Creatures Shaped by Their Environment

Taste is really a fascinating thing.

Depending on where and in what environment a person grew up, preferences in seasoning differ from one person to the next.

In Japan’s case, the further north you go the saltier it gets, and the further south the sweeter.

My wife is from Kagoshima, and the seasoning of the miso soup she made for me in our newlywed days was so sweet that, honestly, I found it unpalatable. When she asked, “Is it good?” being newlyweds, I answered, “It’s delicious”—I recall those freshly-wed, fibbing days.

But come to think of it,

in the environment she grew up in it is the natural, delicious taste, so to call it “bad” would be terribly rude; perhaps it would have been more gentlemanly to say, “This taste is beyond me.”

The years have flowed by, and now the miso soup in our home has a neutralized taste—neither sweet nor especially salty. Has Tokyo, the place in the middle between north and south where we’ve long lived, become our home’s seasoning, and has she, too, ended up half dyed in Tokyo?