LIMITED PALATE



so there i am in the food court in the middle of government center in downtown boston and i'm shoveling orange chicken and pork fried rice down my throat like a guy stranded in the desert that just found a lake... hey leave me alone, i was hungry. anyway, as i'm double-fisting each bite, i think to myself that it was only 10 years ago (yes, back in high school) that i wouldn't even touch chinese food. yes, you heard that right... wouldn't go near the stuff. sure i ate rice at meals and sometimes my mom made a homemade stir-fry that i loved... but i would rather die than be forced to eat chinese food. "well isn't that strange," you say to yourself... but not so strange if you realize the very limited palate by which i was raised.

WAIT A MINUTE: before i go any further, i need to clarify that this is no way a criticism of my mother... got it???

let me explain. 5 screaming kids at home, 1 hungry husband, 2 weeks worth of shopping to stretch before the next paycheck, and 8 zillion years of being a mother and cooking meals every single day of your life... and a partridge in a pear tree! yup... you are looking at my mom's reality. let's just say, when you are dealing with all of that, it's hard to keep it fresh! why not just cook the same 12 things and rotate them around so that no one will catch on to your blatantly monotonous menu. and i say this with no sarcasm because i can't promise myself that i am not going to be my mother in another 5-10 years.

so let me give you a quick glimpse at a typical week's worth of dinner:

MON- fried chicken (mom's was great), with potato salad and corn on the cob- DELISH
TUES- spaghetti or hamburger helper (dad couldn't eat tomato based food and worked on tues nights)
WED- tuna casserole
THURS- baked chicken with backed potato and green beans
FRI- dad would either take us all out to eat or it was left-overs
SAT- mom and dad's date night... pizza!
SUN- pot roast... YES!

every once in a while there was a splash of something different, like pork chops or fish of some sort. or if ever mom wasn't home to do dinner... dad would cook up steaks! but pretty much that was it for my food experience.

NOW, lest you are all thinking that this was only due to my upbringing... let me go a little deeper and a little more into the psyche of peggy, if you don't mind. you see, peggy is a strange girl and not only am i a texture eater (meaning oatmeal and cream of wheat or split pea soup... also shrimp or lobster which is too boingy-- YUCK) but somewhere along the way, i developed some rather strange ideas about certain foods and was very stubborn and wouldn't try them... even if it meant i starved.

i.e.-

bagels- once when i was young, my mother gave me a sourdough bagel and because it was so sour... i hated it and thought that that is what all bagels were like (by the way i love sourdough now)

chinese food- i remember as a child going to a local chinese place and someone ordered sweet and sour chicken... didn't like it and thought that that is what all chinese food was like (oh yeah... love the stuff now)

just to name a few.

then there was the tragic experience with the burrito. when i was 19 i was working as a nanny for a family in ut. one night, they went out to dinner and i stayed late to babysit. they went to get me dinner and said there were these great burritos at this mexican place down the street and pete would go out and grab something for me and shelby (the baby i was sitting). anyway, pete turns to me and asks "so what do you want in your burrito?"

now, i am kind of embarrassed to admit this, but i had only ever gotten mexican food from taco bell and thought that all burritos were made up of refried beans and cheese. so that's what i asked for. after giving me a look that said i needed to be committed, he asked if i was sure i didn't want anything else in it. i was confused and rather than looking even more stupid i said YES with conviction. little did i know. so about 20 minutes later i am standing in their kitchen and i bite into a very sad pinto bean and cheese burrito. i was sorely disappointed.

later, after confessing my blunder to lori (pete's wife) she promptly marched me down to the mexican place and made me order a "loaded" burrito... and not surprisingly, I LOVED IT!

thus began my journey of opening many palated doors. i now enjoy an array of restaurants and i have come to LOVE indian, brazilian, haitian, chinese, real mexican... the possibilities are limitless. granted, i still have my weird "texture" hang-ups, but i am happy to report that i stick by my new rule of at least trying one bite... rarely do i hate what i've tried and that makes me feel like a big girl!!!