Big Black Book

Each of us have different taste. A different taste for food, clothing and activities. The differences in taste each of us have is influenced by our upbringing and also somehow by our own double-helix genetics. What really got my attention about taste is that it changes. And each person might have a different taste of the same thing, but is this really possible for food?



I have been pondering about this for quite some time now but the subject of changing taste came up again while I was having dinner with my mum in Johnny's at Queensbay Mall yesterday. I chucked aside the Chinese Parsley(Also called Coriander) that came with my Golden Mushroom Fried Rice. Mum asked me to pass it to her which I did. I told her it was horrendous and tasted like medicine for a sick cow. Then she told me how my dad used to hate the Chinese green. So based on that, my dad's taste for the Parsley actually changed. I read from somewhere that when you are young, your taste buds are more sensitive to different flavours. Most flavours and scents are supercharged to you. You would have picked up a little bit of sweetness that would probably pass off as tasteless to adults. As you grow older, your teeny weeny tasting factory on you tongue will slowly go on strike and become less efficient.

And yes, I might have answered my own question of do taste change but there is still something left. Is it possible for the taste of the same food to come from two different end of the scale from two different person? Let's go for an example to simplify this grossly long sentence.
Food : Ice cream
Taste from person A : Sweet
Taste from person B : Bitter
Is this possible? Ice cream is just an example for food, it can be other consumables as well.

Moving on from foodstuff, I believe that our taste in fashion will also change. Most of us will change the way we dress ourselves as we slowly age. I am sure that most of us here have grown out of our KikiLala & Kodomo Lion stage. Maturity changes our taste in fashion.



Age is not the only factor in the change. Our lifestyles will also dictate how we dress. Spiderman won't go dressing like Wonder Woman. Mr Najib won't go dressing like Mr Pervez either.



Our peers also 'decide' what we wear. I mentioned 'decide' because although we choose what we want to wear, we will compare it to the norm before wearing them. What is the norm? It is something that is acceptable to the majority of the public. Mr Charles Horton Cooley point this out in his theory of looking glass self. If the norm changes, so will our way of dressing up. If one day men worldwide were to accept skirts as a norm, then it wouldn't be weird for guys to wear one. (I can't imagine myself in one.. Spare me the horror.. Let me be gone before the world gets twisted.)

Now let's go into activities. Will you still be break dancing when you are in your 60's? You won't be tearing up the dance floor, instead you'll be tearing tendons and muscles and breaking bones. Only some activities can be done for a lifetime.

To wrap it up, yes everything changes but changes in taste of food still remains questionable.