To the odd person who doesn’t like nuts in their food:

Well, I’m right with ya, there, particularly about the almond slivers. You didn’t mention friggin’ almond slivers in the GREEN BEANS, which is about the stupidest tart-up attempt in common cuisine. My mother tried that about 800 times, always imagining, I suppose, that this time we’d not notice them, or suddenly like them, or something.

I like green beans. I don’t mind almonds. Just keep ’em the fuck away from each other.

While I completely understand where you’re coming from with the nut rant, I have to laugh because I have things much easier myself. I dislike HARD things in soft things. Emphasis on HARD. Ben&Jerries Chunky Monkey = Deliscious, EXCEPT for the damn chocolate slivers that you can almost break a tooth on. The nuts? No problem, they've softened up from being in the ice cream, for christ’s sake. Cake with nuts in is usually similiarly yummy, unless someone’s aunt made it using nuts that had been dehydrating in her cupboard for 10 years, fossilizing, then serves it to you fresh baked. That’s a trip to the dentist for sure. Ultimate hell is hard candies in anything. You don’t get much harder then pure sugar candy. All ice cream flavours that involve hard candies should be banned by international treaty. Once I got served a ‘savoury’ oriental entree that involved the usual assortment of bite-size ingredients PLUS hard candies. The people who ordered it lapped that crap up. I never ate with those freaks again.

yow! i can’t agree more with your essay on textural discontinuities in food. Dry hard knobbly bits in ice cream? What cruel person dreamed that one up?