The One Food Duff Goldman Simply Can't Stand
Everybody's got that one food they just can't stand, be it broccoli, or buttermilk, or bacon...okay, maybe not bacon, since even vegans crave the stuff. Still, for just about every food out there, there's somebody who hates it. Even chefs have their own no-go foods — just loving food in general doesn't mean that all things edible are equally delicious. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Perhaps the more sophisticated your palate, the more passionate you're apt to be about certain foods, and the less enthused by others.
Guy Fieri famously hates eggs, Rachael Ray says "yuck-o!" to mayo, the Barefoot Contessa can't stand cilantro, Ree Drummond bans bananas from her pioneer kitchen, and Martha Stewart, the woman with a pantry to rival Amazon's, has 27 different kinds of olive oil but no truffle oil since she kinda hates the stuff. Even the ever-affable Duff Goldman has one food he swears at, rather than by. Indeed, Duff's no fan of bell peppers.
Duff's pepper diss sparked a social media controversy
In March of 2019 Duff tweeted a simple, yet emphatic, opinion about the often-ubiquitous vegetable: "Bell peppers ruin everything they touch. Everything. Ruined. Everything." Many agreed with him, tweeting responses like, "I agree wholeheartedly! Peppers are yucky!" and, "OMG THANK YOU!!!...I am like the Princess and the Pea with Bell Peppers and why I can tell if you have eaten anything with even the tiniest bit of bell pepper when I kiss you an hour later because IT PERMEATES EVERYTHING!" and, "100% correct! And the 'just pick them out if you don't like them' advice is crap. They infect the rest of the food!!!"
Still others insisted he was just plain wrong, while some conciliatory pepper lovers tried the "Sam I Am" approach, asking if he wouldn't like them in fajitas or on cheesesteaks (or in a box, or with a fox).
One fact that many felt compelled to point out was that green peppers are the bad ones, while the riper yellow and red ones are actually quite tolerable, an opinion that chef Aaron Sanchez also holds. Duff, however, holds fast to his condemnation of bell peppers in general. Luckily, Duff's specialty is baked goods, so he can keep passing on peppers without his recipes suffering too much.