I’m a semi-adventurous eater in that I won’t go out the of the way to try something new, but when out with friends will give everything a try. However it’s backfired on me a few times. Mild backfires are an upset stomach or mild hives, eat this mushroom, it’s REALLY good. The big backfires resulted in a day of the Big Explosive D! Funnily both after my ex told me not to eat it! The first was extra spicy Ma Po Tofu, her sisters favorite (yeah, playing up the good future SIL again), normally innocent enough, but for some reason this one did me in. The second was a super innocent bran muffin. Again future MIL insisted I try it. Ate half and paid for it the rest of the day, BIG time! Hmmm…seems to be a pattern here.
The one I’ll never understand is her Mom’s peanut soup. Being Chinese, 8/10 times we’d visit, her Mom would have some kind of soup simmering on the stove. AFAIK, peanut soup was just raw peanuts simmering for hours, but my ex always insisted not to eat it! I did once and thankfully nothing happened. Never figured out why it was a no go.
I’ve never been able to find where I read it and I’m sure I didn’t imagine it, but there’s a Chinese saying that goes something like: “If it walks with its back to the sun or swims in the water, eat it.”
If I talked to 100 random adults from the US with access to “Chinese food”, I would not expect more than one or two to have not tried it. And I’d expect that they’d be either really young and sheltered, or older and already fixed their diet before Chinese food was ubiquitous.
I mean, it’s cheap and available as fast food, so I consider it on the level if not having had pizza.
I had a friend from Hong Kong who said the Cantonese will eat anything with four legs, except a table.
I was lucky to work in the San Gabriel Valley (just east of downtown L.A.) for years. LOTS of authentic Chinese restaurants. Good Vietnamese. Japanese. Indian. Of course, Mexican.
Occasionally, I’ll get a craving for Taco Bell tacos (they were super cheap student food), but I never think that I’m craving Mexican food. I know I’m just craving those particular “tacos.”
I was well into my teenage years before I had anything Mexican, be it Taco Bell or otherwise. I was probably over 18 before I had anything from a Chinese restaurant. Both of those things just smelled funny to me, growing up.
Pretty much like venison, yes. It was a white. I wasn’t going to spring for the perfect wine in that place, and my wine palate is kind of like my ear - tin.
Elk is pretty good, but not as good as ostrich or emu.
I know a few people who have never been in a Chinese restaurant but thanks to take-out, frozen and canned they have at least had some experience with Chinese food.
a few years back there was a story that Patrick Stewart ate pizza for the first time at age 72. The story was partially right - it was his first time eating just a single slice of pizza. He had eaten pizza before but not a single slice of pizza.
Recently, Ice-T admitted he had never had a bagel or drank coffee. So the challenge was on and he then tried them.
I didn’t have a bagel until 2nd year of college. I haven’t tasted one in decades. I might have had a sip or two of coffee as a kid but not even that as an adult.
I don’t make assumptions as to what other people have been exposed to.
I don’t know that there was one there when we were dating. I would think there would have been one near UConn, where she was an undergrad, or in New Haven. She was living in Park Slope Brooklyn when we met, and there were none there. It isn’t that she was too fancy for Taco Bell; we would stop at McDonald’s when we were on the road.
I believe the first time I had Chinese food was at the 1982 world’s fair, when I was about to turn 18. There was a Chinese restaurant in my home town as early as I remember, but I didn’t eat there until I was an adult.
Certainly it won’t. But why should I do something that I don’t want to do that doesn’t benefit anyone else particularly much. Especially why should I pay to do something I don’t like?
Certainly climate might change to such a degree my current foods become unobtainable. But not trying new foods now is not at all the same thing as not trying them when the options are eating new foods or starving. Not that I think things are going to change that much in my lifetime. But if my current options disappeared, yes, I’d change. But why change ahead of that? You seem to be saying “eat things you (will probably) dislike now, because you might possibly not have things you like available in the future.” Which makes no sense to me. “Eat what you like now, because it may not be available later” seems a lot more logical. If I’m going to have to “learn to like” something I dislike, I’d rather wait until it’s a necessity instead of doing it earlier.
Also, why does me not trying new foods mean people close to me can’t - we don’t have to eat together 100% of the time. I’m fine with other people trying new foods as much as they like - wish others could afford the same respect to me.
Also, since you’re mentioning things I find highly unlikely and talking about accepting change as part of human nature (though, as I pointed out earlier, being adventurous with life and adventurous with your stomach aren’t really the same thing), I’ll point the other point - yeah, we expanded over the globe eating new foods but lots of people died eating new foods, too. Not that that’s likely with restaurant foods at all. But since you are saying I should do something I don’t want to do just because it often benefited people in the past, I’d like to mention that sometimes it killed them in the past, too.
Hell, we wouldn’t have spread across the globe if lots of people hadn’t had children, either. Doesn’t mean I should have them when I don’t want them.
My daughter, from various stomach and allergic reactions, as well as I suspect feeling nauseous to combo of garlic and ginger, could not tolerate Chinese food as a child. Even as the rest of my family chowed down on fried rice, beef and brocolli, she would eat white rice and soy sauce. Not until her 20s would she tolerate a limited Chinese food menu, though she’s much better since adopting a vegan diet.
As to the kosher thing, my parents never had pork in any form, yet my mom loved Shrimp in Lobster Sauce at a Chinese restaurant, a disconnect I could not fail to observe, even when younger.
Thank you for all the interesting and very varied responses. I am now of the opinion that, unbeknownst to the child me, my parents were fairly adventurous eaters (for Idahoans) and exposed me to ethnic foods where available. Also, being a picky eater was simply not an option for me or my brothers. So I grew up in an atmosphere where it was expected and advantageous to have a broad and flexible palette.
Now off to start my next “Is it odd for an adult American…?” food thread.
also there was a Chinese restaurant popularity atomic explosion in the 80s-2000s across the country that hadn’t happened since the 20s so not many remember before the 80s when there might only be a chop suey place in the biggest town in the county in most places that weren’t port cities ….
Theres a journalist that’s become something of a accidental historian of Chinese food and the culture that surrounds it named Jennifer 8 lee her first book “the fortune cookie connection” is a great starting point