Growing Up Gourmet

story by Lucy Medrich
photo by Alice Gao

“I’m sorry, you guys, but could you come in here for a minute?” That was my mother, apologizing for feeding chocolate to third graders. In the throes of research for her next cookbook, she would often call my friends and me into the kitchen to test three or four samples of pudding or ice cream. She wouldn’t tell us the differences between them, and she usually wouldn’t ask us to look for anything in par­ticular. She would just tell us to taste.

Though we may have been jumping on the furniture a moment before, my friends and I would adopt my mother’s calm as we reverently dipped our spoons into her latest creations. Many people don’t ask their children’s opinions on so much as what to have for dinner, but here was my mom asking her eight-year-old daughter and her eight-year-old friends for input on her next book. We didn’t have a gourmet chef’s vocabulary—we didn’t even have a delinquent teenager’s vocabulary—but my mom scribbled down every word we said.

We did our best to live up to the faith she placed in us. I had done this enough times to know she wouldn’t settle for a simple, “I like number one, because it’s…yummier.” The combination of my example and my mother’s serious interest in their opinions inspired my friends to dig deeper, too. We sat around the table gravely con­templating our spoons and knitting our little brows, musing about which sample was creamier, which was thicker, sweeter, saltier, coarser, richer, denser, subtler, cleaner, crisper. Eventually, we came to a consensus about which was best and what changes should be made, and then we’d take a sample with us to enjoy while playing with our Beanie Babies.

I always knew my upbringing was a little unusual. I noticed that our big drawer of chocolate was connected to my playmates’ faces like strings to marionettes: the wider it opened, the lower their jaws dropped and the larger their eyes grew. Apparently, not everyone had one of those. But there were some things I thought were perfectly normal that turned out not to be. I grew up think­ing that eating an artisan chocolate bar wasn’t pigging out, but doing “research,” and just last week I was informed that the old cookie sheets I brought from home were twice the weight of reg­ular ones.

But the real difference between the ways my friends and I were raised did not lie in the fact that my mother had an end­less supply of ramekins in our cupboards and tongs in her office (“to fix a paper jam”), but in how we approached food. There were always delicious “experiments” hanging around my kitchen, so while I never got tired of tasting my mom’s recipes, my enjoyment of the process was casual compared to that of my playmates. It wasn’t that I was spoiled or jaded; it was simply that I had been not eating, but tasting food since before I can remember. It wasn’t something I did at special times in special circumstances. Tasting was a mindset I brought with me to every dining table.

Recently, as a gift, my mom took me to Orson, a trendy San Francisco restaurant. She knew the owner and asked her to bring out her favorite desserts. We went from one dish to the next, eat­ing each component part of every dessert separately, then together, discussing as we went. We weren’t just talking about what did and didn’t taste good, but what flavors and textures were unexpected or dull, well-paired or jarring. We embarked on this line of critique without really thinking about it – it’s what we always do, part of the architecture of any meal, sweet or savory. Eventually there was a lull in the conversation, and we noticed the woman at the next table looking at us.

“I’m sorry.” She blushed. “I’ve been watching you eat, and it’s just been so interesting. It’s like you’ve been having an experience.”

We smiled and shrugged. For us, that’s what a meal is sup­posed to be.

The writer’s mother, Alice Medrich, is an award-winning cookbook author and chocolate expert. Her latest books, Bittersweet and Pure Desserts, are available at major bookstores and on amazon.com.