What I See with Peter Fiorenza: Tuning into how my personal taste in food, music and so on have evolved

Have you ever thought about how tastes change, more specifically, how our own tastes change? I know there’s the evolution of fashion, types of clothing, types of cars, types of home designs and the like, but, what I really mean is, how my attitudes to different foods, dress and music have changed over the years. Yes, there is no doubt, age has something to do with it. However, I’m personally fascinated about how I have come to appreciate things I disliked or didn’t think much of in the past. Firstly, let’s start with food. Now, I still have my favourites, but it’s those little extras that are making a difference. I kick myself when I consider that I have only discovered how fantastic cherries are in the past 10 or so years — to the point, that I now buy heaps of the little red fruit leading up to Christmas. They don’t last for long, I simply can’t stop eating at one, or two, or three... I can’t believe I’ve spent more than half of my life without digesting a single cherry! How about realising that mushrooms certainly make a dish, along with chilli and sliced olives, and zucchini is really something special too. Where have I been? And that’s just food, my choice of music has also made some inroads. In fact, I don’t really think I had a proper taste in music in my younger days. Like many of the kids from the 1980s, I was influenced a lot by trends, a case of “jumping on the band wagon”. I liked INXS, Billy Joel and Elton John, and still do, but since delivering music on my radio show on a regular basis, my music interest has greatly expanded. I actually have found, through support of my AI mate Spotify, that I have a great empathy for music from the 1960s and 70s. I can’t believe I’d never really listened to the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, or the sounds of Motown. I’m not afraid to say I thoroughly enjoy a bit of Glenn Campbell, Marvin Gaye, the Carpenters, Mammas and the Papas, the Bee Gees, Bill Withers, Jim Croce and Seals and Croft. Don’t forget Dionne Warwick, Johnny Nash, Wilson Picket and the velvet voice of Sam Cooke. And that is just the start. Maybe, as I get older, I’m just finding out more about myself — getting more in tune with who I am. And, I reckon, it’s pretty good. Cr Peter Fiorenza hosts Fiorenza on Sunday between 10am and noon on Radio MAMA