Doug Freyburger wrote:
> Nancy Young wrote:
>> But when I see people would voluntarily and happily eat turnips or
>> rutabagas, I wonder what am I missing, they taste horrid to me.
>
> I'll offer you a deal. I give you my bell peppers and parsnips. You
> give me your turnips and rutties. Everyone's happy.
>
>> For that reason, while I don't understand why people despise brussels
>> sprouts, I figure there's more to it.
>
> Different members of the cabbage family have different degrees of
> bitterness. I appear to like bitter more than average and that's likely
> to be part of why I like brussels sprouts. I also like bitter
> brocollini and broco-rabe more than regular brocolli probably for the
> same reason. I have a further theory on bitterness. Kids like bitter a
> lot less than adults. I bet some people would like their veggies better
> once grown up but refuse to try them remembering their childhood
> experiences. The stronger the refusal the more I figure they are a
> picky eater.
>
> Different members of the cabbage family have different amounts of the
> chemical that gives mustard and horseradish their hotness. Mustard is a
> distant member of the cabbage family, as are turnips. I've never seen
> anyone develop a tolerance for this type of hotness so I suspect people
> are born with some level of tolerance to it. As far back as I can
> remember it's been clear I have a higher than average tolerance to it.
> If you have a very strong reaction to the hotness of mustard,
> horseradish and wasabi you might not like brussels sprouts without
> specifically noticing that chemical. I can taste it in raw brussels
> sprouts. Only people with very high tolerance for bitter plus very high
> tolerance for horseradish-hotness would even consider eating a raw
> brussel sprout. They are too strong for me so most would not tolerate a
> single bite.
>
> So those are two reasons someone might dislike the entire family of
> veggies. or are they actually two views of the same chemical and
> therefore two views of the same reason?

Oh, interesting. I do dislike the smooth Dijon mustard, Chinese
mustard, wasabi, etc.