The Taste of Taste

Campbell's Soup used to have a commercial for it's lower sodium soups and the tagline was "I like the taste of taste" or something along those lines.  The concept was that with less salt, the flavor of the soup ingredients tasted better and was more desireable.

My brother had to start limiting salt intake a number of years ago.  About 5-6 years ago he told me that without the salt he had started to notice the flavor in various foods and it turned out to be tastier than when he had been salting the same food.

Over the last few years, my intake of refined sugar has reduced significantly.  We started with making homemade jams using the "reduced sugar" recipe.  When we did this, we discovered that the flavor of the fruit is stronger and the flavor is greatly improved over the full sugar recipe.

I dropped gluten the same year and began to notice the different flavors available in gluten free flours.  Anything made with all purpose flour tasted blander than it had seemed before, which I didn't realize was possible. 

I also started baking less and using gluten free, sugar free recipes which capitalize on the use of local honey or the natural sugars in a fruit.

So, with AIP, there is even less refined sugar.  This week I made Apple Spice Tea Cookies from Mickey Trescott's "The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook".  Someone else made them once before and told me they were "a big bomb".  I actually forgot about this until after I cooked them, otherwise I would not have tried.  I wasn't sure if they would melt down on their own like a regular gluten cookie or if I should mash them.  I left the first batch in balls and mashed down the 2nd batch.  For future reference, mash them down to cookie height.  The balls will crumble after baking.

When I tasted the Apple Spice cookies, I really liked them.  I thought that they would be excellent crumbled up as cereal, actually.  Then I remembered that my friend thought that they were a "big bomb".  I actually looked back at the message I had received because I thought maybe I was misremembering which recipe.  Nope.  That was it.

I had some of the cookies with me when I was out and about over the weekend.  I let someone try one.  The comment I got back was "Well, they are interesting" and I wasn't sure that was necessarily intended to be a positive statement.

Perhaps I have been off of refined sugars long enough that the taste of dates, apples, and unsweetened coconut is sweet enough for me to enjoy it but not sweeter than my body wants.  My palate has definitely changed over the last few years.