These controversial food opinions will give you a laugh

Team Easy Food recently found ourselves chatting about our unpopular food opinions — weird likes and dislikes, unusual flavour combinations we crave, and the food beliefs and behaviours that make other people do a double-take. We’re nothing if not a strongly opinionated bunch, especially when it comes to all things food, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that this led us down a bit of a rabbit hole.

Easy Food Editor Caroline shared her belief that Easy Singles are the best cheese for burgers (to which I immediately pointed out that one could hardly call Easy Singles “cheese,” but each to her own); Food Stylist Síomha had a solid rant about how much she hates coriander; Digital Executive Brooke seems to carry an inordinate amount of shame over microwaving day-old coffee; and I climbed back up on my perennial soapbox to insist, yet again, that breakfast can consist of absolutely anything you want.

After some needlessly lengthy and characteristically fiery discussion, we realised it’s more than likely that everyone has at least one unpopular food opinion… so we turned to our Instagram followers to find out.

We were not disappointed! Your unpopular food opinions ranged from the political (milk is for baby cows) to the controversial (garlic is over-used) and the inexplicably stringent (“never a bit of everything on the same fork. Not ever. Never. Ever. Foods must not touch, and you eat things from your plate one at a time.”)

Here’s a little more of what we uncovered…

Flavour combinations

Several of you are really into the idea of adding marmalade (or, in one case, Marmite) to your sausage sambos and bacon butties. Considering how well marmalade pairs with ham, we reckon this one’s a keeper.

Quite a few of the unusual flavour combinations you mentioned involved peanut butter. PB is being enjoyed with honey, raspberry jam and eggs. You’re also big fans of sweet-meets-salty and hot-meets-cold combos, dipping fresh chips into both ice cream and “icy red Slush Puppies” with abandon.

Other inventive pairings include pâté and mayonnaise on toast (not sure about that one, lads), salad cream with homemade chips (in all honesty, I’m fully prepared to give that a go), baked beans with chilli chicken, and yoghurt on toast. The most baffling of these was “brown sauce on top of white sauce”; we’re not sure if “white sauce” means mayo or Béchamel, but either way we’re… vaguely nauseated.

And the pairings you avoided? There were a few nods to avocado toast; as one response asked, “why have avocado on toast when you could have a really good marmalade or cheese?” — a reasonable question! One person thoughtfully observed that lemon can overpower the flavour of fish, “and should not be used so much with it”, others lamented the ubiquitous use of black pepper and onions, while someone else insisted that “chicken doesn’t belong with pizza or pasta”, leading us to guess that that person is quite possibly Italian.

Things you love

The foods that inspire adoration in you but indifference or even disgust in those around you include raw mushrooms, raw potato — which sounds tough on the digestive system! — and Heinz tinned beans, eaten cold. There were also passionate messages insisting that “beetroot is life,” and that “artichokes and anchovies should be eaten daily”, with which I can get on board. One person shared the strong sentiment that cereal is for breakfast, lunch and dinner, something I know Editor Caroline will stand behind, and I appreciate the ingenuity of the person who admitted to warming chocolate in her/his pocket.

Things you hate

Secret hatred of popular food items runs rampant, it seems, with onions, peppers, avocados and even chocolate being voted out of existence. You aren’t mincing your words either — runny eggs are “gross” and bananas are “the devil, unless they’re in banana bread”! Even my life partner, cheese, was mentioned on the list of unpopular foods, although one person did emphasise that s/he loved cottage cheese and ONLY cottage cheese. (U ok, hun?)

The big one

We all knew it was coming — the pineapple on pizza debate. This was mentioned more than any other topic, and was divisive, to say the least. We can reveal that over FOUR TIMES as many people shared a secret love of pineapple on pizza as those who said it was an abomination… maybe this isn’t as unpopular an opinion as we might have thought?

Special mention

Before I wrap up, I’d like to give a special shout-out to the person who simply wrote “quadruple carbs”. You’ve earned our undying respect, and are now our unofficial team mascot. Congratulations.