Beyond a rather longish list of meats and animal parts I’ve never been much of a fan of, there is exactly one fruit and one vegetable I still fail to stomach. Ta-da, I present to you the melon and the brussel sprout, my only enemies in the fruit and vegetable world. Try as hard as I do, there is something about their taste, smell and texture that never grew on me the way other (often less popular) fruits and veggies did. But this, so to speak, less than perfect relationship with melons and brussel sprouts has been with me forever and I can’t trace its roots, at least not the way I can remember falling in love with certain foods I have acquired a taste for rather late in life, either due to increased exposure or to the maturing of taste buds.

Beyond taste though, I’ve always been fascinated by the occasional ridiculousness of humans’ reasoning about food preferences. Pure taste-aversion aside (yes, that introductory paragraph served the purpose of illustrating my rationality and the fact that I am in no way one of those crazy folks that make stupid food related conclusions), if you dig deeper, there’s a whole set of random and often funny justifications of why we love or hate a particular food. My father- the exemplary omnivore-for instance, hates lentils because they look like mud to him when cooked. Ivica, a lover of pastas in general, does not like couscous even though its composition is the same as, say, spaghetti…because the shape reminds him of other (healthier) grains I try to impose on him. Like bulgur. And one of my favorite lines of thought, ever: one of the 2 sons of a dear friend of mine from Greece is on a steady diet consisting of only pizza (who can blame the kid for this one?) and…(wait for it)…chickpeas. Chickpeas because…they look like tiny balls. Duh.