Because my Dad was in the military, I was a gypsy child, moving from South Texas to Alabama, to Virginia, and then to points around the world. But our eating habits followed us like ghosts.
"Fish" meant catfish rolled in cornmeal and fried in bacon grease. With scary foods we encountered in our travels, like fish-eye soup in Tokyo, I mulishly refused to eat anything new. In Paris, the dreaded special was Escargot — no matter how much butter and garlic, they were still snails to me.
At 18 I left home for college. Invited to stay with a classmate over Thanksgiving, I was undone by her mother's announcement that we'd have swordfish steak for dinner. I imagined the fish's long, wide snout and bill displayed in the marine version of a suckling pig, with God knows what in its mouth instead of an apple. But I'd been taught to be polite and knew I'd have to eat and smile simultaneously.
Its divine texture and flavors changed my life.
I know now that much of taste depends on smell, that beyond sweet, sour, salt, and bitter, "flavor" is really "odor." Small wonder that as I stand by the ocean my scent-memories awaken a souped-up palate.
"Fish" meant catfish rolled in cornmeal and fried in bacon grease. With scary foods we encountered in our travels, like fish-eye soup in Tokyo, I mulishly refused to eat anything new. In Paris, the dreaded special was Escargot — no matter how much butter and garlic, they were still snails to me.
At 18 I left home for college. Invited to stay with a classmate over Thanksgiving, I was undone by her mother's announcement that we'd have swordfish steak for dinner. I imagined the fish's long, wide snout and bill displayed in the marine version of a suckling pig, with God knows what in its mouth instead of an apple. But I'd been taught to be polite and knew I'd have to eat and smile simultaneously.
Its divine texture and flavors changed my life.
I know now that much of taste depends on smell, that beyond sweet, sour, salt, and bitter, "flavor" is really "odor." Small wonder that as I stand by the ocean my scent-memories awaken a souped-up palate.
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