Flavor, in Color

Coffee with Heart (and Flavor!). Barcelona, 2015

This is something I notice whenever I travel away from my home country: the foreign food has flavor. Zest! Punch!

When I eat, it is as if someone turned on the colors inside my mouth.

If there is one thing we do really well in the United States it is to produce vast quantities of relatively cheap food. Unfortunately, this food has been bred and/or packaged for ease of transport (large country, factory farms in California), durability (we are all too busy to shop but once a week) and appearance (better sales) and not necessarily for taste.

Quantity and convenience has taken precedence over quality.

I am not sure the average U.S. citizen, if not a frequent traveler, understands just how much our taste buds have been dumbed down (or, the other extreme, blasted into insensitivity by excessive artificial spice and flavoring).

Whether it is the Netherlands or Norway, Barcelona or Bilbao, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, or Timbuktu, you’ll notice that the coffee, the grains, the cheeses, the meats, the fruits, berries and vegetables (even the lettuce!) all have a little extra, subtle-but-punchy, earthly flavor. Color for the sensitive tongue, you might say.

Does anyone really remember what a tomato is supposed to taste like? Blackberries? A melon? Grass-fed beef?

I guess the good news is we are slowly figuring this out in the U.S. of A. Thus the growing trend to produce and buy local from small farms, many of them organic.

Finally!