MY PITIFUL PALATE

It pains me to say this, but I will never be a great cook.  I just don't have the palate for it.  Unlike my favorite chefs and food writers pictured above -- people like Ruth Reichl, M.F.K. Fisher, Judith Jones, and most especially, Alice Waters -- I cannot fully appreciate the subtleties of seasoning, nor can I taste a dish that someone else has prepared, then recreate it at home with the help of my trusty tongue and palate, which have analyzed and identified all the different flavors in the dish for me.  No, just about the only thing my tongue ever says to me is "Needs more salt!"  When it comes to drinking wine, my only criteria is "Well, it didn't curl my toes with its bitter aftertaste, so, two thumbs up!"  With cheeses, I can tell you whether it's too bland or too stinky, but that's about it.  Good thing I'm not French, huh?

On the other hand, if I had been born French, maybe I wouldn't have this problem.   I have always wondered why, when it comes to food, the French are so obsessed with quality, while we Americans are more concerned with quantity.  Reading those books above gave me a pretty good idea as to how our paths diverged, especially that one called The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey Into Terroir, by Amy B. Trubek.  It wasn't near as pleasurable a read as the other books pictured (it reads a bit like a doctoral dissertation), but it did have some fascinating information in it.  One thing that really stuck in my head was the author telling of the time she attended a wine expo in France, and ended up sitting in on an "aroma tasting", for children! 

At the time, she said, you would never find such an event in the U.S. because, beyond our notion that kids love sweets, we didn't really consider children capable of discerning taste.  The French, however, believe that when you eat or drink, it needs to be a shared experience that incorporates sensory analysis as well as sensory pleasure.  Since the ability to discern tastes is  more or less a cultural imperative to them, they believe in training from an early age.  In fact, they even host an annual Semaine du Gout, a week of taste -- an initiative that began in 1990 to help French children learn how to discover tastes and flavor.

All this got me to thinkin', and here's what I'm wondering.  Do you suppose it's possible to teach an old tongue new tricks?