Tastes change as you age (food)

[Underseer]

Every so often, I will deliberately eat something that I don't like just to check and see if I still don't like it.

The biggest shock of my life in this regard was liking blue cheese. Throughout childhood and early adulthood, I hated blue cheese with a burning passion. Then I ate hot wings at a place that didn't have ranch dressing, and found out that I liked it. Now I'm obsessed with blue cheese, especially any combination of blue cheese and beef, or blue cheese and salad.

Anyway, this afternoon I discovered that I now like cottage cheese. By itself as a side. Is that a sign of aging? Am I ready for a rocking chair and a bottle of Geritol?

Anyway, what changes in food tastes have happened to you over the years you've been on this planet?

 

[braces_for_impact]

I've had similar experiences with blue cheese. I'm partially of Polish heritage, and half the food I grew up with I could not stand. Now I consider most of it delicious. Saur Kraut, Kishka (blood sausage). I also used to dislike bratwurst, now I love it. Same with many spicy foods. I couldn't handle spicy growing up much, but now I like various hot sauces, horseradish, and Latino foods.

 

[DolphinDynasty]

Every so often, I will deliberately eat something that I don't like just to check and see if I still don't like it.

The biggest shock of my life in this regard was liking blue cheese. Throughout childhood and early adulthood, I hated blue cheese with a burning passion. Then I ate hot wings at a place that didn't have ranch dressing, and found out that I liked it. Now I'm obsessed with blue cheese, especially any combination of blue cheese and beef, or blue cheese and salad.

Anyway, this afternoon I discovered that I now like cottage cheese. By itself as a side. Is that a sign of aging? Am I ready for a rocking chair and a bottle of Geritol?

Anyway, what changes in food tastes have happened to you over the years you've been on this planet?

I used to love catsup and hate tomatoes. Now I love tomatoes and don't really like catsup. I used to hate broccoli no matter if raw, cooked or whatever, and cauliflower, and beets. Now I like all 3 (tho broccoli raw is still uck to me, but cooked well and seasoned is delicious).

As a kid I used to like eating pureed carrots and pureed peas, like right out of a baby food jar, thought it was the best thing ever. Now, the smell alone makes me want to vomit let alone to try and eat it. Same with black licorice, once ate a whole bag at 5 years old, got sick all over the carpet without any warning from my system, and now I hate the smell, taste and everything about it except when anise (the ingredient that makes black licorice look, smell and taste like it does) is in stroepwaffel.

I won't eat blue cheese except as a rare addition to hot wings, but if they have ranch I'll use that instead.

I used to hate fish too, and seafood, when I was little, especially sushi. But now they are my favorite foods. I know why too. First time I had smoked white fish, which tasted like bacon, and I was all for re-trying all the rest of it.

The biggest surprise though is prolly that I dislike catsup now, preferring either no sauce or some sort of mayo or mayo based version of sauce, prolly from my visiting the Netherlands, where a lot of the sauces especially at fast food places are mayo of some type or other. And that I now love tomatoes. They don't even taste the same as when I was a kid, no longer bitter and weird, but sweet and juicy.

What's up with that? I don't think its my smoking cuz it's only recently it switched out like that, and I've been a smoker since I was about 10 or 11.

 

[Underseer]

I've had similar experiences with blue cheese. I'm partially of Polish heritage, and half the food I grew up with I could not stand. Now I consider most of it delicious. Saur Kraut, Kishka (blood sausage). I also used to dislike bratwurst, now I love it. Same with many spicy foods. I couldn't handle spicy growing up much, but now I like various hot sauces, horseradish, and Latino foods.

When I was a kid, sometimes I actually liked natto (I'm half Japanese), other times I hated it. I don't think I've touched the stuff in decades.

I refused to even try sushi until I was in my early 30s.

I still don't have the stomach to try lutefisk (I'm also half Norwegian-Swedish). Although I've discovered that I really like sushi, I still can't stand cooked fish unless you count katsuobushi as "cooked."

- - - Updated - - -

Every so often, I will deliberately eat something that I don't like just to check and see if I still don't like it.

The biggest shock of my life in this regard was liking blue cheese. Throughout childhood and early adulthood, I hated blue cheese with a burning passion. Then I ate hot wings at a place that didn't have ranch dressing, and found out that I liked it. Now I'm obsessed with blue cheese, especially any combination of blue cheese and beef, or blue cheese and salad.

Anyway, this afternoon I discovered that I now like cottage cheese. By itself as a side. Is that a sign of aging? Am I ready for a rocking chair and a bottle of Geritol?

Anyway, what changes in food tastes have happened to you over the years you've been on this planet?

I used to love catsup and hate tomatoes. Now I love tomatoes and don't really like catsup. I used to hate broccoli no matter if raw, cooked or whatever, and cauliflower, and beets. Now I like all 3 (tho broccoli raw is still uck to me, but cooked well and seasoned is delicious).

As a kid I used to like eating pureed carrots and pureed peas, like right out of a baby food jar, thought it was the best thing ever. Now, the smell alone makes me want to vomit let alone to try and eat it. Same with black licorice, once ate a whole bag at 5 years old, got sick all over the carpet without any warning from my system, and now I hate the smell, taste and everything about it except when anise (the ingredient that makes black licorice look, smell and taste like it does) is in stroepwaffel.

I won't eat blue cheese except as a rare addition to hot wings, but if they have ranch I'll use that instead.

I used to hate fish too, and seafood, when I was little, especially sushi. But now they are my favorite foods. I know why too. First time I had smoked white fish, which tasted like bacon, and I was all for re-trying all the rest of it.

The biggest surprise though is prolly that I dislike catsup now, preferring either no sauce or some sort of mayo or mayo based version of sauce, prolly from my visiting the Netherlands, where a lot of the sauces especially at fast food places are mayo of some type or other. And that I now love tomatoes. They don't even taste the same as when I was a kid, no longer bitter and weird, but sweet and juicy.

What's up with that? I don't think its my smoking cuz it's only recently it switched out like that, and I've been a smoker since I was about 10 or 11.

Oh. Smoking.

That could be a factor. I quit smoking about 2 years ago. Perhaps with the increase in smell/taste, cottage cheese is now more flavorful to me?

 

[fromderinside]

Anyway, what changes in food tastes have happened to you over the years you've been on this planet?

Too many to coherently elaborate. I can't even assign situational conditions under which my taste has changed. My comments are only meant to illustrate that, as my bride recently noted, I do have good taste in things including food.

I can't trace any beginning or trend in that status beyond that I now use that fact consciously when making decisions. For me taste relates to category like good and bad blue cheese rather than this or that kind of cheese. I approve of most kinds of foods and material things. For instance I don't dislike liver and onions as I once thought, I dislike veiny liver and onions.

Some might argue with me about what I mean as 'good' though. So here is my view on that. Good relates to culturally accepted norms like Michelin ratings, government standards and standards of satisfaction, etc.

 

[rousseau]

My change in tastes have been mostly nutritional. I've never been a picky eater but I have rid myself of the bad habits my parents instilled in me when I was younger. So late teens / early twenties I was more likely to eat a lot of garbage, these days I don't crave much of that stuff. Food for me now is more about how it makes me feel, rather than how it tastes.

There are a couple things I didn't like when I was a kid, though, that I like now. Squash being one that comes to mind. As a young kid I think it was the juxtaposition of expecting potatoes and getting squash and thinking 'weird'. My mom also over-cooked red meat whenever we had it, so it took me a while until I realized I could eat it rare.

On the other hand, when I was a kid I liked escargot, but now I find it a bit strange to eat.

 

[Opoponax]

I used to love catsup and hate tomatoes...

For clarity, it's ketchup.

"Catsup" is some concoction posing as ketchup.

Ketchup.

 

[Shake]

Not exactly what you asked about, but, I'd always avoided cottage cheese as a child because I didn't like the way it looked. Then I finally tried it a couple of years ago and found I actually like it.

Back on topic: onions. Really didn't care for them when I was younger, except if they were well fried as in onion rings. Now I love them, especially raw on things like sandwiches or burgers. I don't mind the grilled onions, but prefer them raw.

 

[fromderinside]

I used to love catsup and hate tomatoes...

View attachment 15981

For clarity, it's ketchup.

"Catsup" is some concoction posing as ketchup.

Ketchup.

Nope. Whatever Heinz sez is catsup/ketchup is ketchup. All the rest are gravy or soup. Even recent commercials for Heize are wrong. Flow rate should be a consistent 2mm/sec, not first slow then gush. Sure, flow rate depends on accumulated impedance, resistance to gravity from drying at the surface, but continuous low rate should still be a very tedious, agonizing, slow.

 

[Toni]

I used to think that I hated vegetables except for raw vegetables or corn or green beans. Turns out I really like vegetables that are not cooked until a soggy, sodden, flavorless, mass that is oversalted.

There is no reason to ever, ever consider attempting lutefisk. We have modern refrigeration, freezers and other methods of preservation.

 

[southernhybrid]

I can barely stand to eat beef anymore and when I do, it has to be very high quality. I try to eat it once a week because I have a history of iron deficiency anemia.

 

[Underseer]

I used to think that I hated vegetables except for raw vegetables or corn or green beans. Turns out I really like vegetables that are not cooked until a soggy, sodden, flavorless, mass that is oversalted.

There is no reason to ever, ever consider attempting lutefisk. We have modern refrigeration, freezers and other methods of preservation.

Are you Scandinavian-American or partly Scandinavian-American?

I'm pretty sure Scandinavians find it annoying when we complain about the cuisine like that.

Back to what you were saying, almost any vegetable can be improved by roasting. Just dust almost any fresh vegetable with a bit of salt, pepper, garlic and oil, then roast it in the oven. I can relate to your childhood experience with vegetables. I grew up on overseas military bases and often the only veggies available at the commissary were frozen mixed veggies with lima beans.

I still can't eat lima beans because of that.

 

[Underseer]

I can barely stand to eat beef anymore and when I do, it has to be very high quality. I try to eat it once a week because I have a history of iron deficiency anemia.

There's lots of choices besides beef if you just want iron in your diet.

https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002422.htm

 

[Treedbear]

I've had similar experiences with blue cheese. I'm partially of Polish heritage, and half the food I grew up with I could not stand. Now I consider most of it delicious. Saur Kraut, Kishka (blood sausage). I also used to dislike bratwurst, now I love it. Same with many spicy foods. I couldn't handle spicy growing up much, but now I like various hot sauces, horseradish, and Latino foods.

Am also part Polish. Always liked sauerkraut. Recently discovered that eating some before bedtime cures my chronic nighttime acid reflux.

 

[DolphinDynasty]

I used to think that I hated vegetables except for raw vegetables or corn or green beans. Turns out I really like vegetables that are not cooked until a soggy, sodden, flavorless, mass that is oversalted.

There is no reason to ever, ever consider attempting lutefisk. We have modern refrigeration, freezers and other methods of preservation.

Are you Scandinavian-American or partly Scandinavian-American?

I'm pretty sure Scandinavians find it annoying when we complain about the cuisine like that.

Back to what you were saying, almost any vegetable can be improved by roasting. Just dust almost any fresh vegetable with a bit of salt, pepper, garlic and oil, then roast it in the oven. I can relate to your childhood experience with vegetables. I grew up on overseas military bases and often the only veggies available at the commissary were frozen mixed veggies with lima beans.

I still can't eat lima beans because of that.

Question? When you roast your veggies do you drizzle olive oil on to keep integrity of the vitamins but not have it come out so dry it's hard to eat? I find it I do is not soggy like with steaming, and holds the vitamins in still if I use just enough to sprinkle on it all. Like with broccoli and cauliflower and asparagus especially as I don't like the wetness of steaming but cant eat it if I roast without evoo

 

[Underseer]

I used to think that I hated vegetables except for raw vegetables or corn or green beans. Turns out I really like vegetables that are not cooked until a soggy, sodden, flavorless, mass that is oversalted.

There is no reason to ever, ever consider attempting lutefisk. We have modern refrigeration, freezers and other methods of preservation.

Are you Scandinavian-American or partly Scandinavian-American?

I'm pretty sure Scandinavians find it annoying when we complain about the cuisine like that.

Back to what you were saying, almost any vegetable can be improved by roasting. Just dust almost any fresh vegetable with a bit of salt, pepper, garlic and oil, then roast it in the oven. I can relate to your childhood experience with vegetables. I grew up on overseas military bases and often the only veggies available at the commissary were frozen mixed veggies with lima beans.

I still can't eat lima beans because of that.

Question? When you roast your veggies do you drizzle olive oil on to keep integrity of the vitamins but not have it come out so dry it's hard to eat? I find it I do is not soggy like with steaming, and holds the vitamins in still if I use just enough to sprinkle on it all. Like with broccoli and cauliflower and asparagus especially as I don't like the wetness of steaming but cant eat it if I roast without evoo

Heat probably breaks down some of the vitamins.

I have absolutely no idea if the oil prevents that. I would be surprised if it did. I mostly do it because every roasting recipe I see does it, to be honest. I figured it helps with browning and keeping the veggies from sticking to the pan. Sometimes I toss in a little grated parmesan to whatever it is, other times I'll make some kind of creamy or cheesy sauce to pour over it when it comes out.

 

[bilby]

I used to think that I hated vegetables except for raw vegetables or corn or green beans. Turns out I really like vegetables that are not cooked until a soggy, sodden, flavorless, mass that is oversalted.

There is no reason to ever, ever consider attempting lutefisk. We have modern refrigeration, freezers and other methods of preservation.

Are you Scandinavian-American or partly Scandinavian-American?

I'm pretty sure Scandinavians find it annoying when we complain about the cuisine like that.

Back to what you were saying, almost any vegetable can be improved by roasting. Just dust almost any fresh vegetable with a bit of salt, pepper, garlic and oil, then roast it in the oven. I can relate to your childhood experience with vegetables. I grew up on overseas military bases and often the only veggies available at the commissary were frozen mixed veggies with lima beans.

I still can't eat lima beans because of that.

Question? When you roast your veggies do you drizzle olive oil on to keep integrity of the vitamins but not have it come out so dry it's hard to eat? I find it I do is not soggy like with steaming, and holds the vitamins in still if I use just enough to sprinkle on it all. Like with broccoli and cauliflower and asparagus especially as I don't like the wetness of steaming but cant eat it if I roast without evoo

How do you know that the vitamins are still there?

Typically it's heat, high pH, and oxidation that destroy vitamins during cooking. They don't leak out; They break down chemically.

The only way to determine the vitamin content is a laboratory analysis - or you can make a theoretical estimate if you know the temperature, pH and degree of oxygenation implied by your cooking method (as measured by someone else's laboratory analysis).

Adding bicarbonate to boiled vegetables to give them colour used to be very popular, but this raises pH sharply, so it is discouraged today. Keeping food from prolonged exposure to high temperatures, and avoiding basic additives like bicarbonate, in favour of acidic ones like vinegar or lemon juice, is the trick to keeping vitamin levels up.

 

[Underseer]

Question? When you roast your veggies do you drizzle olive oil on to keep integrity of the vitamins but not have it come out so dry it's hard to eat? I find it I do is not soggy like with steaming, and holds the vitamins in still if I use just enough to sprinkle on it all. Like with broccoli and cauliflower and asparagus especially as I don't like the wetness of steaming but cant eat it if I roast without evoo

How do you know that the vitamins are still there?

Typically it's heat, high pH, and oxidation that destroy vitamins during cooking. They don't leak out; They break down chemically.

The only way to determine the vitamin content is a laboratory analysis - or you can make a theoretical estimate if you know the temperature, pH and degree of oxygenation implied by your cooking method (as measured by someone else's laboratory analysis).

Adding bicarbonate to boiled vegetables to give them colour used to be very popular, but this raises pH sharply, so it is discouraged today. Keeping food from prolonged exposure to high temperatures, and avoiding basic additives like bicarbonate, in favour of acidic ones like vinegar or lemon juice, is the trick to keeping vitamin levels up.

That's kind of what I figured, and the browning proves that the oil isn't protecting the food from chemical reactions with oxygen.

 

[bilby]

Question? When you roast your veggies do you drizzle olive oil on to keep integrity of the vitamins but not have it come out so dry it's hard to eat? I find it I do is not soggy like with steaming, and holds the vitamins in still if I use just enough to sprinkle on it all. Like with broccoli and cauliflower and asparagus especially as I don't like the wetness of steaming but cant eat it if I roast without evoo

How do you know that the vitamins are still there?

Typically it's heat, high pH, and oxidation that destroy vitamins during cooking. They don't leak out; They break down chemically.

The only way to determine the vitamin content is a laboratory analysis - or you can make a theoretical estimate if you know the temperature, pH and degree of oxygenation implied by your cooking method (as measured by someone else's laboratory analysis).

Adding bicarbonate to boiled vegetables to give them colour used to be very popular, but this raises pH sharply, so it is discouraged today. Keeping food from prolonged exposure to high temperatures, and avoiding basic additives like bicarbonate, in favour of acidic ones like vinegar or lemon juice, is the trick to keeping vitamin levels up.

That's kind of what I figured, and the browning proves that the oil isn't protecting the food from chemical reactions with oxygen.

The browning is mostly due to water being removed. Starch minus water equals sugars; sugars minus water equals carbon. The more carbon, the blacker things look.

Starches tend to taste bland, while sugars taste nice. So browned starchy foods taste better - whether it's roast potatoes or just a slice of toast. Oils and fats taste good too. Sugar, fat and salt are the keys to making food taste good.

Oils help with browning because they have a high boiling point and high heat capacity, so they allow the surface of the food to be rapidly heated to well above the boiling point of water. That's also why getting splashed by bacon fat hurts more than getting splashed by similarly sized droplets of boiling water.

 

[Toni]

I used to think that I hated vegetables except for raw vegetables or corn or green beans. Turns out I really like vegetables that are not cooked until a soggy, sodden, flavorless, mass that is oversalted.

There is no reason to ever, ever consider attempting lutefisk. We have modern refrigeration, freezers and other methods of preservation.

Are you Scandinavian-American or partly Scandinavian-American?

I'm pretty sure Scandinavians find it annoying when we complain about the cuisine like that.

Back to what you were saying, almost any vegetable can be improved by roasting. Just dust almost any fresh vegetable with a bit of salt, pepper, garlic and oil, then roast it in the oven. I can relate to your childhood experience with vegetables. I grew up on overseas military bases and often the only veggies available at the commissary were frozen mixed veggies with lima beans.

I still can't eat lima beans because of that.

My son used to preferentially pick the lima beans out of the mixed vegetables and eat them,--and then eat every other vegetable on his plate, back when we had no money and he was young and I was determined not to do what my parents did about food, etc. We were purists then and he grew up believing that an apple was a perfectly acceptable dessert.


Mostly I'm from everywhere in the British Isles except Scotland on one side and on the other, French and German from one grandparent and a lot of British Isles, especially Wales, from the other. Nothing that I've found north of that. Or south, for that matter. That said, my mother and her family--the ones who are entirely as far as I can see from British Isles, loved potatoes and cooking vegetables pretty much into submission. So did my favorite aunt by marriage who grew up in KY (only southerners in my family are by marriage and none from further south than KY). In the of the US where I grew up, quite a lot of the ancestry was either British or German. Tiny bit of French thrown in.

I've lived in part of the US filled with northern Europeans such as Germans, Polish, and yep: Scandanavians for the last few decades. Before moving here, I was warned by a native to stay away from the lutefisk. Once I learned what it was, I had no problem following his advice. Although I have to say that either the initial visual or scent would have sufficed.

- - - Updated - - -

That's kind of what I figured, and the browning proves that the oil isn't protecting the food from chemical reactions with oxygen.

The browning is mostly due to water being removed. Starch minus water equals sugars; sugars minus water equals carbon. The more carbon, the blacker things look.

Starches tend to taste bland, while sugars taste nice. So browned starchy foods taste better - whether it's roast potatoes or just a slice of toast. Oils and fats taste good too. Sugar, fat and salt are the keys to making food taste good.

Oils help with browning because they have a high boiling point and high heat capacity, so they allow the surface of the food to be rapidly heated to well above the boiling point of water. That's also why getting splashed by bacon fat hurts more than getting splashed by similarly sized droplets of boiling water.

I thought the browning was due to surface sugars being caramelized.