Just Taste It

I was watching an episode of The Crown for the umpteenth time the other day.  Nothing new in that. I watch it all the time.

It soothes me.  Their posh accents, their palatial (literally) digs, their royal problems- all so removed from my prosaic cares and woes.

I absolutely ADORE the moment when Queen Elizabeth II says to her sister, Margaret, “You’re the least egalitarian person I know.”

Awesome.

Anyway, there’s a scene at a private dinner party in which the self-same spoiled brat younger sister, Margaret, is served an appetizer course of shrimp on an avocado half.

Uh oh.

It’s a well-known fact that the Royals never eat seafood. (Or garlic. ) The Palace deems it too dangerous because of the possibility of food poisoning.

Margaret struggles.  But she is spunky and rebellious, and with a WTF flourish, she gamely digs in to this forbidden fruit.

I can wholly relate- and sympathize. As an adult, I too, had a list of foods that I had never tasted- and saw no reason why I should.

Among the myriad things I thought that I hated and would never, EVER touch were:

Green olives, blue cheese, avocado, shrimp, lobster, artichokes, ham and veal.

And yet today, I have to admit that I love:

Green olives, blue cheese, avocado, shrimp, lobster, artichokes, ham and veal.

How ever did this miraculous turnabout come to be?

Simple.  It was pure peer pressure.

All my acquired tastes have been more or less forced upon me by the men in my life.

Take veal for instance.

I never saw it growing up.  But then one night in 1970 I was at Vincent Capra’s- a wonderful but now vanished Italian restaurant on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami.

My beau said, “I’m going to order you my favorite thing on the menu.  Veal Piccata.  It’s great.”

Gulp.

I started to protest but he was bossy and wasn’t having it.

“Just try it.  I swear you’ll love it.”

Gulp.

I have to report he was 100% right.  I loved it.  And I began ordering veal whenever I saw it.  (Remember this was before we discovered how cruelly the baby calves were treated.  Nowadays I never order it.  It’s way too expensive.)

I owe artichokes to my Baltimore husband.  We were vacationing in California and we  somehow landed in Castroville.  Nineteen miles northeast of Monterey, the town is nicknamed “the Artichoke Capital of the world.”

“You’ve got to try this!” The Brat proclaimed.  “These are fabulous.  Look, don’t shake your head ‘no.’  I’ll show you how to eat one.”

He did and I was hooked.

Cold, hot, stuffed, I love them and, unlike veal, I order them any chance I get.

Fast forward to 1975.  Bill Ross brought the gift of Mandarin food into my heretofore Cantonese-only existence.

The second week of our courtship, he drove me to Evanston right where it bordered Chicago.   There he introduced me to the Peking Duckling House on Howard Street.

His buddy, Zev Braun (remember him, guys?) was then married to May Ling, the owner’s daughter.  When Bill walked in, they broke out the fatted duck.

It was the first time I had ever eaten dim sum or hot sour soup or onion cake, too.

Yum.

And it’s to Bill that I owe my very first bite of lobster.  It was a restaurant in Lincoln Park called Nakanoya and they had a little stuffed lobster app that he was crazy about.

“Just taste it.  You’ll like it.”

Sure, I’ve had some bad eating moments.  I won’t go into the scenarios when I was tricked into alligator and bison.  Ugh.

But overall, I owe the gents in my life a big debt of food gratitude.

Without their relentless pressure to improve me, I would never have known the joys of eating like a grown up.

And now, you’ll have to excuse me.  I have to get back to The Crown and watch QEII and good-time Margaret duke it out.

Now where did I put that truffle salt for the popcorn?