Unadventurous Eater

I've alawys known I'm not an adventurous eater. As a child my menu was small, and I was often scolded by my Grandfather for not finishing everything on my plate. My Grandmother would always have to be careful about what she cooked for dinners because of my limited menu, but she always made sure there was something offered that she knew I liked. The strangest food I know I've tried, albeit really not that strange at all, would be asian food, mostly sushi. I didn't try sushi until about three years ago beacuse of a friend of mine who's mother is from Taiwan, and is half Chinese half Japanese. Sushi always seemed disguting to me. Raw fish? I could eat cooked fish, but the word "raw" made me think of them squirming around, gasping for air on land and someone hitting them against a rock to kill them, and then just tearing through the scales to get to the meat. After much convincing, I did try some sushi, but my taste for it is limited to a few specific kinds. The only reason I tried other kinds of asian food was because I was eating dinner at my friend's house and I didn't want to be rude by not at least trying everything that was offered, because I knew it would offend his mother.
I know that most of my opinions on "strange" food is psychological. Raw fish isn't necessarily bad for your body, and neither are foods such as pickled herring or pig tongue, but the names alone make me think of things that would be just disgusting! Most of my food fears stem from the images produced by the names of the food, or what it is made out of. Others from the image of the food on my plate, or the smell. Every food we like or dislike stems from these, in conjunction with the culture and family we grew up in. I eat hot dogs all the time, and hamburgers even, and even with the knowledge of what goes into these food items, I continue to enjoy them. Other foods such as haggis have some of the same animal parts used, but the presentation and inexposure to it from a young age has made me weary of even trying it. Because of these culinary ideas that have been engrained in humans, I know it takes a lot of coaxing for most people to try something that seems "strange" to them. I know for a fact it would take a lot of coaxing to get me to try chicken assholes!

Hodgman, John. "Extreme Eating." New York Magazine. New York magazine, n.d. Web. 19 Apr 2010. .