Every week we ask everyone who hangs out around here to answer a tough question. This week:

What’s the grossest food you still love?

Rules are simple: what are you eating? We all have some secret shame around food. I once knew a guy who made what he called “Oreo Sandwiches” out of individually wrapped cheese slices and Oreo cookies. You might say “that’s disgusting” but I’m certain you eat something that you don’t want to share with the class, either. What’s yours?

Alex Russell

In third grade we had a taste test in class to learn about taste buds. We all had to eat bitter chocolate, sweet candy, salty chips, and sour pickles. I’d never had a pickle before that moment. I’ve essentially never stopped. Sometimes I’ll make my own pickles, but it’s mostly just the insanely salty dill pickles you get in any grocery store. I’ll drink the juice. I’ll eat half a jar in one sitting. I’ll put them on things they don’t belong in — if you’ve never diced up some pickles in fried rice, you’re missin’ out — to the point where the meal is largely pickle-based with a suggestion of other foods. Pickles may be a simple food, but the look on someone’s face when you take a swig from a jar of pickle juice told me that maybe, just maybe, that’s not standard behavior.

Jonathan May

I’m not sure the food itself is gross, but the way I eat it definitely is (according to loved ones). Whenever I eat a baked potato, I scrape everything out of the hardened, brown skin and mash it together with a fork, over and over, until the cheese and chives and bacon and butter and sour cream all form an indistinguishable yellowish goo. I then plop this all back inside of the potato skin and proceed to eat it that way. Then I eat the skin slowly. I’ve done this ever since I was a child, and people still give me horrified looks whenever they see me eating baked potatoes. But the actual grossest food I love are probably Krystal Chiks with mustard instead of mayo. Seriously, that shit is gross, but I can’t stop. (I need to stop.)

Brent Hopkins

SPAM. I friggin’ love spam, raw or cooked. The saltiness and unique flavor of it just makes my taste buds sing. I picked this up from my dad and it just stuck with me ever since.

Andrew Findlay