Yup dh also does not like eggplant, greens or sweet potatoes. I like them all a lot. Now I can roast the sweet potatoes with white but the eggplant and greens I do like you and make just for me.

Family members don't share my enthusiasm for:

steamed clams, lobster, sardines in olive oil, really good fun a noodle casserole, Camembert and similar ripe cheese, olives, oysters, watercress, squid or calamari, crab, chicken livers, pâté, ....

funny thread, jerzeegirl. My condolences. Pass the eggplant!

Yep. About the only thing we both like is steak and I like medium rare and he likes well done. I like everything with spices and seasoning, he likes plain, no nothing meat and bread. He will eat 3 green beans, just to say he ate a vegetable.

DH has the taste buds of a 5 year old--he likes things that are sugary and sweet.

He has a LONG list of veggies he will not eat unless they are breaded and fried and have a dipping sauce, or disguised so much that they lack any and all nutritional value.

He won't eat any kind of cruciferous vegetable, and won't eat any kind of bean unless it's a green bean. His "ok" list includes lettuce**, carrots, corn, and potatoes. Sometimes he'll eat a couple of cherry tomatoes, and maybe a bit of cucumber, but only if they are in a salad (**don't get me started on his salad dressing!).

About the only things I won't eat are uni and mussels. If I remember anything else, I'll come back and edit this sentence. :O)

Liver (I wouldn't make it myself nor would I order it at a restaurant), if served to me at a friend's house, really would not be appreciated unless it's smothered in onions and bacon and there's ketchup for it -- lots and lots of bacon (I have not had liver for over 5 decades! but a well made Pâté is appreciated).

I have some caponata in the fridge right that I made yesterday. I'll have some with dinner tonight... DH might have a taste, or might not.

I don't like parsnips. He doesn't like Brussels sprouts. He likes lamb. I rarely do, but I always try his. I am no longer able to tolerate smokey flavored food/ condiments. A persistent side effect since chemotherapy. But overall, we're very compatible and my DH has become a very good cook since my health issues have affected my appetite and have kept me out of the kitchen.

jerzeegirl -- so I have to neb -- is it just raw eggs, cooked, the smell? Any or all:)?

seagrass_gw -- that's so sweet.

I have such a limited diet due to allergies/food intolerances and DH is type 1 diabetic. In fact, the whole crew has so many food issues/allergies/ulcerative colitis, etc. that when we're all together for dinner it is such a mishmash and conglomeration it's almost funny.

That said, the one thing ..... the one thing .... that I almost gag over that DH loves is beer brats and sauerkraut. And it goes in the crockpot HA! An all day smell wafting in the house. GAH! My dad loves them too.

CathyinSWPA

He likes fish. I'll eat grilled salmon but most fish just tastes...fishy to me. He'll open a can of sardines and I truly gag. How can you eat something that smells like cat food? Then there's the pickled herring...ick.

He also likes hot/spicy...it has to be mild for me. If not, my entire mouth is on fire and I can't taste anything. I guess I'm ultra sensitive. I have to wear gloves to chop even one small jalapeno. I'll start coughing if I walk into the kitchen when he makes salsa due to the heavy pepper fumes.

I honestly can't think of a thing. I like steak rare; he likes his medium. He doesn't care for cilantro, so I use it very judiciously. That's about it.

He didn't used to be crazy about fresh tomatoes until I started growing them. Now he loves when they're in season.

I guess i am one lucky duck. My hub thinks I am the greatest cook in the world and loves everything I make. The only thing i can think of that i love that he doesn't is Culver's lemon ice.

cathyinpa - about eggs, I will eat eggs if they are very cooked - like in a frittata or omelet. I like very fried eggs. It's mostly the yolk that just kind of revolts me and this is why. When I was about 4 years old my grandmother would bribe me to eat eggs and she would feed them to me because I wouldn't eat them on my own. Once she mistakenly added sugar to the egg yolk instead of salt and I ate it. It was so utterly disgusting. And to this day I still remember that taste and it makes me gag just thinking about it.

I am really enjoying reading all your responses and I am glad to know that I am not the only one!

Split pea soup was the most divisive issue :-) He had a bad childhood experience and couldn't stand the sight or smell of it and it is my most favorite soup. Other than that we were very food compatible........until he became a red meat vegetarian. And even that wasn't too bad as I got pretty creative with poultry and fish and saved my steak, burger or roast beef cravings for when we went out to eat.

We've been divorced going on 15 years now but he still calls me for various recipes:-) New wife is apparently an appalling cook and he likes to eat so has taken over the cooking chores and still thinks I am great cook........just as long as it doesn't involve split peas :-) He never really cooked much all the years when we were together but I understand that - why bother when someone else will do it for you? LOL! He is an excellent baker, however and made some incredible desserts.

Hubby will not eat a runny egg and can't stand Hummus or pate. I have to follow a GF diet, but got lucky he doesn't mind that most of the time. He used to help cook but in the last year has almost totally stopped and does nothing in the kitchen anymore - including rinsing off his dishes and putting them in the sink . . . but that might be another thread to start.

seagrass_gw...O.M.G.!!! :-o

DH and I have been together almost 44 years. MOST stuff we both like, but he went to school in Scotland and spent his holidays with a family who cooked a lot of Indian food. Just not my cup-o-tea!

gardengal.....redmeat vegetarian? Never heard of that! We don't eat much red meat, but we don't call our selves vegetarian by any means!

Seagrass- the tampon story cracked me up! Hmmmmm think wiping in the woods with a red leaf!

Be very, very very careful out there. I peed in a frond of Poision Ivy in my younger days. Never want to revisit that again!

Oh seagrass, I know how you felt but I can top that! Hubby and I made our "famous" salsa for a party and both chopped the jalapenos without gloves. While we were waiting for the salsa to meld we hopped into bed. We got each other good that time! it was hard for us not to laugh every time We looked at that salsa that day, and We still laugh about it, but this is the very first time I have ever mentioned it to anyone but hub.

We were married 8 years when we had our first child. Hospital stays were 3 to 5 days then, and one of the first things I got was a menu to select what I would eat. I ordered everything I like but that my husband does not. It made for some strange combinations to the extent that the food services person called me to be sure I wanted all the strange combinations. I assured her that I planned to enjoy what I no longer cooked because DH did not like it. She got it.

Yes, my late husband wouldn't eat several things I liked. I did catch him one time over something he said he didn't like, but found out he'd never had it. Asparagus. I waited for about a year or so after we were married and finally bought a small can for me. Caught him taking a piece out of the saucepan and when I brought it up, he said, no he hadn't had it before, but he didn't see any reason to eat it because it had no taste to it. He wouldn't eat artichokes for the same reason, even drowned in butter. Eggplant, I knew better than to serve. Nothing with curry in it either. Me, I'll eat pretty much anything except rutabaga. Only had it once with a harvest roast and maybe it was a bad one, but I have no intentions of trying it again.

Madonna

DH and I have been together about 37 years now. Over that time I have vastly expanded his range of foods :-) His mother is a good but not great cook who prefers plain foods, I never have been. He was living in his own (shared) house when we started dating but had never cooked fresh vegetables :-)

We mostly like the same things, but I love chicken livers and also lambs kidneys, neither of which he will eat. He doesn't even like being in the house when I cook them so I either have to cook them when he's away or eat them in a restaurant. He likes fish, I'm not so wild, but I do cook with fairly mild tasting fish like cod or snapper from time to time and if he wants salmon he cooks it down at his place when he's there for work. Funnily enough I love canned tuna but DH loathes it so it's just tuna sandwiches for me and I haven't made my childhood favourite, tuna noodle casserole, in years :-(

For years every time I suggested fish pie DH would cringe so I didn't make it. Finally I just went ahead and made what I thought would be a good fish pie- big chunks of fish and jumbo shrimp in a slightly cheese bechamel, topped with mashed potatoes a la shepherd's pie- he loves it and looks forward to when I make it. Turns out he was remembering his mother's version ;-)

Similarly I love rice pudding but DH wouldn't eat it (memories of hospital food) until I tried an Indian recipe last winter which has toasted pistachios, coconut milk and cardamom- on a recent visit he was telling DD, "You should try your mother's rice pudding, it's really really good" :-). Perhaps it's just a question sometimes of finding the right recipe :-D

My "rule" was the person doing the cooking got to chose the menu. DH did not cook at all. He learned to eat a LOT of new foods and discovered he quite liked them!

What is it with so many men and green food? My late husband loathed green veggies except for salads - he preferred iceberg, but I quit buy that and he eventually would eat romaine. Peas? You'd have thought they were poison to hear him tell it. He said, as a kid when forced to clean his plate, he could eat a full serving of peas by swallowing them whole with milk - ala taking a pill.

But I got him to eat spinach by making spanikopita, which he loved. He refused to eat squash including zucchini...only because zucchini has "squash" in the name. But I started making Moosewood's Zucchini Feta Pancakes and didn't tell him they had zucchini. He loved those, too. In the 70's zucchini bread became popular and he'd eat that because it tasted so much like banana bread. Never could sneak in any peas, but that's ok. I even found an eggplant appetizer he'd eat, which I was kind of amazing. Moosewood and Mollie Katzen kind of changed his life. He wouldn't eat asparagus until I started making Mollie's Cold Gingered Asparagus.

I am far pickier than poor Elery, who has to put up with my food weirdnesses.

I'm relatively adventurous, I'll try nearly anything, but if I don't like it I won't eat it. I do try to follow Renee's "7 year rule", and try it again in 7 years, but that doesn't always help either. I did learn to eat peanut butter and avocado, but I still don't like olives or pickles. I don't really like fruit, yogurt is slimy, jello is just icky. So, it's not just taste, it's also texture.

I still make things for Elery, and I'll just eat something else. He covers everything with sriracha or some kind of hot sauce, or slices of various hot peppers. I am a huge wimp when it comes to heat, I just want a tiny bit, not enough to bite back. I'll make lamb for him, he loves it, but I'm not eating it. Apple pie is his favorite and I just don't like apples, not even in pie, but I'll bake apple pie for him and he'll eat a slice every day until it's gone.

I like soft eggs with runny yolks, he likes omelettes or scrambled eggs. I want steak very rare, he wants it a lot closer to medium. I want butter on my bread, he wants his plain. I like milk, but not cheese. He likes cheese, but not milk, LOL. Go figure. If I make him something I don't like I'll just have eggs or a bowl of soup or something leftover, it's not an issue.

I don't get sick, I don't gag, I don't even "yuck his yum". Sometimes we have what I like and he'll have a sandwich. Sometimes we have lamb and I'll have oatmeal. (shrug) It all works. Fortunately we both like vegetables a lot, although I want mine cooked. And we both like beans and we eat a lot of them in soup, in hummus, in chili, baked, you name it. And neither of us drink alcohol, not beer, wine or any kind of liquor. I've tried hard, but I just don't like it.

Annie

Annie - isn't love great???

seagrass_gw -- Good grief, I was complaining about rubbing my eyes after using mint dental floss. I will never look at jalapenos the same again! HA!

CathyinSWPA

jerzeegirl -- I thought I posted this. I had a feeling there was a background story. Gah! Sugar???? And I'm with you on the yolks. Like dippy eggs? No Bueno! HA! You are def not alone:)

CathyinSWPA

I don't like liver or any other organ meat and can't even bear to feed raw meat to my friend's dog when she stays with us (the dog eats a raw diet - yuk - I don't even like handling it). As a child I remember eating snails, but I can't do that anymore. However, DH wouldn't eat any of these things either so it has never posed a problem.

I guess what bothers me most is that DH acts like an "I will eat anything" kind of guy (and mind you, he has come a long way since I met him in 1988) but basically he's a Midwestern meat and potatoes boy and I come from a southern Italian family that ate exotic things (like cardoons for example - who eats cardoons??). Italian food for him is, you guessed it, pizza.

I eat cardoons, jerzee! Hard to find around here, though. My dads.family was.from Naples.

Annie's DH reminds me of Jack Sprat.

I don't know of anything that my brother likes that I do not, but there are several things I like that he will not eat, which include beef and pork (by his choice - not taste) and raw tomatoes. However, he will eat tomatoes that are vine-ripened that I either grow or buy at a farmers' market.

I also go by the rule that the cook decides on the menu, but I do not cook anything that the person(s) I am sharing the meal with would not like. I actually prefer to have input for menus and listen to what people tell me they would like to have, but most often they say "whatever", which is really no help. I've also never had to desire to try to get someone to like something that they said they did not want, and I find it annoying when friends try to do this to me. It's rare, but it has happened, and I tend to avoid people like that.

"----Republican and Democratic districts vote differently, and they eat differently too. The most Republican food in the United States is sweet and sour chicken, and the most Democratic dish is massaman curry, a Persian-inflected Thai recipe.----"

dcarch

YES! SO and I have some tastes in common, but we both grew up eating different types of foods, so it can sometimes be a challenge. Also, i usually stick to low carb, so cooking two different meals is in order a lot anyway.

I like salt, he doesn't. I often cook with little or no salt and salt mine afterwards, or i will cook the same dish in two different pots or pans, and salt mine. He can't stand the smell of eggs cooking, and the only way he will eat them is scrambled (just one) covered in cheese, and i have to provide either rice or grits for him to mix with them. Occasionally he will eat a sausage or bacon egg and cheese sandwich, but only half a scrambled egg on those. I love eggs cooked any way, as long as they are properly salted. Again, i often make two different breakfasts every morning. His and mine.

Veggies are always an issue. The only ones we really agree on are green beans and corn. Or salad(and we don't agree on the veggies IN a salad.) He likes collard greens, cabbage, purple hull or black eyed peas, or sweet peas. He also likes sweet potatoes. Yuck. I will make them for him, but wont eat them. I like broccoli and cauliflower(only in my loaded casserole though) and zucchini. Neither of us eat celery,okra, asparagus,eggplant or beets.

He loves fish(fried if course). I won't go near it. Neither one of us go near any other seafood though.

We are both potato lovers. But as i'm usually low carbing, i mainly just glare at him while he enjoys, oblivious.

Seagrass, yes, love IS grand, isn't it? (grin)

amylou, at least we both like vegetables. I'll eat pretty much any vegetable except okra and those big honkin' lima beans. I'm not a huge fan of iceburg lettuce, but Elery loves it. We both like collard greens, kale, chard, cabbage, peas of any type, sweet potatoes, winter squashes, broccoli, zucchini, celery, asparagus, eggplant AND beets. I did teach him to eat beet greens, though, he'd never had them and didn't even know they were edible!

Lars, I agree with you, I try to make what people like, and don't try to get them to eat things they don't care for. I didn't realize Kevin wouldn't eat beef, though I know you have said before that he won't eat pork. That's going to change my cooking habits when you come to visit!

Annie

When my DD was a baby, from the moment she started on solid foods, she hated peas. As a kid, she would spit them out or avoid them totally. As an adult if she eats a pea by mistake, she has figured out a way to source separate it from the food it's mixed with and remove it, like a human recycling machine. It used to be distressing to me but now it's just humorous. By the way, she hates lima beans too.

jerzeegirl -- that's so funny and so very resourceful! HA! My mom would use dehydrated minced onion and I would try to pick it all out of my food HA!

Lars -- "but I do not cook anything that the person(s) I am sharing the meal with
would not like. I actually prefer to have input for menus and listen
to what people tell me they would like to have" Totally agree, Lars. Like I've said, it would be an anomaly if we all ate the same thing at a meal -- always a mishmash.

CathyinSWPA

I wonder what percentage of people break away from simple foods they at as a kid and become more courageous about different kinds of foods. I am guessing the percentage is not that high but I really just don't know.

with my wife, it's peas and beans. she now likes the beans and chili that I make … tho' she's not a fan of Worcestershire ...

I had school spinach too many times, but now I appreciate it, and can even enjoy it in lasagna. but not plain boiled … unless it has lots of AC vinegar.

I plan and cook meals for large groups of people for church functions. Very often I make a chicken salad....I started out just basic...mayo, lemon juice and celery....then gradually began adding thigns like crasins....and slivered almonds and pineapple tidbits....and CURRY powder. When I first started adding stuff, my kitchen helpers were sure there would be people who didn't like nuts or craisins or curry....so I always save some very plain chicken salad out for those.....and as of yet, no one has requested the salad "without"
I also make a marinated vegetable salad with tomatoes, onion, red and green and maybe yellow peppers, zucchini, cucumber, pea pods, radishes broccoli, cauliflower......and no one sorts and leaves certain veggies on their plate....but i also make a hot vegetable, chicken and pasta casserole, sort of like a pop pie without the crust and with a cheesy sauce...white cheese like cream cheese, white cheddar and parmesan....and broccoli green onions, carrots and....peas! And without fail on about 10% of the dishes, there are peas lined up at the edge.

Food preferences with my "late and great" DH was more about how things were cooked than what. I told him early on....try egg plant...you'll love it....and I grew these sliced tomatoes, you will love it....but he still preferred beautiful fresh green beans cooked to olive green mush....however I did convince him of the joys of rare beef, raw oysters and eggplant parmagiana

brag - try the spinach with olive oil and sautéed garlic and don't oversaute it. It's yummy.

Haha. Linda. Sounds like there is a whole army of source separators out there when it comes to peas!

Haha - I don't have much of a problem with hubby not liking something I love. I'm greedy and like to have it all to myself!

I was a skinny kid and had to sit at the table till my plate was clean. Peas made me gag. So I would swallow them whole with a gulp of milk just like taking a pill.

We like some of the same foods, others we split on. I'm fond of white cheddar and Saint Angel cheese, while he's Brie all the way.

He loves prosciutto. It's okay but I don't get excited over it, although we've done prosciutto tastings and settled on San Daniele when we can't get Creminelli.

He loves sushi and sashimi which I think is hysterically funny, since he never had either one growing up in Hong Kong. I'm so-so on both having OD'ed in childhood. Give me langoustines in garlic-butter any day, says she.

He's more a chocolate fan; I'm the strawberries and whipped cream fan.

He hates sour cream and creme fraiche, but has learned to tolerate cream cheese as long as it has plenty of lox on top!

I'm more into burgers than he is, although he loves a good gamy lamb burger.

I prefer filet mignon; he prefers rib-eye.

He loves soup as a dinner course; I find it too filling and hardly ever order it.

The main difference in our tastes is that I love many different types of fruit; my husband won't eat any of them. He'll eat a lettuce-based salad at a restaurant, but never at home; I'll eat them no matter the setting. He likes potato salad, but I won't touch the stuff, even though I like macaroni salad.

I think our tastes are heavily influenced by what we grew up with. My mom was (still is) a very picky eater so we just pretty much ate only what she liked. So on my own I started experimenting with variety and found that I like almost everything and I’ll still eat even those that I am not terribly fond of. Peanut butter, I don’t like. No too fond of licorich flavoured foods, but recently went out for lunch and I had a fish taco with cilantro and I liked it. Dh hated onions when I met him, but I found out it was the way his mom cooked and cut them.