The sun is back after a three-day hiatus. I was on the deck earlier to fill the feeders and noticed how wet all the wood still is. I hope the sun stays warm enough to dry everything. Usually this time of year the fields near the marshes have turned brown, but this year has been so cool even those grasses are still green. August is generally the hottest month but not yet.

Yesterday Peapod came so the larder is full again and that got me to thinking about food, Glorious Food. I eat a lot of different foods that I never even knew existed until I was an adult. My mother fed us what we’d eat and seldom experimented with our taste buds. We were kids and kids didn’t taste. Kids looked. I know what our reactions to hummus and guacamole would have been. They look like baby food, ejected baby food, and we would have made disgusting noises and pushed the dishes aside. They happen to be two of my favorites now. We only ate white bread. I never buy it now. I buy grainy breads, naan or pita breads. We would have rejected naan and pita. They’re round. Bread wasn’t round. It was sliced. Vegetables were unknown territory aside from potatoes, carrots and green beans. We liked meat. Hamburger was common in so many different dishes. We never cared. They all looked and tasted good. If you had told me I’d eat goat, eel and bushmeat when I was older, I would have been horrified. Even as a teenager I never expanded my palate. There was little opportunity for that. Chinese was the exotic food in town. The start of my food journey was Ghana.

It was at my live-in where we each stayed with a Ghanaian family as part of our training that I became an adventurous eater out of necessity and cultural sensitivity. On the porch outside my room was a table and on the first night dinner was put on that table. It was some sort of meat, a soup and something gelatinous. No one was there to explain what I was eating. I figured I had to use my hand as there were no utensils so I broke off a gelatinous piece, dipped it in the soup and cautiously put it in my mouth. No chewing was necessary. It slid right down my throat. The meat tasted okay but it was fatty and bony. The soup was pepper hot but not too pepper hot. I ate most of the meal because I didn’t want to offend my host family.

We got comfortable with each other and family members started to sit and eat with me sharing the common soup bowl. I found out the gelatinous blob was T-Zed, the northern Ghanaian staple food, and the meat was goat. I wasn’t bothered at all by the goat or the blob. By then I had spent three or more weeks in Ghana and I just ate what was put in front of me. I did have favorites and I did have foods I didn’t like, never liked the whole time I was there, but I tried everything. My palate expanded exponentially. I even liked grasscutter aka bushmeat and scientifically known as the greater cane rat (Thryonomys swinderianus). It is considered a delicacy. I ate it with bread.