The Post-Twenty Pallete Expansion
When I was a kid, my dad would babysit me in the mornings until he went to work after lunch. And by “babysit” I mean he would put on Curious George and take a nap. It gave me lots of time to foster creativity. (AKA my little sister and I would run around the house and get to wreak havoc unattended.) Anyways, my dad only had the culinary skills to cook a few things: mac and cheese, and baked beans mixed with a cut-up hot dog. This was it. This was the extent of his Jordan Ramsey alter ego. The only downside to the (two) Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee meals my dad would soup up was that it turned out that after a while, eating the same two things every day leads to burnout. I got sick of cheese. I hated cheese. Mac and Cheese. Grilled cheese. Cheese on burgers. The whole nine yards of cheese. This began my palette particularity. Fast forward 10 years, and I began to mend my pallet-particularity. I began to explore. And dabble. But not into everything. That was for another time – that was for the post-twenty palette expansion
The post-twenty palette expansion is something I have experienced in the last couple of years. I began to not take the tomatoes off my #2 Big John and Jimmy Johns. That was crazy. But what was even crazier was when I started adding tomatoes to my sandwiches. I began to like vegetables. And other foods I had previously not been privy to. I started to realize maybe MyPlate wasn't all that bad. What was happening? Was my frontal lobe developing? Most of my other decisions not regarding food would regard no, definitely not, in answer to the second question. So there had to be another force at work. I began to ask my friends -- "Are you all finding your palettes less picky?" and “Is this a mutual occurrence?” The answers were mostly yes. We were all experiencing the post-twenty-palate expansion.
The post-twenty-pallette expansion is really just learning to like the finer things in life. In due time, we all move from wells liquor to higher-shelf. Just as we discover that Munster cheese is a much better option for a bagel sandwich than the shitty, plastic-adjacent yellow American. My post-twenty-pallette expansion felt special, but it was surely not unique. Sooner or later, we all learn how to fine-dine and enjoy the fancier aioli on our burgers. Though I will always have a place for classic ranch and ketchup in my heart, my stomach is now open to a lot more possibilities. And that’s probably a good thing because life is too short to not enjoy tomatoes. After all, they are pretty much on fucking everything.
