h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

" No sprouts, EVER!" [Nick]

I tend to agree, and yet my sister-in-law found the one recipe for brussels sprouts that I could actually enjoy. That happened once, and she hasn't tried it since.

I really really really don't like brussels sprouts, with that one exception.

I love sprouts. They're one of the great things about Christmas dinner.

Brussels sprouts are quite delicious, but only boiled. I've seen some appalling recipes for doing very silly things with them.

It's a fashion thing, I think. It usually involves frying them in some kind of fat and putting nutmeg all over them (or saffron, or whatever is in this year). Some of those recipes are actually pretty tasty if you just want to eat a quick snack, but it's a bit too much when you are eating a whole dinner and that on the side, too.

I'm getting hungry again now thinking of all this! A bit of toast might be an idea.

I'm sorry, peoples, trying to convince me that those mini-cabbage things are delicious is as unlikely as convincing me that any sort of liver is really meant to be eaten.

Ooh - Offal! Another of my favourites! You and I are like Jack Sprat and his wife, Nick.

I love heart of anything, bird giblets, all great. But any sort of liver - fish, fowl or beast - nope. And while kidney is fair, it's still a bit much. For me.

I used to like liver with bacon and onions, but it became off limits for me after my cholesterol was discovered to be too high. I don't miss it particularly, but with the recent revisionism in heart-related diet theories, I'm suspicious that the "experts" are turning a little knowledge into a dangerous thing.

My grandmother always insisted that you shouldn't eat the same thing at supper as you did at lunch. Variety was important to her, and to my mother, and now to me. Frankly, I think that almost any food can be safely eaten as long as you don't overdo.

But not brussels sprouts. They're so similar to broccoli and the other cruciferous veggies that you don't lose anything by preferring its cousins.