One is born with no knowledge of taste, no delicate appreciation of delicacy; there is only the instinctive knowledge of hunger. We are born little more than hungry animals who need simply to consume an amount of fuel proportionate to our individual size and rate of development. The green gourmet with unlearned tongue must, by inclusive process of trial and error, master animal hunger and cultivate a new knowledge. Taste comes slowly — with time and with crunching a raw rhubarb or slurping of sweet-smelling shampoo. It is indeed a rough road for tongue and tummy, and that is why we are not left to face the cultivation of taste all alone. We learn from those who came before us.

Dan Gelinas