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Throughout my career, I have stumbled into some of my most pivotal food experiences by accident. In my early days as a dining columnist for the local paper, — the days when food trucks were a novelty — I wrote about a scrappy young couple who’d traded their nine-to-fives for a food truck venture called Grind Gourmet Burger Truck. Unfortunately, as a burgeoning omnivore who’d only recently begun to eat meat (so long as it was locally and ethically raised), I had a visceral disgust for burgers. 

But it felt rude to not at least try what they offered me. . After all, it wasn’t their fault that the odor of ground beef cooking triggered childhood memories of gagging at the smell. And it wasn’t as if their meat came in a tube from the shadiest bin in the grocery store; this was hand-chopped beef from a local farm. In other words, I had no excuse. 

So, I gave it a try. As gingerly as possible, I sank my teeth into the crisp-edged, griddled patty draped in cheese — and it left me speechless save for one lingering question: What was happening? A tidal wave of umami flooded my brain, unleashed by this polished presentation of a dish that carefully drew on my almost-primal taste for meat cooked over fire. Trying to understand this new world in which I, the ground beef averse, found burgers(!?) delicious left me reeling.

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Here’s the thing: When you know you love to eat something, that’s great, but how amazing can it be after the 10th or 100th time? While there’s always a place for reliable comfort foods (diners still love you, Caesar salads and chicken tenders), I thrive on wonder, on being dazzled, and above all,  surprise. But it’s hard to achieve these feelings while clinging to old and likely outdated senses of which foods you will or won’t like.

What’s the best way to inject that sense of wonder into your daily dining? Order something you think you’ll loathe, and then (ideally) discover that, actually, it’s screaming good. 

Now, this method needs some guard rails. I don’t like pork chops, and ordering them at Cracker Barrel won’t change that, but when I trust a chef and know their work, we’re on. 

If you don’t relate to my ground beef skepticism, let’s up the ante: Take chicken liver. I once considered it foul (heh) because it can pack a smell so repulsive to me that it can ruin an entire meal just by its appearance on a plate, and a texture that can feel more like a mouthful of iron-packed mush if you’re not prepared for and fond of the sensation. So when a server at MeeshMeesh, my favorite new restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, told me that chef and owner Noam Bilitzer’s chicken liver mousse was one of their most popular dishes, I had to accept the challenge.

Tentatively, like with that first burger, I licked a speck of the whipped brown stuff that arrived at my table. Again, I was floored by the deviation from my expectations. This creamy, unctuous spread gave the same vibe as a slab of the best French foie gras, and I lapped it up.

By the time I was ordering the cockles in tequila broth at  Cafe du Coin in Paris, the strategy had become a welcome reminder to push my own food boundaries. Normally, cooked mollusks and their often rubbery flesh are a no-go for me. Add in mezcal, a spirit my body doesn’t respond well to, and it should have been the last thing I’d consider requesting. But I had loved  this place from earlier visits, and my dinner companion was my friend Alison Settle, a James Beard-nominated chef who cooks like an angel, and she wanted the cockles. So, again, I opted to trust the restaurantmore than my own culinary conservatism. And when she openly wept at the first bite, I had to believe, and eventually, help lick the bowl clean.

If I hadn’t tried — and become smitten with — these cockles, I’d never have known to order the ones at Clamato in Paris the following week, which were maybe even better; I plowed through an entire heaping bowl of them.

This trick doesn’t work 100 percent of the time. I’m not telling anyone lactose-intolerant to chug a gallon of milk, nor am I shaming anyone with food allergies or disabilities that require a stricter meal plan founded upon safe foods. But this is a necessary reminder to let go of some of the more arbitrary restrictions we place on ourselves. There are bound to be ingredients that fundamentally disagree with your body and dishes you just don’t like. At my favorite restaurant in this country, Takoi in Detroit, I finally managed to find one thing I didn’t love. But after years of trying and loving the majority of what I’d eaten, those are odds I can absolutely live with. 

So, dining companions, if you’re going somewhere stupendous, somewhere the chef is a magic-maker, let their next performance transform you into someone who likes a ingredient they once hated, someone who no longer stumbles into their best dining memories but enthusiastically seeks them out. — Dana McMahan, freelance writer

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