I feel that my family is somewhat limited to what we eat. I remember hearing a story when I was little that my mom had an allergic reaction to fish while cooking it. Ever since she had that allergic reaction she has never touched it again. Because my mom never eats it, I have grown up thinking that fish is disgusting and that the smell is terrible. I have attempted to try salmon, shrimp, and calamari. I have to admit that the salmon I tried was terrible. However, the shrimp wasn’t bad because I thought that it kind of tasted like chicken. The calamari was gross to me simply because of the texture of it. The taste wasn’t all that bad but the texture steers me away from wanting to eat it again. Now that I think about it, fish has always been a “don’t” in my family. A “do” in my family is “peanut butter.” I remember my dad taking out a jar of peanut butter along with a loaf of bread. He would spread a ton of peanut butter on one slice and fold it over. He could eat maybe three of these for a meal. At one time in my life, in elementary school, lunch meat made me feel sick (it sometimes still does today) so everyday in my lunch I would eat a peanut butter sandwich. I thought this was interesting because after watching the video in class yesterday, I found it quite odd that people from other cultures really thought peanut butter was the most disgusting thing that we as American’s eat. To wrap it up, I will probably never like fish and I was always love peanut butter because that is the way I was brought up.
Ishige, Naomichi. The History and Culture of Japanese Food.
Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: The Eater’s Manifesto. New York: Penguin Press, 2008.
5 comments:
A good example of how foods that we eat or don't eat while growing up tend to stick with us. Even trying to eat those foods that we once found to be gross can be a not-so pleasurable experience, largely based on preconceived notions. I know that meatloaf was always an elusive and scary meal in my house growing up, and I had tried it later on knowing that I would hate it, and whether or not it tasted good or not, I had set my mind on it not being good, so it wasn't.
I agree. The selection of foods that an individual grows up on generally tend to stay "built it" when they make future food choices. Personally, my reaction to some unfamilar foods is a true unpleasant taste. How much of this is actually mental is hard to say. As a kid my grocery store job was to get the gallon milk with the purple top- non fat.I drank it with every meal, including my 2+ bowls of cereal in the morning. Now, I feel very unsatisfied and deceived when I am forced to drink 2%. To me its not real milk, it will never taste right. But I can say that had I grown up with 2%- I would probably be knocking nonfat.
I was intrigued how your family helps form the do's and don'ts of a meal. I have the opposite situation in my own family or at least when it comes to seafood. I am not one to eat any shellfish, considering everyone else in my family loves it. I've never come to a resolution to why that may be. Yet, I think you also raised an interesting thing about texture of foods. I love salmon but raw salmon sushi style has not reached my approval. It could even just be the preparation of foods which makes it more appealing.
like wise I can definitely relate to the "peanut butter" bit but in a weird way. Skippy and Jiff peanut butter are chalk full of stuff that can't be good for you but I just love all the aspects of a good slice of bread folded over some extra chunky Skippy just from having it in my child hood. I thought that when I switched to natural peanut butter I thought I would love it only to find out that I just couldn't stand it! The only organic peanut butter that I can stand is Adam's but I would pick Jiff over Adam's any day. As for calamari I like it especially because of it's texture. It tastes delicious and I love having a slightly rubbery texture to chew on for a little while.
i could see fish being gross though. like if you think about it, the texture is just wierd, all slimy, so yeah i could see not eatiing it.
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