Ever since I was little I’ve been a picky eater. I would be living in foreign countries and refusing to try new foods, choosing the easy out with the kid’s menu chicken nuggets. I just would refuse to eat anything that was strange and new.
This lasted until a few years ago when I visited Costa Rica with my grandmother for a photography tour and we were served salmon, and I being a very picky eater had refused to eat fish until then. To my surprise it was delicious! My enjoyment encouraged me to keep trying new things, but to my dismay, the next day we went fishing and were served the same fish deep-fried with the faces still intact. At the time I was unable to take such a culinary leap.
Fast-forward to today, I’m now eating hamburgers, sushi, and salads. I am very aware that my eating habits were those of a young child who refuses to eat their vegetables at dinner. However, after my first year in college I developed this aspiration that if I’m given an opportunity I will try new things at least once. So on a normal Thursday here in Bogota, Colombia, my mother and I went on a food tour through the city. We tried various foods from the area such as “papa rellena,” “arepa de huevo,” and freshly crunched cocoa bean hot chocolate (so much richer than the Swiss Miss you get at Target). I felt pretty comfortable sampling the exotic fruits and traditional dishes, but at the very end of our tour we were offered to try fried ants. Still unsure why but I was the first to volunteer to try the not-so-little insect.
Not only am I a picky eater but also pretty squeamish around bugs so trying this was like hitting two birds with one stone getting over two fears in one bite. With an exhale and a awfully loud crunch I did it. For those who haven’t been able to try this delicacy to me it tasted like a crunchy hallow peanut with an extremely hard outer shell. So with that I surprised my mother showing her that her picky eater of a daughter might have changed after 19 years and we laughed for the next half hour on the ride home as a pulled bits of ant legs from my teeth. Ironically, that same day I found myself picking out the tomatoes from my salad, because honestly maybe some things never change.
