most vegetables go bad in the fridge.

  • mommykink@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    I sympathize with the bottom part so much. My parents absolutely refused to cook anything ever and bought the worst, most unhealthy prepackaged foods from the grocery stores. I spent the first years of my life thinking that things like apples just weren’t sold at my local Kroger because we never had them. I felt like shit mentally and physically for pretty much the first 18 years of my life because of it.

    I grew up, moved out, and holy shit I love eating “rabbit food,” as my dad used to call it and I never would have learned before is that cooking is fun

      • mommykink@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        Yes but that was irrelevant because she never cooked for me, she was just hot. Still is, in fact.

        We always joke that he has a Wine Mom. He thinks that we’re calling her a drunk. It means that she gets better with age.

        • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          Man I was tormented with that crap as a kid. “HOLY CRAP YOUR SISTER IS HOT!!! That’s your mommmmmm? Whoa!”

          Same crap with my sister.

          I see them both as living farts.

          • Victor@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            Well now we need to see pictures of your hot mom and hot sis so we can judge for ourselves in the name of science and research.

      • doingthestuff@lemy.lol
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        15 hours ago

        We all did. The hot moms anyway. The big milfy moms, I just wanted them to make me some food.

    • BlueLineBae@midwest.social
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      19 hours ago

      I feel you. I weirdly did have vegetables and things growing up, but my mom self admittedly hates cooking. So most of what we ate consisted of casseroles made up of things dumped out of a can and any veggies likely also came from a can and we’re heated up on the stove. She also over cooked all the meat to make sure people wouldn’t get sick. So all the veggies were bland and mushy and all the meat was dry as fuck. I’ll never forget the first time I ate fresh pineapple at my inlaws house and it was one of the best things I ever tasted. I’m pretty good at cooking now and I’ve managed to help my mom improve in all ways as well. She now uses a meat thermometer that I got her for Christmas. I cooked her some fresh broccoli in a pan with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and she loved it and started making hers that way instead of boiling it. Baby steps, but we’re making progress.

      • anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        18 hours ago

        In the 90s people started suggesting eating veggies occasionally and the American populace reacted predictably, i.e. as if someone were threatening to literally emasculate them.

        Kind of like the modern anti-vax/anti-mask freaks.

      • GrabtharsHammer@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        Some dudes live their whole lives afraid their balls will fall off and roll away if they eat anything but brown meat.

      • mommykink@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        I’ve heard it be said from many men that I knew growing up that the more processed food is, the better, because it kills all the germs that come out of the ground. I’ve not seen that man eat anything green that wasn’t on top of a fast food cheeseburger in all my years alive.

  • trslim@pawb.social
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    13 hours ago

    Broccoli rules, one of my favorite veggies, along with carrots and fresh green beans.

  • cm0002@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    Fun Fact, if broccoli kinda tastes like soap to you, congratulations! You have a gene variation that makes certain bitter flavors taste like soap, it’s stronger in childhood (which is potentially why “Kids hate broccoli” trope is a thing) and tends to fade into adulthood, but not always.

    There are also studies being done to figure out specifically which compounds in broccoli make it taste like that to cultivate it out to encourage more broccoli consumption

    • kungen@feddit.nu
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      11 hours ago

      Are you saying that I might stop hating coriander when I retire? But I really like broccoli, so maybe it’s a different kind of soap gene…

    • Samsy@lemmy.ml
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      17 hours ago

      Glad to see some scientific stuff under a “I would fuck his mom for serving broccoli” content.

  • LuxSpark@lemmy.cafe
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    20 hours ago

    Broccoli and cheese is awesome. Other preparations like steamed are not as delicious, but ymmv.

      • MudMan@fedia.io
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        19 hours ago

        I think that’s where the reputation comes from. Overcooked broccoli is inedible, and I know people who refuse to leave any bite to it at all, which seems insane.

        I feel like crunchy, fresh broccoli is a relatively new trend. I found out about it on my own, at my place as a kid it always looked like green boogers and tasted the way you imagine that would.

        • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
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          19 hours ago

          I think it used to have to be cooked to hell because in the past it legitimately didn’t taste as good as it does now. Selective breeding has taken a lot of bitterness out of many vegetables.

          • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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            18 hours ago

            It got cooked to hell because most people can’t cook and that’s what they know. If anything broccoli tasted the better in the 80s, because it wasn’t as maximized for shipping.

          • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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            16 hours ago

            Vegetable breeders for the veggies that you get in a normal grocery store don’t typically select for tastiness/flavor, they select for things that can maximize profits - hardiness, shipability, production, etc.

          • MudMan@fedia.io
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            19 hours ago

            I don’t know, man, this was the 80s and 90s, it’s not that long ago. It still tastes like I remember if you overcook it.

              • MudMan@fedia.io
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                16 hours ago

                Yeah, no, it’s not that it isn’t enough time, it’s that I’ve been eating broccoli and beans all this time, I would have noticed.

                I mean, we all noticed the tomatoes becoming water balloons, it’s not like it’d be unheard of.

        • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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          18 hours ago

          That and canned veggies. Don’t know if it’s because we were low income or if produce was just a lot more expensive back in the 80s and 90s. But, I remember eating a shit ton of canned “mixed vegetables” at my house and at friends houses.

          My mom was a good cook, but I feel like we didn’t get a lot of fresh veggies unless we were living on a military base where the groceries were subsidized.

        • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
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          19 hours ago

          My mom used to have a microwave cookbook and would make most veggies in the microwave oven. This cemented my love for crunchy cooked vegetables. I can’t eat green beans in a restaurant because most of the time they are almost the consistency of porridge.

    • ettyblatant@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Steamed broccoli with a little soy sauce & Sriracha is one of my absolute favorite snacks. Cauliflower, too. I’m gonna go make some.

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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      17 hours ago

      In almost all cases, I frankly detest steamed vegetables. Probably due to my grandmother steaming the absolute piss out of ANY vegetable when we visited. My mother didn’t overcook them nearly as bad, but to this day I just don’t enjoy the flavor of any vegetable steamed nearly as much as I do roasted in the oven. High heat + short time + delicious, crisp, lightly charred goodness

    • wise_pancake@lemmy.ca
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      19 hours ago

      Steamed is my default method of cooking broccoli.

      I cut the stalk up for soup and pasta. Then I lightly steam the florets and I like it.