For a long time, Lancaster County's fame as the Garden Spot, the producer of so many wonderful things to eat, was accompanied by a weirdly indifferent attitude toward food.

Sure, we produced a bounty of raw ingredients. But we were starved for something edible to do with them. Our local cuisine was, well, bland, to put it plainly. How could decent people raise such good things to eat ... and do such bad things to them in the kitchen?

Fresh-from-the-field green beans, for example, became beige beans, cooked down to pabulum, all flavor and nutrients boiled away. Spices were treated like outsiders here, something not to be trusted. Flavor was a sin, you might say. Food was fuel for hard work. That was all.

This attitude ignored some of the real pleasures of life, and now, happily, it seems to be passing from the local scene, little by little; or, if not fading away, then sharing space at the table with other, more flavorful offerings.

(By the way, despite my interest in food as something more than body fuel, I am an awful cook. I can boil water, but only with detailed instructions from my wife, an excellent cook. I tell her, "I'm an academic chef," a theorizer, someone with strong opinions, if not the skills.)

Here in Lancaster County, our taste buds seem to be waking up, along with the rest of America's. Nowadays, there is a feeding frenzy over food with some flair. In the wider world, you see it in the popularity of the Food Network, to name one obvious sign. (Do you remember when the only cooking programs were on WITF — "The Frugal Gourmet," Jacques Pepin and "Yan Can Cook," et al.?)

Here, new so-called fine dining restaurants have been springing up featuring seasonal ingredients from local farms. A chef at the recently opened John J. Jeffries, in the Lancaster Arts Hotel, told the Sunday News, "If it's not seasonal, we don't have it." This is how it ought to be.

There have been other encouraging signs of our awakening, too. I have space enough for only a few:

• Did you note the high hopes that attended the possibility of a gourmet supermarket coming to Harrisburg Pike? Would it be a Trader Joe's, Wegman's, Whole Foods? (Our town, apparently, is not on Whole Foods' radar.) Who knows, something worthy of foodies' allegiance might move in.

• For now, we have the Stauffers of Kissel Hill store in Lititz, and it fills in nicely in a pinch. Its selection of cheeses of the world, for example, seems to widen by the week. Recently, my wife, dashing in for some cheese to serve guests before dinner, could find some very good Spanish Drunken Goat and Mahon, a long way from simply Swiss or, gag, Velveeta.

• You could be forgiven if, like my wife, you once thought of the S. Clyde Weaver store in East Petersburg as "the Lebanon bologna store." That, along with American cheese and breaded chicken patties, seemed to be the extent of its stock. Not anymore. Now, you can find real Greek yogurt and chorizo, among other delicious things.

• The number of good hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurants has exploded in the past few years. Not long ago, you could choose from family-style Italian or Chinese — that was pretty much it. Now, we are blessed with a veritable United Nations of cuisines, many of which are available at Central Market, too, right alongside traditional fare.

All of this slobbering over our supposed Renaissance of tastes surely would amuse the Mandros family. After all, for decades the Mandroses have been in the business of expanding our palates at their crammed shop at Charlotte and Lemon streets in Lancaster City. In the Dark Ages, when most people thought olives only came stuffed with pimentos, the Mandroses sold the real thing, in many varieties. Three generations of Brodys have shopped there.

Now, where is all of this leading us? Will Lancaster County become some Napa of the East, a Paris on the Susquehanna? (Not likely.) Will we see the creation of some nouvelle Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine, little towers of schnitz and knep erected on stilts of Hodecker's celery? Will we savor a new fusion of flavors — curried chicken pot pie, pig stomach with soffrito, chicken corn soup brightened with dots of sriracha?

I do not know. But I'm hungry to find out.

• CONTACT US: sbrody@LNPnews.com or 481-6011. The Voices column is written by a rotating team of New Era staffers. It appears Mondays.