For most of my life, I did not even know avocados existed. When I was a kid, if it wasn't something we could grow ourselves here in northern Illinois, we rarely ate it. My kids look at me like I'm a lunatic or something out of the Little House books when I tell them that every Christmas, we would each get an apple, orange, and banana in our Christmas stockings.
As an adult, I discovered everyone else knew and liked avocados. I tried them; hated them. Couldn't stand guac. Married a Latino and spent years giving him anything avocado-related that ever graced my plate in the various Latino restaurants we always ate at (the only non-Latino restaurant he would ever try was Chinese, so he got a lot of avocado from me ...).
And then suddenly, my tastes changed, and I love avocados. And guac. And wish I could go back and recoup all those years of donations I made to him!
For a couple of years, life was great, my kids would take one look and not even want to try avocados. I mean, seriously, they were green and slippery, what kid wants to eat that? Then the oldest tried my homemade guac, and loved it. So I had competition. Then the little one decided she loved it, but at least my middle kid, the boy, was still holding out. But somewhere in the last year, his taste buds woke up, too, and now there's no way mama can buy a couple of avocados for herself. It's buy at least six (and hope I get to them before the kids), or none.
I guess I'm glad the three of them are pretty open-minded when it comes to food. We have a lot of contact with international students & faculty at the university, so even though they are only 9, 11, and 13, it's important that they be respectful and open to other cultures and willing to try different foods. My oldest is even teaching herself Korean, and I have a stinky container of kimchi in my fridge. I just sometimes wish they still thought my avocados were gross!
