I think my tastebuds are ruined. The ones that used to like rubbish.
I have always cooked. I can’t even remember when it began… perhaps beside my mum playing with spare pastry.. I dunno, just brought up cooking.. its natural. And not leaning on ready made food certainly helps you through skint times. But I used to enjoy the junk.. frozen pizzas you could grill, funny breaded pancakes, battered items shaken out of a cardboard box and onto the grill… and fast food… pizza, fried chicken and burgers. Could not afford it.. but craved it.. the occasional indulgence..
Slowly and surely though each item was shot down, by my own doing. By my own cooking. I made my own burgers starting with chuck steak.. and never wanted to eat any others after that. And it’s like that each time… home cooking is just so much nicer.. tastier.
It’s not just me. The other day my mum phoned and told me it was all my fault! The shop had had no mackerel pate, and she remembered I said it was dead easy to make (mackerel fillets + quark or cream cheese into blender…wizz.. done), so she made some instead.. and it was so much nicer than the shop stuff she wont be able to buy it again.
Jam, lemoncurd, soups, cakes and biscuits, cordials, liqueurs, curries and casseroles, homemade bread, and pizza dough, with tomato sauce that started with your own tomatoes, pickles and chutneys, potato salad, pastry, coleslaw..it goes on and on.
I’m not pure.. this is not a ‘I’m so good’ list.. I do still buy a number of processed foods. Tinned tomatoes are a staple (particularly after last year’s blighted tomato harvest!) and tinned tuna. Sugar, vinegar, baked beans, pasta etc. Even things like cheese are processed really. We occasionally buy pasties from the local bakers, and eat out now and then. But it’s those very processed items I just don’t like anymore. Perhaps.. because of absence my tastebuds have lost the addiction? But now, if I drink squash, I can taste the sweeteners, takeaway food is so high in salt, and so many things taste of .. well.. that processed taste. Probably the preservatives.
When life went a little pear shaped the other week, I suggested to himself that we have a treat and got a couple of frozen pizzas from the shop. I really did think it would be good, I wanted to like it, to not have the hassle of thinking about it.. just something simple. But it did not go down so well… I could taste the tinny flavour of the tomato sauce.. the base cardboardy, the cheese was texture and nothing else. it was all wrong..
Interesting that once you give your tastebuds a break, it turns out you dont really like the junk after all.
