This is a weird expat phenomenon that nobody warned me about. My taste buds are changing. I've long lamented (oh, hell, what HAVEN'T I lamented here) the lack of salad dressings in Italy. I do like olive oil, salt, and oregano, but sometimes a girl needs to mix things up, so to speak. I make a pretty good balsalmic vinaigrette but I've never been able to concoct, for example, a decent honey mustard. Anyway, I just had a friend coming over from the U.S. bring me a couple of bottles of salad dressing and then I stocked up in London at Marks & Spencer. So the other night I sat down to my first properly dressed salad (American style, that is), took a bite and - ewwwwwww - it was so sugary I almost spit it out. I could only eat two bites. I scanned the ingredients and couldn't see anything sugary in there but I could literally feel cavities forming. Convinced I'd gotten my hands on a bad batch of dressing, I opened bottle number two and mixed it with some virgin lettuce. Same problem. I then went for the most expensive dressing of the bunch - all natural, organic, vegan, no added anything. It was like eating salad tossed with sugar water. What next - I'll start liking polenta and stop putting pepper on my food?
Monday, January 29, 2007
De Gustibus
This is a weird expat phenomenon that nobody warned me about. My taste buds are changing. I've long lamented (oh, hell, what HAVEN'T I lamented here) the lack of salad dressings in Italy. I do like olive oil, salt, and oregano, but sometimes a girl needs to mix things up, so to speak. I make a pretty good balsalmic vinaigrette but I've never been able to concoct, for example, a decent honey mustard. Anyway, I just had a friend coming over from the U.S. bring me a couple of bottles of salad dressing and then I stocked up in London at Marks & Spencer. So the other night I sat down to my first properly dressed salad (American style, that is), took a bite and - ewwwwwww - it was so sugary I almost spit it out. I could only eat two bites. I scanned the ingredients and couldn't see anything sugary in there but I could literally feel cavities forming. Convinced I'd gotten my hands on a bad batch of dressing, I opened bottle number two and mixed it with some virgin lettuce. Same problem. I then went for the most expensive dressing of the bunch - all natural, organic, vegan, no added anything. It was like eating salad tossed with sugar water. What next - I'll start liking polenta and stop putting pepper on my food?
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8 comments:
I feel the exact same way! Somebody needs to warn potential expats about this.... I am Indian American and my mom swears up and down that my tolerance for spicy food has been seriously compromised since my relocation to Italy. We used to pride ourselves on our ability to eat the most dynamite South Indian cuisine without so much as a bead of sweat trickling down our foreheads, much less the need to gulp down buckets of water. Now I'm lucky if I can stomach even her toned-down-for-my-Italian husband cooking without clutching my stomach in agony. I feel like a traitor to my race and only hope that my 11-month old son doesn't suffer this bland fate in life...
Shilpa
It happened to me when I returned to the US with chocolate of all things. i used to love it, but now I can't even bear to swallow it. If I see a candy made with American chocolate now I will walk by it. Pretty good thing for my waistline though.
When you get used to dressing salads with the most simple of ingredients like oil/vinegar or oil/lemon, your tastebuds can't handle the heavier stuff that comes in the bottles. I used to love, LOVE Hidden Valley Ranch dressing. I'm sure if I ate it now, I would dislike it.
Oh and I totally agree with j.doe about the chocolate. My Mom brought Hershey bars over when she came to visit, and I couldn't get over how sweet they were compared to the chocolate I eat here!
I think it's probably a good thing that my palate no longer tolerates xanthum gum (whatever that is but it's in the dressings) and we have to admit that European chocolate is better than Hershey's. But, Shilpa, that's too bad about your "case" - I hope your son is able to represent with the South Indians!
I never liked those bottled salad dressings. I always found them too sugary (same with American bread and jarred pasta sauce). But I grew up in Australia and have always been a foodie so the bottled salad dressing was a new thing for me when I moved to the US.
That said - I do like a nice vinaigrette (I see you do too!) and also sometimes make homemade mayonnaise to go on my veggies. It is actually quite easy to make and so yum. Can you tell I love French food?
I had really good, really fresh food when I was in Australia. It's true that there's too much sugar in much of that bottled, pre-packaged stuff (especially the diet foods). Just confirms that it pays to eat fresh. I was no foodie growing up, but I played a ton of sports, so that probably saved me in terms of not getting fat. Now I'm pretty fanatical about my food.
That's so true - I used to bring back suitcases of salad dressing, orange squash, cakes, salt and vinegar crisps (all from the UK) now I can't stand most of that stuff. When I go back to the UK I also find that when we eat out a lot of the dishes have too many flavours in them!
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