Food Evolution

As a kid I was a pretty picky eater. The list of foods I did like was probably a lot shorter than the list of foods I didn't like. I didn't like onions, beans, tomatoes, pretty much all vegetables, pears, peaches, strawberries, lemons, limes, berries of any sort, melons (pretty much most fruits except for apples and bananas), peanut butter, meatloaf, turkey, fish and seafood, sushi, salad dressing other than ranch, and the list goes on. It was pretty ridiculous. I didn't eat turkey at Thanksgiving dinner for years.

I've actually grown up a lot as far as food goes. I slowly learned to eat most of the stuff served at Thanksgiving (except for that nasty cranberry sauce). I grew to tolerate more vegetables (squash, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans and many others) and fruits. I'll now happily nosh on strawberries and grapes and I'll even do berries and peaches in cobblers. Once I went to college and moved away from home it's like a switch went off in my brain and I suddenly decided to like food. I saw my friend eat a peanut butter sandwich for a snack once and thought 'hey, I bet that'd be pretty good!' and it was! And so now I eat peanut butter. The strangest thing was the time I woke up one morning with a serious craving for sushi. Sushi was something I had never eaten before in my life and always shunned it as 'bait'. So I tried it and OMG, it was pretty much one of the most amazing things I've ever eaten and now it's one of my favorite foods. I love spicy food now. I'll eat pretty much any sort of ethnic cuisine. I love sushi, mexican, chinese, japanese, indian, ethiopian. I'll pretty much try anything.

My last hurdles of Pickiness have been beans and raw tomatoes (I'll eat them in any form other than sliced raw. I love salsa, spaghetti sauce, and sun dried tomatoes). The whole point of this blog post is that I've overcome one of those hurdles. I think I officially like beans now. I willingly and knowingly made beans and rice for dinner and I ENJOYED it. Sure I've had sweet baked beans as a side, and I've had some refried beans in fajitas. I've had a bite of them here and there and tolerated them but never really sought them out. They weren't the main feature of any dish. Just some minor bit part to play a supporting role to the real stars of dinner. Well not tonight. They were up front and center stage and they were tasty. The bean hurdle has been conquered.

Who knows...maybe one day I'll learn to like raw tomatoes too. Maybe that will be my ultimate adventure in foodland.