Column: On the merits of trying new food

This happened to me before when I tried Indian food for the first time. Growing up in a Chinese American family, I normally eat fairly standard stir-fried Chinese dishes with white rice for most of my meals, a staple in Chinese cuisines as stated by China Highlights.

When I’m out with friends, I often eat common American fares such as pizza or Chipotle. I had never had the opportunity to try Indian food.

During middle school, my family took me to an Indian restaurant, and it was my first opportunity to try it. Before I tried it, I was a bit hesitant, due to the fear that I might not enjoy the food, since it was so unknown to me. 

The food was presented in a buffet format, and I looked at the different options of curry with some trepidation, the smells completely foreign to me. I chose to try a brownish curry with some white rice, which wasn’t even the same type of white rice I normally ate at home.

However, once I placed a spoonful of the Indian curry with rice in my mouth, I instantly loved it, and it is now one of my favorite foods to eat. Today, I eat Indian curry as comfort food, and it’s something I will never get tired of. Every few weeks, my family would go to an Indian restaurant to enjoy a delicious meal. 

If I hadn’t taken the risk of trying out Indian food, I would have missed out on extremely scrumptious food, and because I took the risk, I found a new favorite food.

From this experience, I learned that until I experience the unknown, I will never know if I like it or not, and I may live my entire life without something I enjoy simply because I was too afraid of the unknown to experience it.

Although life is full of risks and unfamiliar things, it is part of life to experience the unknown as much as possible and learn about the world, whether the experience is pleasant or not, because the discovery of something new and great can enrich your life forever.