Ive been thinking a lot about how taste preferences over time evolve and Im kind of a curious about other peoples’ experiences with this.
I seem to have a very strong attraction toward what I would call deep, heavy and dense flavor profiles; things that are umami heavy, smoky, earthy, dirtyish, liver-like, bitterness and even burned or charred stuff. Not even just salty or sweet things. Just the flavors that prolly have layers and some story behind.
At some point this became so pronounced that I started noticing I would crave very specific sensory stuff rather than specific foods. For example, I didn’t necessarily crave a certain dish, I craved the sensation of smoked aroma, fermented depth, mineral-like bitterness n eartiness, that “dirty” heavy umami complexity and even burned stuff as I said you sometimes get from aged, fermented, roasted vegetables etc foods.
I even noticed a strange pattern where my brain would sometimes push me toward foods that were not really intended for human consumption (I obviously didn’t eat anything unsafe, but the craving pattern itself was interesting and a bit concerning in a curiosity-driven way). It felt less like hunger and more like my brain was searching for a very specific chemical signal.
Over time, instead of following those impulses in risky or weird directions, I started finding more rational substitutes that seemed to satisfy the same neurological or sensory need:
- Have some mushrooms, the most economic stuff I got.
- Have some smoked and ovendried rib meat from arby’s. Not so economic.
- Some sauce stuff. I know HP’s BBQ sauce. Planning to try more such as miso, soy, tamari and so on.
- Smoked and roasted vegetables, my faves is paprika and eggplant, I also do love roasted corn but it is overrated.
- Sausages with some seasoning perhaps
- Offals or variety meats, you know them from Turkish street foods, also my mom cooks me some rice with offals
- Anti-edema coffee of my literature teacher
- Im open to suggestions or recipes anyways
I feel like online communities tend to talk about either “normal food preferences” or extreme experimental cuisine, but not really the in-between zone where your palate becomes more specialized over time.
So Im really interested in hearing other people’s stories about flavor evolution, unusual cravings, or how your relationship with food taste changed over time.
The app or site or whatever the thing forces me to upload some image so have my fave fictional character Ive grown with and still so do not ask why are you seeing a bread lookin woodpiece.
Once in a while, particularly in hot summer evenings, I get an overwhelming hankering for anything acidic, preferably a drink. It’s probably related to sweating a lot and losing electrolytes. Annoyingly, since my fridge is stocked sparingly and I don’t typically consume fizzy drinks, I have to resort to munching on whatever is there: pickle juice if I’m lucky, or straight up diluting citric acid or vinegar if I’m not.
Regarding your situation: soy sauce is pretty much prescribed to you. Try also Worcestershire sauce, you’ll only need a few drops of it — goes well with leafy salads. But don’t go for cheap varieties, or it’ll be mostly vinegar: get Lea & Perrins, Henderson’s, maybe Heinz (but the latter seem to generally lean on vinegar lately).
Look also into relishes/sauces/stews/preserves made with sauteed vegetables, popular in South and Eastern Europe: e.g. lecho, ratatouille, ajvar, lyutenitsa, sataraš, peperonata, piperade. Particularly preserves made with variously prepared eggplant, like pindjur; or with roasted beans. If you’re lucky, something like this might be sold in supermarkets where you are. These dishes are typically quite savory.
I know I have months of craving fleshy blood soaked cow-meat. Or just generally bloody flesh meat. This sounds so fucking weird. What I mean is, I don’t eat meat like ever, it’s expensive and not that tasty. But sometimes I have the desire to eat it and it doesn’t go away so I keep eating stuff because I hope I can reassemble the taste and make it go away.
But I also feel that craving for the “umami” genre, I usually wake up at night and have to feel the organic foods, that’s when I wish I had mushrooms. I usually end up eating a cheese 🧀.
But sometimes, I wake up at night and I REQUIRE the sweet genre, specifically the chocolate sub-genre, but not just any chocolate, I need one that doesn’t exist, it has a distinct taste that I cannot describe.
OR I require something from the brewy genre, like a soup or similar, something that has been brothed and sitting in a hot container for very long. I have had this craving for many months now. I CANNOT MAKE GOOD SOUP. THE SOUP I WANT DOESNT EXIST. I am going mad because of this.
With the first one, the body could be craving iron. Some cravings come from a shortage. Worth considering.
That’s actually true, I have an iron shortage. Gotta start taking my pills again.
Thanks for the reminder
For some relatively economical and easy smokey meat, make kahlua pork. You just throw a pork butt into a slow cooker / crockpot with salt and liquid smoke and let it cook all day.
I crave Giardiniera all the damn time. At night I eat a bunch of it with a couple of beers, but I think about eating it all day long.
Offals or variety meats, you know them from Turkish street foods, also my mom cooks me some rice with offals
Abi, I was about to mention you’re probably suffering from gurbet :D
I get obsessions over specific foods, but there isn’t any rhyme or reason.
