I know this is a radical statement, but I am grudgingly having to accept its truth.This afternoon, I woke up from my extended nap hungry after not having been able to make myself each much for most of the day. (One of the paradoxes of painkiller withdrawal for me being that my appetite remains the same but most things sound hideous to eat - e.g. the fish cakes Robert made himself for lunch.) I still couldn't face the idea of eating anything with much meat in it but didn't think another package of peanut butter crackers was really going to be enough to eat. So I decided to go out for pancakes at IHOP, where they serve the only restaurant pancakes that I still actually like, the "country griddle cakes" that are made with Cream of Wheat. But after a few minutes of confusion looking at the menu, I realized that the country griddle cakes have been discontinued! They are now serving "corn cakes" instead. (Robert ordered them and they were fine - they tasted like cornbread, as the waitress said they would.)
I ordered and ate my buttermilk pancakes, but they weren't that great - adequate to eat, but I didn't enjoy them all that much. It was like, eh, pancakes. And since when is that my reaction to pancakes? At some point in the last 10 years or so, I must have stopped liking pancakes. I have noticed over the years that specific kinds of pancakes I used to like do nothing for me anymore (e.g. Kerbey Lane's or The Omelettry's pancakes) and that new pancakes I have encountered aren't that great, but I thought I was just being pickier about them. But I continued to have this idea in my head that I like pancakes even though I am (inevitably) disappointed when I eat them. However, I don't think it's that there is some Platonic ideal of "Pancake" in my head that the pancakes I encounter don't live up to. The pancakes I do like better than others (e.g. the country griddle cakes) are not good exemplars of the pancake category in my opinion. And hell, given how long it's been since I've had country griddle cakes, I might not like them very much anymore either.
So: Sally doesn't like pancakes. Update your mental model accordingly. After all, I may be counting on you to remind me of this the next time I am in a restaurant with you. I should order the oatmeal with brown sugar, cinnamon, and raisins instead.
6 comments:
The same thing happened to me with eggs with soft centers (fried or soft boiled). I used to love those things, especially on buttered toast or corned beef hash. I tried one again about a month ago, but it's still no go.
I still like pancakes, but I sometimes forget that I don't like all pancakes. I don't like the ones that taste like they were made from bisquick. Too dry and boring.
In retrospect, I suspect you would have liked the harvest grain ones better. The buttermilk ones would have been made with white flour, and one think you have lost your taste for - originally for health reasons, but now based on flavor as well - is plain white flour.
I have rediscovered a taste for eggs with softish centers, which I haven't eaten in a long time because Robert likes scrambled eggs, so that's what we tend to make. But being able to vary my egg diet to include poached eggs has been nice.
I hope you're right that it's the white flour that I don't like - it would be fabulous if I could not enjoy foods that are made primarily from white flour. Perhaps we will have to experiment with the grain and nut pancakes and see how well they go over.
I am having a hard time wrapping my head around this idea of a Sally Who Does Not Like Pancakes. Sorry.
Maybe you would like buckwheat pancakes? Personally I love pancakes, but I'm very picky about them -- must be made from scratch and cooked just right. Eggs I'm even pickier about (anything but hard-boiled or the occasional scrambled just won't work).
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