Macc's Taste Bud Revolution (A True Foodie Emerges from the Cocoon)

On my first date with my partner - a whopping two years ago - he brought me to a small poke restaurant, sandwiched between sordid midtown bars and the UF Alumni Association palace. I was sighing and sulking on the inside, almost positive this bassoon guy wouldn’t be the one for me. After all, I was a steadfast hater of any Asian food and groaned whenever I smelled rubbery soy chicken or noodles with the consistency of leftover drain hair. My food pyramid in college was more of a stout pentagon - I ate exclusively from three food groups: 1) four-cheese tortellini from the package, 2) Pop-Tarts and carrots for breakfast and 3) Publix popcorn chicken and strawberry parfaits. I couldn’t be bothered with cooking extraordinary tahini or poppy seed chili oil dishes; I was struggling just to turn in my mergers & acquisition homework on time.

Fast forward two years and I’m whipping up shrimp curry on Tuesday nights and experimenting with spicy ahi poke in Hawai’i. My palate has exploded in recent months thanks to my boyfriend’s nudging (“babbeeee try this”) and my blossoming into a cookbook fiend. Being an employee and chapter leader of Spoon University didn’t hurt either -I went from gagging in the kitchen to enjoying the art of cooking different flavors, textures and spices. Maybe it’s a product of adulthood, but my food curiosity has skyrocketed since I have a stocked kitchen to myself - instead of pirouetting around roommates roasting vegetables or splashing water all over the sink, I am the head chef in my tiny space.

My taste bud revolution is broken into several Hamilton-esque acts:

Act I: Macc Embraces Her Kitchen and No Longer Fears the Oven

Act II: Let’s Put Hot Sauce on Everything

Act III: Fine, I like Baked Salmon with Lemon Slices

Act IV: Macc Finds her Taste Bud Nirvana in Hawai’i

Epilogue

Act I: Macc Embraces Her Kitchen and No Longer Fears the Oven

Ever since I burned my pinky during my Culinary 101 class freshman year of high school, I was terrified of hot surfaces - ovens, George Foreman grills, stovetops, you name it. I still managed to cobble together meals for myself, but getting over my fear of burning fingertips was an uphill battle. Everything changed once I graduated, moved to Phoenix and discovered culinary freedom in my one-bedroom solitude. I experienced a true foodie renaissance, the kind of fervor that gripped Michelangelo and Brunelleschi in Florence. I was aided by my favorite Spoon University cookbook, pandemic free time and the lure of ingredient experimentation/food photography. In the desert and in a cookie cutter apartment complex that emanated a pungent marijuana odor, I realized cooking was something I could participate in confidently and creatively.

My earliest dishes were still within my realm of taste bud comfort (i.e. peach bourbon cake in the cast iron skillet, cheesy Mexican rice bowls, avocado toast, penne alla vodka), so it was more about technique than breadth of inputs. Sundays were a meal prep bonanza, and I found happiness in the pasta aisle at my local Fry’s grocery store. I even stopped eating out at restaurants, both high-brow and fast food, since I preferred my own twist on ingredients that were much cheaper at Fry’s anyway. I baked up a storm and befriended my quilted oven mitt, which removed any lingering high school fear of the evil oven. If I was going into the office everyday instead of working remotely, I’m sure I would be a frequent Chipotle-goer and let the dust bunnies collect on my broiler - but instead, I became a regular Pioneer Woman, albeit with cacti and scorpions instead of cattle.

Act II: Let’s Put Hot Sauce on Everything

Dating an Indian guy means I have to dump a semi-truck’s worth of chili powder into every grain of rice - I’m exaggerating a little, but Nikhil does enjoy his meals on the spicier side with plenty of hot sauce and pepper flakes. Spicy food is something I’ve always struggled with since my mom never added spice (beyond garlic powder and nutmeg) to our food - to compensate, she would just layer on muy picante! salsa onto everything my dad ate, including spinach pie, eclair and cereal. Especially in college though, I tried so hard to stomach Tijuana Flat hot sauces, lamb vindaloo from Kebab House and even a hair of ghost pepper sauce one weird Monday night. I am half Indian after all, so this heritage of flaming mouths and runny noses runs in my blood; according to an article from First We Feast, 18-58% of spice tolerance comes from genetics¹. The articles goes on to describe the concept of “benign masochism” as it applies to humans and our sadistic love of spices:

“This realization that the body has been fooled, and that there is no real danger, leads to pleasure derived from ‘mind over body.’”

I definitely did not derive pleasure from hot foods for the first 22 years of my life - but then, Nikhil introduced me to Cholula hot sauce & plain Greek yogurt as a side to Indian dishes. My taste buds went through their second coup d’état and a spicier version of Macc was born. I started dousing my Mexican rice bowls in chili garlic and original Cholula and sprinkling red pepper flakes on homemade pizzas. Whenever Nikhil and I would order tacos in the San Francisco Mission (shoutout to Vallertas and Farolitos), I would ask for sweet habanero sauce and try anything with an eye-watering zest to it. For Indian food, I could stomach dishes with medium spice that were accompanied with a dollop of plain nonfat Greek yogurt - the ultimate Indian hack to eating impossibly fiery foods.

Being able to relish spicy heat unlocked my potential as a global superfoodie. A big part of traveling for me includes trying and savoring local cuisines, no matter how hole-in-the-wall or unappetizing the food appears. Hot sauce was the second rung on the ladder and now countries with spicier palates - India, South Korea, Thailand, Jamaica - are fair game.

Act III: Fine, I like Baked Salmon with Lemon Slices

Seafood was a massive hurdle for me - the fishy smells, the chewy textures that reminded me of hangover phlegm, and the small bones had my nose wrinkling with disdain. I also didn’t have much seafood growing up (except for the odd fried tilapia from Sam’s Club), and the seafood restaurants in Gainesville were subpar. A cocktail of factors - especially my mindset and indoctrinated dislike - cut off the seafood family from me until I graduated college and realized how dank seafood was. I remember my roommate from my Honeywell internship would always wrap a piece of Kroger salmon in foil, drizzle on some olive oil and lemon slices and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. I was feeling lackluster one night (too many hours of powder blue SAP reports) and decided to shake things up with her salmon recipe. And it was delicious! I was caught off guard and gushed to my mother about how juicy and meaty the pink flesh was - I was proud of myself for taking the leap and had dreams of dancing prawns, grouper sandwiches and deveined shrimp.

Readers, this was the beheading of King Louis XVI in my personal taste bud revolution - the guillotine of salmon ushered in a new era of cooking fantasies and horizons. This was the first step in stomaching Asian food, the beast of cuisines that I swore I wouldn’t eat my whole life - the thin, fishy sauce, the funky wasabi that stung my eyes and the tempera sushi that devolved into gook and seaweed in my trembling mouth! All of those poor experiences were swept off the table, leaving a clean slate of original thoughts and curiosity about what other sustenance was lurking out there, waiting for me to discover it.

Act IV: Macc Finds her Taste Bud Nirvana in Hawai’i

I alluded to this above, but breaking the seal of seafood was my gateway to appreciating and eating Asian food - and by that umbrella term, I mean the dishes of China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and other far east countries with a predominantly seafood-based diet. My exposure to Asian food before traveling to Hawai’i was sad; Gainesville had slimy sushi and sake places that reeked of college and my hometown in Treasure Island, FL only had cheap Chinese wontons. I’ve never visited a place that was celebrated for their seafood or Asian fare, probably because I’ve only been to Europe (and in Spain, my parents refused to eat paella and ordered margarita pizzas for dinner)². Once I became friends with harmless seafood dishes like baked salmon and California roll sushi, I was ready for the biggest plunge to date: Hawai’i.

Nikhil flew me to Hawai’i to celebrate our two-year anniversary on the shores of downtown Waikiki. I wrote about our tropical adventures in a previous post, and food played a scrumptious role in my love for the islands. Armed with a trained palate and an intrepid mind, I let my taste buds loose in Hawai’i and they spent a hedonistic week gorging on poke, hibachi, shrimp, ube and more poke. I discovered that not catering to your bodily and mental biases - especially ones developed in childhood - is an excellent way to appreciate local culture. Nikhil and I went to Ono Seafood for delicious spicy ahi poke and finished off the meal with a deep purple ube twist. Our anniversary dinner was at Tanaka of Tokyo Central, and we ate our weight in salmon, steak, grilled vegetables, sticky rice, yummy sauces and Hawaiian ice cream. We shared a pint of sake and stolen kisses, just happy to be sharing Asian food engulfed in flames together.

The Asian dish that seriously blew my brains out was garlic shrimp at North Shore Shrimp Truck - I’ve never enjoyed or gravitated towards shrimp, but these bottom feeders were an unbelievable combo of garlic, spicy sauce, and succulent meat that wasn’t fishy tasting. The waves broke on the shore at 20 feet high and I was lollygagging with my seafood (and a BLT and spotty banana from 7-Eleven). This was the apex of my Asian-inspired food experiment, and Hawai’i was the perfect place to break out of my shell - it dawned on me that I loved Asian food, but that I had only grimaced through disgusting Gainesville versions of it. Hawai’i is a melting pot of Asian and native cookery, and the inhabitants know how to whip up mean poke, Korean fried wings and garlic shrimp, with a pinch of fresh sea salt from the raging Pacific Ocean.

My taste buds “found themselves” in Hawai’i and ushered in the final stages of the revolution. Robespierre is finally beheaded. Napoleon slides in with a legit coup d’état and begins the fated Napoleonic era - and Macc is ready for any Asian food that is thrown her way.

Epilogue

I cooked my own shrimp curry and sliced steak with wild rice last weekend! I’m bouncing with culinary ecstasy because I feel like nothing in the kitchen or grocery store can hold me back. I long to bake spelt cupcakes, I’m itching to roll my own sushi and pluck a fresh wasabi stalk from the wet ground. I’m thinking about slurping octopus on top of Mount Tantalus and ordering more dumplings from Dumpling Time in San Francisco. I didn’t even talk about the Asian desserts I’m obsessed with - shaved ice with bean paste and mochi balls and egg yolk buns. And the udon noodle joy! Below are a few recipes I’m going to cook when I’m back in Phoenix:

• Ube Halaya Jam

• Spicy ramen with sweet potatoes and crispy shallots

• Thai peanut chicken ramen

• Hemp Tabouli Salad

• Spanish Jambalaya

• A Sicilian Family Takes You Through Making Arancine

My taste buds can do anything!