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Why do we hate what's on our plate?

Wednesday, September 05, 2001

By Patricia Prattis Jennings

Picking my way through the crowded food court of a Downtown shopping center, I noticed a young male office type seated in front of a Styrofoam container of Chinese food. He hadn't begun to eat it; he was carefully extracting the broccoli from his moo goo gai pan or whatever it was and placing it in the lid of the container. Not for a minute did I think he was saving the best for last. Like George Bush the Elder, this guy hates broccoli.

	Ted Crow, Post-Gazette

Does anyone know fur sure why some people hate broccoli so intensely? Body chemistry? Allergy? Were the broccoli haters forced to eat it as children? Maybe their mothers insisted that they become members of the Clean Plate Club, denying them permission to leave the table until every bit of the green mush set before them was consumed. And how often were they admonished, "Eat it! Children are starving in Europe"?

Like spinach, which has attained a status and popularity that would have been unimaginable in my youth, broccoli has made a breathtaking leap from steam table goop to main ingredient in sizzling stir-fries, velvety soups and the crudite tray of the calorie- and cholesterol-conscious.

Not only are there people who won't eat broccoli, they won't eat any vegetable. They'll eat a slab of grilled cow meat or charred pig flesh - creates a different image when put that way, huh? - and a heap of greasy fries, but wouldn't touch a crispy salad or even a wicked platter of deep-fried zucchini if threatened with execution. I have to wonder about the state of their insides. A healthy body needs vegetables.

Close behind the broccoli haters are the seafood-phobic. Some of them won't even eat the most heavenly of the fruits de mer, shrimp and lobster. (Good! That leaves more for me.) Probably at the top of their list of nasties is the dreaded anchovy. If you are anchovy-averse, this will give you the willies: Many a master chef uses anchovies to flavor some of your favorite dishes. You wouldn't suspect it, and he certainly isn't going to tell you. But that fascinating bit of trivia was divulged in the pages of Bon Appetit. I saw it with my own eyes and had to chuckle.

Then there are those whose minds are closed - they've never tasted it, whatever it happens to be, and they never will. Whether it's Chinese food, Mexican food or any other generally popular cuisine, if it wasn't served to them at home in the '50s and '60s, when the most exciting items on their dinner tables were meat loaf and mashed potatoes, they're not about to begin experimenting now.

My husband is a dream to cook for. No wife could have a more appreciative spouse. He routinely says, "That was very good, dear" even if I've served him something a tad peculiar when a recipe didn't turn out as expected. But even he draws the line at two things: organ meats - no liver or sweetbreads, none of my wonderful giblet gravy on Thanksgiving - and no bivalve mollusks - oysters, clams and mussels, fried, steamed or ("You'd have to kill me first!") raw. Anchovies? Forget it.

When we have company for dinner it's always interesting to see what goes back to the kitchen uneaten. One expects finicky behavior from little kids, who spend most of mealtime saying, "Eeeeew!" and picking out all the yucky things like red cabbage and radicchio. They eschew anything that isn't a grilled cheese sandwich or pizza. But, in 30-odd years of feeding adults, I have been surprised at the mountains of mushrooms, piles of peppers and, buckets of broccoli I've had to scrape down the black hole in my kitchen sink.

Truly, there is no accounting for taste. On our recent visit to Argentina, we were made aware of a tea-like drink called mate (pronounced MAH-tay). It's hugely popular. You see people young and old wandering around the shopping malls sipping mate from a special gourd-like cup held in one hand with a thermos stashed under their other arm to refill their cups. I tasted the stuff. It's TERRIBLE! Tastes like liquid pipe tobacco. Why, it might even be worse than broccoli!

Unfortunately for my figure, there's not much you could put in front of me to eat or drink that I wouldn't consume, or at least sample. I figure that if millions of people around the world are scarfing down sushi and calamari and moussaka, considering that my hips seem determined to expand anyway, why shouldn't I avail myself of every opportunity for corresponding gastronomic growth?

I ask that while realizing that even I have to draw a line somewhere. I prefer that you not serve me headcheese or haggis, blood sausage, squid ink or pigs' ears. And please don't whip me up any coffee-avocado milkshakes - even if you did get the recipe from the latest issue of Gourmet magazine. I'll take vanilla.

Patricia Prattis Jennings is principal keyboard in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. E-mail her at scherzo9@home.com.