Journalism Piece on adventurous eaters

[jellymister]

I'm a student at Columbia's Graduate School for Journalism and I'm working on a piece about taste and why some some people are less adventurous than others.

I would need the answer for the piece so I would need to know your full name, age, profession (chef) and preferably where you currently work and some background if you have time.

A couple of sources fell through on me, so this is somewhat urgent.

So here are the questions: For people who are accustomed to eating the same things over and over again (the meat and potatoes guy), what are the benefits to becoming a more adventurous eater? Why would you encourage it (if in fact you do)?

I already know about supertasters, and how scientists believe some of us are genetically programmed to be hypersensitive to tastes, but these people make up only one quarter of the population. What are some other considerations that might make people too finicky?

Thanks ahead of time,
Hyatt Lee

[Jim]

I would think that often it is not necessarily a sense of taste as much as it is a result of environment. Nature versus nurture, if you will. It has been my experience that most of my students eat just about exactly what their parents eat. While that is understandable (comfort in the familiar), it is contrary to the "younger generation being more adventurous" that we hear.

Often, I find there is trepidation prior to trying something new until a student steps up and is the first to partake. And once it is deemed 'acceptable,' others will follow. It is not even just with a particular food, per se, it could be with a preparation. The degree of doneness of red meat comes to mind. Beef can be cooked until it is quite leather-like, but that is acceptable. Until such time that a consumer (in this case a student) tries a different degree of doneness, the familiar style is the only acceptable flavor.

I would also think there is complexity, to a varying degree, in experience. Specifically, I was 14 when I first tried brie. And I liked it! I have done tastings with my students with different cheeses and few have taken a liking to anything more than the familiar specimens from the supermarket deli. The difference between my student and myself? I grew up surrounded by dinner parties, social 'events' and the like. Not many of students have had these experiences to build there palette to relish these flavors. Once they are exposed, time and time again, to varying degrees of complex flavors, they too will have a desire to expand their sense of flavor by trying different food items.

Hope this helps. My bio can be found here:http://www.cheftalk.com/content/bio.cfm?authorid=5

[panini]

I have absolutely no documentation on this but I truly feel that the eating habits of mature people mirrors their personality and style. You can almost always predict the adventurous eaters when entering a eatery just by their dress and accessories. I think the same is true for the more conservative diners.
As someone who relys on revenue from the suggested fair, I don't encourage the more conservative patrons to try something more adventurous. If they do happen to step out and try something, and they like it, the repetition will soon put that item on the conservative list.
Coming from the bakery side, no bio and probably no help, but looking forward to more posts like Jims. Interesting. Wouldn't mind reading the finished piece either,
Good luck
pan

[castironchef]

I think that the vast majority of the influence on adventurous vs. repetitious eating habits is familial. My in-laws refuse, pretty much, to eat my "cheffy" food at home. They want the same-old done the same way, every time. It's as if they are forbidden to eat any food that they didn't eat before age 10 or so. SO FRUSTRATING!

I, on the other hand, grew up eating as many different things from as many different cuisines as possible. It became an integral part of my personality. Just as my in-laws have made their - extremely limited - cuisine as part of their personality and sense of self.

I am trying to combat that in the Scouts in my Boy Scout troop. (I'm the Scoutmaster.) We eat very varied meals while camping, including duck leg, wild mushroom risotto as a backpacking meal. When we stayed overnight last month on a WWII submarine in San Francisco, we all went to a dim sum place in the Sunset District in the morning and EVERYONE at least tried the chicken's feet. Some, actually went for seconds! The best part is that NO ONE complained.

[Plongeur]

I live and work in France and see a BIG difference between English and French kids.
Here, they try everything at least once - or most people do, anyway, as long as it's 'French' cuisine. Most adults will at least try 'foreign' food, kids are more wary.
But I do know one French guy who is very finnicky about what he'll eat, and I believe it's because it gets him attention - "Oh but Christian is coming to dinner, we'll have to do X and Y and not Z because he won't eat it." Christian makes the excuse that he's diabetic, but what he will/won't eat bears no relation to his medical needs - just psychological. In a country where most people will eat whatever you give them, he gets attention because he's 'special'.
In the UK I see most restaurants offering a 'Children's menu' of burgers, chicken nuggets and chips.
Here, it's usually ham and pasta or fish and pasta. In our restaurant we offer small portions of the entire menu (light eaters can have it too, although it's intended for children) and we've only ever had two complaints - from an English and a Belgian family who both INSISTED that their little darlings had to have fries with their dinner. We don't do fries, we don't even have a fryer, so they didn't get any.
So I'm going along with what's already been said - if you're brought up to be experimental and try everything, you'll be a more adventurous eater; if you get the burgers/nuggets/fries every meal, you won't be.

[Suzanne]

Eating a wide variety of foods is necessary for good nutrition. People who eat a limited diet run the risk of deficiency diseases, disorders of the digestive system, and other health problems such as diabetes. Therefore, the greater a variety of foods eaten, the healthier one can be.

Limiting one's diet can be a result of xenophobia: if a food is "different," it is considered to be bad. This is not always acknowledged as such, of course, but it is often present within the idea of "we don't eat that sort of thing." A milder way to state this is to cite it as "cultural differences," but I believe that if one is open, one can learn to accept other cultural practices, including foods. Many people are simply not open.

Limiting one's diet can also be a matter of convenience. If one does not know how to cook, or where a variety of foods are available, one will eat what is easy to obtain and/or prepare.

Finally, a limited diet can be the result of a lack of availability: one may wish to eat a more varied diet, but foods are not available. Consider those in neighborhoods where fresh vegetables and fruits are rare. Even if they want to eat them, they cannot obtain them conveniently, at a reasonable price. So to some extent socioeconomic factors contribute to eating a limited diet.

(I will pm you my personal information.)