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An Alphabet of My Likes and Dislikes: “P” – Lioness at Large

An Alphabet of My Likes and Dislikes: “P”

This is a post belonging to a new blogging project — the title is pretty much self-explanatory, I think; the project’s introductory post can be found HERE.  Credit for the idea: BeetleyPete.

As always, the only thing linking the two items mentioned in this post in my mind is that they both start with the same letter of the alphabet.

 

Likes:

Peanut Butter


(Image sources here, here, here and here)

Like oil, this is an item that also features in BeetleyPete’s alphabet, but here we are on opposing sides of the scale!  I love peanut butter, peanuts, and everything made from or containing them.

Again, blame the relatives who had also introduced me to Mexican food for this lifelong addition to my diet: among the tastes that they — in this case, particularly their daughters, my elder cousins by two and four years respectively — had picked up when living in Texas was peanut butter, or more specifically, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  As the aforementioned cousins were my childhood self’s heroines and role models pretty much from the moment we first met, obviously I had to try their favorite breakfast food as well … and the rest, as they say, is history; all the more as peanut butter wasn’t generally available yet in German supermarkets at the time, so it came with the added attraction of being rare and hard to get.  (I’m actually not sure where my uncle and aunt procured it back then; probably from an American Forces store, to which they had access due to my uncle’s job.  At any rate, the peanut butter they had was almost invariably an American brand.)  I quickly discovered that I liked peanut butter better with “real” jam or marmelade, though, than with jelly, which is not only more liquid but also, significantly, has a much higher sugar content.  And that’s the way it has remained ever since my childhood!  Even now, after all these years, peanut butter sandwiches (or rolls) are still part of my breakfast … and of course, the fact that many Asian (especially Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese) dishes contain peanuts or peanut sauce is yet another reason why I love Asian food.


(photos mine)

 

Dislikes:

Plums


(Image source)

Remember that set-in-stone “don’t ever even come near me with that stuff” list of dislikes I had as a kid?  Plums earned their place on it the very first time I tried to eat a fresh plum … and found a worm crawling inside.  I never got over the mental image of that worm, or one of its brethren, crawling on my tongue or getting stuck in my throat; and it doesn’t exactly help that plums, unless very, very raw, have a rather mushy consistency inside.  Nor does it help, for that matter, that to find worms inside fresh plums isn’t exactly a rare event.

The above only applies to the fruit as such, fresh off the tree, however.  I love plums in all their processed (and duly de-wormed) varieties — no matter whether as jam, compote, sauce, butter or, of course, as a topping on cakes, tartes, tartlets, and other bakery products.


(Image sources here, here, here, here and here)

 

7 thoughts on “An Alphabet of My Likes and Dislikes: “P”

  1. Haha, plums and worms.
    We had (still have actually) a plum tree in my grandparents’s garden (along various other fruit trees). One of the first things I remember learning from my gran is to open up fruit – especially plums – before biting into them….because worms. It’s a horrible sensation when you miss one, so I can understand your aversion.
    I love fresh pums, tho. (Well, up to the fourth week of plum season which is about the time I’m fed up with them … even when used in baking etc.)

    1. Oh, mine had been opened up, too … basically, I took one look at the worm and that was it! 🙂

      We used to make jam and marmelade from plums (and other fruit) when I was growing up; I rather liked that, and I also liked experimenting with extra ingredients (vanilla, cinnamon, or various kinds of alcohol). But even when I had all the plums destined to be mashed and go into the pot before me, cut up in slices, I never ever felt the slightest temptation to eat one of those slices while it was still fresh … To this day, the mere idea of „fresh plum inside my mouth“ instantly brings up the image of that worm.

  2. I also love peanut butter…but now reading your story made me realize that I have no idea what made me try it first because nobody in my family is a fan

      1. Possibly…I think lots of the US-based books I was reading (and shows I was watching) had some people loving peanut butter and/or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

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