Whoops, should be OFF the subject a bit......

Celery hate the stuff, both parents loved it?
I have 3 cousins and their dad who hate butter, and I have a 4 yr old who has loved Olives since he sneaked some away at a party, when he was 13 months old!! I have only just started to like them ish, his dad and brother hate them, we get some funny looks or amazed comments when we direct the olive pizza at him! he eats all the olives first then the pizza!!

I think it's a textural rather than flavor issue, but I can't stand okra, eggplant or 'mature' zucchini.

Strongly dislike commercial ketchup, and asking for it at my dinner table is risking your safety. ;-)

And I am a weirdo 'cause I can't abide cola (any brand), Velveeta, sweet pickles or Miracle Whip. I struggle to muscle anything made with them past the ol' gag reflex.

I can't stand raw or crisp-cooked onions or peppers. Or mayonaisse.

Lots of my tastes have changed over the years-- I used to couldn't stand mushrooms or sauerkraut-- but some time in my early 20s I suddenly decided that these things tasted good and have loved them ever since (in the case of sauekraut, I had never actually tasted it-- only smelled it when my mother cooked it-- but one day I just knew I wanted some!). I think in some cases there must be a biological component to how our tastes change as we get older-- changing nutritional requirements, maybe?

Radishes - can't think why they were ever invented!

Black tomatoes is a close second. They taste ok but I'd have to eat them with my eyes closed.

Dave

Radishes is a good one. I'm always tempted to plant some since they grow so easily. But then I think, no, you would have to eat them then.

Lima beans does it for me. Mom always cooked them and Dad wouldn't let me leave the table until I ate them. It was a battle of wills that sometimes lasted hours. I finally learned to mix them in with my potatoes and eat them quick while still hot, so they weren't SO bad.

Funny thing happened last year. A friend brought an excellent green chili stew to camp. I noticed it had small lima beans but they had turned light brown so I thought they may have been the less offensive butter beans.

The chili was so good I ended up getting the recipe from his wife. Here's where it gets weird. Those really were baby lima beans, and when I made a batch I was so afraid it wouldn't be as good without them, I actually included them!

That was a major breakthrough for me. Now if I can just get over this compulsion to gulp my food down while it's still hot. :)

I can't eat/enjoy fruit and meat combined, something about blending sweet and savory. That means no sweet/sour dishes, my sis's infamous raisin sauce for ham, pineapple on pizza, and even the dish that was beef cooked with plums that guests made for us when they were visiting from Croatia. OK, I did eat some of that considering the source and made the appropriate appreciative noises :)

I can cook liver and onions and serve it, or eat it if someone else will cook it but not both.

I think clam spaghetti sauce is a bad joke, I like clams and I like spaghetti but I want the sauce if a protein is added made from something that once had legs, like beef, chicken, pork.

Add stove top stuffing to my yuch list, or almost any of the easy packaged 'foods'....

No matter how much onion I use, I cant taste it anymore. Also true with may other herbs. I don't care for very hot peppers, but like Anchos and paprika, as well as a small amount of a chili pepper. The favorite hot for me ar ethe type you see in salad bars, as pepproncini. I grow and pickle these every year. They are very delicate and will turn to mush if heated even a little, so I use a vacuum process instead as well a sfull strength vinegar. As we age, our senses of smell and taste seem to get lost. When my mom was alive a lot of things made her displike some favorites from previous years. Radishs are great for me, and I do like the milder ones. I don't waste any garden space to plant zuccini or eggplant. Neither to me hv any positive taste of their own, and usually have to be breaded and fried and served with a spicy sauce and cheese. I grew limas a few years ago. I like them mature and quite mealy. Very high in natural fiber, something we all need. The last batch were bit overripe, so they got pickled in vinegar. I must open a jar to see if they are worth eating that way. My dad would spread creamed cheese on celery. He also ate olives of any kind and aways had jars of them in the fridge. I make a mean borsch (cold beet soup) too, which starts off with beef broth. Growing up, my mom would make me tuna fish sandwiches with mayo and diced celery. As a kid, the only veggies I didn't like was artichokes. I would never eat okra either. Some turnip is fine, but a few others are not very tasty.

For most things that us hot peppers, its better to have several types to balance out the pepper flavors. Se holds true when making tomato sauces as several varieties will offer a more complex taste. Ripened sweet red peppers are far tastier compared to the underripe green ones.

Fun thread idea!!

I can't stomach eggplant, cooked turnips, mutton or liver. Bad childhood memories! LOL
I don't like mint with anything savory. Mint is for dessert!
I struggle with butchering our own meat and eating it right away. If I freeze it, then cook in a couple of weeks, it's fine. Strange!
Other than that, I'll try most anything once, twice if I like it! Best to not tell me until AFTER I've tried it, but then it's fine!

Deanna

I don't eat fresh tomato, it is fine once processed into something like sauce. I'm guessing there is some enzyme or something in it I could be allergic to that goes away once cooked. I remember having to wash my hands and arms well after slicing tomatoes or my arms would itch all day. I don't much like peppers either in the same way but I generally won't actually eat a cooked pepper either through a small amount of them is great for seasoning or in salsa.

I didn't used to much like fish either but now that we are raising them in the Aquaponics system, I'm finding more and more ways I like catfish and tilapia at least.

The real quirk though, I don't like nuts in my cake or candy. I like nuts and I like desert but I like them separate. I think it is really just something to do with having to pick the nuts out of my teeth so they should be a whole separate thing.

Oy, I forgot about liver, especially beef liver. I know it's good for me and all that, but unless it's very young and not overcooked I can't even force myself to choke it down. The smell will chase me away long before it gets anywhere near my mouth. Young and not overcooked = I may not barf. No promises though.

I don't like mint with meat either. Blech.

I can't STAND cooked cherries, or anything cherry-flavored, or red wine that's got too many "cherry" overtones - I call that stuff Robitussin Wine...

I had no idea I was such a picky eater! :-)

Deanna, I hear you on the butchering/wrapping and diving right into a plate full of steaks :) After standing in dansko clogs and wrapping red meat for 6 or 8 hrs, all I want is chicken, for several days. Then I'm fine again.

I left a few things out of my first post that I thought too obvious, and were dishes from my european-waste-nothing-not-ever in laws....fresh beef kidney, heart stewed with peas, tripe, and the only time I ever actually had to leave the table while people were still eating: blood sausage. But you had to admire their ingenuity, they could make a little go a long way for a family with 10 kids.

I have a 7 year rule, I keep trying things I don't like, at least once every seven years.

It still hasn't taught me to like dill pickles, olives, white pasta, most red tomato based sauces or pizza. As for the textural issue, that's a problem with bananas, jello and okra (which is slimy). Also those big lima beans which are dry and mealy.

I grew up in a pretty poor family and we ate things like liver, headcheese, calves testicles. Also snapping turtle, porcupine, squirrel, rabbit, whatever we could catch/hunt/trap. If we killed it, we ate it, that was the rule.

So I can field dress a deer without hesitation but I cannot swallow a raw oyster. Go figure.

I love hot peppers, but just a few. I don't want the heat to overtake the flavor and I don't want the enamel on my teeth to bubble!

I'm also very sensitive to the taste of preservatives on things like bagged lettuces and raw salad ingredients, they have a horrible metallic flavor that I just detest. I do like radishes, though only the ones I grow myself.

Annie

No sheep, no innards/guts, nothing on the plate with eyes, beak, face. No skin or bones in canned salmon, no skin on fish. No squeaky green beans . I do love fresh tasting foods (except for the previously mentioned green beans), herbs and love contrasts in food - temperature, sweet/savory, texture.
Best of all, I have lost my love for fried foods (except catfish fillets) AND I can no longer stand super sweet desserts.

I can't eat fin-fish & and my mother couldn't eat it either when she was breast-feeding me because I would get sick; now the same is true for one of my grandsons.

My tastes have changed remarkedly over these last 15 years. I've never liked raw onions and still don't, but will now eat sauteed or mixed in food; didn't like anything hot and now enjoy an interesting mild heat; but the biggest is with chocolate which I use to eat lots of straight, now I only like it if it is opposed by another flavor.... mint, orange, raspberry, strawberry, vanilla ice cream, etc.

This is a fun thread! When I was little I didn't like onions but I love them in all forms now. I think because my older brother didn't like them. I have always disliked baked beans...we were a good New England family who had them several Sat nights through the month and I hated them. No organ meats here. I love the smell of liver cooking but gag just putting a piece in my mouth. I love raw spinach, hate it cooked. Love cooked collards, though. I like the flavor of mushrooms but not the texture, I will spit them out even though I add them to my dishes, LOL! I love walnuts in brownies and like to eat them plain but I don't want any hard particles in my ice cream to include candy or chocolate chips.

I'm open to trying about anything and know that if times were different, I would appreciate the food on my table. When I was little, my father was burned by an engine explosion. We got govt assistance which back then included the delivered boxes of food items. You would think I would HATE that stuff now but it actually came with good memories of my father being home for a year and of course, I didn't know we were poor, LOL! So I love rice, tomato products, noodles, and peanut butter. I definitely gained a pallet for better cheese, though;) Lori

This is a fun thread. When I was little, I hated eggplant. To the point that I literally threw it up when my mom made it and she forced me to eat it. Her rule was that if you threw up from it, you were exempt from it. Way to promote bulimia mom!!! And I remember being in the bathroom at seven years old gagging and throwing it up. I got my exemption and never had to eat it. These days, I love it. Grilled or fried. And it is a major staple in my garden.

I also hated mushrooms. I can honestly say that the smell of fried mushrooms was so disgusting to me that I never actually ate them. Until a year ago when I had some at a bbq. And I now actively seek them out. I get stuffed mushrooms from my local italian deli. They are stuffed with breadcrumbs and peppers. At the supermarket, I get them stuffed with crabmeat. They are so good!!!

Tastes change over the years. These days, I will try most things as I know I have matured and my taste buds are different.

Oddly enough, over the course of time, I am growing to really hate meat. In the past, I have always loved a good filet mignon as much as the next person. Between learning about how our meat is produced, reading books and seeing you tube videos, it think it is wrong, dirty and just plain gross. So I don't really eat any meat.

On another side note, growing up, my father always made and ate boiled lambs heads. Nothing grosser than that smell permeating the house. My father is from the old country and I have a social conscience. So yeah - I don't like meat. Appreciate more veggies than I ever did.

My tastes are changing with meat too. Due to gout I'm not supposed to eat red meat (Blasphemy!), so I have cut way way down. Now when I do eat it on the rare occasion it tastes funny, like it's not fresh. Oh well, there's cheaper meats at the market!

Hated onions when I was a kid. Now I eat them in all forms.

Hated tomaotoes when I was a kid, peppers too. When I was about 20 something I found I liked salsa, hot too. Still don't eat fresh tomatoes but a slice on a veggie burger is great. I have 15 toms this year, and more peppers.

Hated egg plant, love it now.

Still don't like cooked spinach, but love it in salads.

Didn't like nuts in any thing when I was a kid, even peanut m&ms but I liked peanuts. Now I put nuts in some things, but still prefer plain choc chip cookies.

My son hated potatoes and eggs now he eats both. My youngest ate every thing but her brother turned her away w/ some of his complaints. My son also hates beans, but last year he started saying ''beans in July'' a few months b4 July. He likes finding fun things to say. But when July came he ate beans! All kinds. The first time I noticed him take some beans I was shocked and told him good job! He said it's July, I like beans in July. Hasn't eaten them since, I'm curious if He'll eat them this July.

I can't stand pineapple! or Pina colada flavoring or smells like suntain oil. I still have a hard time w/ cherries or any thing w/ pits even peaches, but I'll eat them.

Dark Chocolate, blech.

Fun thread,

My dad hunted alot, we'd eat rabbit, snake, fish, venison, my sister ate both fish and rabbit until she cleaned them and never would again.

I love seafood, but have a hard time when a whole lobster is put in front of me. I'll eat the tail, and some times the claws, but the rest is wasted on me.

I guess I am kind of a picky eater. Not nearly as bad as when I was a kid though.

I can't stand pickles, used to be I couldn't stand any thing w/ vinegar. I use mustards now, but prefer brown over yellow.

I eat most anything. I am not much of a meat lover...I eat it but I am really picky about the type and cut. One thing that I dislike are those fake toppings...I mean real whipped cream is not a big deal and why anyone would want to eat the toppings is beyond me...and I just despise gloppy desserts made from those toppings....yuk...I know that many just love the big beautiful trifles and the cakes like banana split cakes etc etc but all I can think of is that it's a big bowl of glop..

My mom had a friend who just LOVED raw liver. She could sit down and eat a pound of it in one sitting.

Gout can also be brought on by many bean types (peas, limas, chickpeas, etc.) brocolli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and most others in the same family. Had it many years ago after eating a big batch of stuffed cabbage for over a week. It raises uric acid levels and once they get so high, they form crystals in the major joints. People who are prine to gout are put on 'low purine' diets, like I was.

Gee, we do have some very fussy eaters here don't we?

I don't like hot spicy foods and most organ meats other than that I like it all.

Ruthie, I'm with you on the fake toppings and gooey rich desserts. I can't stand red velvet, Italian creme or German chocolate cake. Favorite cake is pound cake, favorite pie is apple pie but just a simple apple pie. Oddly enough I do like banana pudding but only if the wafers are still crisp. I prefer crispy, salty snacks. Haven't had brussels sprouts that I liked and I've only cooked them once and still didn't like them.....but they are so cute! Years ago, in this area hummingbird cake, and orange slice cake made from those awful candy orange slices made the rounds. Yuk! Yes we do have our likes and dislikes, for sure.

I can't abide citrus that is processed or cooked. This includes liqueurs, flavorings, candies, jams, etc. On the other hand, I can't stand raw tomatoes. Even picking and prepping them makes me kinda queasy.

Sweet pickles are just plain wrong in my book. Especially those mini gherkins. Yuck!

The only animal product I've found I don't like is tripe.

I find mangoes to be chalky and unappealing.

I don't care for catchup, mustard or mayonnaise on my food. They completely dominate whatever it is they're on. They're all I can taste. As a child I wouldn't eat anything with vinegar or garlic. Now I can eat things with vinegar and can't live without garlic. :)

I will eat almost everything but I have a DH who just has to be the pickyest person in the world. This means I have to cook two different dinners on many nights. DH won't eat anything with onions, garlic, oregano, mayonnaise,salad dressing, cabbage, broccoli, spinach (or any other greens),fish of any kind,and no tropical fruit. He wont eat any type of casserole, pasta or potato salad.He won't eat things where one food is touching another. He will eat hash browns and french fried potatoes only, no other kind of potatoes. When we want to have spaghetti, I have to make two sauces, we like the traditional Italian type while he wants some ground beef, some tomato sauce and some chili powder for spice. He will never try anything new. He lives on chicken, pork chops, beef, peas, corn, green beans, chili beans,french fries and bread. It is such a shame as he is missing so many good foods. I get a headache just thinking about what I can't feed him. If the day comes and we aren't together(after 49 years of marriage), the first thing I will ask a suitor,is what do you like to eat.LOL

My grandfather would only allow one item on his plate at a time. When he sat down to eat, Grandma would tell him what she had fixed and he would ask for one of the items. After he finished that one, grandma would jump up and get him whatever he wanted next, and so on. Poor woman probably never got to sit through a whole meal. No idea what would happen if/when they went out to eat.

Caavonldy
If he were my husband, our wedding night would be the only night he'd remember with me. I'd be gone before he woke up in the morning.

Milk - unless it's in a latte
Glorified rice - gagging just typing that
Pickled beets
Tuna or salmon from a can
Soft boiled eggs (or runny yolks of any kind)
Creamed soup of any kind even in a hotdish

I guess that makes me a real garbage gut. I'm still sitting here trying to think of something I won't eat. Not that I don't have my preferences. I'm not particularly fond of turtle, but that's because a lady who was watching me for the day when I was a very young child made me eat snapping turtle soup against my will. I've gigged them and eaten them, but ditto for frog's legs. Neither do I like the texture of rubbery meat like squid. I'm not particularly fond of offal, but it depends on how it is cooked. I'll eat kidney if it's in a meat pie, but my g'mother used to boil it, and the kitchen had the aroma of a urinal. Heart always reminds me of biology class and dissecting. Neither do I like brains. But enjoy English faggots (sort of like American meatballs but made with organ meats) or a good haggis.

I don't do sweet/sour meats or sweet sauces on meat, either. I'll eat kiwi fruit, but have always thought it was a good way to ruin a nice desert and if nobody is looking will pick it out. LOL.

Shirleywny5, When it comes to food, he is a pain in the a$$, but he is still a keeper. He treats me right and he can fix anything. In 49 years of marriage, I have never even seen him tipsy. He has helped me adopt, raise and homeschool our 2 granddaughters. We got them they were babies and now they are 14 & 15. There are not many men who would want to spend their golden years raising kids. So, he maybe picky about his food, but it is worth it to make him happy. I just cook and eat what I like for myself & the girls.
Donna