Food snobbery

How is it that a person can go her whole life - well, the first 15, 20 years or so - not liking a food, or never trying a food, and then find at 18, 19, 20, 21 that she actually loves that food? I've decided that my children will be offered everything. EVERYTHING. haha. Because - well, I love my parents dearly, but they just didn't really offer me a huge variety of foods. Well maybe they did, but I was a picky, bratty child then. In FSN I learned that you're supposed to keep offering children new foods, no pressure, just have the food available and try to make it look appealing, and eventually they will try the food. If they try it and don't like it, still offer it occasionally and they'll probably start liking it. Children's taste buds are a lot more sensitive than adults', so it takes awhile.

But I didn't like weird things, like milk. I hated milk until I was like 16. Now it's a necessary supplement to several meals.

My first real food epiphanies started happening my freshman year of college. It was slow at first - I think my major breakthrough that year was red meat. I never used to care much for red meat. Carne asada, steak, hamburgers. I still don't love it or the way it churns up my insides and makes me feel all bricky, but I do enjoy the taste, so I eat it once in awhile.

After that breakthrough it was all downhill, especially when I lived in Vienna with a Hungarian cook. When you're dirt poor and all you have to eat, really, is what someone offers you, you start taking them up on their offers. We got breakfast every morning and dinner once a week. I learned to like so many foods. Kiwi. Bananas. Pomegranates. Cream cheese. Borscht. Peppers. I had never thought of liking stuffed peppers, but wow, those things are good. Nectarines. Rye bread with cheese and jam, for heaven's sake. When I realized I was eating too much bread, I got on a lettuce-wrap-full-of-soft-cheese-ham-and-peppers kick. Fruit tea - I actually got into the habit of afternoon tea.

There are so many foods and food combinations out there that I probably never would have tried if I hadn't been "forced" to. The funny thing is though, I wasn't "forced" (though if I hadn't tried so many new "free" things I would have been significantly more hungry) I just suddenly had a desire to try them. Maturity, I don't know.

Anyway, so having this new-found non-pickiness, I found myself trying everything. I had never realized how much food I had never tried, or professed not to like. Oatmeal, for instance. Omelettes. Lamb kebabs, roast duck, tofu, Indian food, stuff like that. I only recently started enjoying strawberries and I picked up a plum a few weeks ago, bit into it for the first time and really liked it! I know I'm sounding juvenile, but hey, it's liberating.

Only I've realized recently that I'm not actually the non-picky eater I professed myself to be. Sure, I was trying more new things, but more and more I've found myself not wanting to eat certain things. I suppose "food snob" would be more accurate than "picky eater." Another side effect of FSN, I suppose. Macaroni and hot dogs, for example. I will never again eat that. Never. Hot pocket? Rather not. Chicken nuggets? Please. Tater tots? Hash browns? I shudder at the thought. Oh, and carbs without a protein? White bread? Anything processed, in a package or a can that contains more than 50 percent of my necessary sodium...? I really don't think so. And where's the vegetable?

OK, so that degenerated into me making fun of myself, but it is that bad sometimes. Part of it is Matt's influence as well.

So you see, being a food snob is in some ways just as bad as being a picky eater. I'm certainly not so rude as to voice my objections if someone is feeding me. And I'm probably a lot healthier now than I was in my picky-eater days. Eliminating Rice-a-Roni, I suppose, is better than abstaining from bananas, for example.

But sometimes, I really, really, really miss eating Spaghetti-O's for dinner. Just Spaghetti-O's. No meat serving. No vegetables, no fruits, no whole-grains. Just the O's.

And actually, I still think tofu is gross.