Americans hate vegetables

Vegetables are delicious, but Americans hide theirs

I live in New York City. People say it has great food, some of the best in the world. On a recent trip I’ve visited Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Houston. People keep taking me to places they describe as great.

No place I’ve sampled in the past month features delicious vegetables unassaulted by copious amounts of salt, sugar, or fat.

Brussels sprouts are sweet enough to eat raw, but restaurants exclusively roast them in a syrupy sauce. A salad may have some shredded lettuce, but unless you force them, they’ll always include a lot of cheese, sugar-coated nuts, sugar-coated cranberries, or the like. They don’t believe the vegetables can taste good, as far as I can tell.

The Brussels sprouts I had were covered with more glaze. Why do people dislike vegetables so much?

To someone who loves Brussels sprouts, glazing them with syrupy sugar sauce insults the food, covering all the flavor of the vegetable and rendering its texture totally derived from the oil-based cooking process. I can only conclude the restaurant hates Brussels sprouts, as do the customers, but both will tolerate them after hiding any flavor, texture, or appearance specific to the vegetable. The result is more brown than green, softer and mushier than fresh and crisp.