I’ve been a picky eater my whole life. My taste buds were fine-tuned to a certain selection, and if I deviated outside that selection, then by golly my gag reflex was gonna let me know.
Mostly it was crunchy stuff, like onions, nuts, peppers, lettuce, but also tomatoes and tomato sauce. To name a few.
Enter my husband, who came from a rich food background, was a good cook himself, and couldn’t believe I once spent a month thriving on goldfish.
Thus began the war of foods.
Once it was onion powder. I was dead set against him mixing that in our steak flavoring, but he stuck to his guns and told me it wouldn’t come out in the texture. And he was right.
Another time it was tomatoes. He wanted to plant cherry tomatoes on the property, and I was against this because I didn’t eat tomatoes. We agreed to buy one plant for him, and when they ripened I ended up trying one. It wasn’t the tomatoes of my youth. I started popping them like candy and pretty soon there were none left for my husband. Now we grow multiple tomato plants. He was right again.
The most recent time was sweet peppers. Growing up I was under the impression all peppers were hot and crunchy, and no one told me differently. My husband always liked peppers, so one day I brought home a bag of sweet peppers from the store as a surprise. Then to my surprise, he chopped them up and put them on our dinner steaks. “You’ll love this,” he said.
I protested. I said he was ruining my meal. I said I would eat goldfish instead. He shushed all of that and told me to try a piece. And it was delicious.
Then we had sweet peppers with eggs and sausage and that was amazing as well. And this past weekend we had stuffed bell peppers, though that was a little hit and miss since we didn’t follow the recipe exactly and only stuffed it with meat, white sauce (for me), cheese, avocado, and tomatoes instead of the rest of the ingredients. But the pepper was very sweet. Here’s the recipe I sort of followed for that.
My husband was right again.
Now, you may be asking, if my husband is right so much, why do I question him? Because of the first time he introduced me to something.
Because of The Incident.
You see, when we were dating, I was innocent, full of endorphins, and full of trust. I liked cinnamon in small amounts, so I didn’t question when my then-boyfriend presented me with a large spoonful and said I would love this. He was a good cook and he would never steer me wrong, right?
My mouth immediately got dry as I tried to swallow. I glared at him while he busted out laughing. He then handed me some water and told me he knew what would happen yet did it anyway. “It’s called the cinnamon challenge,” he defended.
That memory lingers, but he is still a good cook.
Have you tried anything new lately?