Reappraisals in Taste
Following Taste, Finding More
Helsinki | Tokyo | San Sebastián
If we are open and willing, one lesson in Taste that travel never fails to provide is – the reappraisal. Straight away, I think of three telling examples across my travels.
Each one of these reappraisals represents a reversal of lifelong disdain for a certain dish or flavor. Each a product of right place, right time and a most critical coupling of an unrelenting curiosity and refusal to throw in the towel on taste.
From a practical point of view, I’m most thankful for the impact Finland’s salmon soup had when I first sipped it from one of Kappeli’s charming, little sundrenched rotundas in Helsinki. After years of trying, the ubiquitous world of cooked salmon had finally opened up to me.
A humble omakase counter in Tokyo drove reappraisal of eel, unlocking a section of the sushi menu once summarily dismissed. But of all the reappraisals, my acceptance of Basque Cheesecake has made revisiting here that which I didn’t once care much for a most delicious exercise in waxing nostalgic.
Since first trying Basque Cheesecake at San Sebastián’s La Vina in 2018, I’ve struggled to find the right adjectives, the right prose to describe it. It is light and airy laced with a difference-making touch of burnt caramel. Impossibly creamy, it lands on the tongue like soufflé. Its fluffiness and texture stiff-arms New York Cheesecake, creating a notable divide between it and the dense, tangy heaviness and cream-cheesiness of its American cousin.
Far more than reappraisal, it was love at first bite. Two pieces later and two more trips back to the La Vina counter – one the next day and another seven years later in 2025 – had only confirmed this was no fleeting love affair.
Technically, my love for Basque Cheesecake should be considered more of an inclusive broadening of a category than pure reappraisal as my opinion of New York Cheesecake remains unchanged today. It is, however, the curious chasm that exists between the two varieties that’s captured my attention.
I wonder what my inquisitive tastebuds can teach my eyes and ears, my hands and heart about reappraisal, about the journey of discovery and rediscovery that shapes not just our travels but the lives we live alongside them.
