Once Eaten

Some foods you just end up growing out of as a child. It's an unavoidable aspect of life that you cannot escape: one day you love it, the next day you hate it. It's just a Fact of life (ha!). Now I don't mean any genre of food per-se, as in "I loved cereal as a child, now I vomit in my bowl at the mere sight of it.", though I'm sure there are people who do that. No I am referring to specific food types.

A prime example of this would be Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, or as they're more commonly known in the hood, PB&J sammiches. Almost everybody I have known in my life loved them, they were a staple part of their diet as a child. Then one day something just happened and they stopped being cool. Now as adults they are a reviled part of their diet and they vomit at the mere sight of them.

What is the main driver behind that sudden twist in taste? Could it be hormones? Violence? Wanting to be part of the "In Crowd"? Blossom on weeknights on NBC? If you wanted my guess (which is why you're reading this) it would be something far more complicated, like having it day-in and day-out for the vast majority of your childhood. I'm pretty sure that would have something to do with it, but hey that's just me.

For me, my love/hate relationship with food isn't quite so simple.

My food love/hate thing definitely stems from the child to adult scenario I've established, unfortunately it's not as easy to describe as "I Love Broccoli...I Hate Broccoli". Actually, the more thought I've put into this Fact-Theory hybrid the more complicated it gets for me. Would you like to know more? Of course you would!

In my youthfulness I definitely remember eating Tuna Fish sandwiches, which is funny because I hate seafood in all of it's forms (this will definitely be a future Facts, so be prepared). I can't even remember the last time I ate a tuna fish anything, whether it be a sandwich, casserole or surprise. I'm sure one or two have slipped past me and made its way into my stomach in the days that have gone by, but not because I went out of my to do so.

Tuna is just nasty: it smells funny, it's covered in water and only tastes good when bathed in mayonnaise. Not necessarily the best of combos, making a food delicious by forcing it to swim around in man made fat. Of course when you're eight years old things like that don't really cross your mind. Plus kids eat paste.

But that's where things get conflicting for me with my hate theory. I really can't put my finger on the fact whether or not I really did like Tuna in the first place as a young lad.

Like I said prior, I know I ate the crap when it was put in front of me, but I don't remember actually enjoying the process. I can't bring up any kind of emotional based memories to associate with this food whatsoever. So did I eat this food in my youth out of pleasure, or was it out of sheer obligation?

This in turns brings moral dilemma: how can I go around preaching on and on about foods one loves as a youth, but hates as an adult, and yet be morally confused about the one that I bring up as an example in my own life? Can I use the canned Tuna as an example in my Fact just because I have a memory of eating as a child, but no clear recollection of having any emotional attachment to it whatsoever? I think about this every time I see a can of Starkist or a dolphin doing tricks on television.

I feel the only way to really clear the air on this one is to just buckle down, pull $.75 out of thin air, walk down to the Dolphin Free section of the supermarket, grab a can of Charlie's favorite brand and take the plunge. That's right, take the plunge and get at least one strange pathetic theory out of the way!

If I make a Tuna Sandwich, eat it, and hate it I can stay in my unnecessary moral dilemma that bothers me only once every four years. BUT, if I eat it and like it, then I can develop a reverse theory that I did always hate Tuna, and my tastes have matured and I can write another Fact's of Bob's Life based on my adventure!

But I'm cheap, and I can't stand the smell of that crap.

So it's a Fact: Do I like Tuna? Not really. Did I ever like Tuna? I dunno. Will I ever dive head long into a fresh can of chopped fish to see if I still hate it, or if I have developed new tastes for it? No, that shit stinks.