As children, very few of us were adventurous eaters. I know kids who subsisted on PB&J and mac n’ cheese. Personally, I stuck to processed chicken with grill stripes lovingly painted on. But the rule of thumb was that whatever a kid eats, it can’t be anything the kid isn’t used to. Nothing new. No deviation. No weird flavor combinations. If you so much as change brands of cheese, the sensitive infantile taste buds will detect the difference on contact and the meal will be rejected.

But something happens at puberty. Okay, a lot happens at puberty, but I’m fairly certain that in addition to everything else our taste buds hit a growth spurt as well.

To see my theory in action, one has only to watch the eating habits of teenage boys. They go from eating nothing to eating everything in sight. They grow so fast they will consume everything available to fill the ever-widening hole between the tops and bottoms of their torsos. Trust me, girls do it, too. Their teenage hunger is insatiable. Add the usual teenage risk-taking impulses to the hunger and you’ll get an age group that will eat literally anything.

This varies with individuals, of course. Some remain set in their ways and manage to live on mac ‘n cheese and PB&J. Some will have nothing to do with casseroles or anything involving mayonnaise. And, hey, that’s okay. It takes all kinds. But most of us learn to be adventurous enough to try new things. Barring allergies, if it didn’t kill someone else, it probably won’t kill you either.

All of that to say that I just ate a blue cheese burger patty slathered in peanut butter and a dessert of vanilla ice cream with ketchup. And it was delicious, thank you very much.