Day 101: The Breaking of the Seafood Aversion

My new issue of Food Network Magazine came yesterday, and one of the recipes was an herb soup with crab (that's the crab in the middle of that picture--plus homemade croutons and a lemon oil drizzle). So today, I made it for dinner.

But first, I went to the grocery store with my husband, and we saw something that made me shudder in a way that made me knew it would work for my resolution: clam dip. So we bought it, plus some potato chips for dipping.

Ian had the first bite of the clam dip. He said, "Ooh, clammy!" Then I had my first bite and I thought, clammy? Really? I even had him describe to me how he would define "clammy" or, you know, the taste of clams. He said salty, fresh, like the ocean. And I had to admit that was true. I even went for a little chunk of clam but I still didn't taste it. It was salty, fresh, sweat, sea-like. But clammy? I wasn't sure about that.

And then I realized, I was associating "clammy" or "seafoody" (which was Ian's initial definition of "clammy" but I got a little frustrated with that lack of specificity) with BAD. And despite how gross it sounded, this clam dip was decidedly not bad. I actually liked it. I mean, I had to force myself to stop eating it.

So then, I made the herb soup for dinner. A nice pile of crab in the middle. And it was...good. Really good. To the point where it didn't taste "seafoody" or "crabby" to me anymore. It didn't have even a remote bit of fishy flavor. And you know why? I'm used to it! I think the seafood aversion has been broken!

This is exciting. I've had quite a few seafood dishes over the last 3 1/3 months, and while I've found some of them enjoyable and some of them at least palatable, I think I'm to the point where the fishy flavor is no longer a negative. I mean, I haven't had crustaceans straight out of their shells or fish that I've personally filleted--I do credit a large part of my seafood aversion to memories of whole trout cooking over a fire when I was little, skin curling and eyes fogging in the heat--but dude! Dude! I know why people are always saying things aren't fishy when I thought they were. They were used to it. Kind of like when you wear a perfume regularly, you can't smell yourself.

Hallelujah!