A Veggie (and Cheese) Tale

I was talking to the fellow that takes care of my yard yesterday.  We were discussing how his daughter and my granddaughter--both the same age--have suddenly decided that they no longer like certain foods that they used to love.  And my brain-gears began to grind.  Is this a result in a change of taste, or peer pressure?  Have they had some unfortunate experience that has caused this reversal?  I got to thinking about my own food likes and dislikes through the years but have yet to come up with a satisfactory answer.

I think I have mentioned before that I was raised in a family that had no limits to what they would eat.  Or at least that's the way my mother was.  I have been unable to think of a single thing that she wouldn't eat.  Not one.  Dad was a bit more discriminating, but only minorly so, since he was often hungry as a kid.  As a child, I was always suspicious of the meat my mom put on the table, but even more so if she said, "That's beef; you eat it!" or "That's pork; you eat it!"  Yeah...beef heart, beef tongue, beef kidney, etc.--all things I didn't want, not because they didn't taste good, but because of the texture--and sometimes the appearance.  Not to mention that they came from parts of the animal that somehow seemed less appetizing to me.  (I grew up  loving liver and onions, however.  Still do!  Just don't even get me started on my former husband's penchant for pork brain sandwiches!)

Except for when we lived in Hawaii, California, and Japan, we always had a vegetable garden.  My dad was the driving force in that.  The garden at the family farm was HUGE.  Dad ordered seeds from the Burpee Company every February and made sure that the ground was tilled and ready to plant the early vegetables by March.  Dad tilled, planted, and weeded.  Mom picked and processed the finished product, with assistance from anyone who happened to be around at any given moment.  When my grandmother was still alive, we took the green beans to her in her wheelchair on the patio.  She stemmed and snapped, and the process was on!  And we were "organic" before organic was cool!

There were many, many times in the summer when the entire meal on the table was home grown, except for the meat and dairy.  Bibb and romaine lettuce salads, sliced tomatoes with cottage cheese (or just plain), creamed new-potatoes-and-peas, corn on the cob, sometimes mashed potatoes, always green beans (which didn't need to be seasoned because Mom always put a big ol' blob of butter on top), red and white radishes, asparagus (OMG, the asparagus!).  It was all there.  I'm sorry to admit that I didn't appreciate it all.  Tomatoes were just vegetables to me.  My parents used to talk about how much better home grown 'maters were than "store bought", but I didn't understand it until I became a homemaker on my own.

And what happened when I did become a homemaker on my own?  I had gardens.  I had learned from my dad about what to plant, when.  One year in Pontiac, IL, I grew tomatoes that were so big and juicy that my father was jealous because his weren't quite as good.  (I loved that!)  And over a lot of years, I came to notice the difference between cooking with commercially canned tomatoes and home canned.  There is no comparison!  Now, having lost my garden for many years due to divorce, etc., I go to the grocery and pay premium prices for inferior veggies.  They call what they sell "zucchini"?  HA!  They look more like puny little cucumbers.  We had big zucchinis to burn.  In fact, my father would give them away!  Asparagus is a high-ticket veggie because it is hard to grow.  (I didn't really care for it when it was on our table for free!  Crave it now!)  The stuff the stores sell as tomatoes just don't cut it.  They are pretty, for sure....but they have no flavor and are hard in texture.  And so it goes.  I didn't understand back then.  I sure do now!

And now, let's add cheese to the mix.  My parents always had cheeses with weird names in the refrigerator:  gouda, bleu, munster, swiss, romano, limburger, etc....and some of it smelled horrific.  I wouldn't touch it.  The only cheeses that counted to me back then were American, American, and American.  Mom usually kept a block of Kraft American, which my daughter grew up on...and, of course, a block of Velveeta, which isn't really cheese at all but "cheese food"--whatever that means.  Now that I am grown up but live alone, I simply can't afford all of the scrumptious cheeses, although I have come to love them all!

So...what happens?  Do we love something, then disavow it, then love it again?  Do tastes change or just our tolerance for it?  Do people influence us by forcing things beyond our suspicions?  Is it magic or mystery?  I wish I knew.  I just know that I was spoiled by good food back when I was a child and didn't have the knowledge to appreciate it all.  I get it now, Mom and Dad!