I'm pretty much a spiceophile. Rare is the spice I do not love. The strongest exception to this rule, however, is Mexican oregano. First tried it no more than a couple of years ago, and simply have not developed a taste for it. Gotta say I dislike Mexican oregano more than anything else in my spice shelves.
You lot?
Not a huge fan of fenugreek in any form. I don't hate it, but I don't love it.
Cilantro, only in small doses for me.
The rest, bring 'em on.
Agreed completely on cilantro. I don't hate it the way I used to, but I'm still not mad about it either. Small amounts are enough.
But fenugreek, I love. Murg methi is one of my very favorite dishes in any cuisine.
I don't hate cilantro, but don't love it. The other day I went to prepare herb shrimp and something seemed off. One taste and I knew I had goofed and bought cilantro instead of parsley, it was not going to be used as a substitute or for anything else.
Don't love fenugreek, either, although it's fine in curry powder. I like cilantro in balance, but everyone in my family thinks it's like nerve gas and one molecule will kill you, so I rarely use it.
MsMaryMc, you might like the recipe I'm doing tonight... 4 CUPS of cilantro (yes, 4... I'm a little worried about that much myself).
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/...
Funny timing coming across this topic today. I put a teensy bit of fenugreek (the dried leaves, not the seeds) in some pumpkin soup last night, since I bought it to make a tikka masala spice mix and have heaps left over.
I can't get the horrid aftertaste out of my mouth! Not doing that again. I'm hoping it hasn't spoiled my next tikka masala. Blech!
If I'd seen this yesterday morning, I would have said that I wasn't averse to any herb or spice.
I'd have to say cinnamon. I like cinnamon, but I feel it is the "fall back" baking spice too often. Same in pickled items. It is often used so heavily that the flavor obliterates all others.
I usually cut back or eliminate the cinnamon and increase the mace, allspice, nutmeg, cardamom, etc.
It could be that you'd like another flavor of cinnamon too; if you're using supermaket cinnamon, it is probably Chinese cinnamon. Try some Thai or Ceylon or Vietnamese stuff. It's really good and different tasting.
Good point about the range of flavors. I have several varieties, most from Penzeys.
I guess it's not the flavor per se, it's my perception of such an over reliance and over use of it in recipes. It's as if recipe developers know everyone has cinnamon in their spice cabinet but they are afraid people don't have or won't purchase mace/cardamom, etc. so they just stick with the same old same old.
What pickled items use cinnamon?
My mom used to put it in her bread and butter pickles.
I recently made pickled green almonds from a recipe which called for stick cinnamon (I omitted it since I am out of stock). My Moroccan preserved lemon recipe uses it along with other aromatics. Many pickled fruits such as figs, pears and apples use cinnamon. I'm sure there are more - these are just the ones I've made over the last few months.
I can't think of a single herb or spice I dislike, but I'm really tired of cinnamon. It's not awful, it's ubiquitous, and that got boring over fifty years ago for me. If someone would PLEASE invent a Christmas potpourri or "boil" that does not have any cinnamon at all I'll run out and buy it, even though I loathe those things - I would just want to encourage the effort, is all.
I rarely encounter tarragon. I think it used to be more popular than it is now.
My greatest memory of tarragon, however, was my mom's chicken Kiev, which contained tarragon butter. Honestly, it is one of the greatest things I have ever eaten, but damned if I can replicate it. I've tried several times, and failed without fail.
Tarragon absolutely disgusts me.
I used to adore tarragon, but grew very tired of it after eating it in a carrot and banana side dish I used to make to accompany broiled fish. It was really great the first 54 times I made it, but now, not so much...
Nearly 2 years later, just in case you read this...I hate tarragon too but you really must try fresh tarragon in chicken salad (preferably with almonds and grapes). Something about the combination of flavor is far more than the sum of their parts! I learned this from Ina Garten and she's so right - chicken salad without tarragon is far inferior. But I've never had tarragon in any other dish and liked it.
I probably use almost as much cumin as salt in my cooking. That happens when you cook Indian and Tex-Mex/New Mex/Mexican as much as I do.
My cooking doppelganger? In our house, we make a TON of Desi and Mexican-ish food (sometimes simultaneously). The size of our jar of cumin is absurd.
I also use more cumin in volume than anything else but salt and maybe pepper. Buy it in 1lb. bags at the Indian grocer to keep the cost in check.
Cumin and salt- sounds like Djemma al-Fna in Marrakech
You know, it's so strong and musty that I like it only sparingly. Very, very easy to use to much.
I was going to vote for sage.
It is SO necessary to me in sausage and stuffing/dressing --> But. Only. A. Little.
So, I can't do without it, but I don't need [or want] much.
I don't mind sage, but a little bit goes a long way.
The Khantessa has a pretty pronounced aversion to cloves. I rather like them.
Same here with cloves - the smell gives me headaches, nausea, and severe dizziness. I couldn't even tell you about the taste since the smell drives me out of the house. Clove cigarettes are pure evil set on fire.
I'm also one of those cilantro/soap people.
While I love me some fennel seed, I don't like running across whole large seeds in a piece of sausage - crush them people!
ooh, I LOVE biting into a fennel seed in a piece of sausage! It's a bonus for me!
I love the flavor of fennel, but often find it overdone - recently eating at a restaurant that boasted house-made Italian sausage, I almost choked on my first bite. I picked 18 whole seeds out of the next bite. The whole link was like that. It's cause a bit of a dislike for me; while I still cook with fennell seed at home, I always crushed them a bit before adding them to anything.
and they always remind me of "Marathon Man".
(This was a reply to "cloves").
Then Indonesia might be bad news for you- not for the cloves presence in food, but in cigarettes.
Asafoetida. I'll eat food at a restaurant that contains it, but I refuse to keep it in my home because of the smell.
Sometimes called "devil dung" for good reason, lol. I have some, but I don't like to use it.
Just having in my pantry was enough. I bought it just once: we double bagged the jar and it still stunk up the pantry! I threw it out after a couple days of that, having used it just once. The Kashmiri ancestors can roll around in the ground all they want, but we'll be using onion from now on in such recipes.
Did you buy a hunk of asafoetida resin or the ground powder? I keep a small bottle of Vandevi brand ground asafoetida in my cupboard and have never noticed any smells coming from there other than the fenugreek and kasoori methi that are also in there.
I put mine in a ziplock bag in the garage.
I like the name of the avatar file: 511975_th_pkshootsmouthoff_1__small.jpg
PK shoots mouth off!
'Tis, indeed. Fort Brimstone Hill. The Gibralter of the West Indies. Had a great hot dog up there. ;)
Looked familiar. Impressive place. I can see why the english controlled that part of the Caribbean. Have you been to the Golden Lemon? Had a fantastic lunch there.
Golden Lemon sounds extremely familiar. We did have lunch at this little old place up in the mountains a bit. Had the feel of a medieval keep, almost. Food was good. Sound anything like the Golden Lemon?
It was on the water on the northeast coast. Former sugar mill and warehouses gave it an old feel. I haven't been there in a while and when I just googled it, it seems to have fallen on hard times. Doesn't look like a place we will go back to. Very sad. The dining room was a great place.
That's too bad. I suspect restaurants rise and fall pretty quickly in St. Kitts.
The place in the mountains I was trying to think of is the Royal Palm Room in Ottley's Plantation Inn. A unique restaurant. We had lunch there; I suspect dinner in that environment would be quite the experience.
Perhaps the best fish I've ever eaten was the broiled snapper at The Fisherman's Wharf, which was located right next to our hotel, The Ocean Terrace Inn.
Not sure if it qualifies as a "spice", but my nomination is for sassafras root. I am OK with the leaves, as in filé powder.
Star anise. It is just SO strong; its flavor overwhelms and dominates just about anything it touches. I enjoy other herbs with anise flavor (tarragon, fennel, fennel seed, etc.), but star anise is just toooooooooooooo licorice-y.
only one..nutmeg. Not sure why, but I just do not like the flavor..
I bought a plant of Mexican oregano (coleus amboinicus) once, and so hated everything about it that I killed it immediately.
Ironically, given the amount of South Asian and Middle Eastern cooking I do, I have never been a fan of cumin. I find its flavor aggressive and don't much care for it as a main seasoning, though I can tolerate it when tamed in a blend.
Rosemary. I grow it and love it as an outdoor plant, but can't abide the texture or taste in food.
Mr. Pine abhors cinnamon, and I love it. So, no snickerdoodles for him (leaves more for me).
Same here with the rosemary.
I know that it is a classical combination with some foods. My younger brother (who I cook for whenever I visit home) loves it. I have TRIED to like it, really.
It just tastes like a mouthful of pine needles to me. And I'm highly allergic to pine. So maybe the bad taste is just telling me that I'm not supposed to be eating it.
Yeah, a friend used rosemary stems as skewers for her grilled kabobs. I tried swallowing without chewing, just to lessen the taste of the rosemary-over-fire. Didn't work.
All the anti-rosemary vitriol surprises me. Until now, I'd never heard of anybody not liking rosemary.
I generally like rosemary, but I've had things that were seasoned with rosemary in such a way that they ended up tasting musty--and not just to me, but to other people eating the same food.
I've tried, really, it just isn't meant to be.
I sometimes used a dried Italian seasoning mix to season a bag of steamed veggies when making a quick meal. I go out of my way to buy the cheapest Italian seasoning possible (like dollar store brand) because the blends from the nice brands have rosemary.
I have had two memorable dishes that contained rosemary that I liked - some roasted potatoes and a stuffed shrimp dish. I did remove any of the actual pieces of rosemary, but they were delicious. However, rosemary was not a predominant flavor.
I love rosemary and grow it. My current home came with several large rosemary shrubs.Unfortunately their flavor is not that good. I'll stick with my potted variety which I've lugged from home to home for the last 13 years! Perhaps those who don't care for it have had a lesser variety?
I love it too and had never previously heard of people disliking it. The flavor is strong, however, so I guess I can see how it could be overdone.
I have a shrub outside my front door that is about 13 years old and keeps me well supplied with tasty herb.
Another vote for rosemary. I like how jw615 puts it...like a mouthful of pine needles. Ick.
Dill for me as well.
I generally avoid anything with dill, except I recently made a wonderful potato salad from Smitten Kitchen (http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/0...) and it may have been my favorite potato salad, ever. I used much less dill than called for, though.
My other spice would be black pepper; I find it overpowering and think it's almost always overdone.
I'm not a dill fine either. There was this amazing salmon chowder at Whole Foods the other day but the single whiff of dill killed it for me. I think I have it in some things like random Ranch-style dressing or other things but it's in small quantities. If it's any dominant flavor of the dish I can't do it. I don't think I've ever even bought it and never order salmon at any catering affairs as it often comes with dill.
I grow dill, too, but I'll use maybe 1/8 of whatever recipe calls for it!
Rosemary here too. I grow it as an outside plant but can't stand the flavor/texture. Even the grasshoppers won't touch it and they'll eat just about anything.
Dried tarragon is awful but fresh it is wonderful
Additional votes for star anise and cloves. And I cannot
tolerate more than a touch of black pepper or it overpowers
the dish for me .
White pepper. I do not like the horsey mustiness of it (that's how it comes across on my palate). When we lived in Europe, I frequently stashed a pre-filled plastic grocery store black peppercorn grinder in my purse so I could have black pepper at the table when we ate in hotels and restaurants.
Mint, any type, hate it!!!
Not a big fan of anise.
Tarragon, sage, rosemary, aniseed.
Hate all of them - sage is the worst.
I like the smell of them in a sunny garden, but not on my food.
Cinnamon.
Anise and lesser so tarragon. Tarragon I can do in small doses, but not as a main flavor.
Also I am not totally sure on this, but I think I am allergic to sage. I don't feel so hot after eating it. Interesting because my mom is allergic to it as well. I like the taste, but not the aftermath.
Curry powder (the yellow one is all I have tried so far). It stinks my whole place up for hours and I can't get it to go away. I'm also not really fond of the overall flavor of it either, way too overpowering no matter how little I use.
Nigella seeds! I have a very very strong negative reaction to them to the point that even if I pick them off the top of a bread roll the lingering taste is still too strong and horribly unpleasant.
I like them all! Granted I've never tried asafoetida, but I enjoy all the others mentioned so far. I love thai basil, all mints, cumin, dill, Mexican oregano, lemongrass, etc. etc.
There might be some applications in which I don't enjoy a spice but it's not the spice's fault. I'm looking at you, "pumpkin" -flavored cheesecake/latte/cream cheese/yogurt/frosting/coffee/etc.
Chervil, bleh! The stuff took over my garden and I had to pull up every plant. It wasn't a favourite then, but after pulling it up and smelling it for hours, I now despise it more than any other herb.
Tarragon! Blech!
Mint and cardamom..I could live without both
Fresh sesame leaves, which Koreans liked to use as a wrap for their barbecued meats. Has a heavy, dull scent which I couldn't stand.
Dill. Fresh dill, to be specific. I don't like it dried either, but I can handle it (kinda) if it's dried and in something, like a salad dressing or something. But fresh...BLECH! Really bums me out when people put it in potato salad. Ruins it for me.
I've been pondering this for several days and honestly can not think of an herb/spice I dislike. The herbs I use the most are parseley, basil, tarragon, rosemary, sage, oregano, mint, and chives. Spices, cumin, paprika, turmeric, curry powder, ginger, and mustard seed.
Dried basil. The real thing is hands-down my favorite of all the herbs and spices, but the dried tastes like every pot of bad "spaghetti sauce" in New Jersey.
I can only use a little, tiny bit of cumin; more smells like armpit or ass to me.
Cumin smells like sweat to me as well but only in the jar. Once I start cooking it, the armpit is no more. I love the taste of it so I use it copiously.
When I was a kid my friend's mom used to take us to Taco Bell (my parents wouldn't eat there!). Whenever I walked in the door I always thought it smelled like sweat. It wasn't until I started cooking and using cumin that I recognized that smell again.
But I agree, after it's incorporated into the food that I am cooking, I never think that. And I use it somewhat often.
"... smells like armpit or ass to me."
Aaaargh... sometimes I regret reading this board. Because I have a feeling that when I next make chili I'll be checking to see if it smells like armpit or ass... aaaaargh.
EDIT: Aaaaaargh!
I have the same feeling about cumin... smells like body odor. I don't mind it after it's been cooked into something like a sauce, but the smell of it by itself... blech.
Anise (particularly star anise) and caraway. I'm not a big fan of fennel either, but it has its place (Italian sausage).
I honestly can't think of a single herb or spice I outright hate...although it would be easy to hate many of them if they're used inappropriately or in too great a quantity.
Of course, I'd be hard pressed to _define_ either of those caveats though, since it is always very much in the tastebuds of the beholder. Kind of like the unintentionally hilarious discussions among the more uber-geeks on the beer forums as to what constitutes "good" beer or "bad" beer.
Dill
I like fenugreek, but I don't like being next to someone who ate it the previous day. So I avoid it out of consideration for my colleagues.
I do not like anise ... at all.
I don't HATE any of them but my least favourite is saffron. It tastes metallic to me. I won't avoid it at restaurants but very rarely prepare anything at home that requires saffron.
Poor quality cumin can ruin a dish but the good stuff is lovely. Same with thyme (dried). I love thyme but recently bought some dried thyme (Whole Foods brand) because I was out of my French dried thyme from The Spice House. It has ruined every single dish I've added it to. It went in the compost.
It's interesting to see how many don't like the licorice spices. I love them. Fennel, tarragon, star anise - yes please!! I have never been able to eat the licorice candy though.
Fennel seeds & Thai Basil
Cilantro! I wish that many restaurants would wake up to the fact that it tastes terrible to about 15% of people. I don't know why there have been so many studies on cilantro aversion (shouldn't they be curing cancer?) but for some strange reason there have been a ton. If you, like me, are in procrastination mode today here's an article from Huff Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09... (includes neat pesto recipe)
And a pretty funny one:
http://ihatecilantro.com/ (I love the "no cilantro" logo!)
Ah, well, back to the garden. Need to plant Italian parsley, which is a great substitute for the nasty "C" plant.
Curry or capers
Bay leaf.
Wow.
Old Bay Seasoning is the WORST, but Mint, Curry Powder, Ginger, and Cilantro are all on this list.
hing
ack!!!
Saffron
Cilantro
Does chipotle pepper count? If so, "chipole pepper"
nutmeg
fennel seeds
cloves
Heck, I can't discern one oregano from another. I do know that I HATE cilantro (and by association and origin coriander) and I HATE rosemary and I 'dislike' sage. Yeah, that starts to limit my herbs.
Anyone else?
i don't care for cinnamon
Cinnamon- totally overused, especially in bathroom "potpourris"
Epazote- who the hell decided that this was something to eat??
Dill- except for some pickles, it ruins most everything
Curry powder, curry leaf- see epazote, above
Mint, for the most part. Sometimes it's a nice addition, but not often.
Like Perilagu Khan, I used to hate cilantro but somehow came around to liking it.
For many years now, the only spices/herbs I find repellent are lavender and tarragon.
For years I hated ginger, it reminded me too much of when my mother would wash my mouth out with soap. Then out of nowhere about 5 years ago I developed a taste for it and I truly enjoy ginger now. Funny how your tastes do change over time.
As a passionate (aka obsessed) herb and spice enthusiast, the only one I dislike is caraway seed. I've wanted to like it, I've tried, but just cannot.
I avoid sage and rosemary, but really dislike "Chinese 5 Spice Powder," probably due to the star anise.
The tiniest amount of cilantro will ruin any meal for me. The mere smell of it makes me nauseous. I garden in a community garden and someone near me was growing it - it was horrendous. I hate it with the fire of 1,000 suns. It's so vile and I don't understand why restaurants don't warn that they're using it. I will send a dish back if it has it on it.
A question of what constitutes a herb/spice...?
FENNEL - it is almost impossible to find a good sausage. The only ones I can find are fennel sausages that have a bit of meat in them. The taste of the meat is lost. Is someone working on cutting out the meat entirely to be replaced by fennel?
SALT - salt is a taste enhancer; not a substitute for taste.
HOPS - I love hops, but many beers are getting to be silly with their hop input. Hops should be a friend to beer, not the chairman of the board + sergeant at arms. All tastes at the boardroom table should have a say.
SUGAR/HONEY/CINNAMON (the unholy trinity) - is it possible to find a breakfast cereal without any of these 3 ubiquitous ingredients? They also unexpectedly gangbust into bread/pancakes etc. without invitation.
IMHO, herbs/spices and other 'additives' should be there to enhance the 'basic' taste of the fundamental food. A good horse should have a good jockey - when the jockey bullies the horse, the team under-performs.
100% ESPECIALLY on the hops craze. How do you hide weak malt? Hop the hell out of it. IPA was a necessity for a long hot journey from GB to India, folks. It wasn't a desired taste. Blah! Most microbrews seem to taste the same. Very few, if any, can make a basic lager, brown, etc. that competes with its Euro/Mexi/Canadian counterparts. We need to grow some different malt varieties.
Parsley! I have tried for years to include it in every thing, but I just don't like it. I never buy it anymore. I have just owned my dislike of it.
I also can't stand basil.
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