What tastes different since you were a child? page

[JoanieL]

I'm not sure if this will end up being a thread for dinosaurs, but I was wondering if the taste of any foods that you ate as a child has changed.

For me it's store bought tomatoes. As a kid, I ate them whole like one would eat an apple. As I got older, I thought I was just losing my taste for eating them that way. I had the privilege of eating a tomato from a woman who gardens, and all that childhood yumminess was right there. She explained that store bought tomatoes have been bred to not bruise during shipping, so there is more meat and less juice.

Paleobird mentioned in another thread that when her father tasted her grass fed beef, he said it tasted like beef from when he was young.

So, I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this and if so, has shopping for better sourced food given you back something you thought you no longer liked.

[naiadknight]

I can always tell when carrots are in season. It's in the sweet clear taste and how easily that outer ring breaks away for the core.
I love raw tomatoes, but only in season. Out of season, they're sad little crayon approximations that want ot grow up to be a real tomato.
For a long time, I thought I'd lost my taste for chicken. Then I realized that real chicken, that hasn't been cooked to death and has seen the outside world, tastes AWESOME.

[Paleobird]

Finding a good source of raw dairy products has brought back the yumminess we used to have when the milk was delivered in glass bottles way back when I was a kid (shortly after they invented dirt).

[Zeera]

Ha, just about every veggie I can think of tastes different (and delicious!) to me now than when I was a kid. I never appreciated veggies as a child, probably because there were so many other foods available to me that, at the time, I though tasted better. Add to that the fact that I was almost always served veggies that had been boiled to death and it's easy for me to see why I didn't care much for the flavors. Now though, I live for my daily salads chock full of about a dozen different veggies Yum!

[MissJecka]

I used to hate avocados, and now they're one of my favorite foods. I also used to swear that chocolate was disgusting, but now I know that if I make my own chocolate snacks or eat good-quality dark chocolate, it's actually really yummy. I also used to think coffee tasted disgusting when I was younger, and now I drink it black. Raw fish always grossed me out until I was in my teens.

Some things, though, never change: I still hate hate hate tomatoes (in every form except ketchup or tomato soup), raw onions (it took me years to eat them cooked; they must NOT be crunchy at all), olives, anything pickled, cottage cheese, squid, octopus, steamers, cooked mushrooms (I love them raw!), and skin/fat/marrow of any animal (it makes me feel nauseous to even SEE someone eating pig, chicken, etc. skin).

[JennGlob]

This isn't primal, but I used to love Stoffers Macaroni and Cheese. I served it once a few years ago, thinking I would still like it...was mortified. Funny what twenty years does to taste buds. I still can't eat raw tomatoes or any olives, however, I really enjoy brussel sprouts and mushrooms...couldn't choke them down as a child.

[magicmerl]

I'm not sure if this will end up being a thread for dinosaurs, but I was wondering if the taste of any foods that you ate as a child has changed.

For me it's store bought tomatoes. As a kid, I ate them whole like one would eat an apple. As I got older, I thought I was just losing my taste for eating them that way. I had the privilege of eating a tomato from a woman who gardens, and all that childhood yumminess was right there. She explained that store bought tomatoes have been bred to not bruise during shipping, so there is more meat and less juice.

Also, tomatoes go red as a response to carbon dioxide. But ripe tomatoes have a much shorter shelf life and are softer, and don't look as good on the plate in a restaurant. The solution: expose green tomatoes to extra carbon dioxide, which turns them red prematurely. So you've really been eating green tomatoes all this time

Not really on topic, but I LOVE courgettes now, and it wasn't really available as a vegetable when I was a child, but judging from my childrens reactions, I wouldn't have enjoyed it then...

[eKatherine]

When I was a kid, the only tomatoes available in the supermarket most of the year were "hot-house" tomatoes that came in a plastic tray of 4. They were grayish green with a blush of pink on them. Supermarket tomatoes nowadays are an amazing delicacy compared with those.

[Misabi]

I can't eat sugar cubes straight out of the packet anymore, or drink tea that has had so much sugar added that it's stopped being disolved and settled into an inch thick layer at the bottom of the mug.

Used to hate dark chocolate, liver, coffee (smell and taste), whisky and bourbon (but that could be a result of a BIG night on Jack Daniels when I was 16 ), avocado (a texture thing as much as anything). Now I love them all, except the boose which I can take or leave, but the smell of it no longer makes my dry heave

[Little Women]

Tomatoes are tolerable if you can get the ones that still have stems on them. They keep ripening, so they aren't pink and plastic-y.

Milk tastes WAY different if it has bght or is ultra-pasteurized. (Even bacteria won't eat ultra-pasteurized milk, it seems!)