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FISCHER: When food preferences put you in a pickle

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

It’s good to remember that no matter how much you learn about the world, there is always going to be something to surprise you.

I don’t like jalapeños. Never have.

Don’t like them in my sandwiches. I don’t like them in my chili. I don’t like them on my nachos. All my life I’ve been asking people to hold the jalapeños.

FISCHER: When food preferences put you in a pickle
Travis Fischer

It’s not that I don’t like spicy things. Quite the contrary. My appreciation for capsaicin is definitely higher than most people. I like food that bites back. So much so that I’m no longer allowed to make chili for family gatherings.

If anything jalapeños are too mild. From where I like to be on the Scoville Scale, they aren’t moving the needle.

And it’s not that I don’t like peppers either. I semi-regularly pick up various kinds of peppers to chop up and cook for different dishes.

So what’s so different about jalapeños?

Well, as it turns out, I’ve recently discovered my problem with jalapeños has never been the jalapeños.

Not long ago I was out at the farmers market looking for some peppers to cook up and add to the burritos I was planning to make. I didn’t need a lot. A full bell pepper would have been too much, but the smaller, hotter, peppers I was looking for weren’t available either.

The jalapeños weren’t my first choice, but they were the right size for what I needed so I decided to give them a try. I took them home, chopped them up, threw them on the skillet with my onions, and hoped for the best.

They were good. In fact, they were just like any other pepper I’ve cut up and cooked. And that is when I made a stunning realization.

I do like jalapeños.

I don’t like pickles.

Guess how jalapeños are most commonly prepared and stored.

To be fair to me, we don’t distinguish pickled things the way we should. “Pickles” really aren’t even a real thing. It’s a preservation method involving soaking food in brine or vinegar. What we commonly call “pickles” are just soggy cucumbers and I’ll bet money that somebody reading this column is just making that connection right now.

It’s kind of crazy when you think about it. If I order a salad that has cucumbers in it, I can be reasonably confident that they are not going to be pickled cucumbers. On the other hand, if I go to a burger place and ask them to “hold the cucumbers,” odds are they’re going to be confused about what I’m talking about. Ask random person on the street if a Whopper or Big Mac comes with cucumbers and how many are going to answer correctly?

So clearly we recognize that there is a distinct and significant difference between a cucumber that’s been pickled and one that hasn’t. So much so that people consider them to be two entirely different foods.

And yet, we make virtually no effort to make that distinction for jalapeños. I have never in my life seen a menu specify that their jalapeños are or aren’t pickled. Nobody ever told me they didn’t have to come that way.

All this time I thought I didn’t like jalapeños and really I just don’t like vinegar.

How was I supposed to know?

— Travis Fischer is a news writer for the Charles City Press and wonders what other secrets are out there that have been left in plain sight …

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