Food Philosophy: Try Everything 3 Times
When I was a kid, I was a really picky eater. My parents still make fun of me today, because I used to only eat chicken because steak involved to much chewing.
Then, I moved to LA. During college, I was on my own and free to explore. I would take the bus across the city to bodysurf in Santa Monica. I would bus to Japantown and explore the food scene there. I explored K-town. LA's immense diversity of a food scene transformed my tastebuds. I quite quickly became incredibly open to all types of food.
Today, I eat everything. When I say everything, I mean pretty much everything. I've eaten ox penis, frog ovaries, balut, crickets. While I haven't loved all of them, I've tried them, and philosophically think that it's important to always try new foods.
Ox Penis Soup
Over time, I've developed a general guideline that I share with as many people as possible. Try everything three times, in three different preparations. Still don't like it? then you can proclaim you truly don't like it. Too many people say that they don't like a food without really giving it a try.
Think about when you started to like beer, or coffee, or other acquired tastes. It takes a while before you start to enjoy that type of food. Think about tofu. If the first time you had tofu, you had the steamed stinky tofu in a chinese restaurant, you'd probably proclaim that you're a hater of tofu. But if you really banned tofu from your life, you'd miss out on the delicious silken tofu in sundubu, or Chipotle's sofritas. Food is flexible, and it's preparations can totally change your like and dislike of it. In my life, there's only been one food that I've eliminated from my diet - that I try to avoid as much as possible. Celery. Disgusting.
Openness to food is a proxy for openness of perspective. Your willingness to try something new and different correlates to your ability to understand different perspectives. If you're the kind of person that is willing to give someone the opportunity to change your perspective not once, not twice, but three times, you're really developing a flexible mind. Still, that doesn't mean that sometimes you can't hold firm. Once you've given someone's idea/food an honest go, and you still don't like it, stand firm to your beliefs. Chuck out that celery stick. Drain that bloody mary down the sink. Burn that ants on a log appetizer.