I feel similiarly about coffee and steak though they are not similar to each other. One is an acquired taste and the other, in my opinion, the pinker the better. Of course not every one makes their coffee with Frankenberry cereal.
But seriously, I think if you have to add something to coffee or steak to make it palatable, it’s not good coffee. Or steak. Everytime I order steak at a restaurant, the server brings it out and asks “Would you like any steak sauce?” I answer “I hope not.” Now marinade is a good thing. It’s very important and every chef has their own steak marinade secrets. It’s a slap in the face to the chef if you slather every meaty bite with A-1.
And coffee? Why drink it if you have to dilute it with sugar and cream? Learn to enjoy the flavor of ‘bitter,’ people. Come on. I’m not a big coffee drinker, I’ll pour myself about a half a cup at work and drink maybe half of that. I’ll drink the coffee at home and at work but most other places, even the fancy expensive places, straight, black coffee is terrible. Sugar and cream just mask the burnt, chemical taste. I can’t drink the stuff. I’ll enjoy a frou-frou coffee drink from time to time. But gimme my coffee black. Don’t pansy it up because you can’t make a decent cup.
KaryHead – I nomally agree with you, but I draw the line at Black coffee… As you’re aware in steak – fatty is flavor but the same holds true in coffee. Cream is all fatty goodness, and you have to think of fat as a type of mass-transit flavor delivery system that goes straight to your tongue so the next time your waitress brings you a cup of rancid Joe, put some cream in that bizznitch.
Now, Kary…
(Grandma voice) Some people don’t like a watery, thinner, WEAKER coffee. They like their coffee to be thick, robust, MANLY. So they mix in creamer, to give a thicker, tougher texture.
As far as sweeteners go, some sugars may be mixed into the aromatic coffees to complement the bitter flavors with a nice, sweet alternate flavor. Combining the two in one cup can provide a veritable harmonious marriage of tasty goodness.
But here, at work, on break, I don’t drink coffee.
I drink the thick, sweet, nectar of the gods: French Vanilla Cap.
I like to think that sweetener (Splenda is my preferred choice) enhances or brings out the subtleties of flavors in coffee-especially Vanilla, Hazelnut or Cinnamon flavored coffee.
Black. Two sugars. That is all.
The entire purpose of the roll that accompanies a steak is to sop-up the blood that should be running out of the rare slab o’ meat when I cut into it. Yeah!