Just Hungry

I don’t know why but when i started cooking, about 4 years ago, as a student, I did’nt want to use garlic or onion, and i hated black olive…
Now, i add onion and garlic in my recipe and i’m in love with black olive taste !

My experience is very similar on the olives - I thought I didn’t like them because I’d only ever had the canned pitted kind. Then there was a little dish of oil-cured black olives with pepper flakes at a restaurant, and they opened up a whole new world.

I keep trying brussels sprouts - over the last few years, I’ve disliked them less each time. They’re so cute, I’d really like to like them.

I still haven’t managed to like cilantro though. The taste is way too overpowering for me - I can’t taste any other elements int he dish through it.

but now you’re making me want to give them a try… or at least get a few from the bar at Whole Foods to try those pea burgers. I <3 peas, but the dude hates them. Oh well.

BTW, durian?? I tried to give it a chance (in SE Asian, while it was actually in season) and I still thought it was icky. Oh well. To each their own. I’d munch on carob chips, craisins and toasted soy nuts ALL DAY if I could. The dude thinks it’s a vile mix :P

Oddly, most of the strong flavored foods that are often acquired tastes for a lot of people (anchovies, olives, strongly hopped beer, brussels sprouts, salted licorice, etc.) I’ve loved from first taste. The things that took a few tries for me were more about texture — for instance, mushrooms, tofu, avocadoes (oddly, now the texture is my favorite part of a good, properly ripened avocado).

All through my childhood, I would not eat salad. Then I went away to college and discovered that there were lots of salads that consisted of LETTUCE, and TOMATOES, and other green stuff set off with a tasty dressing. The only salads my mother made contained chopped apples, chopped walnuts — so far it sounds ok, but wait — chopped raw celery, and Miracle Whip, a USian salad dressing consisting mostly of solidified vinegar.

Note that generally, children have more sensitive tastebuds than adults, and that some people are “supertasters” who even as adults are extra-sensitive to strong tastes. Whether this is relevant to the “I used to hate olives but now I like them” people, I don’t know.

But for me, the only good olive is an olive still looking picturesque on the tree. I used to live in Berkeley, that world center of foodiness, where the supermarkets have big olive bars next to the big salad bars, and you buy your favorite assortment by weight.

And there’s no use telling me “Oh, you just haven’t tried any GOOD olives.” I can’t stand any of them; they all taste like OLIVES.

Similarly, beer — anything with alcohol in it, really, since they all have the double-nasty taste of sour and alcohol — and beer is just one stage worse because in addition to sour and alcohol it’s also bitter. If only it tasted the way it smelled. That last remark also goes for coffee.

I suppose it’s just as frustrating for my friends to keep saying “But this is GOOD {beer, coffee, pickles, olives, whatever}!” as it is for me to keep saying, “Yes, but it’s still {beer, coffee, pickles, olives, whatever}.”

the very first time I tried it I was overwhelmed and ill prepared for it. then I tried it another time and ‘til this day I still daydream about tuna and salmon sushi and sashimi.
I’m a vegetarian, so I no longer eat it, but I can still dream…

I love Olives!!!I´m spanish and olives are kind of a sidedish for us :)anytime you have tapas,or just a beer you get served a tiny plate with olives.Now I live in London,and married to a japanese :) and miss terribly that habit.Also good quality olives are hard to find and very expensive in UK compared to Spain.Spanish tend to add olives to many dishes such as rice or russian salad(ensaladilla)

I used to hate tripes,cooked the spanish way:Callos.But after several year in London,and having dimsum every sunday with my family,I gave a try chinese style tripes…and love them!!
Not to mention chicken feet which I immediatly liked,yet my sister seems horrified every time she visits and watches me eat them haha…

I love your site!!!I also lived in Switzerland for several years(Lugano) I went to boarding school there :)

For me that was mushrooms. I hated them as a kid, especially their - to me then - slimy texture. I’m German and going on a mushroom foray in the forest is kind of a culinary national sport in fall season. As a kid I used to go along with the adults and I enjoyed trying to find the mushrooms (they’re sneakily hiding between the leaves usually), but I never paid attention to which mushrooms were edible and which ones were poisonous because I didn’t like them. I came to regret that a few years back, when my mom prepared some fresh wild mushrooms she’d just picked with a friend. I thought I ought to try some and see if my taste for them had maybe changed and well… I suddenly enjoyed them so much I had trouble to leave some for my mom!
Now I love to eat wild mushrooms - boletus, chanterelle, larch bolete and in fall I go and find them myself (at least the ones I can identify as edible).
After aquiring a taste for wild mushrooms I tried others, but I found still don’t like store-bought champignons. They are watery and have no taste to me. Trying some Asian mushrooms like shiitake I was also disappointed. Their texture is different, very chewy and the taste was almost nasty to me, very strong. Though that might be because they are dried and stored for a long time, before I can buy them here. I’d like to try them fresh one day if I ever get the chance.
So while I’ve been converted to eating mushrooms I’m still pretty picky about them! :-)

For me that was mushrooms. I hated them as a kid, especially their - to me then - slimy texture. I’m German and going on a mushroom foray in the forest is kind of a culinary national sport in fall season. As a kid I used to go along with the adults and I enjoyed trying to find the mushrooms (they’re sneakily hiding between the leaves usually), but I never paid attention to which mushrooms were edible and which ones were poisonous because I didn’t like them. I came to regret that a few years back, when my mom prepared some fresh wild mushrooms she’d just picked with a friend. I thought I ought to try some and see if my taste for them had maybe changed and well… I suddenly enjoyed them so much I had trouble to leave some for my mom!
Now I love to eat wild mushrooms - boletus, chanterelle, larch bolete and in fall I go and find them myself (at least the ones I can identify as edible).
After aquiring a taste for wild mushrooms I tried others, but I found still don’t like store-bought champignons. They are watery and have no taste to me. Trying some Asian mushrooms like shiitake I was also disappointed. Their texture is different, very chewy and the taste was almost nasty to me, very strong. Though that might be because they are dried and stored for a long time, before I can buy them here. I’d like to try them fresh one day if I ever get the chance.
So while I’ve been converted to eating mushrooms I’m still pretty picky about them! :-)

I don’t mind olives when they’re in something else in small amounts but I’ve never gotten into eating them on their own, or, really, anything else that might appear on a relish tray. This is especially true of pickles: I love sweet pickle relish, dill pickle chips, and dill pickles in sandwiches or on a burger, but I’ve tried many, many times and I cannot make myself enjoy eating a dill pickle on its own.

Other foods I can’t like include celery (people claim it doesn’t taste like anything but they LIE) and coriander (fresh or dried. Of course, I’ve heard that something like 20% of the population find coriander has a nasty, almost soapy taste, and Julia Child was one, so I’m in pretty good company, I think!) My father makes a seasoning that involves pureeing a great deal of fresh coriander in the food processor and I always had to practically leave the house when he did it.

I’ve always loved cheeses, the stronger the better - my grandfather started me eating good, French cheeses when I was little and by the time I was in my teens I was happily scoffing Muenster and Limburger. Never liked processed cheese slices, though, unless they were melted on a burger or in a grilled cheese. I don’t like blue cheese, either, but that’s more because mold gives me the heeby-jeebies.

One food that took some tries for me to like was smoked salmon. I remember when I was little there was a piece on Sesame Street (possibly Canadian Sesame Street) about making smoked salmon and it looked so good that I became obsessed with it and started pestering my parents for it. I remember on my tenth birthday my mum took me out for lunch and I ordered a bagel with smoked salmon and then being so disappointed when I actually tried it! (I think part of the problem was the capers, which I still haven’t learned to like.) But I kept trying and now I love the stuff.