Oct 12 2007
Acquiring Tastes
My mother used to say to me, “a picky eater is a sign of a closed mind.” Usually this pithy statement would accompany her attempts to compel my childhood self into overcoming my obstinate distaste for foods involving onions, fish, or Chinese cuisine in general.
The phrase also seemed to serve as an informal litmus test for her to assess the character of people in general whenever she had a chance to observe them eat. That didn’t bode well for a significant portion of the human population….
Back then, you’d sooner change water into wine than convince me to consume any form of the onion, be it served raw in a salad, fried with batter, diced into a stew or sauce, or grilled on a kebab.
In fact, it was not an uncommon ritual on spaghetti night with the Pontees when I would ask with all the petulant vehemence of an inquisition, “Are there any onions in this?” to which my mother would evenly reply, “No, there are no onions.” “Are you sure?” “Yes, positive.”
Being a precocious child cynic, I had always half-suspected that she was being less than forthcoming about the presence of onions despite her claims to the contrary, and it was only years later that I received full disclosure about spaghetti night: my mother would frequently mince onions to the point of textural oblivion in order to blend it into the sauce.
I’m happy to report that well into my adult years my tastes have evolved to the the point where it is unthinkable for me to neglect the use of sautéed onions in preparation of tomato sauce. I’ll even enjoy the occasional savory red onion in my panzanella salad.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure I can entirely credit my mother’s clandestine insurrection against my fascist taste buds. Being open to food, after all, requires voluntary choice. Point in fact, I actually recall the significant turning point for me on the stance of onions.
It was in my college years (yes, it took me that long to come around to onions) when I was first living in a private apartment after a freshman year in the dormitories. A fellow Korean American student had shown me a easy-to-make dinner in the way of broiling a briskly seasoned steak (salt, pepper, and garlic) with a few sliced onions thrown on top. Eating what was probably my own first attempt at cooking (outside of a home economics class way back in middle school), the meal turned out to be pretty tasty.
Perhaps this transformation of taste was due in part to a desire for something beyond the college cafeteria food experience and in part to the fact that this particular meal, onions included, involved the validation of personal choice and pride in personal initiative to prepare this dish.
What I took for granted as a child regarding the special effort that went into my mother’s cooking I could now only retroactively appreciate with this new hindsight, having joined the ranks of food preparation.
Fish is still a work in progress: I feel I don’t eat enough of it, although I have gotten better over the years. I hadn’t even acquired a taste for sashimi or sushi until my mid-twenties.
In that change I owe to a staff outing of teachers when I was teaching English in Seoul, South Korea. As the high school where I was a teacher was fitting the bill, I didn’t want to appear an ungracious guest and took a couple bracing swigs of soju (a strong Korean alcohol derived from potato and various grains that I would argue foregos taste in favor of simply trying to knock you flat on your face) and dug into my first round of sashimi, Japanese cuisine in the heart of South Korea.
I’ve been a convert ever since, and not necessarily with the stupor of an alcohol-induced fervor.
However, I don’t eat enough of fish in general, and I still have a lot of misgivings about shellfish. Why the clammy primordial residue of goo that constitutes oysters on the half-shell constitutes a delicacy still continues to allude me. And boiled mussels with their silent gaping mouths and orange-hued “tongues” seem to have a knack for making my stomach queasy.
As for my sadly misguided anti-Chinese food campaign, I think it must have been a phase I was going through when I was about ten years old. It’s embarrassing to recall, but I remember occasions where I insisted on stopping by McDonald’s before going into any Chinese restaurant. Egad, if I could just have five minutes with that kid of yesteryear…. Knowing better now, between a choice of McDonald’s and a good Chinese restaurant, the Chinese restaurant will win hands down every time.
However, I was gratified to know that I wasn’t alone among the ranks of finicky eaters. In “Picky Eaters? They Get It From You,” The New York Times article cites research that actually attributes 78% of our finickiness to genetics and 22% to environmental factors. Such a stark numerical breakdown hardly allows for the romance of taste, but it presents an interesting dilemma. If so much of our finickiness is genetically predisposed, how to we grow out of it?
Although a genetic component exists, it does not let us finicky eaters completely off the hook, as Patricia Pliner, a social psychology professor at the University of Toronto had reminded readers of the NYT article that biology is not destiny (my emphasis).
So how does this all relate back to that pithy, if seemingly ominous, phrase coined by my mother that “a picky eater is a sign of a closed mind”? I had mentioned in an earlier posting entitled “Always the Penumbra,” that just because one partakes in the cuisine of a given culture does not necessarily make one an ambassador to that culture, e.g., eating sushi or sashimi does not necessarily guarantee my sensitivity to Japanese culture as a whole.
But if we can introduce ourselves to new cultures through food, it is at least a good start, but it certainly shouldn’t be the final destination. Keeping an open mind to different cultures is about making choices that will expose one to new environments, new sensations, and new ways of thinking.
Speaking beyond just food in terms of cultural experiences, some experiences may be instantly enjoyable, others may be an acquired taste, while others still may yet be inaccessible or even unwanted, but at least the effort and intent are present. And for people to come around, sometimes it requires a little patience, i.e., if I can learn to eat onions, fish, and Chinese food, there may yet be hope in the world.
I would love to hear responses from readers about their own stories of heretofore unfamiliar or formerly unwanted foods or ethnic cuisines. What did you learn with the introduction of this new food as it pertains to the culture providing it, and more importantly, what did you learn about yourself?
