Unpopular food opinions: Miracle Whip edition

This morning I was thinking about Miracle Whip because we accidentally bought a jar of the low-sodium variety and it has this odd sharp chemical flavor. It’s not great*, to the point where we don’t want to use it. However, it seems so wasteful to just throw it away, so I decided to try this recipe for “Miracle Whip Chocolate Bundt Cake” that I found online. The worst that could happen is that it’s nasty and we compost it, right? No big deal since we were going to toss the MW anyway.

Well, surprisingly, it turned out to be rather tasty. That weird chemical flavor got baked right out of it, plus it’s very moist and fudgy. MW is basically fat, eggs, acid, and salt anyway — all things that are used in a cake.

* Apparently liking Miracle Whip is a very polarizing opinion, as I discovered while researching what I could do with my jar of low-sodium. Turns out a lot of people find MW absolutely disgusting. Whatever. I love it! It doesn’t have the versatility of mayonnaise, but as a sandwich spread or in tunafish or chickpea salad, it’s outstanding.

Here’s a photo of the cake.

So since I hold an apparently unpopular food opinion, I thought I’d go ahead and list out some more of them!

I realize that Velveeta is not “real” cheese, has totally different uses than real cheese, yet I love it anyway. Queso is its own food group where I live. It also makes a great grilled cheese sandwich.

I didn’t really used to like mayonnaise until I met Duke’s. I don’t butter the outside of my grilled cheese sandwiches; I use a thin layer of Duke’s mayo.

I don’t really care for biscuits (in the American sense). This statement is met with amazement by basically everyone I’ve said it to. If I get a biscuit with my meal, I usually give it away.

I am not a huge fan of meat, in general, nor am I the least bit adventurous when it comes to meat, and I am 100% okay with that. I’m not vegetarian anymore but it would be pretty easy for me to go back to that (except for bacon and salmon, my two Achilles’ meat-heels).

My favorite kind of peanut butter sandwich is peanut butter and pickle. This is not as weird as you might think; it’s a Depression-era recipe that was handed down in my family.

I don’t like typical American breakfast foods. Eggs, oatmeal, toast, juice, cereal, muffins, yogurt, pancakes, waffles… just not my thing. And I am never in the mood for sweet breakfast. If you go out to breakfast with me, I am probably going to eat something like a savory bagel, avocado toast, or a breakfast taco without egg.

I do not really like southern food or “home cooking”. I will eat it, but it wouldn’t be my first choice. Think chicken fried anything, iced tea, the aforementioned biscuits, gravy, cornbread, grits, sweet potatoes, pecan pie, boiled greens, green beans in cream soup, banana pudding. I grew up in Texas, which I’m not sure is considered “The South” although it’s close enough that all this stuff is widely available here, but I didn’t grow up eating it.

Iced coffee beats hot coffee.

Cucumbers are super gross. They’re probably my least-liked food of all time. (Although my mom claims that when she was pregnant with my brother, 3-year-old Katy used to eat cucumber sandwiches with her.) However, you put that sucker in some brine for a week or so and it’s one of my favorite foods of all time. I love pickles, I make my own, and I will pickle almost anything. Just ask Doc; he will tell you that at any given time our refrigerator contains numerous jars of weird pickled things. One important thing I learned is that pickled broccoli smells like a jar of fart. Just don’t do it.

I didn’t used to like avocados but now I am making up for almost 50 years of lost time. I guess that’s not really an unpopular food opinion, but my “avocados are nasty” opinion of a few years ago would have been considered unpopular.

I still won’t just straight up eat a stalk of celery, but I have grown to like it diced finely in soups, chicken salad, etc. It adds a nice crunch and a vaguely licorice flavor. However, do NOT pack it with peanut butter and expect me to eat it. Why in god’s name is that a thing.

I like chocolate okay, but I don’t LOVE it the way a lot of people do. And I generally will totally pass up dark chocolate. It has a tart fruitiness I don’t like. If I’m going to eat chocolate, I want it to be milk chocolate. And I really like Hershey’s milk chocolate. I know that some people might think that makes me unsophisticated.

But really if I have a flavor option, I will nearly always choose vanilla or caramel or lemon or cinnamon instead of chocolate. This applies to ice cream, cake, cookies, candy, and more. A Linzer cookie or a nice piece of plain shortbread is heaven and if you bring me some I will be your friend forever. Butter + sugar + vanilla + salt … that’s the good stuff.