Tuesday 7 August 2012

APPETITE FOR LIFE

Quite a lot has been written about acquired tastes.  I find it interesting that children don’t immediately like some foods, or love others, and then change.  Over Christmas, Isaac said quite clearly, ‘I love Cheddar cheese.  But I don’t like Caerphilly cheese.’  In fact he said it so often that we had to tell him to change the record.  Anyway, it turns out he’d never actually tried Caerphilly cheese and, when persuaded to try it, had to be stopped from eating the whole block.  Actually there is very little he doesn’t like eventually.  Meanwhile, Tom likes Philadelphia cheese sandwiches and Marmite rice cakes and pasta with pesto, but it’s the devil’s own job to get him to even try anything else.  And that’s usually accompanied by all sorts of ‘yuk!’ noises. 
 
And of course there’s the whole child/adult thing – kids tend not to like Cabernet Sauvignon or Brussels sprouts until patiently forced into them.  Later they come to love them both (or else).  Actually, now I’ve tried raw vitamin K as a sprout substitute, my mind is wavering a little and I keep thinking of that liquid stuff when I look at sprouts.  So ‘Yuk!’

In fact, I have to say, my taste has changed entirely.  It’s a very strange thing.  I still have no appetite at all.  At meal times, I try very hard to think of something I fancy, but the only thing I seem to come up with is sausage casserole, that dish that was the first I ate when I stopped being NBM.  Perhaps I have to re-eat everything I’ve ever eaten to get my taste buds and imagination working again?  There’s not too much wrong with my taste buds in fact; many things I’ve been given to eat have been quite tasty.  But some are still so-so.
I went into the café at the hospital the other day to wait for my old lady and ordered a flat white.  It wasn’t very nice.  This morning, as I usually do on a Saturday, I went to a café and tried a latte with a shot of vanilla.  That was OK.  But it didn’t make we want to go back anytime soon for another one.  What’s going on?  

Friday I had a glass of Pinot Grigio.  It didn’t really do much for me.  On our walk last week, I had a speculative half of HSB (the local brew), when I might perhaps have fancied a tomato juice (horror of horrors!), and it tasted so nice that I ordered the other half.  I also ordered the steak and ale pie and chips that the other two had ordered, because I couldn’t think of anything I really wanted to eat.  And that was delicious too.  So some things are working.  But ask me now what I’d like to eat and drink and I suspect steak and ale pie and HSB won’t be very high up the list.  But then nothing will be HIGH on any list.  Doesn’t it make you feel sad?!  On the other hand, I don’t think I really care very much.  But last night I tried a drop of Rioja and that was lovely!  I’m going to try another tonight if I can be bothered.

So maybe I've reverted to childhood.  Perhaps I should try Philladelphia cheese sandwiches?

Tonight, to celebrate Chinese New Year, we’re having spring rolls, sweet and sour something and black bean sauce or some such stuff like that.  I don’t know. 

No comments:

Post a Comment