The incredible expanding palette

I love pretty much all real foods. I say "real foods" because, while will eat almost any fruit or veggie, you couldn't pay me to eat a fast food hamburger. I love trying new and different foods, but this is actually I very recent interest. I guess I am a beginner foodie.

When I was 17, I was a picky eater: the only fruits I would eat were green apples and grapes (not the red ones, eww), the only fish I liked was salmon, and there were many veggies I avoided. In college, I became a lot more open minded very quickly. Some keyfood revelations
  •  I learned to love the salad bar and the vegetarian line in the dining hall, which actually had a great variety of fresh vegetables. Spinach, asparagus, squash, zucchini, etc.
  • I learned to like strawberries on Sunday mornings when the dining hall would have a chocolate fountain! Yes, every Sunday, a chocolate fountain. So I started dipping strawberries in the chocolate and eventually ventured to *gasp* eating them plain! 
  • I learned that the triple berry smoothie in the dining hall was so delicious! I can't believe I went so long without eating berries...now they are my favorite.
  • I learned that red grapes actually taste a lot like green green grapes. I also discoveredblack grapes :)
  • I tried other types of fish and loved them. I also briefly worked at a sushi restaurant and discovered my love for raw fish!
  • I tried a real sweet potato (aka not cooked with butter and cream and covered in marshmallows) for the first time in the dining hall and then ate one every day for my first two years of college.
  • I tried a balsamic marinated portabella mushroom and instantly became a mushroom lover!
  • Tofu!! It just needs to be cooked and flavored correctly. My personal tofu cooking experiences have been disastrous, but there is a vegetarian restaurant in Athens called the Grit that does it perfectly. Their best dishes (according to me) are the teriyaki tofu wrap and the curried veggies with sauteed tofu. Yum, yum, yum. 
  • Green apples are still my favorite. Especially with cinnamon and almond butter.
Always delicious!

There are still some foods that I just can't make myself like:
  • hate peanut butter, peanuts, and anything that has touched I peanut. I don't know why I have such a strong aversion to this taste. The smell used to make me feel nauseous. While the smell doesn't affect me as much anymore, I still can't eat it. However I love all other nuts (almonds and pecans are my favorite).
  • Tuna from a can is nasty, but seared ahi tuna is amazing! I can't believe these things come from the same fish...
  • Peaches. I'm from Georgia, so this is terrible, but I really just don't like them at all.
  • I have trouble eating a banana by itself. I've sort of been forcing myself to like bananas because they are such a good pre workout food! They are useful in smoothies. I do enjoy them in oatmeal or with almond butter (or both!). They are also good warm with cinnamon :)
  • Oranges. I wish I liked them, but I don't.
  • Olives. Black or green. Bleh.
  • Anything too spicy. I can't taste my food if my mouth is on fire!!
Oh, shoot. I stayed up too late. This is more addicting than facebook. I'm off to bed, but first a random quote and a question:

Random Quote:
"You can tell a lot about a fella's character by whether he picks out all of one color or just grabs a handful." Ronald Reagan explaining why he like to have a jar of jellybeans at important meetings

Question: Would a true foodie pick out one color of jelly beans or just grab a handful?

4 comments:

Sara said...

I will eat almost anything, but I am picky about making sure stuff is good quality! Why waste the calories on something that doesn't taste that good? I grab a handful of jelly beans, but pick out the flavors I don't like (hate licorice and buttered popcorn!)

Anonymous said...

Yay for real food!

Anonymous said...

Yum, all of your food revelations are the same foods that i adore :) i like all the foods that you hate too, but i do despise olives! the only jelly beans i like are the sour ones! yummm, i would snatch those up in a heartbeat

Anonymous said...

Sweet potatoes are my favorite, favorite, favorite food of all time. I eat them so often at school - they're so versatile but delicious alone as well.

Unfortunately, the Denison dining hall never allowed me discover many new delicious foods. However, I became a huge stir-fryer my sophomore year because of the stir-fry section they opened in the dining hall, and I concocted different variations of stir fry with all sorts of vegetables and meats at least 3 times a week for dinner. It's definitely the one dish I've enjoyed the most since coming to school.