I’m a meat and potatoes kinda’ guy. I enjoy a good steak — better yet, give me a thick slab of slow roasted prime rib, medium rare, served in a hot pond of au jus. Add an Idaho baked potato (loaded with sour cream, shredded cheese and real bacon bits), bring out a basket of warm sourdough bread slathered in butter, top it off with a thick slice of carrot cake covered in cream cheese frosting and I am in food heaven (and a food coma).

I try to skip the salads, these days, because they take up too much valuable gastrointestinal space. I cannot eat like I could in my younger days, and if something has to be axed from my dietary intake, I would prefer for rabbit food to become the first voted off the alimentary island.

Please do not misunderstand; I am not a culinary heathen. I also enjoy some of the finer dining pleasures, such as a juicy bacon double cheeseburger on a brioche bun. That fancy brioche bun can really turn a good sandwich into a gourmet work of art (everyone knows it — just ask any of the fast food joints or sports bars). However, when I absolutely want to step up my game, I go international by ordering a wet burrito at one of those quasi-authentic Mexican restaurants.

That was, until a few weeks ago. I was dining with a good friend with an epicurean background far more expansive than my own. Said friend ordered ahi tuna, medium rare. I rolled my eyes and questioned the intelligence of eating undercooked fish. Actually, I reacted more like a 2-year old, tasting (and rejecting) Brussels sprouts for the first time. I think I might have actually mumbled “Yuck!” under my breath (an intelligent way of dealing with things outside my comfort zone). Medium rare steak I understood — fish, not so much.

“What do you think sushi is?” my friend with the refined taste palate asked (in a smug, “know-it-all” tone).

“Bait,” I quickly replied (in an equally smug “don’t-get-me-started” tone). “Aren’t you afraid of getting salmonella?”

Long story short; I relented and tried a taste of the ahi tuna. Then, I sampled another bite (or four) and reluctantly agreed that (perhaps) I might have been a little too narrow in my approach to dining preferences (the tuna was REALLY good, but I was not about to let that become public knowledge).

Sensing a crack in my beef armor, my friend asked me if I liked Asian cooking.

“You bet,” I replied. “My favorite is sweet and sour chicken.”

“That isn’t Asian food,” came the retort (actually, there were eye-rolls, snorts, and guffaws involved — just before the retort). “That’s just chicken nuggets with 23 packets of fast-food sauce dumped over it.”

With this brief round of culinary conversation (and the delicious taste of ahi tuna lingering on my lips), my foodie friend became my trusted culinary tour guide. Over the next several weeks, we sampled sushi (and a bunch of other things wrapped in cucumber), shrimp pad Thai, eel, calamari (a sneaky name for squid), grilled salmon, mahi-mahi and oysters (something I had always envisioned to be akin to snot sliding down the back of my throat). Some of these new tastes and textures, I liked — some of them, I liked even better. Please do not tell anyone — but the oysters were surprisingly good.

I learned that, although I was certain I “hated” anchovies, they are a primary taste driver in my favorite dressing for Caesar salad. I made several new discoveries and will probably be diving into escargot (snails) and a big pile of fish eggs in the near future.  However, the real kicker came when I found out that Brioche bun is just a fancy name for a sugar- laden white bread bun — with about the same nutritional value as Wonder Bread.

Although my gastronomic horizons have expanded, I think I am going to draw the line at the new fast food craze — the Nothing/Impossible burgers. They are pretend burgers, made solely from plants, supposedly tasting like beef. I do not understand the reasoning behind making food — created for people that do not like meat — taste like meat. Even in my new, enlightened, dietary state of mind, I doubt that I would ever embrace a burgerless burger — even if served on a brioche bun.

Larry Wilson is a mostly lifelong resident of Niles. His essays stem from experiences, compilations and recollections from friends and family. He can be reached at wflw@hotmail.com