ONE BITE BEFORE JUDGEMENT

I have a question.

What is the least appetizing food you have ever eaten?

I'm not asking about something you simply dislike. We all have foods we don't care for. I'm talking about the food that made you want to get up from the table, excuse yourself politely, and run far, far away.

The funny thing is that my answer has changed over the years.

Like many people, I started cooking a lot more during the global pandemic. Some of those skills were born out of necessity. Restaurants were limited, schedules were strange, and if you wanted something good, there was a decent chance you were going to have to make it yourself.

What I didn't realize at the time was that knowledge comes with a strange side effect. The more you learn about food, the harder it becomes to dismiss it.

You start understanding ingredients. You learn techniques. You learn why people eat certain things in certain places. Before long, foods that once seemed odd begin making a little more sense.

Take salmon.

For years I wasn't a fan. The oils gave it a flavor that just didn't appeal to me. I would politely pass and move on to something else. Even now it isn't my first choice, but I understand it better than I used to.

Then there are anchovies.

For most of my life they were firmly in the "absolutely not" category. Tiny salty fish? No thank you.

Then I traveled abroad for cooking classes and found myself eating pintxos topped with shrimp, anchovies, and all sorts of other things I would have previously avoided. Suddenly those little fish weren't the villain anymore. They were balanced, delicious, and part of something bigger than themselves.

Funny how travel can do that.

Of course, we have all had another experience too: the well-intentioned meal that somebody absolutely annihilated in the kitchen.

You know the one.

An elder in the family cooks a dish they have been making for forty years. Everyone else is smiling politely while chewing through something that resembles a punishment more than a meal. The recipe may have been good once, but time, tradition, and stubbornness have combined into a culinary hostage situation.

We've all been there.

But if I am being honest, I do have an answer to my original question.

Years ago, I attended a business lunch with the Senior Vice President of my company. We went out for sushi.

At the time, I was a complete sushi novice. I didn't know nigiri from sashimi and my ordering strategy consisted of pointing at something on the menu and hoping for the best.

The waiter nodded, disappeared, and eventually returned with my selection.

What arrived was eel.

I remember staring at it for a moment, trying to convince myself that this was a perfectly normal thing to put in my mouth. Everyone else at the table seemed perfectly comfortable. Meanwhile, I was conducting an internal risk assessment.

Being a professional, and wanting to make a good impression, I picked it up and took a bite.

That was a mistake.

To this day, I am still searching for the proper adjective to describe how not in love I was with that piece of sushi. Let's just say that eel rhymes with a certain three-letter word that accurately described my opinion at the time.

The texture caught me completely off guard. The flavor wasn't what I expected. My mouth and brain immediately began arguing with one another.

Unfortunately, I was seated directly across from the Senior Vice President.

I was trapped.

I couldn't spit it out. I couldn't excuse myself. I couldn't create an international incident in the middle of a business lunch.

So I reached for a napkin.

Then another.

And another.

Let's just say that by the time I successfully navigated that bite of eel, the restaurant's napkin inventory had taken a measurable hit. Somewhere in the back of the house there was probably a busser wondering why one table had consumed enough paper products to service an entire wedding reception.

The funny part is that today I would probably try it again.

Maybe I would even like it.

That is the strange thing about food. The foods we reject today sometimes become the foods we appreciate tomorrow. All it takes is a different cook, a different preparation, a different place, or simply a few more years of experience.

That philosophy has become a rule in my house.

You must try something at least once.

One bite. One honest attempt. Then you can make your decision.

If you truly don't like it after that, fair enough. Nobody is required to love everything.

There is another rule as well.

In our house, food is nutrition. Food is effort. Food is agriculture. Food is culture. Food is someone's labor.

Because of that, we do not call food "disgusting."

You can say it is too salty. Too bitter. Too spicy. Too fishy. Too sour. Too rich. Too soft. Too crunchy. You can explain exactly why you don't enjoy it.

But we respect the food.

We respect the person who prepared it.

We respect the farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and producers who made it possible.

Most importantly, we respect the fact that there are people in this world who would gladly eat the meal sitting in front of us because they may not know where their next meal is coming from.

So what is the least appetizing thing I have ever eaten?

Today, I suppose the answer is eel.

Tomorrow?

Who knows.

Maybe I'll order it again.