I think food preferences are largely a function of genetics. My husband, our biological children, and myself can eat the same thing every day. We have bland tastes - our preferred spice is salt. Our adopted kids we call epicurious. They would be sad and frustrated if they ate the same thing every day and if there weren't some spices to liven things up for them. I cook accordingly.

When we were growing up, 4 nights a week, my mom cooked boiled chicken, boiled potatoes, and a boiled vegetable (or iceberg lettuce in the middle of the table in a cereal bowl with "Russian dressing" on the side). That's not an exaggeration or a false memory. That's how we ate. Friday nights were either 1) Spaghetti with ketchup or 2) fishsticks. Saturday nights were hamburgers and hot dogs. Sundays the oven went on! That meant some kind of roast (chicken, pork butt, or beef) along with baked potatoes and a boiled vegetable. Only rarely were potatoes mashed and that was most likely because they didn't look so good.

My mom doesn't really eat many carbs anymore, so the potatoes and spaghetti are gone, but otherwise, her menu doesn't look much different from how it's looked for the past 80 years. She's never had a weight problem. Of her 7 children, only 2 ever had real weight problems and those came after pregnancy (long after we'd grown and left home).