For many years I lived with my Aunty Margaret. Margaret was my late Mum’s sister, and they were like chalk and cheese. My mum was an adventurous cook, always trying a new recipe sometimes from a cookbook but often just throwing things into a pan to see what would come out. Margaret, on the other hand, was somewhat more conservative when it came to culinary tastes. Brought up on a diet of meat and two veg, often boiled for at least an hour, exploring the vast array of world foods was not high on her priority list.
That is not to say that here palate was not widened over the years. This normally followed a set pattern. With Margaret declaring, “I don’t like garlic’’ or any one of a multitude of ingredients. Followed by her eating a dish that had the ‘offending’ taste slipped into it by a family member only for Margaret to declare that it was ‘delicious, what was it?’.
Our reluctance to try new things is not isolated to my aunt. Dennis, who attends the Vine, tells the story of being confronted with an odd-looking yellow fruit
by his excited mother, who had managed despite the impact of post war rationing to get hold of a banana. She was keen for Dennis to try this exotic and hard to come by fruit. Dennis was less keen, “I don’t like it” he exclaimed. Years later, in a world where food is easily accessible and comes from all over the globe; Dennis by his own admission now eats bananas by the ‘boat load’. Which I think means one a day.
What changed to turn Dennis from hating the yellow fruit to loving it? Simple, he tasted it. There are so many things in life that we can be reluctant to try or declare ‘they are not for me’ without any experience of them. The simple act of trying something new can open a world of flavours or experiences that will be missed unless you take the step to try.
Psalm 34 verse 8 says:
Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Why not make this month a time to taste something new. Try new food, have a go at a new activity, go somewhere different, try asking God to show you He is good.
You never know you might enjoy it, after all you will never know unless you taste and see.
