Back in the wilds of 2005, when the Swede was new to New York and we were newly married, we used to go to this Vietnamese place up on the Upper West Side called Saigon Grill. Not the most original name or the most original menu – Saigon Grill does a bustling trade in Vietnamese food adjusted for the Jewish New York Palate – but we liked the little free cups of tea and the spring rolls and the experience.
I always ordered this plate called Bo Luc Lac, which basically is a westernized version of sauteed beef cubes (westernized in that the cut of meat is fairly expensive here in New York) on crunchy lettuce leaves, with a tangy dipping sauce alongside that was listed on the menu as “nuoc cham”. I loved this dipping sauce; I’d even eat the delicious vinegar-y carrots right out of the bowl.
At the same time, I maintained my historic aversion to seafood or anything remotely fishy. I would buy anchovie-less Caesar salad dressing. One time, my brother and I ended up at Nobu on someone else’s dime (don’t ask) and I tried every damn piece of sushi and sashimi that came my way and all I could do was swallow it down and attempt a weak smile. I just didn’t like fish. You can probably see where this is going.
One day at Saigon Grill, the Swede decided to ask the waitress what was in my nuoc cham that I liked so much.
“Fish sauce,” she said brusquely, and kept moving through the restaurant.
The Swede says he could bottle the look on my face and pop it out when he needed a laugh. Fish sauce! I’d been dipping my food in FISH SAUCE? To be fair to me, and the entire panoply of Vietnamese cooking that was before me, I kept eating it. But I never quite got over that moment where I realized that what I thought was a taste bud preference was in fact, completely psychological. I could like something with fish in it. As long as I didn’t know what it was.
A few months ago, this psychological stumbling block reared its head again, even with my newfound adventurousness. I was at a cocktail party and the host had prepared this dish that contained some kind of grain, beans, crunchy onions and sweet raisins, and a whole mess of delicious flavors, topped with crumbled feta and served with pita. I ate it, and liked it so much that I asked her to send me the recipe. She sent me an email the next day with a link to a recipe in the exact same cookstr emails I get every week: it was bulgur with lentils, parsely and raisins. Of course, I’d scanned the same email days before and discounted that recipe – why? – because it had ingredients that I’d never heard of, so surely I must dislike them.
Between the fish sauce and the bulgur dish, I’ve seen time and again that what I think is a preference is, in fact, a prejudice. All I need to do is try things without wondering or worrying whether I like them beforehand. It’s not that easy, of course; last night we went to a Vietnamese restaurant in our neighborhood and the Swede ordered roast pigeon (of course!) and when he offered me a bite, I felt that same no! instinct rear its head. Pigeon! But because of my rule, I forced myself to try it. Well, as it turns out, it was a little salty and gamey for my tastes, but at least I tried it. Four years ago, you would have had to tell me it was chicken for it to even get near my mouth. Change, to paraphrase Mark Twain, can’t be flung out the window but coaxed gently down the stairs*.
And yes, last night’s dinner did include a healthy serving of Nuoc Cham, and I dipped everything in it. Can’t say I’m not learning!
*Although, being a librarian-in-training, I’m not going to link to this quote because I can’t find a verified source anywhere on the web in a cursory search. This is a major problem with quotation indexes on the Web; they don’t point to a source; if you’re like me, that means they might as well be made up.
