Taste

My elder brother came to visit us recently, after working in the United States for more than ten years.

One afternoon I took his family to a food kiosk selling the local street snack "eggettes." That's real Hong Kong style mini-pancake made from special frying pan and served hot. I didn't realize that it is my brother's son, but not his father, who loves these eggettes the most.

Thinking about the changing taste with age, I am often reminded of my experience with cotton candy. As a boy I had not much chance to have cotton candy. I grew up with the belief that cotton candy is one of the most amazing foods in this planet. You'll never know how big a loss that was for me to get a chance to try, and then disappointed by, cotton candy in a carnival many years later at Edmonton. That doesn't mean the cotton candy wasn't sweet. It was. The candy went down sweet, but once done, little substance remained, and even that vanished quickly.

The message is: You can't – and, in fact, you're not supposed to – know exactly what your taste looks like when you get older.

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott offers a great lesson about olive: "It's an acquired taste. It is not easy to pop that round odd thing into your mouth. But as you grow up, some things you didn't like, because they're strong, become absolutely delicious."