Saturday, October 13, 2012

Pregnancy Spidey Senses

I wonder if the only people who really taste food are children and pregnant women. Oh and top chefs, maybe?

Don't you ever find yourself saying, "It doesn't taste like I remember when I was a kid?" Or remembering how you had such strong reactions to foods that don't phase you now?  Either positive or negative?

My husband and I do agree that most of the packaged or restaurant foods we fondly remember are truly not the same due to ingredient changes over the years.  A guilty indulgence in IHOP or Oreo cookies, for example, produces only sad disappointment.  Perhaps our years of home cooking have matured us past the questionable ingredients they use to perform cheap parlor-tricks on our taste buds.

But I have always admired people with the chef's palate. Those who can taste all the different flavors in things they eat, and more impressive, by imagination alone can tell you how flavors will mingle.  I'm an artistic dunce that way.  Same for the visual arts.  Now, my massage therapist hands feel things others do not, but that is totally another subject...

What I'm saying is that when I am pregnant, food suddenly takes on color and depth that I haven't experienced since childhood.  I still wouldn't call my palate artistic - more scientific - when pregnant.  But it's like instinctual knowledge about the nutritional value of each ingredient is programmed into my brain and sensory organs and a magic hormone key has unlocked the door to this land of Oz.  When I have swallowed something containing the exact combination of color, smell, flavor and nutrition that satisfies my cravings, the munchkins start singing and dancing.

Don't knock it.  It truly is, I believe, a super power bestowed on us for 10 months.  Kind of the like the super powers of growing another human being and producing colostrum.

Now back to that avocado and awaze smeared on Semifreddi's sourdough...

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