It’s easy to fall into a food rut, eating the same things meal after meal, day after day. After a while everything starts to taste the same, so when you do try something new, the flavour is overwhelming.
Just as athletes and singers must train their bodies and voices, chefs and food critics must train their palates. It helps to pick up the nuance of different food flavours, so they can appreciate them all the more.
But you don’t need to be a professional to get the most out of food. Here is how you can learn to better appreciate flavours and pull yourself out of your food rut.
Try new things
Let’s start with the obvious: you’re never going to broaden your horizons if you don’t try new things.
You can start with baby steps and build up. If you always get the same thing from a takeaway, maybe try ordering it from a different restaurant. Substitute one protein for another, such as chicken for fish or lamb. Try different vegetables in your casseroles or curries. Challenge yourself to go without rice or pasta for a week.
After a while you’ll have added more food to your repertoire, and will find yourself noticing more subtleties of flavour, such as the particular bitterness of certain herbs, or the sharpness of different sauces.
Take the time to savour
If you wolf down a plate of food within five minutes, you’re not going to fully appreciate it.
Take the time to enjoy your meals, particularly your evening meal. Chew slowly, taking a moment to consider the food in your mouth. Is it sweet? Savoury? Spicy? Has it been marinaded or seasoned with something? Take note of the different tastes, sipping water between bites to further slow you down.
It’ll increase your enjoyment of food, while also aiding digestion.
Experiment with spices
Spicy doesn’t always mean hot, but it does always mean flavour.
Chances are you already use spices in your cooking, but there’s so many out there that it’s always possible to discover new ones. You can add spice to everything: chilli to your curries, cumin to your chilli con carne, jasmine to your rice.
Head to the spice aisle of your local food store or supermarket and pick up something you’ve never heard of before. Then look up what recipes you can make with it. You might just end up with a new favourite dinner staple.
Cut down on sugar
Naturally occurring sugar, such as those found in fruit, are perfectly fine, but added sugar overwhelms dishes and dulls the palate.
When it comes to breakfast cereal, Greek yoghurt, or even tea and coffee, try to cut down on the sugar so you can taste what you’re consuming, rather than the sweetener it’s cloaked in.
Desserts
Having said that you should cut down on sugar, let’s talk about desserts.
Some recipes need sugar, and they include all your favourite sweet treats: cakes, biscuits and brownies. They all manage to taste sweet without being overwhelmed by the cloying taste of sugar. How do they manage it? Well, we’re afraid the only way to find out is to try them for yourself.
Expert chefs often taste food then try to recreate the recipe based on their own palates, and you can do this yourself with desserts. Order a fresh baked cake from a company like Desserts Delivered Bakery – whether it’s a cheesecake or chocolate fudge – savour it and try to recreate it, making an educated guess as to the sugar content. You’ll be surprised at how little you need to make a truly scrumptious dessert.
It’s a fun experiment which teaches you how to properly incorporate sugar into your baking. Plus, you get to eat a lot of cake. What’s not to love?
