Tastes Change

It's funny how your tastes change as you age. And when I use the word taste, I use it in the literal sense of the word. Food that I thought tasted awful when I was younger, I have grown to like.

I came to this realization a month or so ago, when my wife brought home the ingredients to make Reuben sandwiches. While many restaurants serve Reubens, I have never had one. I specifically avoided them because of one ingredient -- sauerkraut.

I know this might seem strange considering that I have a German name and whose mother made sauerkraut on a regular basis, but I hated the stuff as a kid. I tried it once, and never touched it again. When mom would serve it, I would eat every other dish on the table, but not that stuff.

But not long ago my wife brought home the ingredients to make Reubens after trying a sample while shopping for groceries at Schnuck's. She assured me they were tasty. And sure enough, they were.

The sauerkraut she bought was just mildly sour, nowhere close to the memory of the odious flavor of the dish my mom made while I was growing up. Of course, this probably isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. The sauerkraut my wife bought says it was "barrel-aged." I know mom's was not barrel-aged. It was probably home-canned and the only aging was done in a Mason jar.

Besides, sauerkraut, I've also grown to like the taste of dark beers. "Motor oil" is how a lot of people call them. I have a fondness for Guinness Stout and Yuengling Black and Tan and have yet to find any opaque beer entirely objectionable to my palate.

But this wasn't always the case. When I first partook in alcoholic beverages, I tended to drink things like Bartels and James wine coolers and whatever beer was on sale. B& J was very popular at the time, and being a college student quantity always trumped quality, so cheap beer was the norm, no matter how bad it might taste.

However, with added responsibilities and not having the time to close down bars and sleep to noon nor the interest in being hung over the next day, I chose to reduce my consumption and drink better beer.

Gone was Milwaukee's Worst and Gag, and instead I had Michelob or Heineken. This was before the proliferation of craft brewers. Since the success of Samuel Adams, micro brews have exploded and the choices for a beer drinker are practically limitless. While I may now favor Guinness and Yuengling, finding acceptable alternatives is never hard.

But would I have cared for the taste of a lot of these beers when I was 21?

I don't think so. And definitely not, while eating a Reuben.