Foods you inexplicably hate

[dockhl]

FAVA beans.......!

What is hte big deal? Uck, kinda like limas.........

[cakewalk]

Portobello mushrooms. It's a texture thing.

[slbunge]

I'm not a fan of the flavor of raw or cooked green pepper.

Many a decent pizza has been fouled by a small bit that jumped ship from the prep area of the pizzaman onto my pie.

[hungryCAT]

What a cool thread!!

I can't stand:

Whole milk - I'll use skim in cereal, but I won't even drink that.

mayonaisse - the smell, the texture, the taste. But, I do love tartar

sauce!! Strange, I know. Mayo by itself on a sandwich or burger is gross.

liver - need I say more?

Corned beef and cabbage - yackaroo!!

butter - I don't mind it if it is completed melted, but cold butter on toast or

bread - shew!!

papaya - As a kid on a Girl Scout trip many years ago, I was dying of thirst and

amother girl gave me a swig of her papaya juice. Next time, I'll just die of thirst.

licorice - texture and flavor nauseates me

sake - I tried it at the Food & Wine Festival at Epcot a couple years ago and had

to throw it out. The next time I want to drink lighter fluid, I'll just go out to the

garage.

I don't understand ketchup. I'll eat it if I have to, but I'll choose BBQ sauce over

ketchup every time - on burgers, hotdogs, etc. (although I rarely eat a hotdog

anyway) With fries, I like tartar sauce - no ketchup. My soon-to-be-ex sister-in-law eats ketchup on her salads. Nasty

I love salt on potatoes and popcorn - but on watermelon???

I've never understood that!! And, I love margaritas and I know salt is all part

of it, but make mine without please!!

I do like cilantro, olives, raw or cooked tomatoes, wine, beer, coffee.

[Katie Nell]

I also understand perfectly about cheesecake and mayonnaise, although homemade mayonnaise and have some kinds of cheesecake have brought me around recently. There's something about rich creaminess combined with the wrong taste that can be just-- gak.

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My uncle won't eat anything that is white and creamy... mayo, cheesecake, ranch dressing, etc., etc.!

I haven't read the whole topic yet, but...

I'll jump on the hate coffee bandwagon (although it seems that that's not a weird dislike after all! Who knew?!?) I really only like a coffee flavor if it's about 90% chocolate, 10% coffee!

I have a major gag reflex when it comes to fat or gristle (sp?) interrupting my meal... there have been many, many moments of discreetly spitting into a napkin in fine restaurants!!

I ABSOLUTELY hate, hate, hate deviled eggs! Talk about gagging! In fact, I really don't much like eggs in any shape or form... I can tolerate them sometimes, but don't really like 'em!

Not a big raw tomato fan either!

And is it just me, (my boyfriend says it is) or do green peppers smell like body odor?!?

[Katie Nell]

Bananas. I must be the only cyclist on the face of the earth who doesn't like bananas. Oook: the taste, the texture, and most of all the smell. If my husband wants them, he needs to bring them in to work and eat them there.

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Don't like bananas either!! They make me gag too...

okay, I'm weird, what's wrong with me?!?

[TPO]

One food I cannot stand is liver. Lots of people dislike liver so that's not so unusual, but my dislike is a bit irrational because I have never tried it as an adult. I can't get past the smell of it in order to taste it. Which leads to the one other food I cannot stand: blade steak. It smells like liver to me.

Edited May 17, 2006 by TPO (log)

[Jenny McClure]

I hate clams, love mussels though.

I love coffee and chocolate, but I cannot eat things flavoured with them. Yogurt, ice-cream, milk, liquers. I cannot eat tiramasu because of the coffee flavour.

Caviar, can't take the things still popping in my teeth 10 minutes later.

Grape flavoured things....vile!

Mayonaise, my brother used to eat spoonfuls of it in front of me cause he knew it would make me retch.

Cooked carrots, like them raw only.

Ice-cream, just do not get why people go so crazy over it.

Salami & Bologna....shudder....

I know there are more, but that's all for now...folks!

[Tweety69bird]

I have to chime in here...

I hate:

Eggplant It's like someone chewed it up for me

Raw Onions (as stated upthread, I'll cook with em, but they're gonna get picked out if I can find em)

Rice Pudding!!!!!!!! Beyond hate that!

Tapioca Pudding must I explain this one?

Any form of yogurt to be eaten raw... in other words, I will cook with it, and even make tzatziki, but as much as I would like to like it, every time I try it again, I wretch!

I love sweet potatoes, but whoever thought that putting brown sugar and orang juice with them should be shot.

And last but not least, any kind of cooked cheesecake! I can manage the uncooked kind occasionally. I thought I was alone for a long time, but alas, there are more people like me in this world!

[hungryCAT]

Mayonaise, my brother used to eat spoonfuls of it in front of me cause he knew it would make me retch.

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OMG, that would just about send me over the edge!!

[Philanthrophobe]

Add me to the list of women who don't care for chocolate. I don't hate it, but I don't care for it all that much either. I also don't like anything sugary; other flavors have to be present to balance or counteract the sugar. I love carrot cake, for example. But buttercream frosting? GAAAAAAAAK.

And any sort of mealy fruit is revolting.

[Kouign Aman]

Watermelon - or anything scented/flavored or in contact with it (all those "Rain" and "Ocean" scented products smell like watermelon to me. *shudder*)

Any soda. I hate carbonation. I can coax myself to drink beer and champagne, because the flavor is worth the tradeoff. There is no soda or sparkling water extant that I will drink short of imminent death by dehydration.

[saskanuck]

The things I can't stand are:

raw or lightly cooked onions

any kind of meat; fish, seafood and poultry are ok

eggs eaten by themselves or in quiche, anything really eggy like custard

white milk

mayo or miracle whip

Weird, huh?

But you guys can give me all of your olives, cheesecake, and raw tomatoes. You can have my hamburger.

Edited May 17, 2006 by saskanuck (log)

[santo_grace]

There are a few things I don't like, such as olives, or smoked or cooked oysters (but love raw oysters) or fake strawberry flavoring.

But one of the biggest things I don't like is black pepper. Fresh ground or not. I will put it in food when I cook, but don't like it sprinkled on somehting after it is cooked. Or encrusted on meat before it is cooked. In other words, no steak au poivre for me. The only dish I have ever sent back at a restaurant was beef carpaccio coated with black pepper.

"It tastes like burning."

[johnsmith45678]

Just about everything on this list I don't hate. I can't really think of anything I hate. Food, in my opinion, is by default good, and free food is even better! I used to hate a lot of food as a kid (mexican food, pizza, etc.), but I think my starving student college days ridded me of my food snobbery. About the only thing I can think of at the moment that I don't like is the way I feel after eating a McDonald's meal, and possibly liver, but I've had liver I actually liked - it's all in the preparation in that case.

edit - Oh, I thought of one thing I didn't care for - deep-fried okra. It was like phlegm.

edit 2 - And after watching A Cook's Tour and No Reservations, I'm pretty sure there are a few things I wouldn't like: fermented shark, Peruvian spit drink, bile, iguana, ...

Edited May 17, 2006 by johnsmith45678 (log)

[azurite]

Great thread--I'm so glad to find that so many other people don't like coffee. For years, I've felt like an oddball as friends sipped their espressos, lattes, etc. I don't particularly like the smell. And until about 4-5 years ago, at meetings or continuing education seminars, if refreshments were supplied, there'd be coffee, decaff coffee, sodas, maybe even herbal teas . . . .but no black tea, which I do like. Things have improved fortunately.

The only time I thought coffee was palatable was when a friend talked me into trying what he called Irish coffee--coffee plus whisky (which I also don't like). I guess the combination of the two made both drinkable. I've had it only once-- the experience wasn't good enough to repeat.

Peanut butter cookies, cheesecake, most soda although I like ginger ale if I'm not feeling well, black licorice, custard (mostly a textural thing I think), clams except in clam chowder, squid, butterscotch, baklava (too sweet), liver. I don't mind runny yolks but for some reason runny whites gross me out--I think it's a mouth feel thing, sweet pickles although I like dill or sour pickles, lamb although I think it may be because the few times I've had it it wasn't prepared well.

Beer. When I was in college a guy I was seeing was so sure that the only reason I didn't like beer was because I hadn't tried the right one so he took me some place that had I think 25 different kinds of beers, ales, stouts, whatever and we must've tried at least 10 or 15 (swallows, not entire beers, or not for me anyway) and I didn't like any of them. Too bitter I think--and the one other time I tried some cheapo American beer I thought I'd never stop belching. I don't mind adding a 1/2 cup or so of Guinness or some dark beer/ale to a stew though.

Oh--and cotton candy. I hadn't even thought about it until it was mentioned on this thread--but I too can remember looking forward to trying it with great anticipation (it looks so good) and then it was such a letdown to actually eat it. I think I couldn't even finish what I'd gotten it tasted so yuck to me.

There may be more. An interesting thread.

S.H.

[H. du Bois]

Add me to the raw tomato haters club. And I don't like green bell peppers, either, though I love the red and yellow ones. What makes them taste so bad?

[jkonick]

Most of my food phobias are common condiments: ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard.

I absolutely will not touch anything with ketchup, although I don't mind it inthings - like barbecue or tonkatsu sauce. But straight up? ICK. I won't eat a hamburger if it has ketchup in it.

Mustard is only a half-phobia, because I do like a tiny, tiny amount of good mustard. But the yellow stuff from a bottle? I hate it.

The worst of all is mayonnaise though, in any and all forms. Everything about it scares and disgusts me: the texture, the taste, just the idea of it, even the smell. And unlike mustard or ketchup, there is absolutely no form of mayo I will eat. Maybe if it was in cake... but that's a different story.

People always think it's strange that I won't eat these things, because I'll eat almost anything else under the sun. I think it's just a habit that has stuck with me since I was a kid.

[Khadija]

In order of hate:

1. Mayonaisse. When I was a child, I didn't even like being in the same room as an open jar of mayonaisse, lest I catch a bit of the scent. I've actually made mayonaisse, for my own culinary edification -- less disgusting than from a jar, but definitely not edible. I hate other things in what I identify as the bad side of the "white creamy family": sour cream, ranch dressing, caesar salad with egg (I make mine without egg, probably sacrilege, but I don't care). But there is a good side of the white creamy family: yogurt, cream cheese (formerly on the bad side, but somehow just moved, magically).

2. Spiced, cured meats, like salami. The smell makes me gag. Love things like prosciutto, though.

3. Any fish from a can. I don't care if it's olive oil packed tuna. It's gross to me.

4. Cake doughnuts. Tim Horton's, Krispy Kreme, genuine old-fashioned homeade, whatever. I always thought cake doughnuts were just deep-fried cake. I'm not a big sweets fan, but in theory deep fried cake doesn't sound bad. But no matter who makes them they always have a distinctive cake-doughnutty taste that I hate. I do love fresh, yeast doughnuts with nothing but granulated sugar.

I don't really get the big deal about chocolate, but it does taste kind of nice. The problem is that it is rich and, perhaps because I am not used to eating sweets, even a small bit tends to spoil my appetite. Then I'm always mad at chocolate for preventing me from having something better.

[BeeZee]

I can't stand eggs. Not in any form, not even flan. The smell turns my stomach, my husband only gets to eat eggs when he's at a breakfast meeting away from home.

He hates cold cheese (like on a cheese plate) but will eat it if it is melted (like pizza). In fact, if he's served a plate of pasta that has globs of fresh mozzarella that are not fully melted, he'll make them take it back and melt it.

[Khadija]

I can't stand eggs. Not in any form, not even flan. The smell turns my stomach, my husband only gets to eat eggs when he's at a breakfast meeting away from home.

He hates cold cheese (like on a cheese plate) but will eat it if it is melted (like pizza). In fact, if he's served a plate of pasta that has globs of fresh mozzarella that are not fully melted, he'll make them take it back and melt it.

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I have always loved all cheese, but I went through a phase as a kid where I decided that unmelted cheese was always preferable to melted cheese. I began to demand "raw" cheese. My parents thought I was referring to cheese made from raw milk, and couldn't figure out how I'd become such a dairy snob.

[eJulia]

Hate to say it, but I can't stand lamb! So many rave about it, I try it all the time - roasted, grilled, braised, cold, hot, kebabs, marinated - nothing! I really do want to "get" why it's on so many "favorites" lists!

[DivineMsN]

I cannot stand pudding or jello. It's a consistency issue I think.

[Bond Girl]

Chicken, duck, fowl, goose...anything that formerly has wings....I don't even like seeing feathers (down comforters and pillows puts me in a bad mood and I can smell them froma mile away.)

Bananas. Hate them raw but like them when caramelized, and love plaintains. Raw bananas taste plastc like and slimey...yuck.

[phaelon56]

I dislike asparagus and butternut / acorn squash. I grew up in an Irish-American household where veggies were boiled to death. Apart from corn I found them all unappealing during my childhood years but as I began havng opportunities to taste veggies that were properly cooked my palate expanded.

To this day I have yet to try a preparation of asparagus in which I can comfortably state that I like the flavor. Likewise with butternut / acorn squash.

Such dislikes don't seem unusual to my non-food-savvy friends but here at eGullet I suspect that I'm in a small minority.