Taste

from my garden

As times passes, day by day, I make a certain effort to try new things in my kitchen.  I do the same thing with the piano music that I learn and perform and teach, and also with the movies and shows I watch, and with the plants that go into my garden landscaping.  To be sure, I have certain things that I come back to all the time that are definitives in terms of what I like, what I most prefer.  With music, on any given day I am easily in the mood to listen to Debussy's La Mer.  With movies and shows, I'm always in the mood for some Star Trek or one of my favorite baseball movies.  With my garden, I'm always happy to plant more coreopsis or weigela.  And with food, as everyone knows, I can make and eat ice cream every day without tiring of it.

However, I like to explore and discover new things as often as possible.  I think it's important to do that.  Certainly with food, it's easy for some people, I have noticed, to fall into a pattern of only eating certain things.  Some will completely eschew any foods they do not consider worthy of their refined preferences, of their refined tastes.  Others are on the opposite end of the spectrum and will not try anything that they might consider too pretentious or too elitist.  And some are simply reluctant to try anything that is not already part of their experience.  

As for me, my desire for exploration and discovery doesn't mean I will eat anything just for the sake of trying it.  I've only ever had Brussels' sprouts twice in my life and I can't see trying them again.  Liver has not made an appearance on my dinner plate in all my adult years.  I can't imagine sampling tripe ever.  How about escargot?  Probably not.  Haggis?  Doubtful.  I simply don't have any desire to give them a chance, at least for now.  

As my appreciation for flavors and textures evolves over time, I find less enjoyment in some processed foods or so-called fast foods.  While it's almost an axiom to state that these kinds of foods have less flavor than homemade counterparts, nonetheless I still sometimes wonder if I am becoming a food snob.  Then I think about it and realize that sometimes I really just crave a fast-food cheeseburger from under the golden arches in our modern-day fast-food utopia.  Sometimes I just want a bowl of highly processed cereal that at least tries to masquerade as something highly nutritious.  In these cases, I could certainly substitute something more refined, something fresher, etc.  But I don't disallow their consumption when I feel in the mood.  And thus I realize I need not fear becoming a food snob.  As long as my kitchen frequently turns out plenty of fresh roasted tomatoes, wonderful baked salmon, fresh made bread, and other similar things, a few "junkier" things are not going to do any harm in my opinion.

There's a Latin phrase I teach all my piano students that translates in English as "taste is not disputable".  I love that phrase.  These simple words can be used to diffuse any argument about why someone likes a particular thing.  When it comes to food, on a particular day I might be in the mood for baked chicken breast with tarragon butter (one of my favorite simple dinner dishes to make) or a frozen pizza from the nearest grocery store.  It might be said that one of these two choices is of much higher quality and therefore of more inherent value than the other.   But all that matters is what you crave the most, for in that moment in time taste is not disputable.