Ask Code Switch: Is picky eating about taste or race?

I don't remember when spicy food became part of my personality. What I do know is that Flamin' Hot Cheetos fill a significant portion of my suitcase on trips to see my family in Mexico and Ecuador (where such Frito-Lay delicacies have yet to take over store shelves). And, as any good spice head knows, not all hot sauce is created equal – which is why I carry packets of Tapatio in my purse for those emergencies when you ask for hot sauce and your waiter says, "we have Tabasco.

" So when we got a question about food preferences from a listener in Washington D.C., it really caught my attention.

When it comes to taste, our listener wants to know – are we born with particular food preferences? Or, are even our taste buds shaped by race and class? Hi, Code Switch! My name is Anton Allequin, calling from Washington, D.C. I grew up in Hershey, Pennsylvania – a predominantly white town.

My parents immigrated from the Philippines and, being in a predominantly white area, one of the only ways that we could stay connected with our Filipino culture was food. Growing up, I felt very insecure about my food preferences versus my white friends' food preferences. And I think I started developing an understanding or perception that food preferences were stratified based on race.

When I moved to a city that was more diverse, I started seeing that that wasn't necessarily always the case. And so I wanted to know more about the historical context and the social context behind food preferences..