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| Falafel, hummus, tabbuli - yum! |
There are loads of new and different things out there to try. I grew up in a small town in rural Ohio, so I wasn't exposed to a lot of different foods, music, literature, religions, philosophies, etc.
Growing up, I'm lucky that I was able to eat "Mexican" (Ortega) and thin-crust pizza (Chef Boyardee, although there was actually an excellent pizza joint near us). (I once made tacos for my paternal grandparents, and they couldn't believe anyone could eat something so spicy. All the more for me!) But I didn't have Indian or Thai or Middle Eastern food until well after I stopped eating animal products; I didn't have Ethiopian until EK was a toddler.
So here's the advice:
The younger you are, the more new things you should explore. You won't like many, if not most, of what you try, but the ones you do add to your repertoire with make your life better over the decades.
BUT: don't think you "should" like anything. Opera, Russian literature, molecular gastronomy, documentary movies, fine dining, single-malt Scotch, etc. Nothing is inherently good, so you should feel free to like what you like.
Give things a fair try, however. Ethiopian food might strike you as weird, in both appearance, smell, and how it is eaten. Different is not bad; recognize that an initial negative reaction to something foreign is a hurdle to honestly analyzing something.
Related: a good definition of a connoisseur is someone who can appreciate something they don't personally like. People who really "get into"' wine can recognize a good wine that they don't personally want to drink. Or - I can dislike that Richard Wagner was a Nazi and find operatic singing annoying. But I understand that The Ring Cycle is a really significant achievement. (The Ring Without Words is really excellent, IMO; I'm listening to it now. Buggs Bunny introduced me to Wagner. Seriously.)
That ties to another key life lesson: Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it is "bad." Not reacting to things as "good" or "bad" is helpful in achieving more equanimity and peace. (This is the Buddhist idea of "emptiness" - things don't have any "essence." Instead, we project judgment onto things, but we don't have to do that.)
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