18 April 2008
This is pretty much my most popular photo on flickr. It's one Saturday's haul from last summer's farmers market. And since I don't have a photo for today's post, which is (a great big ramble) about food, I'm going to use it:
When I was growing up, I was a pretty picky eater. I'm sure I've mentioned it on more than one occasion, but it's only been in the past few years that my culinary horizons have broadened. In fact, I'm not sure they're even there, anymore. So long as it didn't used to be a critter, pretty much anything sounds tasty.
Not so when I was a kid. The vegetables I was willing to eat: cooked broccoli (just the 'leaves' of the trees), corn, raw carrots, green beans from a tin, and lettuce. And potatoes, although I don't count those as a vegetable these days.
Everything else was horrible. Sometimes it was just the texture -- I liked sour cream and onion potato chips, for instance, but eating an actual piece of onion was out of the question. I didn't mind tomato sauce, but raw tomatoes were disgusting. Actually, even tomato sauce had to be used sparingly. Pasta was accompanied by sauce on the side for dipping, and I went through a phase of squishing out all extra tomato sauce from pizza slices. I even avoided pizza altogether for a while. Weird kid. Other times it was the flavour I simply couldn't stand. Anything that tasted green triggered my gag reflex -- raw broccoli, fresh green beans, bell peppers, etc.
What DID I eat? Well, one of my favourite things was Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, which was even better after it had congealed a bit. I ate a lot of ramen, even for breakfast. I liked fried rice and lo mein, but it had to be ordered 'plain', without those pesky vegetables (it takes a long time to pick out all the peas and carrots from a plate of fried rice!). Fried chicken and potato 'jojos' (why do they call them that?) from Cub were a hit. Anything salty and fatty (Pringles, Combos, Sun Chips, crackers and cheeze-from-a-can were all ideal) or sweet and fatty (like anything with Little Debbie's face on it). Those were my favourite foods -- it wasn't all that bad all the time, but I basically just ate like most Americans.
I became a vegetarian when I went to college, but that certainly didn't mean I started eating different things. Just fewer, really. In addition to the traditionally dire cafeteria food, our campus also had a separate food service area that offered marginally better (tasting) choices, and it was from there that I was supplied with countless grilled cheeses and tater tots. Sometimes a bean burrito. Occasionally some pasta that makes me shudder to recall. There was also a campus restaurant that served nachos with cheese, garlic bread with cheese, and calzones (with cheese).
I remember making an effort to eat more fruit and veg when I lived in my own apartment. I would buy bags of frozen broccoli and tried to have some every day. I think lettuce counted pretty heavily as a vegetable. Trying to balance out the different food groups started to become important to me around this point, I think. I'd always wanted to eat healthier, but I just didn't seem to like the healthy stuff.
I don't think very much changed when I moved to London. Breakfast was usually either a bowl of cereal or crumpets with cheese or a bagel with cheese. Lunch was usually a sandwich of some sort (buying sandwiches was always difficult, what with my continuing distaste for tomatoes and aversion to pickle), or some form of potato (jacket potato from down the street, chips from the pizza place next door). Dinner varied wildly, but there was usually Quorn involved.
I started counting calories when I was in London, and it was like the structure of food had suddenly been revealed to me. Without getting into thoughts/feelings/emotions tied into the way I eat, I'll say that I felt like I'd found a way to bring order to this part of my life -- finally. I started to eat a lot more sensibly, although branching out to foods I hadn't previously tried/enjoyed was only just beginning.
I've been reading a lot lately about intuitive eating, because I'm at a point where I don't feel like calorie counting for the rest of my life will make me happy (maybe I'll talk more about that another day. . . ), but I still see the counting as a pretty fundamental part of learning how to eat. So many of us just don't have the natural cues of what's right to eat and how MUCH is right to eat, after years and years of ignoring our bodies, so bringing math into it is sort of magical for a person like me.
I'd been trying for a while, at that point, to eat the right sorts of things. Broccoli (of course), blueberries, spinach, walnuts -- all those superfoods, of course. But while SOME pumpkin seeds are good for you, eating a thousand calories' worth every day. . . is not so good for you. I started to eat in a way that made the most caloric (and nutritional, as it happens) sense: a lot less bread and pasta and starchiness, a bit more fruit (which I've always loved anyway), and lots more vegetables.
But it wasn't until I moved back to Minnesota that I really got hooked on cooking and coming up with new things to prepare for myself. The change almost certainly came with the flexibility of working at home. Who wants to spend time putting together a meal after being worn down by a London commute? Not me.
I know it's happened gradually, in one sense, but when I think about all the years I spent being SO PICKY, it seems like I just woke up one day and decided I love everything. Yeah, yeah, they all say that our tastebuds change as we age, but what kid thinks that's going to happen to her? I guess it must have happened to this kid!
Even up until last summer, I didn't like raw tomato. My lovely and wise friend Jane, I think it was, once told me that was just because I'd never had a homegrown tomato. And, of course, once my tomatoes started ripening last year, there was suddenly nothing better than a pita, some hummus, and thick slabs of tomato. There are still some things I'm waiting to fall in love with, like fennel (or anise-flavoured anything) and cucumbers (I WANT to like them, I do!), but it's a pretty short list.
So, these days I'm still picky, but it's an entirely different kind of picky. At least when there's only one thing you're willing to eat, it's enough to just find the one restaurant in town that'll give it to you (I feel so bad for everybody who had to put up with me in the past!). Now I often find myself overwhelmed with choice. Falafel? Ethiopian? Ratatouille? Curry? Veggie hoagie? Tempura? I always want to pick the one that will be just right, even though they all are.
Come to think of it, I'm still pretty annoying when it comes to picking a restaurant. Ah well, some things never change.
This sounds a whole lot like me. From the picky kid eating to the foreign country experience to vegetarianism and recent liking of tomatoes. Although I've always liked cucumber. I'm still grossed out by mushrooms and I can't stand turnip whatsoever.
posted by Amy at April 19, 2008 01:37 AM
Oh goodness I miss that farmers market! I haven't found a comparable substitute here ....almost makes me want to move back!
posted by sara at April 19, 2008 07:39 AM
Wow -- what an evolution! I never would have guessed you grew up liking Little Debbie and Kraft macaroni and cheese. :-)
I wonder if you're a super taster? I think my husband is -- he can tell the difference in the minutest change of spice level. Which is too bad because I do the cooking, and am the opposite of a super taster.
posted by anne at April 19, 2008 01:17 PM
I am also a vegetarian, and used to be an extremely picky eater as well! I think being a vegetarian actually opened up my culinary world to different tastes and vegetables! And I am so thankful for that:) I am now trying to actually cook a bit better, we will see how that turns out! I just started reading your blog and I am loving it.. I will be back! :) xo!
posted by Holly at April 19, 2008 07:12 PM