Sweets

When I was small, I was such a little hummingbird. Sweets, fruit and brightly colored food were irresistible. I vividly imagine myself on an overgrown embankement on Hines Drive, nestled in amidst berry bushes. Blackberries. On my hands, staining my face, a few odd ones in the pail.

Cake, particularly birthday cake, was worth eating, to feast upon the hollowed out wedge of chocolate frosting. Or white frosting. Icing roses. Imagine, please that all this frosting was not out of a little tub, but homemade. Thick, a little crusty, more like fudge. Not eating the cake was not an option, just like dinner had to be got to in order to deserve dessert, so the cake must not be shunned (that being rude) but must be eaten in order to lick the frosting.

I loved fluffer nutters on Wonderbread, especially squeezed into a tight white ball of sugary wadding. I have even mixed marshmallow fluff with Karo corn syrup. Vanilla wafers with extra frosting, either leftovers from the last birthday cake, or the tub when that became available. When mom baked pie, a standard for any family gathering, and an orgy of sugar and crust, chocolate and nuts, I would get a piece of dough to eat. I would layer on nuts and brown sugar, fold, repeat until it was nearly egg shaped. Mom always wanted to bake it, and sometimes did. I preferred it raw and chewy. Cohesive.


And, like most children, I grew out of it. My tongue sought out less obvious pleasures. Stronger tastes, bitter flavors. It makes good evolutionary sense, most poisons are bitter, alkaloids, and will kill a child in smaller doses than for an adult. Adults use these same compounds as medicine, and in food at least - mild mind altering substances.

We lay in bed last night, listening to a guitar version of Musorgski's Pictures at an Exhibition, and admitting to former, more pop tastes, in classical music. I had Hooked On Classics. A valuable, if sugary step in my musical education. I loved it, could hum along, whistle it even. I am embarrassed to admit as much now, disco classics. Still, it opened that world to me. But like a potty chair, a great early triumph, not something to be brought up too often, or in depth, or really at all. Just as today, I rarely eat gooey sweets.

Not everyone follows this, of course. It is a general tendency. Some folks could eat only sweets all their lives, from the bottom of a treacle well and becoming very ill indeed. Some children like beer and coffee. Just as some adults never develop their musical tastes, still enjoying pop music from when they were young, never challenging themselves to venture out. And I wondered if taste is also a matter of growth and experience, at least in part. The over sweet and under flavored, favored by children because it really does simplify complex experiences, grow obvious and bland over time. Subtlety and texture, complexity and an edge of danger exert a more powerful appeal. Maybe it is not just in the tongue, but the brain becoming more sensitive, affecting other aspects of appreciation.


It's just a crackpot theory, the musings of a summer night, with Andreas Segovia.