Day Sixty-Eight: Marshmallows

As is probably evident to anyone who actually reads my blog by now, I am a somewhat adventurous eater. I will try almost anything once if it can be eaten, unless it comes from an animal that I can't bear to look at either alive OR dead, or from a part of an animal that I feel is absolutely not meant to be eaten. I will not, for example, under any circumstances, ever try eyeballs, tripe, or bone marrow. But aside from that, I'm open to a lot of different foods, I just haven't had the opportunity to try a lot of things (mostly because I'm too poor to go to restaurants that serve unconventional foods, or I don't know how to cook them myself). But there is one food, and actually the ONLY food, that completely grosses me out: marshmallows.

I. Hate. Marshmallows. Texture is a huge thing for me when it comes to eating. I love crunchy, I love melty, I and I love velvety. I do not, however, love the undescribable texture that is marshmallow. To me, although it tastes simply of sugar, the texture is a gooey mess that immediately adheres to the inside of the mouth as soon as it comes in contact with saliva, and clings like a spider monkey to your gums and tongue. To even think about it sends me into mental convulsions. When I eat a marshmallow, I feel like my mouth is being assaulted by a sugary, slimy, napalm that attacks my senses and feels like culinary nails on a chalkboard. Needless to say, I avoid it at all costs.

Unfortunately, it puts me at a culinary disadvantage. I don't eat Rice Krispies treats, several kinds of ice cream and a bunch of kinds of candy. It hurts my heart when perfectly good and delicious foods, like hot chocolate, cereal, and sweet potatoes are marred by a food I consider as inedible as an insect. And naturally, the Easter season makes me queasy.

Stores are lined with walls and walls of colored sugar-covered birds and rabbits, that while appealing and colorful, are deceitful. In rare cases (twice in my life, in fact) that I have attempted to eat a Peep, I have taken a small bite and given the rest to my Peep-addicted mother. I watch in disdain as she sets packages and packages of Peeps out weeks in advance to stale just slightly, so they get a mildly chewy texture. I have tried, in vain, to do my own doctoring to Peeps such that I might find them tolerable, but all methods have failed. Staled peeps still get slimy. I've tried to put Peeps in the microwave for a very short amount of time, with the hypothesis that the microwave will suck the moisture out of the Peep and make it crunchy. Instead, it just got untolerably chewy and brown (I never was very good at science).

Although my tastes have evolved slightly throughout my life, such that I now eat things I have not enjoyed in the past, such as asparagus and coffee, I still cannot enjoy a marshmallow. I don't know if I will ever not hate them, but I did successfully eat a single mini marshmallow in college on a dare without gagging. But at least during this Easter season, marshmallow and I are still in an epic battle. I hate them, and they taunt me.