Expanding your palate can be a great way to discover new foods that you may love, and it can also help you decide which foods you actually don’t like instead of simply assuming you do not like them because they are what you deem to be “different”.

It’s difficult to say you should always try the weird thing on the menu for a few reasons. For starters, some people are limited by allergies and digestive issues and cannot eat certain foods. But also, the boundaries for what foods are considered “weird” are considerably blurred across cultures. For example, many white Americans startle at foods from other cultures that are not actually “weird”, they’re just unfamiliar.

• A basic example here could be escargot, the cooked snail dish that is particularly popular in France and India. For people in those countries, escargot is probably not as outlandish as it may be in America.
• Dishes such as lengua de vaca (beef tongue), [lutefisk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk#:~:text=Lutefisk%20(Norwegian%2C%20pronounced%20%5B%CB%88l%CA%89%CC%82%CB%90tf%C9%9Bsk,and%20burbot%20are%20also%20used), or even sushi could also be considered outlandish to some eaters, but part of every day life for others.

So, perhaps better advice is not to try the “weird” thing on the menu, because it encourages us to view our own foods and cultures as the “norm”. Instead, we should just encourage one another to expand our palates and try new things. If you like a new food, then great! If you don’t, then at least you tried it and know for sure instead of making assumptions.