I was a very picky eater when I was a kid. When I hit my early 20’s I got turned onto a lot of new foods, especially certain ethnic cuisines and spicier food. When I got into my later 20’s I became much more aware of how certain foods are cooked (and I thought much more about where my food came from) and wanted to learn how to cook better and more often. In my mid 20’s I became a vegetarian and a whole new world of food and tastes opened up for me, things that I had never even heard of before, were becoming new favorites for me. In my 30’s I got to try a lot restaurants, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, and of course strictly vegetarian restaurants that I didn’t even know existed, that became new favorite places to eat.
But when I was young and picky, I absolutely loved cottage cheese, and still do. It’s one of the few things I would eat, the others being macaroni and cheese, cheese pizza, peanut and jelly sandwiches and hot dogs. Everybody that I knew liked cottage cheese, especially kids, so now when I hear that a lot of people don’t like it, it seems odd.
Now that I’m older and not so picky, I love spicy food. I love Aloo Gobi! from India and Tom Kha from Thailand, and Garlic Chili Paste from Vietnam. I would say that half the people I know, that I socialize with regularly and who may or may not be my relatives won’t touch any of these items or the cuisines that they came from with a 10 foot pole. It’s kind of a bummer.