English Listening - Foods I Don't Like

Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast! Hey English learners, this is Connor, and you're listening to episode 281 of the Listening Time Podcast. I hope you're doing well today, and I hope that your English learning is going great, and that you're having fun with your learning. I hope that these episodes have been entertaining for you, and also good practice for your listening. In today's episode, I'm going to talk about foods that I don't like. I'm going to talk about the very few foods that I don't like, because as I have mentioned before, I like almost every food that I try. I'm not exaggerating. I like almost everything, and I have tried a ton of food. I'm someone who loves trying new foods, especially when I go to new places, and there are very, very few foods that I have tried that I don't like. So, today, I'm actually going to give you the entire list of foods that I don't like, because there are only a few of them, and some of these foods that I'm going to mention are still okay, in my opinion. I don't dislike them a lot. I don't hate them, but I am not a big fan of them. I had to add foods like this, because I don't even have enough foods that I honestly dislike, or really don't like. There are only a few of them. So, if I only talked about those foods, the episode would be very short. So, I had to add some foods that I'm not a fan of, but I can still eat them. They're not disgusting to me. So, I'll talk about this topic today. If you want my help to understand native speakers when they speak fast, and if you want my help to improve your pronunciation so that you can speak more clearly and sound more natural, make sure to sign up for my training. That link is down below, and also you can get my advanced podcast episodes in which I speak fast by becoming a listening time family member. So, check that out, and also check out my US Conversations podcast, which will help you start to understand when more than one person is talking. That's an essential skill you'll need to develop. That skill is something that you can train with my US Conversations podcast. I have authentic conversations with English teachers from all around the country. It's a lot of fun, and you can also find an English teacher by listening to that podcast, and choosing someone who you like, because almost all of them give classes online. So, you can find a teacher there as well. That link is also down below. Okay, let me talk about foods that I don't like, or foods that I am not a big fan of. I'll start with the foods that I actually dislike. Foods that I honestly do not want to eat, because they're either gross for me, or they don't taste good, or I just don't like the flavor at all. I'll start with the worst one. The worst one for me is guinea pig. So, guinea pigs are those little animals that many people have as pets in certain countries, but people eat them in other countries, like in Peru and Ecuador. So, I went to Peru with a friend of mine. Many of you already know this, because I've talked about it in previous episodes, and I decided to try guinea pig when I was there. I love trying new things, and I don't get grossed out by different foods, usually. This means that when I see different foods, they don't seem gross to me, just because they are different animals than I'm accustomed to, or different body parts of the animal that aren't as common. I don't get grossed out. So, I decided to try a guinea pig. They served it to me on a stick, like we would call it a skewer, like what you might use to roast a marshmallow over a fire. It was on a skewer, and it was the whole body. You could see its head. I think it's teeth, if I remember correctly. I think many of you would have been disgusted just by seeing it. But, again, I don't get grossed out by food easily, so it wasn't a problem for me. The problem was that it didn't taste good at all. I gave it a chance. I didn't just take one bite. I actually ate most of it, I think. Unfortunately, it did not taste good. It did not taste like meat that I was supposed to be eating. It tasted very different than chicken or beef or whatever, and not in a good way. It tasted very strange. I had never eaten something like that before. I had kind of a bad taste in my mouth, as I was chewing it. It wasn't like horribly gross, and many people eat guinea pig. So, I'm not trying to be offensive here. I'm not trying to say that it was terrible, really disgusting. It just wasn't good. I gave it a chance. I ate a lot of it, but I just found the taste a little bit strange in a bad way. Like, it was not a delicious piece of meat, I'll say. But, it wasn't terribly gross, or anything like that, but it's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of foods that I don't like. So, that's the first one I wanted to mention. Another food that I didn't like, that I had last year, not too long ago, was goat's head. So, I really love the head of the cow, like beef head. I think it's very, very tasty. However, goat's head, for me, does not taste similar to the head of the cow. I don't know if it was just the place I ate this goat's head, and maybe it tastes different, prepared differently at other places. I don't know, but that is, I think, the only time I have tried goat's head, and it didn't have a good flavor. There were a couple parts of it that were good, but the other parts were not good. And I should mention, it was served as the actual head, like the whole skull, meaning the bones of the head, and we had to pull the meat off of the head, and like make tacos from it. We had tortillas as well. So, we were pulling the meat off of the head, and most of it was not very good. A couple parts were tasty, like I said, but most of it had kind of a fishy taste. That's what it reminded me of. It tasted a little bit fishy, there was maybe a little bit of sourness to it, and not in a good way. And everyone agreed, everyone at the table agreed that it wasn't very good. It was disappointing. We were looking forward to ordering that goat's head because it's like a famous dish at that restaurant. But we were not impressed. We did not finish it. And I did not want to eat a lot of it. I did because I wanted to be polite, but it just tasted too weird and fishy and sour. And I do not want to eat it again. And it made me think of how good cow's head tastes compared to goat's head. So that is another food that comes to mind when I think of foods that I honestly do not like. And then another one, another food that I do not like, this one is not terribly disgusting to me. And I would rather eat this one than the previous two that I have already mentioned. This one is the Mexican gaspacho. I say Mexican gaspacho because the most famous gaspacho that people have heard of most likely is the one in Spain. It's a completely different dish. I have actually tried it. And I liked it. But there is another dish in Mexico called gaspacho, which is famous in a certain region like in the city of Morelia. That's where I've had it. And let me describe this dish. Some of you already know what this is because you're listening and you're from Mexico or maybe you're from Michoacán specifically. So gaspacho usually has a fruit like mango, pineapple, hikama. And then it has orange juice in it, like just the juice is there. And usually lime, like lime juice, chili powder and hot sauce, of course. But then it also has cheese. It has cheese on it. And maybe the strangest thing, this is optional. But many people put onions on it. So if you order it with everything on it, it's going to have fruit. It's going to have orange juice. It's going to have hot sauce and chili powder, cheese and onion. Many of you might already think that this sounds like a bad combination. But honestly, many Mexicans love this dish. My wife absolutely loves gaspacho. And I don't know why. I'll just be honest. I do not think it's a good combination, even if you don't put the onion in there. For me, honestly, the cheese is not the worst part. I think the orange juice is. I don't get why people want to drench this fruit in orange juice. To drench means to make something very wet. I have always thought that this dish tastes way too orangy, like citrusy, just too sour and orangy. It does not taste good to me. I won't say that it's gross. And like I said, I'd rather have this over guinea pig or goats head. But I will never order this if it is my choice. And I've had it more than once. So don't tell me that I just had a bad gaspacho and I need to give it another try. I've had this multiple times. I've even had homemade gaspacho because my wife makes it once in a while. And every time I've had it, I've said the same thing, like why do people like this? I know some of you are mad at me right now because you like this dish. But I just have to be honest. I'm not a fan. So that's another food I don't like. And I would also say that I'm not a fan of parsley, this vegetable that's similar to cilantro. I think one of the reasons why I'm not a huge fan of this is because I did this cleanse once where you eat very specific foods that are good for different organs like your liver, your kidneys, et cetera. And one of the things we had to eat was parsley. And I think it was the first time that I had that much parsley. And eating a lot of it over like a three day period was not pleasant for me. And I decided that I wasn't a big fan of this food. I like cilantro, like on tacos, for example, in guacamole. And if you put parsley in a dish, I probably won't even realize it. But just eating it by itself for me is not good. So I'm not a fan of parsley. I think those are the four foods that I would say that I just don't like them. Like I definitely feel negatively about them. These other four things that I'm going to mention now are not things that I definitely don't like. They are just things that I'm not the biggest fan of. Other people like them a lot more than me. And I just prefer other foods and I don't really want to choose these foods. Like I said, I like almost every food. So I had to add some more to this list just to give you more examples of food that maybe I am okay with, but I'm not a big fan of. So one of these foods is beats, this purple food. Sometimes I do like beats. I've actually had some really good salads with beats in them. So I'm not going to say that I just don't like beats at all. I can definitely eat them and even enjoy them in certain dishes. But other times, I don't like them. If I just eat them on their own, I'm not a big fan. One time, I remember that I added beats to a smoothie. I was making. I don't know why I did this, but it made the smoothie taste disgusting. And I think after that point, I kind of realized that I wasn't a big fan of beats. And on other occasions, I've eaten them and thought, I don't really like this. So again, sometimes I like them. Sometimes I don't sell. I included them here on this list. This next one is one that, again, many Mexicans in particular and maybe other people as well will be mad at me for saying, but I am not a fan of Thres Leches cake. So I don't know how many of you have had this cake, but it's a fairly popular cake in Mexico and perhaps in other places, people in the US, sometimes like this cake. I just had a little bit of this cake a few days ago, actually. And I already knew I was not a fan of this cake, but I decided to have a slice because my wife had this cake. And after the first bite, I thought, hmm, this is okay. okay? But then I took another bite and then another and another and it got worse and worse with each bite. I won't say that it's gross for me but I honestly don't like it that much and I don't know why people choose this cake over other cakes. I like pretty much every cake but this is the one that I don't like. I don't like the texture that it's very soggy like wet and the flavor for me is not very good. I don't know why people prefer this cake when there are so many amazing cakes that you could eat. So I know many of you will be mad hearing me say this but I am not a fan of Thresletches cake. Another thing that I'm not a fan of is diet soda. Let me clarify. There are some zero sugar sodas that I'm actually okay with. I actually enjoy them. There are a few of them but in general diet soda to me does not taste good. I've tried many diet sodas and recently I had a couple diet sodas that I hadn't had in a while and I thought wow this does not taste good. I am not a fan of like diet coke for example. I don't think this tastes good at all and some people have told me that you get used to it as you drink it more but I don't know. I don't think I want to drink these sodas often so I don't know if I'll ever get used to them. I'm not a fan and in general I want to try to drink more water and less sugary drinks. Of course diet sodas or zero sugar sodas try to give you the soda without the sugar or whatever but they just don't taste good and I think that it would be better for me to just drink more water rather than try to drink soda but without the calories or without the sugar I think water is a better choice for me. I like soda, normal soda and in the summertime I crave soda meaning I have this desire for soda so it's hard for me to resist sometimes and it's very good but like I said I want to try to drink more water even in the summer and one other thing that I'm not a huge fan of this is okay I won't say that I don't like this but I feel like it's bland meaning it doesn't have much flavor and I'm not sure why many people praise this food for its flavor. Again some Mexicans will be mad at me for saying this but this food is Nopales so the part of the cactus that is eaten this is an okay food I can definitely eat Nopales it's not a problem for me I don't think it's nasty or anything but it just doesn't have much flavor in my opinion I would rather have something else with more flavor I've had this many times it wasn't just one experience and every time I think the same thing like this is just a bland food there's not much purpose for me in eating this because it doesn't have much flavor I'm not a big fan of it so it's not bad but it's just not a great food for me but I wanted to add this to the list because as I've said many times I just don't have many other foods to put here so I was really trying to think of different foods that I've tried that I don't find very tasty and this was just one of the foods that I thought of so that is literally the entire list of foods that I was able to think of there might be other foods that I just can't remember but I tried really hard to think of as many foods as possible that I don't like and this is literally the entire list so you can imagine that I love different foods I love trying new foods and it's amazing to me that so many people dislike so many of the great foods that I like but of course some of these foods that I listed here might be things that you really like and you can't understand why I'm not a big fan of them so that's just how things are that's the world of tastes and foods we like different things I like almost everything but these eight things that I mentioned are things that I either don't like or I'm not a big fan of or I would prefer to choose something else rather than this food I hope you enjoyed this episode I'm sure it was good practice for your listening remember to sign up for my membership to get my training so that you can start to understand native speakers more easily when they speak fast and so you can improve your pronunciation and speak more naturally that link is down below also sign up for my US conversations podcast you can practice your listening when more than one person is speaking and you can find a teacher to take classes with and have conversations with so that link is also down below thank you all for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of listening time