i finally got (okay, fine, actually asked for) permission to share some assorted field notes on "the care and feeding of your catgirl"
tired of your catgirl only eating dino nuggies and fish sticks (american littles trope) or tesco meal deals (uk trope)?
- quite a few of those with brain-weirds seem to have issues with novel textures. i have seen some people (esp. those who embrace the terminology of "autism") say this more directly than others, but so far none of them have pointed out _this_: if you are cantonese but your catgirl is a brit or a """normal""" american, you are likely to be **very** mismatched on these expectations (without intentional recalibration)
this was made most obvious when we got told that tangyuan (glutinous rice balls) were a very unexpected texture (i guess chewy and sticky but not candy/sweets is unexpected?) and filled tangyuan was too much (that style of sesame paste is apparently much gritter than what you'd easily get elsewhere)
stereotypical "safe" foods aren't devoid of interesting texture though, english is just bad at talking about them (e.g. i love the springy/spongy texture of mcnuggets)
gotta expand the usage of the word "mouthfeel" beyond "that" possibly-now-dead meme?
- these two countries are really really weird at dealing with animal products. somehow the compulsory schooling system can teach children the word "doublethink" (well, at least one of them does. i'm told this is not typical required reading in the UK) but somehow doesn't apply it consistently to the food system (this is mostly a joke. i know this is far too simplified and reductive.)
what's not a joke is that apparently animal bones, collagen, connective tissue, etc. are "weird" now
my parents laughed at me for this one, because making fun of gwailo for this apparently is pretty common (many many chinese cuisines do not hide/eliminate these bits so much)
this is definitely a """recent""" thing, since _somehow_ proper London food such as jellied eels are now _firmly_ in the "weird" category ("i'm not a victorian child, dear" --the catgirl)
- i have now heard of multiple catgirls who have issues with food "mixtures/combinations"
for some reason, nuggies and sauces often do not count
one actually-actionable pattern i've noticed is that catgirls that don't cook much do not have good intuition for _combining_ (relatively-)strong flavors in e.g. herbs/spices
novel cuisines made from _the same ingredients_ also run into this problem if it's not immediately obvious how the different preparation methods work
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so, some things which *have* worked on my local catgirl:
- explain cooking techniques!
-- show pictures and videos!!!
- dig up "traditional" recipes (the "retvrn" types are full of shit, but there is a small kernel of truth in "these recipes have evolved through the natural progression of culture, so they ought to be good at _something_")
- things which gently push the boundaries of textures without pushing flavors too hard: tofu (the traditional ways, not the "white girl" way), rice snacks
- things which push flavor combinations but not textures so much: steamed buns, dumplings, newschool millennial dessert thingies
