I grew up in the midwest and moved to west coast. I realized that I needed to learn to expand my taste in a variety of foods when a group of us wanted to get food after work and suggestions were getting shot down by other people because “some_guy won’t eat that.” It was eye-opening.
I eat all kinds of things now that I wouldn’t have when I was younger. But I remember the first time I ate at a vegan restaurant I felt like I’d been served a plate of sticks and leaves. Great place that I now enjoy years since.
Flip side for me: I’m from Michigan, not the Detroit area but a mid size city (Lansing) and we have a huge variety of food, albeit not a lot of choice inside some of those varieties.
I had the profoundly weird experience when visiting San Francisco of being with some people who were excited to try the new food they had never heard of called “pierogi” that a place had opened up to sell nearby.
It was perfectly good and I was delighted to be able to tell them that they in fact did want onions in their food, but it was real weird watching them get excited to try what I consider grandparent food. (It’s a food your grandparents give you, or you make a bunch of and freeze)
I think there’s a thing where certain ethnic groups “big migration wave” came too early for them to reach big populations super far west.
Good for you for being open minded to new experience. That’s what I’ve never understood about picky eaters. You will eat food your entire life. It is one of the main things you will continue to do for your entire existence. Confining yourself through your adulthood to bland or junk food purely because that was what you grew up with seems like such a waste.
*Insert caveats about privilege/access/ignorance/income (I’m speaking from the perspective of people who have the option but refuse it; those are the people I know, but it’s not a universal experience)
As a former picky eater, part of it in my case was certainly that my rural family did not know how to make vegetables. They would be boiled with some salt or sugar, no exceptions. So I thought meat good, veggies bad.
Then I dated a vegetarian and learned not only about the different ways things can be prepared (roasted, steamed, fried, baked, grilled, etc) but also other veggies like asparagus, bean sprouts, bamboo, different types of mushrooms (I know they’re fungus, but just play along with me), mock meats, straight up different types of food like Thai and Indian, and it was such an awakening. I do think picky eating is learned somewhat.
I grew up in the midwest and moved to west coast. I realized that I needed to learn to expand my taste in a variety of foods when a group of us wanted to get food after work and suggestions were getting shot down by other people because “some_guy won’t eat that.” It was eye-opening.
I eat all kinds of things now that I wouldn’t have when I was younger. But I remember the first time I ate at a vegan restaurant I felt like I’d been served a plate of sticks and leaves. Great place that I now enjoy years since.
Flip side for me: I’m from Michigan, not the Detroit area but a mid size city (Lansing) and we have a huge variety of food, albeit not a lot of choice inside some of those varieties.
I had the profoundly weird experience when visiting San Francisco of being with some people who were excited to try the new food they had never heard of called “pierogi” that a place had opened up to sell nearby.
It was perfectly good and I was delighted to be able to tell them that they in fact did want onions in their food, but it was real weird watching them get excited to try what I consider grandparent food. (It’s a food your grandparents give you, or you make a bunch of and freeze)
I think there’s a thing where certain ethnic groups “big migration wave” came too early for them to reach big populations super far west.
Good for you for being open minded to new experience. That’s what I’ve never understood about picky eaters. You will eat food your entire life. It is one of the main things you will continue to do for your entire existence. Confining yourself through your adulthood to bland or junk food purely because that was what you grew up with seems like such a waste.
*Insert caveats about privilege/access/ignorance/income (I’m speaking from the perspective of people who have the option but refuse it; those are the people I know, but it’s not a universal experience)
As a former picky eater, part of it in my case was certainly that my rural family did not know how to make vegetables. They would be boiled with some salt or sugar, no exceptions. So I thought meat good, veggies bad.
Then I dated a vegetarian and learned not only about the different ways things can be prepared (roasted, steamed, fried, baked, grilled, etc) but also other veggies like asparagus, bean sprouts, bamboo, different types of mushrooms (I know they’re fungus, but just play along with me), mock meats, straight up different types of food like Thai and Indian, and it was such an awakening. I do think picky eating is learned somewhat.