“Fear Factor: Aram Chef”

 The Finale

            Drum roll. After three weeks of grueling training and intense strategizing, Aram Chef is ready to conquer his final challenge: the spinach and tofu omelet. With only his pride and preconditioned taste buds to lose, Aram Chef must prove to the world that these past three weeks of spursing small amounts of disliked foods was worth the effort. To him, the real work was in the preparation.  The finale would have meant nothing without the critical build-up. And the conclusion? Well there wouldn’t even be one without first recognizing the preparation that led to the final challenge.  Now, in previous blog entries, I’d already covered most of the work that was involved in the training, but a quick recap would be helpful to highlight the accomplishments along the way to the finish line.

The Preparation (Previously on “Fear Factor: Aram Chef”)

Phase 1: During Chef’s first week, it was all about research. He used research done by Dana Small and the personal experiences of Jeffrey Steingarten to formulate the theory that ‘mere exposure’ would be his secret weapon in his preparation of the secret ingredients.

Phase 2:  The training sessions in preparation for the big challenge. This is where Chef Aram took his research and applied it. Initially, it required baby steps. For two weeks, he sprinkled microscopic bits of tofu and spinach into his favorite dishes gradually increasing the size of the pieces and the variety of dishes. Whether it be a salad from Benson, or a homemade pasta that the Chef has made himself, this preparation period was critical if I had any intention at all of succeeding at my goal.  At first, it was uneventfully easy. He started with a single leaf of baby spinach from the salad bar in Benson to symbolize the start to his journey towards ‘victory.” Albeit, it was buried under dressing and lettuce, and would probably require an excavation team to ever find it, but nonetheless, it was an entire leaf more than Aram Chef would have ever attempted on any previous day.  Like the Princess who felt the pea under a stack of mattresses, Aram Chef did taste a hint of the culprit, but he overcame the anxiety of the experience, and surprisingly, did not gag or try to wash it down with a milkshake. Exposure therapy motivated him to involve spinach and eventually, tofu, at every meal time. Okay, maybe more accurately, every other day. To his delight, he discovered that even when he recognized the taste of spinach or tofu, his dislike for either waned.

 The Delivery:
This is where the rubber hits the road. Despite the two weeks of preparation, this came pretty sudden. It all started with a simple and harmless (or so it was thought) phone conversation with the Chef’s brother. He asked Aram Chef about school and he updated him with the English project. I told him Aram was going to try cooked spinach (a first for me) the next day at the Benson cafeteria. See, at that point in time the Chef hadn't visited home in a good three weeks due to midterms and other obligations (sleeping in). He was already starting to his family. Usually coming home on Sunday (seafood night!), Chef’s brother had a different idea based on his newly learned information. Big Brother decided it would be a good idea to for unsuspecting Aram Chef to come home early on Saturday so they could prepare brunch together.  Contributing to the shock factor about this proposition was not that Big Brother proposed making a spinach omelet, but that he wanted to make breakfast. The last cooking repertoire that came to mind was oven-baked fish tacos and french fries. Naturally, it only took 5 minutes into the process of making the omelet before Mama Chef came to the rescue.

The Conclusion:

“Nobody’s perfect.” After training his taste buds to the taste of raw spinach and tofu, one might think he would be able to handle an omelet with cooked spinach. Sadly enough, this was not the case. With great angst and humiliation, it was time to man up and confess failure. The green of the spinach lay in stark contrast to the yellow of the omelet, and it just was not a good scene. Chef Aram lost “Fear Factor: Aram Chef”. His prize? The dubious honor of getting to watch his brother smirk. But not for long. All joking aside, leave it to a tight-knit family to turn this all into a learning experience. In fact, in this situation, Chef Aram’s family has actually been pretty supportive since the start of this journey. In solidarity, Big Brother ordered a vegetarian pizza without taking off all of the mushrooms, his own vice. He admitted that it was rather stressful to be open to trying his own least favorite topping.

 In case you may have also noticed that no mention was made of that third ‘special ingredient’: brussels sprouts, it was not simply overlooked. Up until this point, the process had been mentally exhausting and quite stressful, but that does not mean Chef Aram is not up to the challenge. This particular food item could be a fail if the right recipe is not followed, but thanks to the offer of a more experienced chef (Mom), the brussels sprout challenge will take place over the long weekend.

Somehow, the bravery involved in this particular final feat is fitting for Memorial Day weekend.  It may compensate somewhat for the omelet fail. And so, the final surprise: while this was intended to be Aram Chef’s last blog entry, there will be a follow-up write-up that will give a review of the brussels sprouts experience. With a tip of the chef’s hat to Steingarten perhaps the aversion to this particular vegetable can be overcome with the assistance of an experienced and accomplished chef (Thanks, Mom!), and it may quite be possible to find redemption after the finale fail.  Stay tuned. 

 “No Soup For Me!”

            “Trust me, Aram; it will make your stomach feel better.” With an unsettling amount of anxiety, I plunged my spoon into the brown, frothy liquid which bore little resemblance any soup I had ever seen. My brother and sister had already succumbed to the pressure of our parents who promised them the strength of Samson if they would only trust them. “Trust.” There was that word, again. It was how a used car salesmen sold junky jalopies. The chatter among villagers and tourists subsided. With many pairs of encouraging eyes focused on me, my expression turned from anxious to horrified-but-I’m-trying-to-mask-it. Including the time my sister beat me in ping-pong in front of all my friends, it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

I raised the spoon and asked for more crushed garlic to hide the contents that smelled suspiciously of manure. The taste was shocking. Never had I ever  tried anything so revolting that it made me gag; except maybe for spinach when I was six. I heard cheers. My dad’s friend slapped me on the back and handed me a shot glass of vodka as a chaser. It was a festive initiation into the club. That day, on snow-peaked mountain in an ancient Biblical village, I became a man. By eating soup that was basically a hideous concoction of sheep head and hooves, boiled for days on end, I continued an ancient tradition and was hence empowered to fight bears and lions with my bare hands.

I had partaken in one of the richest cultural experiences of my life. “Khash,”  like Christianity, has been woven into Armenian history and culture. As we sat around that rustic table, I accepted a second shot of vodka and mused with the wisdom of Solomon that it was no mere coincidence that the Christian Armenians are loyal to both “khach” (the Armenian word for “cross”) and “khash.” Both symbolized our very existence. I politely  turned away the third glass. Interestingly, I noticed my stomach ache had gone away, but I secretly wondered if it might have been the shots.

Since then, I have done more research. The roots of khash are so deeply entwined into Armenian culture that it can even be found in one of many world famous medical texts from Mkhitar Heratsi. In his manuscript The Relief of Fevers, he describes khash as “a dish that cures diseases” (Heraci 22). I recalled the restaurant owner saying how they were also open for breakfast, since khash is also a cure for hangovers. I found it amusing that vodka was used a cure for the aftertaste of the food, itself.

I learned that the preparation of this dish spans several days, as the sheep parts are slowly simmered. Guests are to bring a hearty appetite and a bottle of vodka. After an entertaining series of poetic toasts, the soup is brought out in a large cauldron and laughter fills the room as bread and garlic is passed around the table. If food is only as pleasant as the people who share it with you, then I could see how khash is a cherished tradition.

            This experience has only reinforced the theory that food is a social phenomenon. Its symbolism is just as nourishing as the vitamins within. As inspiration, I can reference Jeffrey Steingarten’s amazingly awesome book, “The Man Who Ate Everything”.  With humility, I confess that it was tempting to not share his research, because it does somewhat blow my project out of the water. In fairness, however, I conceded that Steingarten has spent more time studying food  than the years I’ve spent eating it. Adding credibility to his resume, Steingarten was a lawyer until the age of 47. Since then, he has become one of the leading food writers in the United States. ‘He has been a food critic at Vogue magazine since 1989 where his monthly columns have earned him a National Magazine Award. ‘His 1997 book, “The Man Who Ate Everything”,  earned him an award for literary food writing from the International Association of Culinary Professionals  and the British Guild of Food Writers’(Jeffrey Steingarten of Vogue Magazine - Biography). It has been translated into eight different languages since its release, and has earned him worldwide fame, resulting in regular appearances on the Food Network as a judge and commentator.

 For me, the first chapter alone is rich material. In it, Steingarten writes about his past and his thoughts leading up to his decision to try to cure himself of his aversions to certain foods. He had my immediate attention at that point. He gives a good idea of who he is and who he was before evolving into a foodie. He opens his first chapter recollecting an experience that had him having to try a food that was “unsuited to enter a human mouth”(Steingarten).  Yeah, but had he ever tried khash?  Like me, he claimed to have “suffered from a set of powerful, arbitrary, and debilitating attractions and aversions at mealtime. I feared that I could be no more objective than an art critic who detests the color yellow or suffers from red-green color blindness.” In the rest of the first chapter, he gives us a “Six-Step Program to liberate my palate and soul.” Since Steingarten had proven success with his experiment, I decided to compare it with my run through Fear Factor: Aram Chef.

            Steingarten first gives us three fairly long lists of food, ranging from “Foods I wouldn’t touch even if I were starving on a desert island” to “Foods I might eat if I were starving on a desert island but only if the refrigerator were filled with nothing but chutney, sea urchins, and falafel.” While I chose three ingredients, Steingarten talks about 9 different kinds of foods that he dislikes. However, he is only able to explain how his aversions came about for a few of the dishes.   In his next step. he explores food aversions and how they don’t stem from a biological perspective as genes don’t dictate what foods we will like or dislike (other than a propetuency towards sugars and a mild dislike towards bitterness). According to Steingarten, our food preferences are learned. For example, newborns are not repelled even by the sight and smell of putrefied meat crawling with maggots. Steingarten continues to deliver logically and scientifically sound arguments as to why we develop food aversions in the first place. The strongest food phobias usually rooting from an upset stomach “will result in a lasting irrational, lifelong sense of disgust.”

What I enjoy most of Steingarten’s manuscript is the logic in addressing why it’s important for us to not be picky eaters. He tells us that we have obligations as omnivores. Steingarten points out that  God instructed us in the book of Genesis after Noah’s flood to eat everything under the son, and that by not eating from the “bounties of nature, we become failed omnivores” or as he gently puts it,  “godless heathens.”  We are given a vast variety of flavor and foods, yet most of us stick to eating the same thing over and over again, mostly because we want a sure thing, so we only eat what we know. It’s like going to Starbucks, because you know you will always get the same mediocre cup of burnt coffee. Take Usain Bolt, the fastest man that our world has ever known. He ate at least 100 chicken McNuggets a day for 10 days in Beijing (in case you were wondering, that’s 4700 calories and 9000 milligrams of sodium per day). When asked why, Bolt responds that “he found Chinese food odd, so he bounded over to the nearest McDonald’s and ordered his favorite food” (Zennie). We eat the foods we like, and for a world-class sprinter like Bolt, all that’s important before a competition is feeling comfortable and at  home. But what about the rest of us? Steingarten does a great job of exposing the effects of an America where “fear and suspicion of food have become the norm.” He argues that irrational food phobias have kept people from sharing food with one another, promoting ignorance and arrogance in the process. While I find this claim powerful and somewhat true, Steingarten does not provide any evidence to support it.

            Steingarten concludes  his first chapter by sharing the results of his “mere-exposure”’ test. He points out that  “mere-exposure” doesn’t seem to be the perfect cure for many of his “irrational food phobias.”  In most cases, the perfect remedy seems to be the perfect meal. As someone who detests anchovies (that’s a whole ‘nother story), I found myself drooling at his description at how they were prepared. This guy travels all around the world and has the opportunity to try dishes of food he thought he disliked….until they were prepared by the greatest chefs of the world and convinced him otherwise. Who would not  enjoy anchovies, if they are prepared in Northern Italy with a sauce of “garlic, butter, olive oil… served piping hot over sweet red and yellow  peppers as an antipasto in Piedmonte.” Of the nine food groups he hopes to conquer, the only one he seems to have defeated using mere-exposure is Kimchi, which he started to enjoy after sampling many different varieties.

 Unlike Steingarten, I haven’t had the same glamourous help in overcoming my food aversions. For me, overcoming spinach has meant adding one or two more leaves at my school cafeteria every time I make a salad. I do think I’m at 60% towards my efforts to eat a salad made entirely of spinach. If I had a chef from northern Italy make it with some of the world’s best pasta, I have a feeling my goal would be more easily attained. I do appreciate and respect Steingarten’s  attempt towards overcoming his food aversions, but I feel as if he could have fulfilled his aversions in a more common-folk kind of a way. While I generally enjoyed this piece, what I disliked was his opinion  on those who currently have irrational food phobias. He spends all this time writing about his own circumstances regarding his food phobias and how he got over them but seems to be a complete jerk in real life when he comes across someone who has them. He does somewhat acknowledge this by naming his final step “relearning humility,”  but I’m sure if I met him in real life I would  think he was extremely pretentious. “When seated next to a finicky eater, I would often amuse myself by going straight for the jugular…Sometimes I launched a direct assault by asking how long she had had her terror of bread...And then I would sit back and complacently listen to her neurotic jumble of excuses and explanations.”

            While I suspect that Steinarten’s personality is not very pleasant,  I do like his writing style and how he structured his first chapter. I plan to follow suit by making my final post about the experiment itself and the results (Will Aram Chef be victorious?!). I don’t think I will  ever be able to get over the taste of khash, but I definitely have found that by simply eating some foods, they do start to taste better over time. As a sneak peak to next week’s episode, I can tell you that eating tofu is uneventful. No longer, will I avoid it, especially if it is immersed in a bowl of savory miso soup.

            Giving him due credit, Steingarten has taught me to appreciate: food and experiences in life.

We are given so many opportunities in this life to discover and experience new things, yet most of us stick to the same dishes and ingredients.  Even though I hated the food, that meal while atop Aragatz Mountain will always be one of my favorite experiences.  It represents cultural identity, friendship, and shared successes. I could not hide my dislike for the dish, but I know that the locals appreciated my heartfelt desire to fit in. They laughed when I couldn’t hide my reaction, but they didn’t judge. Looking back, there is no way I would have ever eaten a meal of boiled sheep feet, unless I happened to be surrounded by warm, encouraging, and lively people who cheered for me. Thanks to them, I experienced khash and the culture surrounding it.

Works Cited

 Heratsi, Mkhitar. The Relief of Fevers. N.p.: n.p., n.d. TITUS. Web. <http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/arm/heraci/herac.htm>.

"Jeffrey Steingarten of Vogue Magazine - Biography" StarChefs.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 May 2014.       

Steingarten, Jeffrey. The Man Who Ate Everything. New York: Knopf, 1996. N. pag. Nytimes.com. Knopf. Web. 13 May 2014.

Zennie, Michael. "Usain Bolt Reveals the Secret of His McSuccess: Fastest Man Alive Ate 100 Chicken McNuggets A DAY at Beijing Olympics." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 04 Nov. 2013. Web. 14 May 2014.

Stepping Up to the Plate  

            Nazarian takes a step forward towards the plate, preparing himself mentally for what looks like is going to be a pivotal moment in his life. From here on out, things can only get good, or heartbreakingly awful. He gets in the correct stance then picks up his instrument and taps it on the plate for good luck. He crosses himself, as he learned to do in Sunday School for moments like this, and then cracks his knuckles in anticipation of the oncoming experience. Nazarian has a 0.0 RBI against his foe, and hopefully after his turn to bat, that number will change. Nazarian signals that he is ready, and in less than a split second, he…

You’ve probably noticed by now that this really isn’t about baseball. Actually, I never was good at baseball, probably because I hate waiting, in general. When I had to stand around watching some other guy (or ten) take a turn at swinging the bat, I would ask myself, “Why wait on a wooden bench, when you can play some other sport?” I knew I liked tennis. My time was limited, so why would I choose to play a sport that is tolerable at best, and pass up the opportunity to play a sport I actually enjoyed? In a similar sense, I have avoided doing things outside my comfort zone. For example, if I could eat a bowl of buttery and garlicky al dente pasta with steamed broccoli instead of a bowl of pasta with slimy spinach, then why would I ever eat spinach? I already know what I like; therefore, I tend to find it pointless to not eat a favorite dish in order to experiment with the unknown. What a waste of a perfectly good bowl of noodles. One must be practical in life.  Eventually, my mom, being the wise woman that she is, realized that all her feeble attempts to turn me to the ‘green side’ would inevitably fail.

Perhaps, she like me learned some endeavors are simply not worth the pursuit. Since then, we both have moved forward and our relationship has improved. When I think about it, my mom was partly to blame. Of course, she being my mom, I would never dare point this out to her. Perhaps, I sensed the angst in her voice when she was presenting a new dish, and that made me question why it was such an anxious moment. She never had that concern when she bought a new flavor of ice cream, because she knew I would like it (ice cream is ice cream, after all). Maybe I picked up on the subliminal message that I was being offered a dish that I might not like, and this alone, was reason for me to reject it. Again, as with my experience playing baseball, why would I pass up an opportunity to do something with proven success to try something that might waste invested time and energy? That kind of obvious logic defined how I tried new foods. If I saw some kind of food that didn’t fit my existing schema for acceptable food characteristics (white, as in pasta, rice, a peeled banana, and milk; brown, as in a chocolate and a heavenly steak), I would immediately connect some form of negative feelings with the event. In effect, I classically conditioned myself to attach aversions to foods. For that reason, whenever I smell spinach in its full intensity, my gag reflex is triggered in the same way it was the first time my mom tried to spoon-feed it to me, under threats of skipped desserts. With every subsequent attempt, this reflex only became more and more enforced. At this point, you might be asking me, “Aram, how do you expect to train yourself to eat a food like spinach, if it triggers your gag reflex?” I owe it to my older, and sometimes wiser, brother. As a kid, my brother would tell me that the best response to any question about any accomplishment can be answered with, “with hard work and dedication.”  I am confident that, with that mantra, through many excruciating trials, my aversion towards spinach can be undone with the same mechanisms that created it in the first place. Dedication, Baby.

In last week’s blog post I referenced Dana Small, who essentially discovered that our representations of flavor can be improved through some form of a ‘mere exposure effect’. I think this is what my psychology teacher called, “the familiarity principle.” While Dana Small was one of the first to look at the brain’s chemical reaction to novel flavors and their post-ingestive effects, there have been many more before her who have studied why humans develop food aversions. From an evolutionary perspective, food aversions have helped us to live pretty long. When our body develops an illness, like a stomach ache or nausea after a meal, our body is voicing its unhappiness with what we just put in our system, which means our brain is probably not going to be an enthused fan the next time it sees that food. For this reason, patients are told to not eat liked foods when going through chemotherapy. When my above-referenced brother had to take icky antibiotics, he told me that “mom tried to hide it in ice cream” and it took him a long time to like ice cream, again. Similarly, I had a friend who hated the smell of peanut butter, and sure enough, allergy tests revealed an allergy. His aversion to peanut butter could have quite possibly saved his life.

So, if food aversions are what have helped humans evolve, then why fight evolution? Why on earth would I go through the painful process of trying to undo the inherent tendency to want to survive? In addition to addressing the embarrassing social effects in my last blog entry, I contend that irrational food aversions suck the joy right out of our lives. To clarify, let’s first imagine how we respond to foods we like.  Everyone has a fave five of dependably delicious foods, much like T-Mobile’s fave five unlimited call and text plan(is this how I start getting some advertising money?). Simply thinking about any one of these dishes is euphoric and makes life wonderful. It triggers the salivary glands to kick in, as do joyful images of unicorns, rainbows, and the San Jose Sharks winning the Stanley cup. Oh, wait, that ain’t gonna happen soon. Now, think about how much it would stink  if each time you put a  food close to your mouth, it were to trigger a psychological response to throw it away as far as possible. That is how I see food aversions. Why not increase the potential of blissful moments? What if my psychological hang-ups included an aversion to pasta? Not only would I would have lost out on a defining food of my childhood which was involved in so many of my experiences, I could cross off trips to Maggiano’s from my list of childhood moments of bliss. I can’t imagine how my all-time dream trip to Italy would’ve gone if pasta were not my most cherished food at the time. Today, when I see images of the Vatican, I am reminded of that amazing restaurant in Siena, where they made the pasta by hand, moments before it was served. With that same logic, why should I deprive other foods of the same opportunity? Who knows, maybe spinach might be tolerable, nay, enjoyable, after this exposure therapy.

Nazarian hits a bunt! Yeah! To an extremely small but measurable extent, I did it. Aram Chef added three whole spinach leaves to his salad at Benson. Hey, not quite a home run, but I had to start somewhere. My fan (my roommate) cheered. Not quite an out-of-the park experience like Italy; but hey, at least a bunt gets me closer to home plate.

Next week on Fear Factor: Aram Chef

What kind of dish will Aram prepare for his first official cooking challenge with special ingredient: Spinach! Will he be able to use his knowledge of ‘mere-exposure’ to get his tastes buds ready in time for the big day? Only time will tell, so stay tuned!

Meet the Contestant: Me

Every kid has had food aversions, but I, Aram Nazarian, was a zealot. One might think my ethnic name might make me more open-minded toward culturally diverse recipes. I confess non-compliance with that assumption. No amount of persuasion, monetary or otherwise, could sway me in my deep-rooted hatred for certain foods. It’s not like my mom didn’t try. If she found something to be healthy, she could not imagine my growing body being deprived of essential nourishment. I was on to her, though. From slipping frozen spinach into chocolate cake (What was she thinking?!) to baking healthy muffins and calling them, “cupcakes,” she was just as stubborn as I was in this battle of the wills. Her strategy changed course when, one day, she just stopped trying. I sniffed at the spaghetti noodles on my plate. They weren’t green, so they couldn’t be spinach pasta. I scrutinized the sauce, looking for any trace of zucchini peel or shredded carrots. This went on with every meal. I began to relax at meal time. I let my guard down. Then, after a few weeks, *bam* she hit me with tofu in my beloved meatloaf. I called her on this tactic. She confessed, but added that she had hoped my taste buds would have matured with time, or at least, I would have forgotten my disdain for foods I loathed. I have since felt some degree of guilt when I sensed I disappointed my own mother. And for this, I have taken on three foods I have avoided since childhood. As an enlightened and mature freshman college student, I have decided, nay, vowed, to bring some element of joy to my exhausted mother by taking on those foods that were about as appealing to me as that computer engineering midterm that I took just yesterday.

I want to be able to prove to myself and every picky six year-old out there who hates that green, textured, slimy, strange, bitter, leafy …where was I? Oh. I want to be able to prove to myself and every other kid out there that hating a food is simply immature, and maybe it was not worth making such a big deal about it all those years. In being open-minded, I can actually overcome a “fear” and quite possibly at the same time, amuse my mom by my personal challenge. Having often watched “Fear Factor” as a kid, I decided it might make things more exciting if I turned this personal quest into more of a series of challenges; each challenge centering around a food. I guess you could call this blog, the next big thing since “Fear Factor” and the “Iron Chef.” Here are the rules for “Fear Factor: Aram Chef.”

1. Chef Nazarian must eat at least five dishes, each of which must include one of the three special ingredients.

2. Chef Nazarian must be involved in selecting two dishes and in the preparation of at least these two.

3. Two guest judges must be involved in sampling each dish Chef Nazarian must conquer, in order to ensure that the dishes are deemed delicious by unbiased palates, and cannot be accused of being prepared poorly  just because of his aversion to the target ingredient.

4. Each special ingredient must be the primary food in the dish for which it is intended.  

5. Only two dishes are allowed to contain some form of pasta.

            I have never been that great of a cook. Sure, I’ve helped my mom in the kitchen on occasion, but if you were to ask me to make something that is, by her definition, considered a ‘simple dinner,” I would be lost. I guess I’ve picked up on a few of her tips and tricks along the way, and because of her, I know how to boil and toast. In fact, if I were to open a restaurant, the menu with consist of hot dogs, spaghetti with marinara sauce (egg noodles with ketchup), and paninis. That’s why I’ve decided that I’ll be enlisting the help of my friends as I set forth on this endeavor. My roommate is a pretty good cook, so I plan to use him as a co-chef.  It takes me all of 14 seconds to come up with a list of special ingredients that have been known to be traumatic in my life; in other words, make me run in the opposite direction. Among these, I have narrowed down my selection to the following three.

1)  Spinach. Spinach must be something a lot of kids have found unpleasant, given the need for Popeye and his can of the superfood. If they need a cartoon character to convince kids to eat spinach, then that should be a clue that we’re dealing with some pretty nasty stuff. I had a cousin who loved spinach, because his mom showed him old Popeye videos. Boy, was he dumb. How could a tin can leaching lead and other toxins into slimy green stuff make anyone strong enough to lift ships out of the water? My first memory of spinach dates back to when I was six. I remember it like it was yesterday. My mom forced me (it was the stern do-this-or-you-will-get-a-timeout look) to try a spoonful. I smelled it before it even got close to my face. I sensed it would not be a favorite when I discovered that it smelled like the sandbox at school after Timothy peed in it. I ran before the goop hit my sealed lips, and since then, the sight of it triggers a gag reflex.

2)  Brussels Sprouts. My mom called them baby cabbages, as if eating infant versions made anything taste better. I remember Grandpa George in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sorrowfully reflecting, “I feel like I’ve eaten nothing but cabbage soup forever.” This conjures up such a pathetic visual. Who would actually choose to eat boiled cabbages of any size, when there were so many other delicious foods one could serve on a plate? Charlie’s grandmother boiled laundry for a living, which probably had killed her sense of stink, because had she known how toxic boiling cruciferous vegetables smelled to her family, she may have cooked them up something more palatable, like deep-fried cow tongue or sautéed sheep brain.  

3)  Tofu. It sounds like a martial art more than something you are supposed to eat. This is basically an over- processed bean that was more fun to eat in its original state. What kid doesn’t like picking out soy beans from a pod? It took skilled fingers to clean out enough pods to fill up the tummy of a four year-old, but mastering the fine art was well worth the training. With such a perfect food, whose bright idea was it to process it into a gelatinous blob, void of flavor or texture? I remember looking at tofu for the first time, and asking my dad what it was. “Bean curd,” he dryly replied. As if that would win me over. And, that is why whenever I sit down with a bowl of miso soup, in the end, all that is left is a mound of mushy bean curd at the bottom.

I am rather embarrassed to admit that there are several foods that could justifiably be added to my short list of special ingredients. For example, kale could easily be a fourth; specifically dinosaur kale. I was manipulated into eating (raw) broccoli when I was told I could be a dinosaur and pretend broccoli florets were trees; perhaps that is why I find eating dinosaur kale to be somewhat cannibalistic. Upon a bit of deliberation, I feel that conquering my three carefully selected items can fix so many problems for me. Spinach and tofu seem to be omnipresent in this heavily Asian-populated part of the country, and frankly, unless I am prepared to starve when my friends all vote for a Chinese, Japanese, or Indian restaurant, avoiding either of these items is more than an inconvenience. There is also the issue of social awkwardness when I avoid eye contact with a server or busboy who picks up my bowl of miso soup or vegetable stir fry. Too often, I can sense judgment when he or she sees evidence of rejected tofu or spinach being cleared from the table. I hate the feeling of watching the waiter or waitress pick up my bowl or  plate, with all the leftover tofu or spinach intact. My aversion to spinach has been a handicap. It has kept me from trying so many different kinds of sandwiches, pizzas, and salads, that would be otherwise quite appealing. If I were able to get around the taste of spinach, it would open up a whole new gourmet world for me. There is also a serious scientific and social component to my experiment. While this challenge does help me solve my restaurant problems, I am genuinely interested in problems regarding food aversion and malnutrition, so I will be sure to incorporate studies, articles, and even the experiences of other people. Perhaps this research can reveal why we like (or dislike) particular foods, and the health risks that may be related to this. For example, I found it particularly fascinating when I recently read a study by Yale University’s Dana Small, who discovered, “when you ingest something small, all these hormones are released. Your blood glucose changes, you've all these metabolic effects that are critical for changing the brain's representation of flavour. If you experience a novel flavour and experience positive post-ingestive effects, then the next time you ingest that flavour you'll find it better and will be more likely to eat more of it."

            I have been known my whole life as the “picky eater” in my family. Whenever spinach is brought up in conversation, or worse, served in or on a dish, my older brother is the first to announce with a wink to everyone seated at the table that “Aram is allergic.”  I hope that by the end of this challenge, I will be able to take a forkful of spinach, and eat it front of him as he watches in disbelief. If I am able to get over the odor, taste, and texture, I promise to do this in front of my brother while he is secretly videotaped and included in this blog.

Stay tuned for another adventurous episode of “Fear Factor: Aram.”  Next week, Chef Aram will battle it out with the worst of the special ingredients: Spinach! Will he survive to even be able to blog about it? Or, will he accept defeat and hang his head in shame?  Keep your finger on that refresh button if you want to find out!

Works Cited

Fleming, Amy. "Food Aversions: Why They Occur and How You Can Tackle Them." Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 18 June 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.