A Picky Eater

By -
One of my Mother's favorite stories to tell people is that when I was little I was such a picky eater that I went through a phase that I would only eat white food. It's true, there was about a month of my life that I would refuse to eat anything that wasn't basically white in color. Why? I have no idea. Yet, I also have no idea how or when or why I got past it either. One of the great mysteries is why our tastes change as we grow older and develop into fully functioning adults. I am so glad I have been able to grow as a person and explore new flavors and foods because I would have missed out on so much in life if I hadn't.
When we try a new food, that memory of whether the experience was pleasant or not stays with us for years. It will be the deciding factor in whether we eat it again or not. For example, when I tried peanut butter the last time, it made it difficult to breath and I broke out in hives. So I don't plan to eat it again anytime soon. On the other hand, the first time I tried gelato it was so beautiful to the eye and the tongue that I crave it every once in a while because my experience with it was so good.
This connection between taste and experience gets a bit hazy when it comes to my past with fermented foods. In this past year alone I have had more encounters with fermented foods than I ever had before. JBK was the one who really brought to the forefront of my experience in our FYS: Rituals of Dinner. Making Kimchi was so much fun and a great experience all around. I loved getting to really get my hands involved in the cooking and create something so different from my norm. However, when I tasted it afterwards, it was not my favorite by any means. Simply not my cup of tea. This struck me as odd because in my previous experience the enjoyment I had from making the food would usually result in me enjoying the food itself. Yet, this time was different. I was determined to figure out what my problem was. 
I looked into more about fermented foods and learned that there is such a wider variety of them that I was bound to find something in that food group I enjoyed. I did, I love cheese! 
I went on to take his Smells and Bells class and went deeper into this subject when I read his and Betsy Dexter Dyers work on Cultures and Cultures: Fermented Foods as Culinary "Shibboleths". At the very beginning of this piece the term "Shibboleth" is used to distinguish one ethnic group from another. In this particular case they talk about that being the difference between those who belong and those who are just visiting. To be honest, when it went on to say those who couldn't find the joy in the traditional comfort foods such as kimchi I was afraid it may mean I'm doing something wrong. I didn't want to just visiting, I want to belong in this community. I was then comforted in my remembering that my being a part of so many events in this community and finding much comfort if the other traditional fermented foods that are mentioned (cheese and the fermented drinks that I certainly don't find comfort in yet as I am not of age) *wink wink*. In continuing my reading of this piece I enjoyed that my wanting to like the taste of fermented foods and taking part in the experiences that surround them are enough to consider myself a part of the community of people I would like to associate myself with. Who knows, maybe I'll learn to love Kimchi as time goes on. Anything is possible!


Comments

  1. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausMay 11, 2018 at 6:45 AM

    Nice. Of course, you can't cross boundaries unless you have them. That might be my mantra. It's interesting that you observed that the boundaries of taste might be both "vertical" -they exist and are crossed with age over time, and "horizontal" - group boundaries that can be crossed by acquiring tastes, especially of fermented foods. Culinary shibboleths can dissolve and change. Or maybe they just stop being gate-keepers.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The most primitive sense

By -
Image
Smell the Flowers by Kirsten Star Smell, to me, is the most primitive sense. When most mammals are born, they immediately can recognize their mother’s smell and form an attachment to that smell. Mammals like puppies are almost entirely limited to only the sense of smell until they develop more of their other senses. The sense of smell also becomes the most primitive when considering humans and the phenomenon of perfume. For years, humans hunted certain animals for the purpose of obtaining the musk produced in the anal gland. This musk in small doses can act as an aphrodisiac when put into a perfume even though it has incredibly primitive origins. Though most of Western culture has an aversion to smells considered gross or undesirable, the wealthiest of women are still willing to pay heavy prices to spray a smell once obtained from the anal glands of other animals. The sense of smell is not something that humans can control and adjust but rather it is only changed by evolution over
Read more

Cannibalism and Symbolism

By -
Symbolism plays an important role in religious ceremonies because people cannot have the divine being where they want him all the time. So they start creating ways to be in touch with God. Such as in Christianity, eating bread is symbolized to be eating God-made flesh. There are similar rituals in Judaism where they eat the food of God. A big difference between taste and the other senses is that the object that is being sensed is internalized, whereas all the other senses use an external sensation. Taste cannot extend anywhere like the other senses can. This allows the humans to have no barrier between the divine (symbolized as food) and themselves. This is the closest they can get to God, but internalizing Him.  This thought of getting the closest they can to someone by ingesting and gaining power from it led my mind to wander to the thought of serial killers that also happen to be cannibals. I know that it might be a stretch, but there are some similarities. I als
Read more

Wrap-Up Post

By -
Image
Alright, let’s tie this up in a nice little bow. I genuinely did not know what to expect coming into this class. The extent of my knowledge of the senses comes from elementary school when we had to make it a little song to get the information through our tiny heads. Beyond that, everything seemed pretty cut and dry. We have five senses. We need to use all of them to survive. It’s as simple as that. I did not know how there was enough to talk about the senses to fill an entire college course, especially one specifically regarding the relationship between the senses and religion. But the fact that we were barely able to fit all the content in before the semester ended proves just how wrong I was. Let’s talk about why that is and what some of the things I learned were. First off, even the most basic assumption about the senses, that there are five of them, was questioned immediately. The sixth sense may not have been as clearly defined as the other senses, but there was certainly a lot to
Read more