Controversial Food Opinions - The Béchamel Test

Titles props to bg.

I am now reading a reddit on bechamel in lasagne and getting mad. But I guess there are people who actively seek out creamed spinach and creamed corn and creamed mushrooms...

struggling to find any recipes for lasagne al forno that don't feature bechamel as standard

Like I get that they wanted the creaminess to balance out the acidity of tomatoes and again it acts as a "rustic" filler but it's disgusting. Unless you used it to moisten a ricotta/mozz/herb mixture, but I always just see it as a big soupey mess. I hate a slippery lasagna. I want crisp edges.

i think that can be moderated thru cooking time and sauce thickness

Also, I can't find regular pickles here that don't have sugar added. Sweet, off dry pickles are the worst.

I love that little kick of nutmeg from a good bechamel.

I have been trying to work out why there is such an outcry over bechamel on lasagne, but if it's wet and sloppy then fair enough, that's bad. Bechamel doesn't need to be like that.

Bechamel is what you give to baby squirrels through an eye dropper.

Béchamel is bad always. You savages wouldn’t put mayonnaise in your lasagna would you?

do I really want to know?

luv2see my peerless wit immortalised in thread titles, thx yerac

I just registered that I made a grammatical error and it kind of looks like I am giving you "titties props" if you glance quickly.

if you can't distinguish between mayo and Bechamel i figure there is no debate to be had

thx also to yerac for acknowledging my rack

You savages wouldn’t put mayonnaise in your lasagna would you?

my wife's away this weekend, might as well do some experimental cooking

sorry, my w1f3

Straight red sauce is far, far superior to bechamel. Bechamel should go the way of aspic.

mmm, larks' tongues in bechamel

I can't tell the difference between sarin and novichok either but

one of them definitely comes straight from Putin

iirc (was a long time ago) i used to make lasagna @ a resto. and bechamel was gently layed over the top layer of red sauce. so it wasn't actually in it. and after it cooked it was a creamy layer, but not runny at all. i always thought it was a presentation thing - like the contrast it makes with the sauce just underneath it. and you kind of had to make the bechamel just right - couldn't be too runny or too thick to spread perfectly while at the same time avoiding getting any hint of the red from the sauce underneath mixed in. also seemed to make a pretty rustic dish a little more elegant?

my controversial food opinion is it's ok for people to not like certain foods
it's also ok to not want to try certain foods

Yeah, people should eat what they want. I only get annoyed when people prepare food for other people and they totally won't even try it or just are assholes about it. I eat the lasagna with bechamel when people prepare it for me and say "wow, this is amazing."

I would eat it too but would hope no one would tell me it's béchamel

it is ok before people to like whatever foods but it is fun to get "mad" about it

it's fine to not like things or to like things and message board threads are a safe space for comedy outrage but irl if i'm eating something and you tell me how gross the thing i'm eating is i may not say "gtfo you delicate savage" but i will certainly think it v. loudly

it's also ok to not want to try certain foods

"But, you've GOT to try this!" (aggressively shoves a forkful of food at brimstead's mouth)

my grandparents convinced me I was lactose intolerant (I'm not) and I ate cereal w/ orange juice for over a decade

its good

My mom will prepare a lovely lunch/dinner for us when we visit. And then my dad comes sauntering over and makes his own pastrami sandwich to eat. He's an asshole.

people shoving food at my face is a slightly different kind of savagery and whether i like the food or not isn't the issue for me

my dad used to be terrible for this, if i mentioned in conversation having eaten something he didn't like - and there was plenty of stuff he didn't like - he'd insist every bleeding time on a quick monologue about how horrible the thing i'd just mentioned was. in case i'd forgotten the previous 200 times he'd told me he didn't care for curry.

My dad wouldn't eat the grilled salmon and salad my mom made for lunch once. He ate too many salads and he ate too much salmon growing up. Of really dad, grilled salmon was all the rage in 1950s Michigan?

Dads are kind of the worst about this stuff. DON'T BE LIKE YOUR DAD.

Speak for your own dad, not mine, plz.

DON'T BE LIKE MY DAD.

but i like pastrami sandwiches ;_;

One time it was a plate of sliced up sausages and tomatoes. We all gave him the side-eye.

okay that's just weird, wtf yerac's dad

I kind of figure all Trump voters are like that. He's my benchmark.

I knew someone in college who apparently at some point decided to eat only olive oil. His thyroid stopped working!

what the shit

I know!

I think he was living on a boat at the time??

I think since then he's founded a cryptocurrency startup. We're not in touch.

Anyway eat what people put in front of you, if possible, is a virtue I've come around to. (I tried with eggplant, it makes me gag, I am not trying again with eggplant.)

he's founded a cryptocurrency startup

this actually helps put the olive oil diet in context tbh

the only things I don't eat are mayo, cooked eggs (except in like fried rice) & savory cream sauces. & when I'm traveling I'll even try those. I mean, I once ate a cow's seminal vesicle, how much worse can béchamel be? (actually the seminal vesicle was pretty good)

idgi will you slam back a raw egg in the a.m.?

I think he was living on a boat at the time??

I think since then he's founded a cryptocurrency startup. We're not in touch.

― valorous wokelord (silby), Friday, March 23, 2018 9:09 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i love this post

sorry, euler, i don't mean to make light of familial discord or anything

SILBY I MEAN, gah

iirc in college he was living on a restricted diet that was heavy on unseasoned chicken breast and Nutella

https://66.media.tumblr.com/3263a7e7a6ee26a3e469e356043b5910/tumblr_oxpwo2NAYf1sxouzno1_500.gifv

das dutchman essenhaus employee?

It’s hard when you have to befriend a piggy and you know you’re gonna have to kill it tho

if you don't cook bacon you don't get to pour out the fat into a container you keep in your fridge for Future Uses so massive DUD imo

here's a Controversial Food Opinion: Pringles are the best mass-market potato chips

― droit au butt (Euler)

they're great but i'm not sure they qualify even for the low standards of "potato chips".

If it’s not a cooked cross section of an intact potato it’s not a potato chip

^Real Talk

Grams making no bones about it

It's true that Pringles are Not Real Food but they recently had a short lived Brazilian BBQ flavour which erased my willpower the second I tasted it. If it was still available I would weigh 300 lb and live in a pile of non-recyclable silvered cardboard tubes.

Pringles are basically resultant paste, right.

more of a machine-extruded slurry. resultant paste is more personal.

Pringles are like wafer thin savory cookies made out of flour, potatoes and seasonings. Not a potato chip. I do find them good personally tho

I never even thought about how pringles are not really potato chips. This is probably why I like them.

How we can talk about compositional authenticity on a thread where we’re talking about sausage

That only makes sense as a critique if sausages are to be construed as a mechanized simulation of an actual intestine

I do really love boudin noir.

🐦[This is a real radio ad currently running in Arkansas in support of Republican Congressman French Hill on radio stations targeted to the African American community. I don’t even have words to describe it. pic.twitter.com/vpzt1nGPlc🕸
— (((Ben Tribbett))) (@notlarrysabato) October 18, 2018🕸]🐦

Pringles also rule because they are minimal surfaces.

posts very much in character?

kringle still the best 'ringle, though

Fo shingle

soft and mushy pasta is delicious

mild cheddar > sharp cheddar

cold pasta, rice or cous cous is unacceptable (sushi should be room temperature, not cold) and chilled "salad bowls" with any of these are an abomination.

I gotta stop reading these threads

Love user Yerac but this thread is crazy.

sourdough is overrated

I’m anti-béchamel, but that is literally my asshole’s opinion.

i can't deal with pringles ever since watching a Pringles can get crushed by a hydralic press, all the "oil" comes out at the end and it's super gross.

On that topic, Stevie texted me this article and it is one of the loveliest things I’ve read this year:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/05/best-free-restaurant-bread-america/686582/?gift=BxOhs766OfpwbG1UQKn3bUzu9z6Cs7n4-aOdxcHpcYQ

Also

Yes this thread is crazy. Sugo/bolognese plus béchamel plus Parmesan is the essential filling for traditional lasagna al forno and all substitutions are inferior

Mozzarella creates cheese strings which are undesirable in lasagna, and it’s too unctuous and oily when baked. Ricotta is a dessert cheese, for one, nice in salads or tossed with green sauce pasta just before service, sure, but baked in oven it loses all its positive qualities and— if overused— dries into a grainy white wall of yuck. Ricotta in lasagna al forno is as appetizing as “a bowl of microwaved cottage cheese”

I think smash burgers are bullshit. I like a juicy burger with a pink center. Our local place used to have the best burgers but they recently switched to only smash patties and I'm grumpy about it. They sometimes had a hard time judging doneness, medium-rare would often come out icky-rare. In my mind they got tired of dealing with it and said "fuck it, smash 'em all!"

There's a dive bar out here I like to go to. I've been dreaming about their smash burger for weeks.

Oh I don’t agree with that. Smash burgers fried hot get crisp on the edges and remain drippy pink midway. Something about a history of dense ass burgers that make you feel like you’re eating someone’s wallet makes me rate the smash burger highly

i'll have a squeeze burger from the squeeze inn please

https://squeezeburgerroseville.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/img_1474-e1596787484969.jpg

What is that horrific alien entity.

At Squeeze Burger, the burger eats you

Ah, maybe I have never had a good smash burger. The couple of times i’ve had them they have been beyond well done.

I had never had a good burger until I tried a smash burger (a double from honest burger) - having a huge wodge of meat has always put me off, just not into that.

I resisted smashburgers for the longest time, just thinking they were an overcooked fad. Then I had a good one at Hamburger America and now it's my preferred style.

They are easy to cook at home. Shave onions on the mandoline, put a pile on two round balls of meat in good-sized frying pan, smash so the edges are thin and the middle is a little thicker, flip when blood starts to gather on top, add a slice of cheese to each one, top with the bottom of a potato roll brushed with mustard, add the top of the bun upside down on top with more mustard and pickles. This is called "letting it ride" in the parlance. When the cheese is melted, get under the patty/onion/cheese/bun with a spatula, lift the top bun and put it under the spatula, pinch it all together and pull out the spatula. This is called the "pinch and pull". It's pretty slick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL3Focg_xqQ

ngl that crispy oversized cheddar on the squeeze burger is looking pretty good

On that topic, Stevie texted me this article and it is one of the loveliest things I’ve read this year:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/05/best-free-restaurant-bread-america/686582/?gift=BxOhs766OfpwbG1UQKn3bUzu9z6Cs7n4-aOdxcHpcYQ

― the gay of hormuz (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, April 15, 2026 10:19 PM (yesterday)

This was delightful! Somehow "No???" is the funniest thing I've read all year

regardless of where she's being published, caity weaver remains the goat of talking a publication into sending her somewhere to document a food experience

That Caity Weaver piece was exactly what I needed to read at 2am when I couldn't sleep (although it made me hungry)
We don't really get free restaurant bread in chains here :(
At posher places though, certainly.

Planning to have burgers tonight and now I'm wondering if I should smash them

It's pretty slick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL3Focg_xqQ

― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Thursday, 16 April 2026 13:11 (yesterday)

ok this guy is great

Yeah, he's an American treasure. His place is named after the documentary he did in the early 00s about American regional burgers and burger restaurants, which is great if you haven't seen it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkpc5Q1Mgdc

i love a good bagel with lox/cream cheese/etc. but i absolutely cannot stand the half inch thick of cream cheese most deli places slather on each half of the bagel.

also, for anyone that does like a good bagel with lox/cream cheese, this is my rough estimate cream cheese hack that i keep on hand:

1/2 cup cream cheese
2 tbsp olive oil
zest of a lemon
tbsp of capers

a nice, moderate layer of that on a bagel goes a long way.

thanks for sharing pbkr, that documentary looks awesome.

I heard somewhere that back in the day they put a ton of cream cheese on to balance out another ingredient that
was salty or funky.

There should be more bagel than cream cheese.