how to acquire tastes for foreign cuisine

July 10, 2005 8:02 PM

how might a westerner acquire tastes for foreign cuisine? (like, the gross stuff).

such as the following:
bugs
fermented (ie. nato/fermented soybeans) (smells like feet)
pickled (pickled eggs)
raw (seal meat)
organs (eyeball, brain)
fluids (cobra blood)
certain vegetables: (beets)
certain textures (slimy)
the aftertastes of disagreeable things that stick with you

id like to know if anyone has adopted a cultures entire cuisine (not just a few things) and how they did it.

what we think tastes good and doesnt taste good has to do with what we were raised to eat, and aside from that a possible taste acquisition (also taste aversions can be acquired to poorer quality foods once better quality foods have been tasted). i think the key is in understanding how the palette of say, japanese food works and beginning to appreciate how everything fits together. some things are delicacies for which a taste must be acquired, some are just eaten because they are widely available. but there is definitely a coherent 'cuisine' which explains why all of the vegetables are pickled, for example. and if i understood that then maybe i could start to enjoy the pickled vegetables with my sushi or what have you. am i on the right track? (ie. i dont think the answer is just eating the thing until i like it because i think i could easily develop a taste aversion due to the negative aftertaste of the experience). any tips on how to clear aftertaste?
but this is all theory... any veterans?

posted by GleepGlop to food & drink (17 comments total)

My advice after having worked extensively in China, was to try everything offered and eat what I liked. There are some things that taste terrible (fermented tofu - smell not of feet, but more like diapers to me) and I don't continue to eat them.

I think the key to enjoying and acclimating to a foreign cuisine is to get past eating things that have an emotional distaste. Textures and types are easier to get past then tastes. I wasn't that keen on eating chicken or goose feet, because they look just too much like the appendage, but would mentally just force myself to go only on whether or not it tasted good (they do, just as much as chicken wings taste good to me). Getting past foods that have weird textures is also easy if you just focus on if it taste good. You get used to texture.

Items like bugs are tough from an emotional point of view for most westerners because we just don't eat them - like dogs or cats. You don't have to eat any of those things, but if you don't have any philosophical issues, just try it once and see if it tastes good. You'll get past the "look" if you come to find it pleasant tasting.

Don't try and force yourself to eat stuff that just tastes bad. You'll likely never get used to it and it doesn't do anyone any good for you to force it down. If you like half the things on the table, just eat those things. I have rarely found that there wasn't a wide assortment of vegetables to choose from or fruit to eat when other things seemed unappetizing.

Again, the key is you can get over texture and emotion, but it is tough to like something that tastes like a used diaper.
posted by qwip at 8:32 PM on July 10, 2005

One idea is to travel hungry. You'll be grateful to eat anything in a foreign land after missing a few meals. Keep alcohol on hand, and buy drinks for locals. You'll get drunk and feed well.
posted by Rothko at 8:32 PM on July 10, 2005

Read The Man Who Ate Everything. He'll tell you how to do it.
posted by librarina at 8:48 PM on July 10, 2005

Sorry, not the best link ever -- I was overenthusiastic.
Try this link.
posted by librarina at 8:49 PM on July 10, 2005

its true that there are usually other options, but id like for one to extend my culinary horizons and secondly travelling is cheaper when you are willing to eat what the locals eat.
being hungry may allow me to stomach food (maybe), but im not sure if coming to enjoy it would necessarily follow...
hey, the man who ate everything, sounds like good reading!
posted by GleepGlop at 8:51 PM on July 10, 2005

gastronomy: the relationship between culture and food. anyway bed tyme for me.
posted by GleepGlop at 8:58 PM on July 10, 2005

Learning to Eat Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten, in Slate's Omnivore
posted by mecran01 at 10:27 PM on July 10, 2005

When I went to China, I wanted to expand my culinary horizons. I ordered the weirdest thing on the menu I could find (fried scorpions). One trick I've used with success is to pretend its fake (i.e. somebody took some real food and made it *look* like something gross).
By the way, the scorpions tasted like fried dust. Washed it down with some local beer ... and decided to move on to other, more mundane foods.
posted by forforf at 11:01 PM on July 10, 2005

Oh god, Natto is just awful. I can't fathom how anyone eats it.

Raw foods are great thought. Try basashii (Japanese-style raw horse with green onions) if you ever get a chance. It's really just a mental thing. Most strange asian food is very, very good...

Except natto.
posted by SweetJesus at 11:07 PM on July 10, 2005

mecran01's link seems to be the introduction to Steingarten's book, which I linked above (The Man Who Ate Everything).
I have found it (the book) pretty useful, except there are some things I don't want to learn to eat -- like natto. Ew ew ew ew. I don't think it necessarily makes one a bad person to dislike certain things. In Steingarten's case, though, he was hired as a food writer and "feared that [he] was no better than an art critic who becomes nauseated by the color yellow, or suffers from red-green color blindness." I'm not a food writer so I'm allowed to dislike shrimp or veal or still-beating cobra hearts ... right?

GleepGlop, you might also like A Cook's Tour, by Anthony Bourdain. He goes around the world and eats weird shit. It's pretty awesome. I knew I was back from vegetarianism for good when I didn't cringe at the part where they slaughtered the poor widdle lambie in the middle of the street and bled it into a bucket.
posted by librarina at 12:03 AM on July 11, 2005

I would have to say that you really understand how you can change eating habits now all you need to do is try it. If it's an aftertaste you are worried about you can either make sure to have plenty of beer/ water/ etc. ready to wash it down and also go to a highly recommended restaurant. I remember the fist time I had sea urchin it was in the States at some new sushi restaurant and immediately caused a gag reflex. Did I stop eating it due to an adverse reaction? Yes, until I was stuck at a bank dinner in Japan and was served a sea urchin prepared and served in its shell. I really did not want to eat it, but I had to show gratitude to my host. So I sucked it down and, well, it turned out to be really good and I learned how to read a sushi restaurant in America. I'm also confused as to the pickled vegetables that you mention with sushi. Is that the ginger or are you getting a side of pickled vegetables? The ginger is more of a palatte cleaner than an actual foodstuff. You should take a piece or 2 before you start of different sushi. I don't think it's a great taste but it helps enhance the sushi.

I do want to point out though that several of the foreign cuisine you mention isn't foreign at all- beets, eyeballs, brains, pickled eggs. I don't see how they're really foreign as my grandparents grew up eating that stuff. I think it's more of an agricultural thing than a foreign thing. And beets. I don't think I've ever had beets outside of American cuisine. So, I can't really help you there as I grew up with some of the stuff and don't think of it as disgusting. But natto- still disgusting to me but I know people who ate it everyday for breakfast. It's one of the few foods I know that you need to keep eating to begin to enjoy.
posted by rodz at 6:29 AM on July 11, 2005

I'm also confused as to the pickled vegetables that you mention with sushi. Is that the ginger or are you getting a side of pickled vegetables?

I'm assuming GleepGlop is referring to the daikon, cucumber, burdock, etc.- the Japanese name totally escapes me right now.

Part of the key, to me, is understanding the culture and why people eat what they do. Take pickles- Japanese pickles taste completely different from Western ones. Why? We make our vinegar from grapes, they make theirs from rice. Why? Climate. The Japanese also value a textural quality they call "succulent" and we call "slimy". Why? They're a seafood-based culture.
posted by mkultra at 7:44 AM on July 11, 2005

oshinko, that's it...
posted by mkultra at 7:48 AM on July 11, 2005

I do want to point out though that several of the foreign cuisine you mention isn't foreign at all

It's true... the limits of mainstream American cuisine have become, really, quite narrow, especially among my generation (I'm 23. Come to think of it, I'm not sure what my generation is) -- most of the (white) people I know shudder at any traditional ethnic foods like sauerkraut, corned beef, etc. They haven't even come to terms with Western cuisine, let alone Eastern.

Nonwhite people are, so far, better off :)
posted by dagnyscott at 8:23 AM on July 11, 2005

Here, here. I always used to marvel at people who freak out "OMG Sushi! I don't eat Sushi!" because to me it's one of the most wonderful cuisines in the world.

Then, one day, I went to a "bad" Sushi joint. I was in a different city and it seemed pretty from the outside in a good area so I went in. The decor was ok and I ordered some Sashimi and a roll or two. Yow! The salmon arrived and it smelled like a fish market. If you're not familiar with Sushi, that means it's old or been handled poorly. Sushi should not smell. So right away, knowing Sushi, I called the manager over and said OMG WTF?

He proceeded to chastize me that they get their fish every day. And I got testy and asked him why did he serve the 4 day old stuff then? Bottom line, if I hadn't known what I was looking for, I would have been served awful food, and been told it was prepared as it should.

I now understand why some people shy from Sushi.

As far as bugs/weirdness, everywhere I visit I make a point of trying to hit the local cuisine. Gator tail , as in Alligator, was my most interesting dish but least satisfying. Maybe one day I'll try bugs/grasshoppers/etcetera...
posted by cavalier at 9:20 AM on July 11, 2005

Many non-French Canadian North Americans freak out over tartare and sweetbreads (thymus). I never understood why. What's the difference between eating really good, clean raw beef and cooked beef? And sweetbreads are just about the least offensive tasting meat product out there - they are more subtle than the mildest pork, the texture is often as meaty as steak (and certainly less "organ meaty" than liver), and they are simply delicious.

I don't know if it's just personal opinion (or maybe ALL of this is purely subjective) but well-done meat just seems less tasty to me. Not disgusting, but less flavorful. I'll take beef as rare as the kitchen is allowed to make it every time. Just a bit of browning on the outside, and raw in the middle.

I thought the fried crickets in Thailand were tasty but looked gross. I'd eat 'em again.
posted by luriete at 12:05 PM on July 11, 2005

As a midwesterner who never ate ethnic food until college who just had natto for dinner last night, I would offer these suggestions:

* Find someone who appreciates the food to be there with you so they can ensure it is prepared properly and you have someone enthusiastic to share with. They can also usually help prepare you by offering an explanation of what it might taste like - salty, sticky, gooey, etc. - so it won't come as a surprise. Some things are new flavors, though, so don't rely on the description completely.
* Take the time to find out what qualities are valued in the food before you eat. Learning why Chinese place high value on shark's fin or seeing the importance of proper natto preparation can help you intellectually prepare for the actual consumption.
* Some things are an acquired taste and really will take a few meals before you enjoy it. You may have experienced this with coffee or beer or broccoli, you may yet experience it with something like stinky tofu.
* See if you can have it as part of a dish with flavors you know you like. Not possible for everything, but it may help you take that first bite.
* Have someone you know prepare it for you, preferably a loved one or a parental figure. Sheer politeness is a powerful force at making you clean that plate, by which point you may at least get used to it.
* Remember how weird some of what you like to eat is. Whether it is cheese or cow's milk or peanut butter or cheetos or mushrooms or whatever, you probably eat something that other people find gross.
* Have contests with people to find out what the grossest thing they have eaten is. If you lose it will provide extra encouragement to eat that bug next time it is offered!
* Finally, remember that you don't have to love everything. Try it a few times, if it doesn't do anything for you, avoid it in the future.
posted by babar at 12:13 PM on July 11, 2005