Foods you inexplicably hate

[pjs]

Speaking of soft. . .

Soft. Boiled. Eggs.

PJ

[Johnnybird]

Beets, beets, beets, beets and beets and lima beans. Unfortunatly being married to someone of Eastern European extraction means she wants beets from time to time. That is what TDY(temporary duty) is for - she can eat what she wants and I don't have to eat/smell it. The other item was lima beans. Again, since Susan was born/raised on the eastern end of Long Island, where they grow the damned things and she likes to eat them TDY has its' uses. Though she has replicated a lima bean and rosemary spread with olive oil from a local restaurant that I do like - sucessfully I mus add.

[bloviatrix]

American cheese. Actually most cheeses. But American cheese which has a plastic-y look to it was just the worst. I still won't touch the stuff. Actually, I stay away from most cheeses.

I have gotten over my beet and borscht issues.

[auntdot]

Tea and toast.

Whenever one of us would get sick, Mom would ply us with tea and dry toast.

The tea was of the Tetley variety.

If I am in someone's home and tea is put before me, I will take a few sips, thank them, and tell myself that this too, shall pass.

But as for people's distaste for liver, I can only pity them.

They have never, ever, tasted the true McCoy.

A number of years ago went to a fine restaurant where they included. rarely, liver on the menu.

That night, they had only one portion left.

I talked my sister in law, who avowed a distinct distaste for the stuff, into ordering it.

Told her I would trade my veal chop if she did not like it.

This was very young calves liver, it came out white, with a sauce one could die for.

Could not pry the dish from my sister in law with a crow bar.

I'll eat liver from almost any beast, and like it rare.

Can rarely find the very young calve's liver, though.

But when we can, it is a treat.

[andiesenji]

When I was a child my family had kippers at breakfast almost every morning.

Then and now even the sight of smoked fish, pickled fish, etc. triggers my gag reflex.

People have tried to ply me with the "gourmet" smoked fish, trout, salmon, albacore,

but I simply can't get past that childhood memory.

I like smoked meats and fowl and I am find with unsmoked freshwater fish. I don't eat ocean fish because I developed an allergy related to iodine a few years ago.

Another childhood food aversion that has lasted to the present is rhubarb.

We were fed a stewed rhubarb as a spring "tonic" and I can remember sitting at the table for hours because I was physically unable to choke it down and wasn't allowed to leave the table until I finished it. Usually one of my cousins would sneak in and finish off my dish of the horrible stuff so I could go out and play.

Oh yes, I have always loved liver. This is a "trick" to make beef liver taste like calves liver.

When you are ready to fry the liver have a pot of simmering milk ready and dip the liver into the milk for about a minute, lift it out, pat it dry and dredge it in your seasoned flour and immediately pop it in the skillet, quickly brown it lightly on one side then the other. Add a couple of tablespoon of the milk to the pan, cover tightly and let it steam for 2-3 minutes, depending on the thickness of the liver. Uncover and continue cooking a couple of minutes until done. You can cut into a piece to check the center - once you get the timing down with your first batch you will know when it is right. The liver will be so tender you won't need a knive to cut it up.

[bleudauvergne]

I am searching my memory, and I can't for the life of me think of anything I categorically "didn't like" as a child. I had notoriously picky friends, though. They used to talk about hating liver, spinach, lima beans, etc., all foods I loved. I once ate dinner at my friend Susan's house, and her father was cooking. It was the three of us, and he had concocted some horrible slop out of under cooked Bisquick pancakes, rolling up chicken in them and ladling a disgusting sauce that he called a curry sauce over them. The pancakes weren't cooked in the middle. That was pretty disgusting. I can say that as a child I have the distinct memory of not liking that. But I ate it anyway, and pretended to like it, because I was a guest. Needless to say Susan didn't eat hers.

Now that I really think of it, I didn't particularly like sweet potatoes but they were only served on Thanksgiving so I never had trouble with that.

[sashimi]

Mustard. Mushrooms. Foie. Jarred Mayo. Most offal.

Everything else is fine.

[SKinCA]

As a kid and a teenager I hated olives - yet I kept trying because it didn't seem "right" that I would hate them. They are two of my favorite things - salty and they come in little bites.

Turned out that until I was an adult, I'd never had an olive that didn't come from a can! Canned olives are STILL about the most repulsive thing I can think of.

But real olives! Nicoise, kalamata, whatever! Love 'em.

Another thing I hated as a kid and still hate today - Miracle Whip!

The Miracle is that they are still making it.

[Shannon_Elise]

As a child I was extremely picky, now I will eat almost anything. For my first 20 years of existence I was convinced that I hated mushrooms, then realized that I had never actually tried a mushroom. The only hold up that I have from early childhood that still applies today is onions. I try desperatly to like raw onions, but I just can't do it. Granted, I cook with them and feed them to other people and if they disappear into a dish, I don't go looking for them. Each week I try something with raw onions to try and like them, I just don't, but have yet to accept that.

I lived in Japan when I was little, so I was exposed to a lot of foods my friends in the states wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole (although my family never ventured to a sushi bar, I'm still bitter about that). The foods they grew up with and the ones my mom made when we moved back to the states were the things that grossed me out. How about boneless, skinless chicken breasts wrapped and rolled with ham, put into a slow cooker with canned chipped beef, cream of chicken soup, and sour cream. The smell was nausiating and the color was remenicent of my jaundice baby pictures. She still makes it today, convinced that everyone loves it, but in actuallity, she is the only one that goes for seconds. Oh wait then there is the 10 bean can baked dish she makes, nasty and greasy. A bunch of canned beans undrained and bacon. Colorful I have to say (she includes limas) but there is always 3/4 of a 9 by 13 pan left.

I recently discovered the joys of a perfectly rare grilled tuna. I have been told though that none of my family will go to dinner with me if they know I will order it. Everything for them must be cooked into shoe leather. I brined a turkey at Thanksgiving and my dad said it was "too moist". TOO MOIST?? What do you want, super dry stringy turkey? He said yes, that's what he's used to. How did I grow up to eat anything and my dad cook subsist on charred cow?

Shannon

Edited May 2, 2004 by Shannon_Elise (log)

[naguere]

Each week I try something with raw onions to try and like them, I just don't, but have yet to accept that.

Try shallots, much more delicate.

A grated cheese sandwich with finely sliced shallots. To moderate the rawness of the shallot, add a little vinagrette to them.

[Shannon_Elise]

Naguere-

I do love shallots. I can even take raw red onions, if you can believe that. It's sweet onions, the kind most people put on hamburgers that don't like me. I am going to take your suggestion for the sandwich, it sounds delicious, thank you.

Shannon

[aliwaks]

UGh Chicken Roll....I have no idea what it was but it was vile.

Mustard was like the worst thing that could happen to sandwich.

When I was a child I demonized tomatoes because of ( in the words of my younger self) the snot like quality of the seeds, also in snot category was gefilte fish, oysters, white sauce in chinese food

(not to be crude but still not as fan of chinese white sauce as it reminds me of something I am too ladylike to name but not ladylike enough to refrain from inferring too)

I love tomatoes now but only in the summer and only when they are perfect, and still I scrape out the seed sacks, I love oysters I still stay far far away from gefilte fish

Mushrooms were similarly evil since they were fungus and fungus can grow on your feet, I now love them

Eel horrified me my german stepfather (# 2 i think) used to fish for them when we lived in the hamptons and they would be swimming around in the sink...actually still don't like it think it is hairy.

As a child to mid-20's I had a whole category of "hairy" foods they included Olives, Beans and Eel. I have slowly recovered and now really like all of those things,

Incidentally my very best friend in the whole world is the only other person I know who understood the hairy quality and we overcame our fear & revulsion as our taste for dry martinis and the accompanying olives developed, she has a thing about desserts that are too "German" she can't eat them , a "German Dessert" is one that has too many oaty, coconutty , raisiny things going on the derivitive would be German Chocolate Cake...als she does not eat things that still have thier face or lamb, after a traumatic incident involving a family pert and a BBQ growing up in Venezuela

Perhaps because the olives of my childhood were the canned black ones , have an awful memory of having to eat those and a tomato as part of lunch (cold fried chicken & salad) at the EST for children seminar I was tortured by in the mid 70's. The best part about it was at the late afternoon break we were given dixie cups of peanuts, raisin, butterscotch chips & chocolate chips which was quite yummy and revived us all after 6 hours of consciouness training.

My grandmother (who was Ukranian) used to make this sauerkraut soup that was pretty awful

My brother was worse than me he ate only like 7 things and most of them with ketchup, he is trying out more stuff now though has one of the scariet palates I've ever encountered his laters dish is black pudding rissotto (ack!! gag!!!) with lamb chops... (his new girlfriend is quite carnivorous)

oh holla to my egullet stalker, PM me .

[Hest88]

Liver. We were normally required to finish our plates at dinner, but liver was the only thing I could never put in my mouth without gagging. I still can't eat liver---unless it's in pate form!

[TJHarris]

When I was young, my grandmother would make "Sloppy Joes" in the most unusual way. Not with a lick of tomatoey, spicey goodness but with canned mushroom soup. I am not certain that Grandma even sprung for a name brand soup in a can. Bleck!!!!!!

[mags]

There were all kinds of things that my mother tortured to death when I was a kid -- vegetables, fish, and veal stew top the list. It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I realized I actually liked them, and that the problem lay with my mother's versions, not with the stuff itself.

As an adult, I keep a treasured list of Food I Don't Like. It is the corollary list to Expensive Things I Don't Want. Sadly, both lists are very short.

[Pickles]

Liver. We were normally required to finish our plates at dinner, but liver was the only thing I could never put in my mouth without gagging. I still can't eat liver---unless it's in pate form!

I still think it's intresting that people who mention "liver" as their most hated food never can tell (or just can't tell?) what kind of liver was prepared, nor how it was prepared. And I maintain it was probably old beef liver, and cooked very badly.

[bryan]

Until I was 18 I thought I hated meat. Then I went on a date with an "older" (read in his twenties) gentleman who ordered me a rare steak. I was horrified. He said, if you don't like it, we can always get it cooked more. After my first bite, I looked gratefuly to him and said, "This is meat?"

After years of eating well-done meat, I suggested to my Dad that he order a medium cooked steak. The last several years of his life he actually started ordering it rare. Bless him.

[Human Bean]

I was very surprised when my grandmother told me that in my childhood, before I can remember it, I apparently said, "Shrimp not 'licious."

Today they're one of my faves. (Scampi-style shrimp is comfort food).

[bleudauvergne]

Speaking of things we said as children, my parents came home with 8 lobsters and had them in a tub of water. I was about 2 1/2, and went to the edge of the tub and peered inside, and said with a flourish: "Spi-i-i-der meat!"

[Sleepy_Dragon]

The food thing swings in both age directions for me.

I used to love milk as a kid but hate it now. I'm also somewhat allergic to dairy.

I could also tolerate raw bell pepper but now can't stand it as an adult. And never liked cooked bell pepper at any age. I like the flavors it adds to food, and I will cook with it, but I won't put it in my mouth.

Also loved lop cheung (Chinese sausage) as a kid but can't stand it now.

Used to hate onions, but now like the flavor they lend, though again won't necessarily put them into my mouth. It depends on the form they're in. Big raw slices and slimey slices are usually out of the question. Same with tomatoey stew-like preparations with lots of onion pieces in them. Otherwise, I'll eat and enjoy them.

I don't like real olives now, and I blame this on growing up on the canned olives as a kid, which I liked well enough back then. Nowadays I think canned olives are boring, but real olives are downright offensive to my tongue, which is pretty sad but oh well. Exception: an olive tapenade a classmate made for a potluck we had last quarter, where the real olives in question were finely minced into a bunch of other stuff. That was delicious.

I liked some vegetables as a kid, but only the leafy parts. Like gai lan or bok choy for instance, or broccoli. I'd only eat the leaves or florets, and leave the stems because I didn't like their texture. I'm mostly over this as an adult but still hesitate a bit at times.

Tomatoes were another thing I disliked then and like now but only in certain ways. Big soggy chunks of tomato in a sauce or stew = no. Tomato sauce or bruschetta or finely chopped in bhelpuri or tabouleh = yes.

Pat

Edited May 3, 2004 by Sleepy_Dragon (log)

[cakewalk]

Liver. We were normally required to finish our plates at dinner, but liver was the only thing I could never put in my mouth without gagging. I still can't eat liver---unless it's in pate form!

I still think it's intresting that people who mention "liver" as their most hated food never can tell (or just can't tell?) what kind of liver was prepared, nor how it was prepared. And I maintain it was probably old beef liver, and cooked very badly.

Ah, but that's because those of us who hate liver know instinctively of what we speak.

But seriously, for me it was (and still is) thus: Beef liver. (Shudder.) In order to be kosher, it has to be broiled. To death. And then afterwards my mother would fry it with onions and God knows what else. Truly revolting, I can't even swallow my coffee now. Excuse me.

But I love chopped liver.

[howard88]

Anyone who likes oatmeal for breakfast should not continue to read this.

As a young child my mother would force me to at least try oatmeal for breakfast.

It simply looked like barf to me.

One spoonful and I would vomit. After the third try and still vomiting, my mother got the message.

Still can't stand the stuff.

[Hest88]

And I maintain it was probably old beef liver, and cooked very badly.

Well, you'd be correct except that since those horrific days I've tried duck liver a number of times at frou-frou restaurants and still have had the same gag reaction. I've also tried pork kidney (which tastes very much like liver to me) at Chinese restaurants with the same result.

So, it's the liver. Not the preparation.

[tryska]

organ meats.

feet.

heads.

i guess offal in general.

other than that - i guess i dislike rutabega for it's dirty sweatsock smell.

[tryska]

whilst thinking about figs i just realized - I hate dates. can't eat them.

ever since visiting date plantations in Saudi Arabia and having that sickly sweet, kinda pungent, gasoliney (not good gasoline, btw)smell waft up - made me sick to my stomach.