The food groups

On Monday, I wrote very briefly about not being exposed to certain foods as a kid. Subsequently, Adult Peter didn't eat the food that Child Peter was unfamiliar with. I therefore had two options: stay the course or branch out. My brother took Option 1 and to the best of my knowledge, he still eats the same food that we were raised on. That's fine, of course; we ate a lot of good food with a decent variety back then. I've managed to branch out a little more, and I think all of my new foods came about in one of three ways.

Category 1 is something I mentioned ever so slightly in Monday's post. I shall call this the "I've Never Tasted the Food I Don't Like" category. These are foods that were sometimes around what I was eating but I avoided because I "didn't like them." The one that immediately jumps to mind for this is a little something I like to call the sweet potato (or "sweet potatoe," as a certain former VP might write). At around age 28, I was having dinner at my parents' house with some family, and amongst other types of food, there were sweet potatoes that came with whatever we brought in. Someone started to pass them my way and asked if I liked them. "No," I said, "although I can't say that I've ever had them." We went around the table, and my mom, dad, and brother all echoed my exact sentiments. Feeling a little bold, I went for it and took a bite of one. "This is going to sound really stupid," I said as they all watched me, "but this actually tastes like a sweet version of a potato." Naturally, they all made fun of me for a minute, but then I encouraged them to follow in my trailblazing footsteps. After one bite, my mom said, "He's right; it's just like a sweet...potato!" The same was true for the others too, and we all wondered why it had taken so long to try that harmless little yam out. (I'm still not on board with putting marshmallows on them - that looks nasty enough that I might not try it until I'm in my 60s.)

Not all branchings-out are successful though. The whole world seems to love cream cheese, but my family didn't. In actuality, I hadn't ever tried it because no one ordered it in my family and it certainly didn't make its way into the house. So one day, someone brought bagels and cream cheese into a class of mine without any other options. Butter, margarine, or regular cheese would've been fine, but none were there for my ingesting. "What the hell?" I thought. "Everyone likes this crud, so let's give it a shot." Yeah, it's not my thing. I didn't like the aftertaste at all, and I ended up throwing away the rest of the food. Oh well, I tried. (This is the point in which one of my friends can't wait to post something about the time I enjoyed cream cheese frosting on some cake before I knew what it was. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I was childish, and once I knew it was in there, I could taste it and therefore didn't like it anymore. It wasn't especially good frosting to begin with.)

The next category shall be called "Peter, the Daring Taster." These are items not even remotely related to things we ate in our house growing up. First off, the whole subject of fish must be addressed. In the Klein household growing up, the fish I ate consisted of frozen fish sticks and canned tuna. That's it. I remember Kevin and I tried and liked fried shrimp as kids, but I think that was more to do with the "fried" than the "shrimp." Due very largely to the influence of my lovely wife, I now enjoy many types of fish. It started slowly with a taste of salmon here, a bite of halibut there. I grew to really like it (especially swordfish), much to the confusion of my immediate family. They can't understand how I like sushi - which I do quite a bit - and my mom makes a face every time I mention it.

The other item that comes to mind in this category is tofu. My mom still makes a face for that one too, and I can understand because I made that face myself years ago. Also because of my lovely wife, I took a chance and tried it. It went from "ok" to "not so bad" to "I actually enjoy it" in a pretty short span. It's become a regular item in our food repertoire, and we'll order it in place of chicken in certain Thai dishes every time and gobble it up.

If tofu weren't so weird to my immediate family, it would belong in my third category: "Indifference Becomes Enjoyment." This one is reserved for foods that have always been around the food I ate growing up, but I managed to avoid it. It wasn't that I "didn't like" them, it was truly indifference. The prime example of this one is broccoli. I'd occasionally order stir-fry at a restaurant or have it at someone's house and broccoli would be in there. It was the type of thing where if it was on my fork with something I wanted to eat, I'd eat it. At the end of the meal though, there would be a little pile of the uneaten veggie sitting there. I'm not sure how it happened, but it went from just being ok with broccoli to seeking it out in the stir-fry. A little while later, I was even ordering it. It was a fairly quick progression and one not spurred by anything in particular. My indifference toward broccoli just dissipated and I realized that I actually liked it quite a bit. (By the way, Dana Carvey is singing "Chopping Broccoli" in my head now and probably will be for hours. It's a funny SNL sketch if you haven't seen it, and I'm sure it's online somewhere. Let's try this out.)





Overall, I'm very pleased with the way my food options have grown. I'm still a very unadventurous eater compared to a lot of people, but I'm the daring food rebel of my immediate family. Gentle readers, do any of you have foods that fall into one of the categories I've made up? You must, right? I'd love to hear about them, so comment away. Have a good day, everyone, and I'll see you here tomorrow for another Sorry Honey It's Thursday.