Culinary Palate

Nick and I were talking last night about food – or rather, why some people refuse to eat vegetables. We know several people (mostly girls, interestingly) who will not touch “anything green.” I find this so very odd. But I can see how it could happen.

Look at the average American diet: high fat, high sugar, low flavour. It’s easy to understand why few Americans have a palate. When you eat crap food your whole life, you’ll naturally not want to push yourself past it. Why bother developing a palate when 90% of Americans are just like you: can’t tell the difference between basil and rosemary. Look at the American food industry. Show me a chain restaurant that offers anything other than bland, sweet, fatty foods. You can’t because they are all run by the industrial fast food mindset of getting food out of a can. And the sad part is that the typical American can’t even tell that their marinara sauce is out of a can vs made fresh. Hell, the typical “chef” can’t, either. I put chef in quotes because having a culinary degree does NOT mean that you know jack shit about food, flavours and quality. I am lucky to work with a Chef who I can talk food with all day long  but chefs like that are few and far between. There are many good chefs here in Atlanta, so it seems that they are everywhere but trust me, they are not.

I’ve read that children have more tastebuds than adults and we lose them as we age, which might explain a child’s dislike of, say, brussels sprouts, which are slightly bitter to adults but very bitter to them. We have developed certain inherent likes as we’ve evolved. For instance, breast milk is sweet, which trains our palates to like sweet. This is why you start babies on veggies first then go to fruits. You want to expand that palate while you can. We’ve evolved to like fat because fat is very dense with calories which was handy when you’re outrunning a predator. We instinctively dislike bitter because bitter often meant poison when we were gatherers.

But those inherent factors are easily changed by upbringing. Look at the various ethnicities that eat very spicy foods: Indian, Vietnamese, Mexican, Thai, just to name a few. These cultures raise their children on spicy foods with not much sweet in the spectrum unlike the American diet which is all sweet and fatty with little spice. The palate can be trained. No matter what age you are, you can develop your palate and become a better cook, better shopper and better consumer of food.

You hear about developing your wine/beer palate all the time and it’s the same for food. First you’ve got to differentiate between sweet, sour, bitter, salty. Sounds easy, but if you won’t eat anything other than sweet, it’s gonna take some doing to get started. People who eat only sweets and avoid “bitter” tastes (which to them is pretty much all green veggies) don’t understand that they don’t even recognize bitter in the first place. When I’m told that iceberg lettuce is bitter, that tells me that this person needs to train their palate. Bitter would be mustard greens, bitter melon, raw green pepper, brussels sprouts – not lettuce. Such a low tolerance for flavour can be changed. You have to start by getting out of your comfort zone and trying the things you supposedly hate over and over again. Try them prepared differently. I’ve had several people have dinner at my house and exclaim “Oh, I hate [insert veg here] but this is really good!” It always makes me happy when I can help someone overcome ingrained habits of eating.

Look, I grew up in Knoxville with a mom that hated to cook and therefore was the queen of casseroles, canned food and mushy veggies. She’d pour green beans out of the can and boil them until they were mushy. I kid you not.  So, I consider myself the average American when it comes to culinary upbringing. Bland, flavourless overcooked foods were the staple. My mother only recently discovered that she liked black pepper. Yup, you read that right. She never used pepper because it was “too hot.” So when I tell you that her food was bland, dude, I mean BLAND.

If I can overcome this and learn to enjoy the world of weird foods and odd tastes, anyone can.

My mother will not eat fresh veg other than iceberg lettuce and tomatoes. She still won’t touch asparagus unless it’s canned and smooshy and won’t eat real cheese (it’s smelly) despite my years of prodding.  NO, “American” cheese slices in plastic is NOT cheese. Read the label: Cheese Food Product. Why would you eat that? Another fun fact: many Asian cultures find cheese to be extremely unpalatable. You never see cheese in Asian dishes, do you? Now, me? Yah, baby, bring on the stank. I’ve found that some of the stinkiest cheeses often have the most sublime flavours. :-)

As Nick and I continued to talk, he commented on how much being around me and my cooking has changed his palate for the better. He used to eat saltines a lot, but since I never really liked them, I wouldn’t buy them unless he asked. So he got himself a box of saltines the other day and last night he told me that now he finds them bland and not worth eating. That made me SO PROUD! He can now tell the difference between various herbs (even if he can’t name them) and he’s stopped putting too much pepper on everything. When I found him, he’d put cajun seasoning on literally everything he ate. He realised that he did that because he was searching for flavour and that was the only way he could see to get it.

It’s also interesting that when you do develop your palate and become more tolerant of bitter and sour, your taste for sweet eases off and becomes more balanced as well. I can’t stand nasty Hershey’s milk chocolate any more. I can’t stand cloying sweet drinks or pretty much anything that just tastes like sugar. I think this is a good thing. *Supertasters have an aversion to bitter. It’s MY assertion that if these people are in the culinary industry, they’ll have to get over it. I think even a supertaster can learn to deal with bitter flavours and become a good cook. It’s all in the training!*

I’m not asking that everyone be as adventurous as I am. You don’t have to eat natto or  tripe to appreciate different flavours and textures in food.

Refusing to eat a large section of foods sheerly because you never learned to eat a balanced flavour diet is to me, so very limiting.

Another of my proudest moments happened a few weeks ago when I took my friend Sonya out to lunch  at my favourite Pho place on Buford Hwy. I’ve scared her before with the dim sum carts at Canton House (I think the turnip cake did her in!), so she was hesitant to try pho. But with a little prodding she acquiesced and tried the very safe chicken pho. She loved it and actually asked for the recipe! Ha! She didn’t go for the one that the regulars like me eat (beef tendon, tripe, various other parts) but she ate real pho and liked it. Yay!

So, I maintain that if I, Nick and my friend Sonya can get over our food phobias, anyone can. Now that I’ve conquered beets (they were my nemesis from birth) I can say that there isn’t anything I won’t eat. Although I shy away from things like brains, sweetbreads, testicles and such, I’ll not rule anything out before I try it.  I didn’t care for tripe until I had it in pho, so hey, lengua tacos aren’t far behind, you know? [Update 2018: I’ve eaten chicken feet, sweetbreads, and lengua. And they are fine. I don’t crave them, but they are OK to eat!]

I always love reading articles about American food trends becoming wider. Gods know it needs to get a LOT wider and Americans need to learn to be more adventurous. How do you know you don’t like something by the way it looks? I’ve always thought that was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. So what if it looks freaky and smells, uh, different?  Try it anyway, ya sissy! :-)

Come on, sex looks painful, weird and is definitely full of smells and textures not seen every day, but did you refuse to try it? I think not. Perspective, people, perspective!

My challenge to all my flavour challenged friends is to try one food you “dislike” per week. Make a list of the stuff you proclaim to hate and make an effort to find the preparation that works for you. Try grilling that asparagus. Try slicing that zucchini longways and broiling it with parmesan. I’ll just bet that you discover that you really don’t hate it at all, you just never challenged your belief.

Now get out there and eat something weird today! Hmm, wonder where I can find those lengua tacos…  ;-) [I did finally eat lengua at The Porter. It was not bad. A bit spongy, but tasted FINE! -A]