How tastes change
It takes mere minutes of flipping through old photo albums to realize how tastes can change.
How come I thought a feathered, poufy hairdo might be the right choice for me? How about that much-too-large-for-me neon green sweatshirt? Bell bottoms? And let’s not even begin to talk about white sunglasses …
Our food tastes also change over time. In fact, two of my favourite foodstuffs — coffee and olives — were on first tastes absolutely the most horrid things I had put in my mouth. Today it would be difficult to imagine life without either.
Of the senses, taste — because of its direct link to brain stem development — is one of the very first to develop in utero. A growing human fetus begins to recognize changes in taste of amniotic fluid in the early months, as sense of taste is closely linked to neural pathways that begin the process of digestion, among other things. Our hunter and gatherer ancestors relied heavily on their taste buds, too, as they foraged the Savannah in search of nutritious food.
Relying on the five innate types of tastes recognized by humans and most animals, our ancestors pieced together a diet that would keep them healthy: A sweet taste (1) indicated an energy-rich foodstuff; mostly carbohydrates. A bitter taste (2) often indicated something toxic and to be avoided. An acidic taste (3) was a warning of spoiled food, while a salty taste (4) was suggestive of minerality which helps with electrolyte balance. The fifth taste: umami (5) was an indicator of a good protein source as the taste is most easily understood in terms of animal proteins (beef broth, scallops, blue cheese).
All humans come with this anthropologic innate taste preference, so it is not so difficult to understand why foodstuffs that are bitter (coffee, olives), or acidic (lemons, cheese) are ones that need to be ‘learned’ to be appreciated.
This is where how we are raised, and what we are exposed to influences how our tastes change: they are culturized for the most part. And the old parental adage to ‘try everything once’ may not be enough. Studies show that food acceptance — that place where we can override our innate taste metric — takes as many as five to 10 different exposures to a food before we are able to ‘overcome.’ I don’t remember five difficult cups of coffee, but it doesn’t matter, I’m there now.
Hailing from P.E.I., Canada’s lobster land, I am forever shocked by stories of cultural peer pressure in the middle part of the past century that saw kids of lobsterfishing families arriving at school with fresh lobster rolls in their lunch and feeling embarrassed — lobster at that time possessing a distinct smell of poverty — to the point that these kids would trade off their rolls for a processed bologna sandwich. Shocking and absolutely taste changing. Processed bologna?
Even in my own family I have encountered this form of ‘taste peer pressure.’ I recall the day our eldest boy, the most fearsome and adventurous eater of our three, returned from his first day at school. I had made his favourite meal in celebration: grilled salmon with asparagus. Having spent only one lunch hour with an ‘outside’ force, he summarily threw away his asparagus with the definitive proclamation: “I don’t eat green stuff.”
So much for taste, I thought, it will doubtless change. — Ross Midgley moved from P.E.I. to Niagara in 1999. Since then he has held the lead position in several of the region’s top kitchens. He can be reached at chefrmidgley1968@gmail.com.