Re: Ratatouillehappy_hackerJuly 10 2007, 18:46:03 UTC
Certainly one's palate changes over time. I recall vinegar especially was intense enough to make me gag when I was young, whereas today I eat it with pleasure in a wide variety of foods.
There's a gotcha in there. As home-cooked food has become more a luxury item and less the way most of America eats, the quality of ingredients that are available has risen, just as the quality of food at bulk chain stores (McDonalds, et al) has fallen off or been compromised.
When I was a child, nobody I knew had ever tasted balsamic vinegar, let alone routinely cooked with it, so the vinegar which I was so badly disposed to was the cheapest of cider vinegars, so the comparison might not be exactly fair.
You may be right, though, that one has to be in one's 30s to really appreciate food as a sensual experience. Perhaps this is because from puberty through one's 20s, there is really only one sensual experience the average person is interested in. I would assert this as true for males, and would not be at all surprised to find it holds for females as well.
So where does this leave our foodie children? I don't know. On the one hand, they lack the maturity of palate or brain/hormonal state to really appreciate food like their elders do. On the other hand, they're far more adventurous, willing to experiment with technique, knowledgeable of what is, at least on paper, good. Whether this carries over into a willingness to taste and explore more than we were ever comfortable doing is something I can't answer, not having children.
There's a gotcha in there. As home-cooked food has become more a luxury item and less the way most of America eats, the quality of ingredients that are available has risen, just as the quality of food at bulk chain stores (McDonalds, et al) has fallen off or been compromised.
When I was a child, nobody I knew had ever tasted balsamic vinegar, let alone routinely cooked with it, so the vinegar which I was so badly disposed to was the cheapest of cider vinegars, so the comparison might not be exactly fair.
You may be right, though, that one has to be in one's 30s to really appreciate food as a sensual experience. Perhaps this is because from puberty through one's 20s, there is really only one sensual experience the average person is interested in. I would assert this as true for males, and would not be at all surprised to find it holds for females as well.
So where does this leave our foodie children? I don't know. On the one hand, they lack the maturity of palate or brain/hormonal state to really appreciate food like their elders do. On the other hand, they're far more adventurous, willing to experiment with technique, knowledgeable of what is, at least on paper, good. Whether this carries over into a willingness to taste and explore more than we were ever comfortable doing is something I can't answer, not having children.
-Jim
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