How I Learned to Stop Tasting Dirt and Start Tasting Puglia
A bitter first bite left me shocked and asking "why?", and that curiosity kept me coming back until dislike slowly turned into craving. I stopped tasting dirt and started tasting Puglia, and I learned that some flavors aren't worth a second try because we'll like them, but because we haven't yet learned how to taste them.
Victoria Ambruso
9/19/20262 min read
Excitement emerges when the plate lands in front of me. This plate of pasta is emblematic of an entire region, how could I not love it? But I have to admit, it does look… healthy. And forget about that. Your new boyfriend, Cosimo, has just made you an iconic dish from his homeland, and you are a gastronome! You are supposed to love this. On a cold winter day, the plate is steaming before me. I smell something distinctly earthy, cut by the welcomed acidity of lemon zest and the comforting combination of garlic and peppery extra-virgin olive oil. Little specks of red Calabrian chili peek out. I put the pasta in my mouth, and I’m shocked by a raw, earthy bitterness. The back corners of my mouth are activated. Shocked. I hold the pasta in my mouth for a moment, almost forgetting how to eat. Surely the first bite was the problem. It was too bitter, too assertive. So I take another bite (I also don’t want to be rude). I think I kept eating it because I so badly wanted to understand the “why?” circulating in my brain, but with each bite, I wonder: “how is this dish so beloved?” “This is a weed, why are people still eating this?” “How is this what tastes like home?”
Needless to say, orecchiette con cime di rapa (orecchiette with turnip leaves) was not my favorite dish, so please tell me: if I disliked it so much, why did I try it again? My professor used to say, "Bitter is better," Maybe she was right, but nutrition wasn't what kept bringing me back to that plate. I think the answer to those questions was hiding in the initial questions I had. How could this bitter, earthy weed be the symbol of Puglia? I think that’s why I had to try it again and over, and over again so I could understand this humble dish. I watched videos on how to clean and prep the plant, thinking that maybe if I put in the work and the dish came from my hands, I would like it and I could renounce my mild-tasting American taste buds.
With time, something changed. I came to appreciate this dark, bitter plant. I even started to crave it. I stopped tasting dirt and started tasting Puglia. I found a fondness for a simple, humble dish that has served its people for generations. Now when I eat orecchiette con cime di rapa, I am thankful for the ridges in the orecchiette that help capture even more sauce; I appreciate the lemon that provides a contrasting and highlighting element to the bitterness. The bitterness of the plant now reminds me of the ingenuity of the terroni of long ago, who looked at something common and growing from the earth and found a way to make it their own. Sometimes the foods we don't understand are worth trying again—not because we might eventually like them, but because there might be something there we haven't learned how to taste yet. The problem wasn't the cime di rapa. I just hadn't learned how to taste it yet.