← Columns

A Matter of Taste

The Source

I once saw a speaker in Paris draw a three-inch line on a blackboard then he said, “This is the taste range of the average American teenager.” That is, the amount of things that the typical U.S. teen will taste and enjoy. Then he extended the line another foot or so and said, “And this is the taste range of the average American adult.” Okay. . .sounded reasonable that our tastes would widen as grew older. But then the fellow grabbed a yardstick and extend the line by another 3 feet or so, nearly coving the width of the blackboard, “And this,” he said, “is the taste range of the Average European.” Interesting. Even European kids enjoy a wider variety of tastes than American adults. He concluded that although we have the widest variety of food choices of any nation in the world, we have the narrowest taste spectrum. “Look at the cereal aisle of your local store,” he said. “200 varieties of four things: oats, corn, rice and wheat.” And even though we lead the world in food allergies, I wonder if some of these allergic reactions might just be in our head and not our gut. I have a friend from Pittsfield who won’t even touch a hotdog. He said that his Chicago mother hired a neighbor lady to feed him and his three brothers every day at noon. “Hot dogs. . .every day. . .for like four years,” he said. “One boiled hot dog on a piece of bread. I never want to see another one.” And I pity my friend since he serves as head cook at the summer camp I manage, and one of the kids’ favorites meals is hotdogs. When I was young I had a terrible aversion to peaches. I guess there was nothing wrong with Georgia’s favorite fruit, but it seemed that at family gatherings they were always covered with cottage cheese, a substance I that I assumed was distantly related to cyanide. I was cured of this aversion after years of going through the Triopia lunch line with Jr. High students. It’s not cool if the teacher declines the cottage cheese. The great comic George Carlin once objected to the very existence of tapioca. He said the little globules looked like undeveloped insect eggs, and the though of those little spheres rolling around on his tongue would bring on the gag reflex every time. As to eggplant he said, “Is it an egg or a plant? Tell it to make up its mind and come to me.” My mother would never allow oatmeal or fried potatoes in our house, saying that during the Great Depression that’s all they ate for days and she’d had enough of them. A friend of mine who lives in South Jacksonville has given up any sort of chicken dish, having spent too many hours in his Franklin boyhood backyard chopping the heads off the little cluckers. He said, “When I even drive by KFC I can smell scalded feathers.” Sometimes our distaste for certain foods can get personal. Any veteran of the farm who’s had to bottle-feed an abandoned calf kept out on the back porch knows that swallowing a hamburger becomes difficult. And I had a friend who swore off sweet potatoes forever. He told me “My second wife. . . (he had a total of four) . . . had a mother whose nose looked just like a sweet potato. The woman was a monster. I just can’t stand it eat them now.” One of my Lincoln Land students won’t eat anything that’s blue. When I asked her why, she simply said, “I don’t know. Blue is just wrong.” A First World problem indeed. Of course the psychology of food works the other direction as well. I will forever love hot dinner rolls simply because I can remember the smell when Grandma brought them out of the oven, and if I’m eating at Norma’s and have the choice between dark and milk gravy I’ll always opt for the white stuff as the memories of my mother’s chicken-cracklin’-gravy comes mind. Who doesn’t hold dear a food that may seem rather run-of-the-mill to the rest of the world but it tastes heavenly to you just because of the hands that once prepared it? The guy in Paris was right. Our taste buds are probably the least adventurous in the world of palates simply because we have so many alternatives and we can always find what we want just about anywhere we want it. Anyone who has a youngster who insists upon chicken nuggets no matter where you dine can attest to this. I’ve taken kids overseas who practically starve for three days when faced with food they’ve not seen before. Had they spent more time in a world where the food put in front of them was all they had to eat then they’d have broad tastes, too. Hotdogs and all.