Where Do You Come Down on Okra, Brussels Sprouts and Cilantro?

[wa3zrm]

Love it or Hate it?

Cilantro was described as an aphrodisiac in "The Arabian Nights," but that fact fails to impress those who hate it with a passion.
Julia Child famously told Larry King that it has a "dead taste," and she would pick it out of a dish "and throw it on the floor." The pro-cilantro crowd is just as vocal, if not as descriptive. You can find the debate anywhere you find cilantro and the people who meticulously pick it out of their food.
We explore the adoration and hatred of this herb, and some other divisive foods, in our latest edition of Love It, Hate It. To get started, we asked staff writers Joan Morris and Martha Ross to square off on cilantro.

(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...

[sirloot]

like it /not sure not tried it/love it in mexican food

okra brussels sprouts cilantro

[Burnsey]

Love them all.....I order extra Cilantro in Asian dishes....

[squeezyjohn]

We use the English word, leaf coriander, for this herb - it isn't particularly exotic and it's use in England dates back to the middle ages. It's seeds are used as an important botanical in the production of gin so that makes it a brilliant thing.

Brussels sprouts are also really traditional here ... like tiny bite sized cabbages. The only reason they get a bad press is because people boil them for far too long when they go soggy and bitter. Shops also sell them when they are not at their peak. Brussels sprouts only develop their sweetness once they have been exposed to a hard frost.

I have to say that I don't get okra at all ... it doesn't really taste of anything much and it's slime is not a positive attribute! I can see how it's good as a thickening agent - but I wouldn't eat a spoonful of corn starch either!

[Skell18]

Hate it, hate them, love it.

[Darwin]

Like all three but okra only if it is fried. To answer sqeezyjohn what okra has historically been good for is food for poor folks in the southern U.S. It grows prolifically in hot climates, in just about any kind of soil, and provided a good vitamin A, C, and fiber source for hardscrabble families who's nutrition was frequently very dodgy. Fried the old fashioned way, in bacon fat, it picks up plenty of tasty flavor. Boiled is another matter but throw enough salt and hot sauce at it and it's tolerable, barely.

[Burnsey]

Your post brings back memories of my grandmothers cooking ..... bacon grease was the condiment of choice for cooking in her kitchen, and yes she was Southern.
Breaded and fried Okra can be healthier though, bacon grease need not apply.
Most vegetables, I'm thinking of the brussel sprouts here, are over cooking sensitive..... a quick steaming is my way, just enough to enhance flavor and not enough to turn to mush....

[resnor]

Like them all...but okra must be fried. Delicious.

[CzechCzar]

you folks are forgetting pickled okra... ftw