Your current food peeves?

[Jenise]

My current pet peeve is Charcuterie Boards. I'm so over them but in my area people keep coming up with new businesses based on them. One, self-identifying as a brand new caterer, just posted on my local foodie Facebook page a picture of a cart thing, possibly reclaimed from a defunct restaurant salad bar, with room for about 16 different (4x4 pattern) square metal bins to hold that many items and one big bin for wooden palates for partygoers to self-serve their selections. Looks awful to my eye. And unless someone deviates--a lot--from the same old/same old cheap salami, cherry tomatoes, Costco grapes and Trader Joe's olives, it's neither interesting nor special. I'm so done with these.

I'm not liking the huge produce coming into the markets. Brussels Sprouts, apples, melons, carrots, and more. I got a Honey Dew melon a few weeks ago that took me three weeks to eat. I got a cantaloupe last week that tastes like it was smoked and is a very dark orange color.

I'm not a fan of huge produce, either. One example of how far that trend has gone: there is a recipe in The Chinese Cookbook by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee that is a stir-fry calling for whole shallots. That plain doesn't work with today's monster shallots that are several times as large as shallots used to be.

And it's not just produce. Most of the packaged chicken parts these days seem to be from the "oven-stuffer roaster"-type chickens.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I'm okay with the chickens, Paul. What I'm NOT okay with is not being able to buy bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts any more. They have literally disappeared from the planet. And what's worse than the paucity is the reason for it--we who actually cook from scratch are being forced to deal with a lesser product 'improved' for the idiots who can't cut meat off a bone.

I am so with you on the chicken parts, Jenise. Boneless, skin-on thighs are also nowhere to be found in grocery stores. We get our chicken from a butcher who, thankfully, sells it any way you want it.

Another related peeve involves the menus that a lot of mid-range restaurants around here have. It seems that they all have a burger, a steak, a basic chicken dish, a basic salmon dish, and a pasta that may or may not be vegetarian. There'll be a "Caeser Salad" (which usually bears no resemblance to a Caeser Salad), one other salad, maybe a basic soup, and a couple of fried things for appetizers. I guess I get the idea that you have to go with what sells, but the lack of imagination really bugs me.

We still have bone in and skin on chicken. I will not buy any boneless meat unless there is a specific reason to do so. Why don't you ask your butcher to cut up a chicken for you. I never buy boneless chicken thighs, legs or breasts.

[Jenise]

We still have bone in and skin on chicken. I will not buy any boneless meat unless there is a specific reason to do so. Why don't you ask your butcher to cut up a chicken for you. I never buy boneless chicken thighs, legs or breasts.

Bone-in/skin-on thighs, yes, in addition to the naked alternative. But not breasts. Breasts are strictly boneless/skinless. And I don't have a butcher, there isn't one in this outpost. The meat case at Whole Foods is the closest and even there--the breasts are not on the bone.

While a good charcuterie board is fun, a bad one (which is 90+%) is really not fun. Same applies to cheese boards of course.
The big brand store chickens tend to be bigger than I like, but we tend to buy smaller brands (Labelle Patrinomie or Bell&Evans) and those aren't large (for either whole or parts)
I don't have a problem getting split bi/so breasts at our grocery. Thighs are usually bone-in/skin on or boneless/skinless,but the one time I remember needing boneless skin-on wasn't bad, the thigh is probably easiest part to debone.
Yes, Mike, plenty of restaurants like that, but generally just avoid them (unless we know there is one thing they do well)

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[Jenise]

Another related peeve involves the menus that a lot of mid-range restaurants around here have. It seems that they all have a burger, a steak, a basic chicken dish, a basic salmon dish, and a pasta that may or may not be vegetarian. There'll be a "Caeser Salad" (which usually bears no resemblance to a Caeser Salad), one other salad, maybe a basic soup, and a couple of fried things for appetizers. I guess I get the idea that you have to go with what sells, but the lack of imagination really bugs me.

It's the same here although we might have fish 'n chips instead of salmon, which would be for higher end places. Even Thai restaurants (we have several) have burgers and fish n chips on their menus.

And don't get me started on Caesar salads! I love a great Caesar but up here they're not original. They tend to all be creamy and the dressings, I'm sure, come from restaurant supply or are just mayo dumped into a restaurant-supply Italian. There's one place in town that actual does table-side Caesar--and they add sour cream.

[Jenise]

Oh, the Caesar reference reminds me: parmesan cheese in restaurants and other people's homes in the Pacific Northwest. Store-bought, pre-grated, plastic texture and flavorless is the norm. Even in many Italian restaurants. And the problem is that 95% of the people around here aren't informed enough to understand that it doesn't have to be that way.

Urp! Around here only the baselevel pizzerias and diner/cafe level places might use pregrated cheese. But we have quite a large Italian/Italian-American population, so probably helps

I was just in the regular supermarket, looked at chickens. There's basically store brand, Perdue, and Bell & Evans (premium, but seems to be only Northeast). It's true only the B&E has bone-in skin-on breasts. So looked online at other stores. Same seems to be the case- the big chicken producers seem to not do anymore, if stores have so/bi breasts it's in the smaller premium/organic/halal brands.

Not strictly speaking a food, but I was watching a cooking competition show on TV and they had a Root Beer Schnapps as an ingredient. I thought it was a bad joke, but when I looked in my local store list, lo and behold there was some. Who on Earth drinks that sort of thing? Dipsomaniacs stuck in their teens?

Not strictly speaking a food, but I was watching a cooking competition show on TV and they had a Root Beer Schnapps as an ingredient. I thought it was a bad joke, but when I looked in my local store list, lo and behold there was some. Who on Earth drinks that sort of thing? Dipsomaniacs stuck in their teens?

That and peanut butter flavored whisky. Just thinking about it spurs the gag reflex.

Leaving aside the butcher shops, it is hard to find a package of just bi/so chicken breasts. However, I do see that if I buy the larger "Grill Pak" or one of the other piece mixes. I saw one just the other day that had two bi/so breasts and four drumsticks. (...which makes me wonder a little about the genetic history of their chickens but...)

I first noticed the lack of bones in many beef cuts and chicken when Bone Broth started getting popular. What is the deal with that anyway? We already have good beef and chicken stocks on the market. Why do we need Bone Broth? I dislike those chicken breasts with no bone, no skin. When I buy a whole chicken, I ask the meat department to split the breast for me and package it separately. I love marinating them and cooking on top of thick onion slices. YUM. Or Cabbage!

I tend to buy chicken thighs rather than breasts because the thighs have more flavor. On those occasions where I have bought boneless, skinless chicken breasts I've noticed that they are no longer complete breasts. They are missing the pectoralis minor muscle--the piece of the breast they make Chicken Tenders out of.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

the piece of the breast they make Chicken Tenders out of.

-Paul W.

Also called supremes. That changed when 'tenders' became a big deal. So now grocery stores with hot lines sell fried chicken "tenders" that are actually just slabs of breast meat or whole small breasts and not the actual muscle you and I are talking about.

Yes, plenty of bone-in skin-on chicken breasts at the farmers market where I buy meat, but I can see how grocery stores might be different.

I don't really eat charcuterie but the part that irritates me is that many of them (even from seemingly-serious food people) seem more focused on the aesthetics/colors than on taste. Particularly with fruit, they will include all sorts of random out-of-season garbage-tasting fruit because the color pops on the board.

[Jenise]

Yes, plenty of bone-in skin-on chicken breasts at the farmers market where I buy meat, but I can see how grocery stores might be different.

I don't really eat charcuterie but the part that irritates me is that many of them (even from seemingly-serious food people) seem more focused on the aesthetics/colors than on taste. Particularly with fruit, they will include all sorts of random out-of-season garbage-tasting fruit because the color pops on the board.

I don't think I've seen any fruit except grapes! Well, maybe dates and other dried fruit that are, of course, terrible fodder for wine-centric events most of these boards pop up at.

Just give me an old-fashioned antipasto plate with proscuitto, chewy garlicky salumi, olives, good fresh vegetables that didn't come out of a bag, a chunk of really good cheese and crusty bread, not crackers. That's the 'board' that would make me happy.

Yes, plenty of bone-in skin-on chicken breasts at the farmers market where I buy meat, but I can see how grocery stores might be different.

I don't really eat charcuterie but the part that irritates me is that many of them (even from seemingly-serious food people) seem more focused on the aesthetics/colors than on taste. Particularly with fruit, they will include all sorts of random out-of-season garbage-tasting fruit because the color pops on the board.

I don't think I've seen any fruit except grapes! Well, maybe dates and other dried fruit that are, of course, terrible fodder for wine-centric events most of these boards pop up at.

Just give me an old-fashioned antipasto plate with proscuitto, chewy garlicky salumi, olives, good fresh vegetables that didn't come out of a bag, a chunk of really good cheese and crusty bread, not crackers. That's the 'board' that would make me happy.

I've seen figs and dried apricots on charcuterie boards quite often. Given a choice between French charcuterie, Italian salume and Spanish embutidos, I come down in the Spanish camp. Jamon Iberico de Bellota is for me the apotheosis of cured hams. Truth be told, though, I won't refuse any of them