Sensible Tirade Trying new things in our adult years can have amazing results. You may have also said no, by default, because some told you that it wasn’t your thing. Perhaps a parent or older sibling told you that you don’t like mustard and then one day by accident you pick up sandwich from the catering table and take a bite without looking.
“What is that amazing flavor?” you asked to know one in particular as you ponder everything you have missed out on in your small life.
As it turns out – it’s mustard. You like mustard. Yellow mustard, spicy mustard, honey mustard. You love it all and didn’t know it because you believed what someone told you when you were four. All of those hot dogs on summer cookouts, those burgers from the tailgate – all of those memories could have been better.
My discovery was eggs. I was told by my parents that I didn’t like them. Apparently, I would eat scrambled eggs as a toddler. One day I spit them out. Now, I don’t know if this was one time of rejection or if it became a frequent thing. What I do know is that between the years of 1982 through 2009 I was strictly eggs non-grata.
Maybe it was a bad egg or a rogue ingredient. All I know is that throughout childhood I was reminded I didn’t like eggs. So I believed that. When someone asked me if I wanted scrambled eggs, I would politely decline and say I didn’t care for eggs.
This caused a juvenile breakfast palette. Mornings consisted mostly of breakfast cereal.
During my young adult years I developed a taste for hot food. Sauce, spice, peppers – I’ll take it all please and thank you.
One morning I was having breakfast with a friend at the local pancake place. Usually I would get a big stack of pancakes with a side of bacon, with black coffee. The pancakes were covered in butter and syrup. I dipped the bacon in the syrup.
This particular morning I was craving something savory. More flavor, less sugar. I noticed the hot sauce on the table. People put hot sauce on their eggs.
Hot sauce. On Eggs.
Why again was I not eating eggs? I hadn’t attempted eating eggs (with the exception of food containing eggs as an ingredient) because I had always believed that I did not like them.
I needed to take an inventory. The loaded omelet in the picture on the menu showed peppers, onions, three kinds of meat, and a ton of cheese – things I could pour hot sauce all over! The only offender was the eggs wrapped around all of those delicious other bits.
This meaty, cheesy, spicy thing also came with a side of pancakes – so I was safe. The worst possible thing that could happen is that I wasted the eggs. I could pick out the stuff I liked. Sometimes you have to jump through these mental gymnastics to try something new. On this day I was ready to up my breakfast game.
So I order the omelet. I was a little nervous when it came. Palettes change as we get older. We crave more complex flavor. But would this actually work for me? I poured hot sauce on it. If I truly do not like eggs I thought, I can cover the flavor and enjoy the rest. I was determined not to waste $11.99 for breakfast.
As it turned out it was amazing. I cleaned my plate. Then I went to the grocery stored and bought a dozen eggs. I learned how to make six kinds of omelets. Now, I eat them every day.
Life is like this. You are convinced so hard that you don’t like a thing that you miss out on the thing.
Then you discover the thing.
Then you get bummed out because of all the time you wasted not doing the thing.