Last Friday night dinner.
"Where's the beef?" After a stressful week and not having had red meat for a week, I felt the need for a steak, so I picked up a couple of cheap sirloin grill cuts and threw together a his and hers old fashioned steak dinner with mushrooms and garlic mashed potato. As you might or might not notice in the picture, it's not exactly the same across the table. My side: carrots and turnip (I love root veggies). His side: fried bell peppers (capsicum) red onion and zucchini (a green he will eat!). He's not a root veggie or much of a veggie person at all.
I have this theory that intractable tastes are more than learned and come from heritable old genes going way back. At the very least this theory, if off-base makes me more forgiving of closedness when it comes to eating and also as I found recently, a way to intuitively improve one's health when sick.
I would be interested to hear from others. What do you think about tastes? Do they match up with your DNA/genes or known ethnicity?
Looks like a nice hearty meal. I love root vegetables.
As to your question, I'm not sure. Averages by ancestry might apply, but there are individual differences within countries so maybe what a mother eats during gestation and exposure in early childhood also influence it.
I guess you could say that generally Northern Europeans are more "meat and potatoes", and Southern Europeans incorporate more vegetables? That may well be a function of what easily grows in different places, however, and therefore the foods to which people are exposed. It's also how you cook certain foods, and also the quality of certain foods that can make a difference. I found "native" English food rather difficult when I spent some time there as a young woman. I found the vegetables, in particular, too soft and virtually tasteless. I've been cooking for "foreigners" for decades, in the form of friends, and have found that a little olive oil and garlic can convert quite a few people,, even with sub-par produce. Not all, however. As for meats, our chicken and veal are far superior, but for beef, other than the beef in a few places (Southern Tuscany), American beef is far superior. I never liked beef in Italy, but there are few things I like better than a really good steak. Italians moan about American food, but trust me, when I treat my family and friends from home to a Porterhouse on the grill, a baked potato with chives and sour cream, some seasonal, sweet corn on the cob, and a slice of blueberry pie, they love it.
I used to think that you couldn't be what they call a genetic "super-taster" and like Italian food. Yet, I love our food and genetic tests at 23andme show that I
am a "super-taster". It's true that I really don't drink espresso except to be polite (only cappuccino in the morning), but like olives despite the fact that I very well recognize they can be very bitter. I suppose I became accustomed to eating them as a foil to fatty cured meats. We don't eat broccoli rabe or eggplant (aubergines) very much in the north, and so I find them very bitter and never really make dishes with them. Most Italians prefer savory to sweet, but my mother was an exception. She would choose a piece of cake over cheese, olives and cold cuts any day. I'm like my father. You know how so many American children when young eat only really bland foods? Well, I was the opposite. I wanted only Italian cold cuts, cheese, olives and bread. My mother was in despair (it was all my father's fault, who indulged me in everything) but my nonna, having raised eleven children, said put it in front of her. If she doesn't eat it she can go to bed hungry. I wasn't quite so strict, but I usually insisted that they try something at least a couple of times before they were allowed to refuse it. I drew the line at cooking for them separately, however. They could fill up on the other things.
People can switch, as well. My husband, raised on all Southern Italian (and American food), discovered he liked my mother's northern cooking much more, and so now I'm far more likely to make risotto and soup and gnocchi than pasta if he's eating at home. I make the pasta for myself or my children. I, on the other hand, have never really adjusted to certain cuisines. I don't like Japanese, or Thai food, or even most Mexican food. I like Chinese food, but only if it's really good, i.e. Chinatown New York good, and even then once a month is fine. I'm afraid I'm not really fond of German or Scandinavian or Eastern European food either. I took to eating before I would go to a bar mitzvah because I found all that Eastern European cold fish and borscht after the service almost inedible. On the other hand, I really like Portuguese and Spanish and French and Greek and even some Middle Eastern food. My children are much more adventurous.