I don’t really remember being scarred at the dinner table growing up. I remember having to TRY all foods, but not being forced to clean my plate and choke down every morsel of food on the plate. Maybe I’ve just glazed over the dinner table memory portion of my life, I don’t know. Regardless, the only thing I remember being forced to do was to TRY each food. As I have grown up, I’ve found that the trying has developed into liking new and different foods, and I’m thankful that I didn’t have the option while younger of turning up my nose to foods permanently.
But one thing that I have recently thought about, stewed upon, and smiled about was how my tastes have changed over the years. You see, growing up, there were things that my parents ate (and liked). I remember thinking that normal people just don’t touch these foods, yet my parents ate them with pleasure. Two of those were Triscuits (with pimento cheese spread) and shredded mini-wheats.
I remember going to my Nana’s and Papa’s and being served Shredded Wheat for breakfast (at that time, who knows if the mini wheat had been invented yet…). One ‘little’ shredded wheat pellet was more the size of an entire loaf of bread and to make matters worse, it was served with lukewarm milk. Anyone that has ever had to eat cereal with lukewarm milk knows the agony that this causes with every bite consumed. At that very moment, it was a deal clincher in my mind that FROSTED (MINI) WHEATS were most definitely for stopped-up old people.
Another memory I would have would be meals on the Meyers’s family vacations. Inevitably around lunch time, Dad would run into a grocery store somewhere in Podunkville to grab some lunch as we tooled down the road in our Suburban, 4 kids and 2 adults in tow; destination: Timbucktoland. I suppose that going into a grocery store with 4 kids would send any sane parent into cardiac arrest–and it was probably because of this that dad would go into the grocery solo while the kids sweat to death in the car, waiting for our lunch. He’d come back lugging an arsenal of miscellaneous foods, and it was inevitably predictable that part of that arsenal were TRISCUITS and PIMENTO cheese spread… Without hesitation, I would pass on that snack e.v.e.r.y. time. Pimento cheese spread was for the birds, and Triscuits were worm food. DISGUSTING. I remember trying to decide how anyone could favor the combination and actually LIKE pimento cheese spread…to make it worse, to eat it with something as offensive as Triscuits about made the bile rise in my throat.
Recently, I found myself with a hankering. I took a lunch break from work, perused the grocery store and decided upon something that 14 years ago would have caused me to question my normalcy. For the first time in my life, I bought pimento cheese spread. I was forced to laugh about the turn of events and called my dad to tell him the news: I had actually bought what I once despised.
Another revelation recently has been how I’ve actually bought mini-wheats and enjoyed them, though for trademark purposes, the ones I get are called Mini-spooners, if you care to know. Regardless, I actually enjoy the taste of them. What once was considered a despicable & disgusting food has now become a favored one.
Given my new track record, perhaps Triscuits may be all I eat one day. Eek. I hope not.
So my question to you is: What is one food that you a) HATED as a kid, b) would have NEVER guessed you could ever even tolerate it, but c) now you actually favor it as an adult?
