I hate to admit it, but the snob in me reared his ugly head again this week. It wasn’t pretty, and even though I’m the only person that heard the conversation, it still embarrassed me a bit to know that I was even thinking the way I was.

It began innocently enough. I was going over the list of ingredients sent in by Jess, the first of the Your Pantry or Mine, participants and trying to decide which I was going to use when I realized I’d actually huffed.

“Huffed”?

Yeah, you know that noise you make when you blow air through your nose in exasperation. The noise you would expect the snobbiest faux French waiter to make if you have the horrible sense to request ketchup for your haricots verts, or worse, suggested that you’d rather have a domestic wine with your meal.

Yep, that’s the sound, and it came out of me!

So what caused this tiny fit of obnoxious behavior, you ask? Since these chronicles are as much a soul searching experience as they are (hopefully) kind of humorous, I’ll tell you.

Canned Green Beans.

I saw canned green beans on the list of pantry items and thought to myself; “Who would eat that instead of…”

Yes, I stopped myself. My very own lighthearted writing on the topic flashed through my mind and I realized that I had just become guilty of the #2 statement of my “You Might be a Food Snob If…” entry of two weeks ago. I had judged someone else’s choice in pantry staples based entirely on one fact.

I absolutely hate canned green beans.

I hate the fact that the canning process leaves them limp, lifeless and slightly soggy regardless of any effort I’ve applied to them. (though soaking them in an ice bath for a bit does help slightly.) I hate the fact that there’s no snap left in the bite, and that they have a mouth feel more like baby food than garden vegetables. I hate the fact that no matter what the manufacturer says, they always taste over salted…

I could go on, but I’ll stop this particular rant here, because even then as I though of these things and now as I type them I know I was not only being a snob, but a hypocrite as well.

Until about 8 years ago, I’d only eaten canned green beans myself, unless they were fresh from a garden. It wasn’t until I started really immersing myself in stir fry that I realized that canned greens of any type just weren’t going to cut it, they’d lost their soul somewhere in the process.

Canned green veggies of most types cannot stand up to the rigors of high heat cooking like fresh or frozen vegetables can. And being that I tend to stock two weeks of food at a time, I usually opt for frozen vegetables unless they are of the leafy green variety. (With the exception being spinach, which I buy fresh for salads but generally frozen for cooking and mustard or collard greens, which take up the entire fridge if bought fresh, yet yield barely two servings per massive bunch.)

I know that there are people that prefer canned vegetables. My sister is one of them. We’ve had more than one discussion on the topic, and they always end with; “I just like them better.” End of subject. At lest on her part.

As a child, green beans came in two varieties. It wasn’t until the late 80’s that frozen produce finally stood on its own, and not as a part of a TV Dinner. That may play into the stigma attached by many to frozen green beans,especially if you remember those rubbery little green things that ended up along side of a Salisbury Steak when you were a kid. but if thawed and cooked on their own, it’s almost the same as if they’d come from the garden.

Do I think I stepped into the world of food snobbery because I prefer my vegetables frozen? No, absolutely not. I get to place the mantle on my brow because I judged someone else based on their choices. We all have our preferences, and there’s not one bloody thing that can be done about that. People are different and I’m going to do my best in the future to take that into consideration before I find myself making obnoxious noises at their choices.

(OK, not entirely tru, there are foods I’ll roll my eyes at, but those tend to be of the variety that are just about 99% filler and have nothing to do with enjoyment in eating. Rather they just fill your gullet and harden your arteries. But I won’t go into that.)

Luckily I was spared actually buying canned beans… I already had a bag of petite green beans in the freezer, and i couldn’t see doubling up a pantry item.

I’m horrible, I know.

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