The Aging of Tastebuds

Being the youngest child, I didn't ever have the luxury of knowing my grandparents the way most people do. I know this is a grand assumption that is certainly case specific but I have sparse memories of them from my childhood even though my last surviving grandparent passed when I was 21. Thing is you don't really appreciate them like you should at a young age. My family has always been spread far and wide, or at least distant from each other, whether this is emotional or not as well is another story. Grandparents to me were birthday checks and holidays, the September visits on their way to Illinois or trips to see my grandma in Cameron. Vague memories at best. The interesting thing about my father's parents though is I can see practically where my father came from, which is where I'm going here in a roundabout manner. (On the other hand, my mother seems to have more in common with her parents than my dad does, although due to my youthful ignorance that may be a complete falsehood)

Cooking was something my family has always been good at. We seem to have a knack for the practical aspects and also enough loose screws to perpetuate accidental brilliance which is the best way to describe my father's cooking. However, as a child, you seem to lack the ability to comprehend what is happening before you. I love taking care of my nieces and nephews because I know my sister can cook yet they all exhibit the childhood penchant to eat chicken nuggets and corn dogs until they grow fat, old, and happy. Times like those remind of how I was as a child and I look back and shudder.


My parents and grandparents are/were gardeners. Most people hear that term and assume a plant here and there. In my family, this means building fortresses to protect the corn and having vegetables, to my best recollection, planted somewhere random in the country in Iowa. We can the vegetables and hold to a horribly hot* summer life of subsistence. The problem with gardeners at that time in my life was they seemed completely indiscriminate about taste. So my parents would feed me beet greens, spinach, 25-lb zucchinis (shredded into to every dish so as not to waste them), and other numerous things that I didn't like. Then again, I hated lots of things when I was young that are ridiculously delicious: pork steaks, fried chicken, cooked tomato, dark meat in poultry. It got me to thinking about something.

*If you have air conditioning, canning is fine. If you don't, it's awful.

I have developed a curious liking to horseradish and somewhat to garbanzo beans. I say curious because it sticks out as two distinct childhood memories from my grandparents house, trying horseradish and thinking garbanzo beans were some kind of magical pickled peanuts. I despise cocktail sauce to this very day because it combines horseradish with the most overrated condiment ever created, ketchup. The flavor never worked for me, but lately I just throw it on everything beef I cook as if I'm possessed. I don't know why, sometimes I even see myself doing it and hesitate. It's part of a deeper problem which I'm convinced of.

I remember the first beer I drank. It was piss water. Now, of course, we would not want to defame the glorious folks at Anheuser-Busch, but Busch Light still sucks* It helps to work in a brewery, but now my tastes are fairly well developed and I drink IPAs** more frequently than any other beer.*** When I even bring up the idea to younger folk (21-my age), they throw up a bit in their mouths. Even the APAs draw derision from Joe Public as being too hoppy and therefore unfit for consumption.

*Commence immediate Carrollton and Rolla anger
**IPAs are to beers as horseradish is to condiments
***Statistics show this to be untrue, but given market adjustments for my salary base, it would be. "CEO-payscale Joe drinks IPAs the most" is more to the fact.

This may be a winding road we've taken, but it brings me to an idea that has no scientific bearing nor any gravity in the grand scheme of things.* Do our tastebuds and tongues age significantly? I feel that after a while we either find ourselves diving into more flavors out of opportunity, but also because the ketchup and french fries of our youth no longer do anything for us.** Our mainstays become bland, like the Bud Light no longer having any taste not even a bad one to chicken nuggets being that food you only dare eat after consuming too many Bud lights. It gives me hope, because that means by the time I'm forty the women my age will have acquired some modicum of taste and stop being as picky a eater as I was when I was ten.*** Or perhaps not.

*Therefore making it a perfect topic for me to consider.
**One thing is for certain though: we do lose feeling in our tongues, because old people cannot get their food or coffee hot enough. I suppose that is akin to me burning myself repeatedly
***Holy crap, I just wrote that many words about my tastes and it became an one-line indictment of all females. Somebody's got issues. I left it because that one line could mean half a dozen things and I love ambiguity.