Developing a taste for a new food

[jgm]

I just made a salad out of Alfred Portale's book, Simple Pleasures. It's watermelon, cherry tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, lime juice, S&P, and olive oil.

The first taste was kinda strange. By the time I finished my little sample bowl, I kinda liked it, although it's quite a different thing for me. After it chills for an hour per directions, who knows. I may have a new passion.

As I remember, I didn't care for tabbouleh the first time I ate it. But something kept bringing me back, and now I just love it.

What foods did you not like the first time you ate them, but now you do?

[spaghetttti]

Durian

[Bernaise]

watermelon, feta and garlic scapes, dressed in olive oil and lemon juice. now it is my standard summer salad. Took me many years to accept it as a concept though.

[Abra]

Cilantro. The first time I tasted it I actually spit it out, but now I'd probably brush my teeth with it if someone made a cilantro toothpaste.

[Aileen]

Sushi. The third time trying it was the charm for me, and I've been addicted ever since.

[merrybaker]

Anchovies. Cilantro. Miso. Tofu. Hated them all, now can't get enough of them. Will have to find a dish that combines them all.

[Milt]

Coffee! When I was twenty years old, I was learning to fly at the University of Oklahoma. After our flights, we all gathered in the terminal coffee shop and everyone else drank coffee. I drank a Coke. Twenty year old males don't take well to teasing, or to seeming different so the next semester I committed to learning to drink coffee. With four teaspoons of sugar, I realized that it wasn't too far from warm Coke. By the end of that semester I had reduced the sugar to two teaspoons. Everyone had learned a new way to tease me - four teaspoons of sugar, that's not coffee - it's syrup.

Even more challenging was learning to drink black coffee a few years later. I knew that I would be better off if I could learn to drink black coffee and that many people seemed to enjoy it that way. It was literally six months of coffee nearly every morning before I realized that it was tasting just fine. Now, after about thirty years of drinking black coffee, I can't imagine adding sugar to it, and don't enjoy my coffee when it does have sugar in it.

[auntdot]

Gjetost, at first could not stand the stuff, now I am addicted.

But cilantro, have tried to like it, heck so many people adore the stuff, but it is something I still cannot abide.

[NulloModo]

For me it was Salmon. First time I ever had salmon, I despised it. I kept hearing others talk about how much they liked it though, so I kept going back occasionally, and now I sort of like it in some settings.

I made the olive oil poached salmon from Paula Wolfert's Slow Mediterranean Kitchen, and that was awesome. I like the canned salmon you can buy next to the canned tuna for use in quick salads. I even really enjoyed some salmon sitting in a steamer tray in a chinese buffet they other day. The one thing I haven't been able to get my tongue around salmon-wise is smoked salmon, like lox. Now, I just just about everything else smoked, so this doesn't make sense to me, but maybe that taste is still developing.

[Gastro888]

Laksa. The kind from Taiping, Malaysia. My ex-bf's family made it and the first time I smelt it I thought it to be foul and it was spicy as all get out. Took some getting used to but I now love the spicy/sour/salty tasty of the fish, tamarind, chiles, etc.

Sidebar: why is it that good - no, great! - food comes from crappy people? Why, why, why?! *shakes fist* Ok, I vented...thanks...=)

[jgm]

Sidebar: why is it that good - no, great! - food comes from crappy people?  Why, why, why?! *shakes fist*  Ok, I vented...thanks...=)

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That's a whole 'nother thread unto itself! Sad but true; some of my favorite food was introduced to me by people I no longer care to associate with.

[Patrick S]

Peppers are growing on me big time. I used to be mild salsa weakling, but gradually I've found myself attracted to more heat. Now I'm more apt to say things like 'How can they call this junk hot sauce!' I'm not a pepper junkie yet, but in a year, who knows?

[andiesenji]

Gjetost, at first could not stand the stuff, now I am addicted.

But cilantro, have tried to like it, heck so many people adore the stuff, but it is something I still cannot abide.

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With cilantro, I have noticed that often it has to be in conjunction with something that it complements.

I think that too many chefs went overboard in throwing cilantro into everything, often combining it with foods that fought back, so to speak.

I have been eating it for so many years that i can't even recall the first time I had it and it wasn't called cilantro, but fresh coriander.

Not too long ago I prepared carnitas tacos that had the salsa, a pico de gallo containing tomatoes, onions, peppers and cilantro, already mixed into the meat. One of my guests commented on how good it was and commented that he really liked the "parsley" - - - I told him that it was cilantro and he said, "But I don't like cilantro, this doesn't taste like cilantro!"

It was cilantro and tasted like cilantro by itself, but when combined with the fatty carnitas, it is not at all the same as eating it on its own.

Edited January 26, 2005 by andiesenji (log)

[petite tête de chou]

Raw oysters. -gah- Phlegm-balls o' the sea. But I like them now.

Still don't care for green olives. Though I've found that if I drink enough martinis those olives don't look so bad!

edited to spell phlegm correctly. still doesn't look right.

Edited January 27, 2005 by petite tête de chou (log)

[ludja]

Blood sausage (boudin noir or blut wurst) and Tripe sausage.

I did grow up the the former, but it took me awhle to really like it (which I do now). For me, these also really depend on quality being good and on having the right accompaniements-- pan fried potatoes or good non-mayo potato salad...

[Stephanie Wallace]

As I remember, I didn't care for tabbouleh the first time I ate it.  But something kept bringing me back, and now I just love it.

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There are a few foods--albeit very few--that turned me off as a child. Tabbouleh is one that I remember particulary well. As I've grown older I have found that these foods tend to elicit an intense nostalgic reaction; I enjoy many of them now specifically because I disliked them as child.

[Jinmyo]

As a teen-ager loathed foie gras, especially in the pate I first had it in which was too heavy with cognac.

It took first working with ankimo (monkfish liver) about two decades ago to get me ready to enjoy working on a lobe of foie grad and enjoying the product.

Though I really still prefer duck fat and ankimo.

[Jinmyo]

Tabouleh is loathsome because it's too itsy unless made with Israeli couscous.

I could only develop a taste for it if I were about nine inches tall.

[EdS]

I have a couple. One is hummus. I remember thinking as a kid that it looked kind of like frijoles refritos but I'd taste it and then nearly puke. I couldn't deal with it until I became an adult. Now I like it very much.

The other one is soft cheese like brie or camembert. I'm working on this. A slight gag reflex kicks in when I have my first bite but then as I get through it I feel better and better. I'm determined to like this stuff!

[Luckylies]

just terrine de fois gras ( food poisoning once) every other kind of fois gras is perfect for me terrine, hell no.

cilantro I'm working on

dill too. ugh I hte dill on salmon, it just kills me. bleh.

[deltadoc]

Tabouleh is loathsome because it's too itsy unless made with Israeli couscous.

I could only develop a taste for it if I were about nine inches tall.

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Wow! I must have been lucky. In about 1980-81, I met a Saudi princess named Ohoud. She talked me into going to Abdul's Afandy. Had the combination plate.

I loved the taste of hummous, tabouli, baba ganoush, grape leaves, Jerusalem Salad, kibbie, kofta kabob, and tahini sauce right from the first taste.

I'd have never ever thought of trying that kind of food, had she not convinced me that it really was good. That day, that moment, was what opened my previously narrow minded vision of food to the great joys of ethnic food all over the world.

But I'll never get used to lutefisk, and I'm not about to try getting used to it either!

Tabouli, while on the surface seems a simple dish, can be quite horrible if not prepared right. It must be fresh, and salted only just as it is being served.

I'll grant you this, day old Tabouli is hard to swallow. And hummous without the tahini is equally disgusting imho.

doc

[chefzadi]

Kimchi. The first time I tasted it I thought my tongue had been assaulted, brutalized. It was the first time I met my would be in laws. And I remember thinking, "I hope this is the worst of it."

Now I eat it several times a week. My wife complains about the smell though, not so much on my breath but in the frigo.

[Jinmyo]

Kimchi is an intelligent life form that deserves our respect and gratitude for nourishing us so well and so flavourfully.

[FaustianBargain]

calf brains. thought it was like flavourless cheese at first. then i consumed it the right way(method patented, of course). all was well.

[irodguy]

raw oysters, sea urchin.