Changing Tastes

[John in Covina]

One thing that can happen to a person of deserning tastes is that your ability to taste may change. Short term changes can be part of colds and allergies, illness and emotional state as well as the weather can affect you ability to taste, and change what tastes good at what time can come into play.

Age often brings a change in tastes such as likes and dislikes. Sweet things are set aside and savory or pungent may come into play. For me I can now eat brussel sprouts (up to 3 pieces) without having to make faces or have heavy sauces.

Sometimes in pairing food with drink we find that each item effectively changes the appreciation of the other. (At the restaurant Valentino's in the Venitian Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas, we had a wine pairing dinner. The pinot noir wine was not a favorite until we tasted the paired duck liver dish. Magically the wine changed to something exquisite and the dish was much enhanced by the wine then.)

Some people work from lighter sweeter wines and move to heavier and drier over time. Many move from lite beer to heavy ones as their tastes become educated.


Do you have a story to illustrate a change in tastes?

Or maybe a horror story of tasting something you were hoping to like but wound up being replused by the flavor?

 

[rkwilker]

As a kid I hated coleslaw. In my advanced age I have found I like the stuff. Go figure. [huh]

 

[dnjan]

I started drinking dark beers in order to actually have flavour in a beer (as compared to the corporate beers mostly available back then). With the increased availability of microbrews as well as imports I have moved to more amber beers, since they the have flavour without that burnt taste that comes from some chocolate and most black malts.

 

[Cricket]

As a child, I loathed dressing. At Thanksgiving time, I would make a face anytime my Maw Maw would try to plop a spoon of it on my plate. Now, I find that dressing takes up the majority of my plate, especially with the addition of gravy.

I am such a picky eater. I am trying to open up and try new things. I was shocked that I purchased a fine selection of cheeses at the supermarket yesterday. I loved it! Normally, I would push cheese to the side of my plate.

I would also be very interested in taking a wine pairing class. They offer some at a gourmet cooking school in a nearby city. I might have to try it. Could be a great investment because I am clueless with what wine works best with what food.

 

[Selvaggio]

When I was at university I worked part-time in 'fine wine' shop for a few years. The guy who ran it was very knowledgable and would spend some time each week with myself and the other guy who worked there sampling different wines which he thought would be interesting or educational.

As a result I developed a pretty good palette and was, back then, able to pick grape varieties, region and the quality of a wine quite accurately.

These days (some twenty years later), I don't drink so much wine and, whilst I can still pick a good wine from a bad, my palette isn't what it used to be! I do wonder whether it is a case of use it or lose it or if it is just the, ahem, natural aging process kicking in....

 

[Artie]

When I was a kid I couldn't even be in the house when my parents were cooking sauerkraut, now I love it especially on hot dogs which is another food I didn't like as a child.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When I was little, I couldn't stomach tomato sauce in any form -- it literally made me sick. Eventually I figured out it wasn't the tomatoes that bothered me, it was the onions that were usually in the sauce. I have a violent allergy to onions, so if they're absent from the tomato sauce I like it just fine -- and now I can't get enough.

 

[Foofoogal]

As a child I would cry when I would walk in and my mother would be cooking cabbage. Now I love it.
I also hated spinach as a child and now eat it in various ways.

I don't care for artichokes much at all and eggplant of course if one doesn't know how to cook it.

 

[23SkidooWithYou]

I'm okay with artichokes and eggplant, always have been.

As I child, I had a hard time (impossible is more the word) with raw tomatoes and raw cucumbers. I have always been able to eat tomatoes in cooked form, sauces, stewed, stuffed and baked. I just couldn't eat them sliced on a sandwich or in a salad. I'm now okay with them raw and really enjoy a nice tomato sandwich so long as I remove the slimy part with the seeds.

Cucumbers? Still can't do it. Can't even handle the odor! If they are in a salad and I pick them out, I can still smell them on the rest and find it difficult to eat. The strange thing is that Dill Pickles are one of my favorite foods!

 

[PrairieSunrise]

I tried duck last year for the first time, with high hopes of how it would taste. And I can NOT stomach it. Gaggggggg!

As a kid I couldn't stand scallops, or chicken salad with mayo/honey dressing, nor did I like macaroni and cheese. Now I love scallops and macaroni, but I still can't stand chicken salad.

 

[JimWagner]

I seem to be losing my sense of smell as I age. It's still there, but not nearly as sensitive as before. Accordingly quite a few foods seem almost tasteless now. That hasn't really translated into liking or eating things I didn't used to though.

 

[dnjan]

Cucumbers? Still can't do it. Can't even handle the odor! If they are in a salad and I pick them out, I can still smell them on the rest and find it difficult to eat. The strange thing is that Dill Pickles are one of my favorite foods!

Totally agree! A raw cucumber is the waste of a perfectly good future dill pickle!

Somehow my daughter ended up liking raw cucumbers. So if we go out to eat, both my wife and I end up passing my daughter the cucumber slices from our salads.

Just to get back on topic with the thread - when I was a kid, I did not like cheese. My upper limit was cottage cheese.
Now, I always keep a couple of cheeses around, and often skim through menus to see if the restaurant offers a cheese plate.

 

[cptjeff]

And I hate pickles any place other then a hamburger, but love cucumbers. Different strokes and all that.

As a kid though, I hated spinach. Not it's my favorite vegetable. Oh, and lentils. I've acquired quite the appetite for them. I also can no longer stand cream soda.

 

[Traut]

I had a hard time loving chocolate egg creams. I think the name had something to do with it.

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

Oddly enough, my tastes haven't changed a lot. There are some food items that I like now, that I didn't have available as a kid (1960's). My FIRST Mexican food was in 1979 at Taco Gringo. Oriental food at 20, and my first Cajun food was even later. I didn't eat liver, white gravy, hard boiled eggs, sardines, pickled herring, or cottage cheese as a kid and I don't eat them now. I started drinking coffee at 3, with my grandma. I started taking it black at 13 (family reunion, couldn't get to the milk and sugar).

One thing that changed was that I now eat Catfish. I started eating it at about 40 years of age. After I caught one in my Granny's farm pond (cows drank there among other things), I didn't like the smell of catfish. I finally tried some farm raised catfish that was fried in really hot grease, and it's good. Another change was in the opposite direction. My Mother believes that Jello is one of the three main food groups including meat and vegetables. I quit eating jello in college and haven't touched it since. It's not that I DON'T LIKE jello, I'm just still tired of it. Green Jello with Del Monte Pairs chopped up in it or Orange Jello with Del Monte Peaches chopped up in it, or the worst Orange Jello with shaved carrot parts.

One big change with age is my attitude about eating. I don't eat food that I don't love, if it's not healthy. French Fries are an example. Fries are a starchy way to conduct grease into your system. I prefer my grease in the form of butter, not lard or vegetable oil. I still eat fries, but not nearly as often. I can eat mashed potatoes, but I don't find them on purpose anymore.

Later

 

[BinkieBaumont]

I'm okay with artichokes and eggplant, always have been.

As I child, I had a hard time (impossible is more the word) with raw tomatoes and raw cucumbers. I have always been able to eat tomatoes in cooked form, sauces, stewed, stuffed and baked. I just couldn't eat them sliced on a sandwich or in a salad. I'm now okay with them raw and really enjoy a nice tomato sandwich so long as I remove the slimy part with the seeds.

Cucumbers? Still can't do it. Can't even handle the odor! If they are in a salad and I pick them out, I can still smell them on the rest and find it difficult to eat. The strange thing is that Dill Pickles are one of my favorite foods!

"I hate raw Tomatoes, Cold, Wet, and icky!" but love pasta sauce?"

 

[Hepville]

My lasting horror in food are tomatoes.
I like soup, ketchup, sun dried in pasta or pesto... but I never was able to eat it untreated... it´s really funny.
From time to time I give it a try but when it comes near my mouth it´s over.
When I was younger I didn´t liked beetroot and paprika... now I like them.
Over the years my liking for any kind of booze declined... from time to time a beer or long drink is all by now.

 

[Puzzicato]

I thought I hated zucchini, brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower. Until I realised that it was just that my grandmother was a terrible cook. Now they are among my favourite vegetables!

My taste in wine is changing. Until recently my favourites have always been the big, tanin-y, bituminous Australian shiraz types, but gradually I am developing an appreciation of the lighter, French style red wines.

 

[Tomasso]

As a child I recall asking my parents how they could possibly prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate. They told me that when I grew up I too would prefer dark chocolate. They were right.

 

[Chainsaw]

Cosmopolitan

Toronto's fairly cosmopolitan. So you can get anything from Cantonese, Texas fair, African, Tibetian, et-cetera. I used to love hot sauce, from from green Tabsco to Habenero. My favorite was a fantastic homemade Scotch Bonnet and Lime juice "peppa' sauce". I gave up all the hot sauces though, and went back to European horse raddish. My stomach thanks me for it.

I lost my taste for the Chinese buffets, and Dim sums too. Funny, I don't even cook using my "100 year, happy long life food" style. It was a Hybred of Taiwanese Temple cooking, and European food stuffs.

I think I'm going to start eating more traditional cheese's and breads, like Asiago, fresh paramsean, Havarti.

I want some decent perogies too. I can't stand the cr@p sold in the supermarkets.