There are trendy things I do not care for, but I don't really want to like them anyway:

raw kale & chard

quinoa

sushi - not necessarily sashimi, though

'green' drinks

tempeh

I can't think of anything I don't like that I want to like, but maybe something'll come to me if I ponder for awhile...

Sriracha and oysters come to mind. Also matcha or mochi.

I think some of your "don't likes" are because you haven't tried the right kind. I have been served jarred pimento stuffed olives that were beyond nasty....but when in Spain every little lunch place started out with a bowl of the most delicious olive of many kinds...black, pickles, cracked, fat green etc....all were delicious and very different from "salad olives".
And mushrooms that have the texture of a pencil eraser are old and dried out.
And there is sushi raw fish and there is Bagels and lox raw fish....very different....and also pickled herring...

I grew up not liking most veggies because they usually came out of a can. Canned creamed asparagus was the worst. Since I started gardening decades ago there are very few veggies that I don't like and asparagus is one of my favorites.

Most things I won't eat now are based on texture rather than taste. Raw Oysters are at the top of the list.

Linda, being Norwegian, I grew up eating rollmops. I love them! My husband enjoys the reaction he gets when he puts them out on a pickle tray at Christmas. My Mom is really bad for saying she doesn’t like things that she’s never tried. My husband is kinda like that too. He insists he hates kale and quinoa but admits he’s never tried them. He may well not like them, but really? Try it!

Believe me, Linda, I've tried all kinds of olives. The ancient ones, non-hybridized, are almost tolerable. Those have a little skin of olive flesh on a small-peanut sized pit. Not something I like, but don't spit out the flesh with the pit if I can't pick them off and hide them (no, I don't choose them, but have been put in social situations where I couldn't refuse them). I don't claim to have tried every kind of olive on the planet, but definitely all the major ones. We get a huge variety of olives here, and they do look so nice I keep trying one just to see and end up spitting it out.

I'm not allergic to them to the best of my knowledge. I just really hate them. When I was a kid, I'd refuse to eat the paella if there were (lovely Spanish) olives in it because the rice tasted olivy. I've come to terms with some EVOO--it's fine if it's flowery, but if it's olivy, I'm not eating it. My friends used to roll their eyes at me because I wouldn't eat the picnic tortas and terrines and such like from the charcuteries. They were always soaked in olive oil and I just hated them because of that olive funk. BLECH!!!! I really do hate olives.

Re mushrooms: Many people prepare mushrooms very badly. If you don't like mushrooms, you might appreciate them more if they're made right. BUT, the flavor is often described as "earthy", and if they taste like dirt to you, as they do to Sushipup, then you're probably not going to like them even if they're perfectly prepared. And while "pencil erasers" might describe the worst preparations, there are still hints of that when they're raw, and when they're cooked perfectly, though maybe you wouldn't have thought of that simile. Sometimes mushrooms are toe curlingly good, but even so, I get why some don't like them.

Re eggplant: Eggplants are very often ill prepared, especially by restaurants. Before you declare an absolute hatred, do make sure you've had them done right. OTOH, they're not a nutritional necessity, and, in fact, as a nightshade, eggplant is implicated in casual inflammation. No harm skipping it altogether. :)

Pillog, you came to my defense on mushrooms. I've tried, believe me. Even the freshest portobello, beautifully prepared, is yucky. Chop very fine, drown in garlic and onion and herbs and better and use to stuff something, that's good, tho.

It took me long time, in my 40's, before I would eat mushrooms. And only if cooked, still won't eat them raw. Can't eat raw oysters or any raw sea food or fish, but I keep trying every couple of years. That also goes for caviar, I have tried it several times, but just don't get it. I use to love green olives, especially in a Martini. Now only on my pizza with black olives.

I hate mushrooms more than sushi does. But I don't have any feelings about them - I don't care if I don't like them.

However, salmon is something I can't eat and I would like to because it seems to be so healthy and because everybody else in the world loves salmon except me. When we visit one of our kids he often makes salmon because he feels sorry for his father since I never cook it LOL and he always has something nice for me to eat - but the smell of the salmon makes me nauseous so I barely eat.

Lamb. I keep trying...

Water. I can’t say I dislike it, but when I’m thirsty that’s not what I’m feeling like so I definitely don’t get enough fluids. Coffee in the morning might actually be all, some days.

Wow....glad I don't have to cook a meal for all of you...no onions nor garlic, no eggs, no fish nor seafood, no mushrooms, no lamb.
That leads me to a salad made of iceberg lettuce with a dressing of vegetable oil and lemon juice, served with beef pork or chicken ( but I'll bet some object to pork and dark meat chicken)....but I'll bet y'all would eat the apple pie for dessert!! LOL!!

Seagrass, send it my way. As a child, when all the kids would say that ice cream was their favorite food, I said lamb chops. :)

Linda and Gardengal, I will serve you olives. I just won't eat them, unless I'm at your house. There are a lot of things I dislike, but if I'm not allergic to it, and can't pick around it without it being obvious and insulting, I'll eat it. I have enough things I'm allergic to that I would never ask a hostess to cater to my particular tastes as well. That doesn't mean that your roast pork with olives will get praise from me no matter how good it is for other people. It'll get a polite thank-you, and if I call it "lovely" it'll be on the basis of skill and presentation, not because I thought it tasted good. That's just the way it is.

For me, I'd rather know that this person hates turkey as well as stuff that's cut up in a jumble (e.g., stew). I just wish I'd known long before the truth came out. I want to please my guests, and he's easy to accommodate. The ones who bug me are the ones who'll eat everything indiscriminately and don't appreciate the effort and love put into making something superior. They're "taste deaf". Ugh. I could serve them hot cardboard pie, and they'd be just as happy.

The ones who bug me are those who liberally shake salt all over everything without even tasting it!
I remember being asked to cook dinner for a group of college kids, a chorus who was doing a bus tour giving concerts and out church sponsored them at one stop...housed them, fed them and gave them a place to hold their concert. I asked if there were any dietary restrictions, thinking vegan. I got a list with every member listed and what they couldn't or wouldn't eat.....and theer were several vegans a few dairy intolerant and some gluten intolerant,,,but almost everyone had something...things like "too salty" and "too spicy" as well as no onions no pork, low fat, no olives etc etc.
so I made a casserole with browned ground beef, onions, garlic, tomatoes, basil, oregano and a lot of parmesan cheese mixed in and on top....cooked 3 pounds of pinto beans....plain no salt no seasonings....a salad of lettuce, spinach, shredded carrots and some red cabbage....dressed it with a dijon vinaigrette and presented another bowl of just undressed greens.....and garlic bread...with ;lots of butter and garlic powder. The lapped up the casserole....a few ate only beans and undressed salad, more than half also put some beans on the plate with the casserole and they tore into the garlic bread...ate all I had made and I made lots! Many came back for seconds and it was pronounced the best meal they had on the road, applause and private praise.
Not sure what that proves but that some picky eaters are that way because they have only had food prepared badly....and that's why they say no onions not too hot etc etc.
But.... 2 of my grand kids would eat nothing but PB and J grilled cheese, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, breakfast cereal, poptarts and under duress, applesauce, until they were about 8. I am sure they were very uncomfortable at birthday parties and the like.....and am pleased that I was instrumental in a major breakthrough at McDonalds when one braved a hamburger and actually liked it!! Now they eat most things.

We have a very dear friend who claims he’s not fussy, it when it comes down to it he really only eats meat and potatoe. And then only certain types and preparations. Hard to work around. I’ve also found over the years that sometimes it’s just the mood he’s in at the time. But I found out that his father was extremely picky and demanding and somehow, it must have rubbed off.

Pickled beets. Makes me gag. My father used to make me eat them. I tried to wash them down with a slug of milk. Gagged and it came out my nose! Won't try them again. I don't care about that 7 year rule.

ratherbesewing, I felt that way growing up eating regular beets. My grandpa had a wonderful garden and I recall LOVING the beet greens with the tiny beets he'd pull to thin the row. But once they got bigger I hated them. I could eat the pickled ones, tho'.

I actually learned to like beets and asparagus when they were served to me cold in a salad. Didn't care for asparagus before then, but went to a fancy hotel restaurant when I was an older teen and they served a salad with cooked, cold, white asparagus. I loved it. I don't recall the first time I had cold beets, but the same thing happened.

Wow. Linda, I think the main problem with that group is that they were young and were just honest about their dislikes, since they were asked, rather than thinking about the context and what the information was for, and that there was a "mom" (rather than pro catering company) cooking the food. In a similar situation, I'd probably only mention my fish allergy. Maybe with singing, I'd include the mango and coconut, just in case, because a reaction could affect the ability to sing, but those aren't so likely to be in a church dinner in the Midwest, I'd think. You're surely right that they weren't getting a lot of good, plentiful, well prepared food, though ladies who do for churches in general are usually pretty good cooks. Your menu was genius for being "normal" and covering all those different wills and won'ts.

My father used to make me eat them. I tried to wash them down with a slug of milk. Gagged and it came out my nose!

That brought back memories! Mine didn’t come out my nose but the gagging did cause backwash, resulting in red milk which I was forced to finish as well. Probably took 30-40 years to try them again, but I’m all good with them now.

I tell you, I’m really struggling with this topic. I was super picky as a kid but now I pretty much eat anything. Offhand I’m not thinking of anything at all that I specifically dislike, although there must be something. But something that I wish I liked? Doubt it.

The only things I don't like I don't really want to like, except for maybe raw kale and boiled yuca, and I'll eat those, just not with enthusiasm.

Pickled beets! I love those once or twice a year with a good tangy cottage cheese. Hmm, haven't had any in a while. Thanks for making me think of it. I can't abide harvard beets but I feel no desire to like them, either.

ETA Oh, I just thought of something I would like to like a lot more than I do: collards.

Raw kale shouldn't be eaten in volume anyway. It's bad for your thyroid.

Huh, did not know that. And yet isn’t it know a super food?

I think listing only one thing is pretty good. It was a different story when I was a kid, I hated everything, particularly anything that was green. I would have been perfectly happy only eating potatoes. I don't know why my Mom didn't just get rid of me, I even thought that black pepper on the food was dirt.

Another who hates mushrooms but I don't care about that at all. However, I would like to like collards mainly because they are on so many restaurant menus in my area. But I can't stand the taste. And they are so healthy! I feel the same way about sweet potatoes, so healthy and everywhere but I despise them.

Oysters gross me out - I don't even WANT to like them so no way will I ever try them.

I do wish I liked watermelon...but nope. Also wish I liked strawberries - but I can't even stand the flavor of them. I can't eat any berries though - it's a texture thing I think. I've tried blueberries and rasberries - I just have to spit them out.

Coffee, everyone loves coffee and I would love to have one in the morning to wake myself up, I just hate the taste.

And yet isn’t it know a super food?

A lot of so-called "super foods" are only good for you in smaller quantities. Carambola is another. Too much can cause kidney problems. A problem here in the subtropics because a good tree can produce literally thousands of fruit a year.

Actually, now that I think about it, that's another food that I'd kind of like to like more than I do. To me they taste like watery citrus koolaid, either sweetened or not, depending on the variety of the fruit. But they're so pretty when you slice them.

Kale contains an "anti iodine" compound and when eaten in excess, cooked or not, can cause enlarged thyroid. But according to all source I find a "normal amount" is not worrisome....and BTW that compound is also present in all cruciferous vegetables...broccoli cabbage Brussles sprouts etc...the reason kale is suspect is because people are juicing it and drinking relatively large amounts in a green smoothie....speaking of things I want to like but don't.

Yogurt! I want to like it but no matter what brand I have tried I just don't like it.

Oh good grief, lol. Hyped click-bait articles written by sleazy copy writers for advertising dollars. You would have to consume 3-5 lbs of greens a day for months to cause issue. Sugars, cake and pie, are so much worse. Many more foods way above greens and vegetables.. Get a new doctor if he says avoid greens. Similar hype about trace metals in soil. Something like 120 lbs consumed to see abnormal levels.

A serving of greens even juiced is way less than even a 1/4 lb. (just a guess)...I bought a 5 lb crate at a farm stand once and it was a boatload. They were closing for the season and practically giving it away.

I can't think of anything that fits the question asked.

If I don't care for an ingredient/recipe I just don't go there. Usually something bland, too salty or too sweet, processed, canned, far from fresh.

I do get it if a family member has a strong 'like' but others do not 'like'. When I'm out of town, DH makes a pound of anchovie, garlic, parm pasta and snacks on it all week cold. When he is out of town, I make salads and something with eggs and veg.

Tripe, liver, bugs, eyeballs. The smell of tripe in Greece when they boil it out the back door of restaurants every afternoon. The smell of cooking ofals. But love pate. As a guest, nothing worse than being handed a serrated spoon for a fish or goat eyeball delicacy or live wiggly bugs. I refuse to be pressured, lol.

I did clear the house once simmering cod britches, (roe). For Taramasalata. Stink. Excellent once prepared. Next time I'll simmer outside or even better put them on the smoker.

I have a burner outside to make collard greens for SO. I will not cook them inside. Nor will I eat them. Yuck. I mean, who was the first person to cook collard greens,SMELL them cooking and then decide it was a good idea to eat them anyway?????? Someone once told me that if I throw some whole unshelled pecans in the pot when i am cooking them,they dont stink. But I havent tried it yet. I don't make them often and when I do, it's a huge batch so i can freeze them in portions for him to heat and eat when i am at work at night. Yuck yuck yuck. NOT something I wish I liked. I am good hating them.

My memory of collard greens, and I love them if they are picked fairly young, is when I was a kid our African American weekly help, looked out at the neighbor's HUGE garden and asked if that was collard greens!!! They were and many more than any very large family could eat in a week. So my mother called the neighbor (also a very good friend) and asked if her father would miss a few bunches of collard greens. Celeste cooked them up, with Bacon grease onion and lots of salt pepper and some vinegar.....and they were delicious!

I have found that the clue to loving kale is to grow your own and pick it when it's no more than 5 inches tall. Best as salad greens. I had a gardener friend who was going away for 2 weeks in the early summer and before she left she clipped all her salad greens and brought me a pillow case full of baby kale and romaine and red leaf and green garden lettuce. We pigged out for 3 days, but alas even eating huge salads for 3 days it got limp and we had to compost lots of it.

Good grief!!! I can't figure out the greens thing from the articles available without journal subscriptions, and I probably don't know enough to fully understand the technical parts of journal articles anyway. I do have to be careful of goitrogens and was told that a handful of kale in a salad was fine but not a whole kale salad, that a small/normal serving of cooked kale was fine, and it may be because I like kale a lot more than many cruciferous vegetables that I was warned off kale in particular. I'm not getting another doctor. There is absolutely no reason to pine over a salad full of kale!

I only mentioned it as a joke to make Writersblock laugh about not liking raw kale. I doubt it would be a big problem for most people without underlying thyroid problems.

There is absolutely no reason to pine over a salad full of kale!

Truer words were never spoken. :)

I am not a picky eater, but I have lost my love for eggs. I'll eat them but I used to really love a good egg but I just don't enjoy them like I once did. I think it's because I had a couple eggs the morning before I got food poisoning (not from the eggs though). So I guess I associate it with that experience of being so sick. I actually got sick from Subway. I couldn't smell baking bread for about a year without it making me nauseated.

Does it have to be food? I really want to like Scotch as some of the drinks made with Scotch sound so lovely: Old Fashioned and Mint Julep, for example. But I just don't like the stuff. I have (and kind still am) considered buying a small bottle of Scotch and drinking a very small amount regularly to train myself to like it. Am I crazy?

I've never understood parents who force their kids to eat foods they don't like. My parents never did. Of course, I pretty much liked almost everything. With my kids, the rule was that you had to at least take one taste. If you don't like it, ok, you don't have to eat it. But no saying "I don't like that" without even trying it.

I don't care for whiskey either. We drank tequila or rum, when I was young and I never got into the darker spirits. I know a lot of people really dislike the agave taste, but I still like good tequila.

My father used to drink Macallen (Scotch), which is aged in sherry casks. It smells like sherry and is much smoother than your basic varnish remover kind of scotch. Other whiskeys are aged in rum or bourbon barrels and come out sweeter. Not all Scotch whiskey is heavily peaty/smoky. One sip at a time was enough to remind me that I'd rather have the sherry. :) But that might be something to look at if you really want to go there.

Of course, whiskey drinkers would cavail at making cocktails out of the good stuff, but one can taste the difference (at least with the good tequila. I've never felt the yen to go for the whiskey cocktails).

"Good tequila" is an oxymoron.

:-)

LOL! I could say that about scotch whiskey, but some people like apples and some like prunes. :)

Carrots.

They are fine cooked away until farethewells in mirepoix, but I just don't like eating carrots raw or cooked as carrots.

Weird. I don't mind cooked parsnips.

There are things I am happy I don't like: Miracle Whip, faux food, Snickers, s'mores.

Well, I guess I'm not as picky as I thought. I love greens of all types, although I refuse to drink smoothies, the texture is just too awful. I also love beets, both pickled and not, and both golden and dark red.

I don't like okra, though, it's slimy, and raw oysters are even worse. I don't really care whether I like those things or not, though, they aren't common here.

I do kind of wish I liked lamb, though, only because Elery loves it and doesn't get it very often because I just can't eat it. I cook it out in the garage because just the smell puts me off.

Annie

Aww....Lowspark...you are sayin' bad things about my drink of choice. First of all you never make a mint julep out of Scotch....but rather bourbon!
And saying you don't like scotch is like saying you don't like fruit....too many different sorts to differentiate/ I like a not-so-peaty blended Scotch....most of the single malts make me shudder, and things like Black and White and Johnny Walker red lable make me cringe....
My father drank Scotch, my father in law drank scotch and a very good friend drank scotch.....and I wanted to like it......so I asked for a sip of their drink, shuddered and went on to have my Canadian and a splash.....and one day the Scotch tasted good.
Start with an inexpensive blended Scotch....like J and B or Famous Grouse....or even Dewers.
If I can learn to like Scotchs,so can you!!

Scotch whisky - I like some of the single malts - but I don't care for the really peaty ones like Laphroiag,

I don't like gin, or tonic water. Fake sugars leave a bad aftertaste in my mouth, and diet sodas leave me thirstier than before - longing for something to wash away the aftertaste. Stevia, while it's healthy, doesn't even taste sweet to me. Tastes rather moldy or something.

Other than those carrots (and I'll still eat those if served them, if cooked or well-shredded), I don't have any vegetables I actively dislike.

Forgot to mention another food I dislike - cottage cheese. It's the curds, I probably had some milk gone bad as a kid and associate those curdy things with that experience. I can certainly eat it if hidden away in something like a lasagna.

Ministrone soup is something that stirs up a similar reaction in me - I remember getting violently ill after eating some for lunch during a summer job in NYC. I am certain that the minestrone was not at fault and it was something I caught - but it left me with an instinctual revulsion that I just can't overcome quite yet. The memory is trapped into the horrible trip I took leaving work to go home early - getting into the train at Grand Central well before it was ready to leave... they had a few bathrooms then, but the doors were locked as the train wasn't underway, and... Let's just say, no more minestrone soup for me.

I don't like the texture or concentrated sweetness of most dried fruits. Dates are particularly awful. Figs? Give me fresh ones every time! I can't think of a single dish that is improved with the addition of raisins, but at least they are small. On the other paw, I do dehydrate strawberries and grape tomatoes and love those.

Otherwise, I like okra and offal/organ meats, and love lamb. Not fond of chicken breast - inferior to the tasty and moister dark meat. I love kale, but I prefer the less bitter variants - or to eat the more bitter ones when they are still "baby leafed".

LOL Linda! Sorry!! I should have said whiskey, not Scotch, as I don't like Bourbon either. And I'm totally NOT dissing it... I *want* to like it, I just don't. :(

I used to like Scotch. In fact that was my tipple of choice as a young adult. I remember my dad - an inveterate scotch drinker - telling me growing up that a couple of fingers of scotch, sipped over the course of the evening, was perfect for any social drinking situation without leading to rapid inebriation :-) And it was for any number of years until one day the couple of fingers became a whole hand - maybe even two hands - for reasons I do not fully remember!! That was the end of my relationship with scotch. I don't care for gin - think martinis are nasty things - and have never liked bourbon. Vodka or tequila, thank you very much. And yes, there IS good tequila, even excellent tequila that to an aficionado is on par with any aged scotch!!

Unless they are fruit based, I have never understood the appeal of smoothies......I don't care to drink my vegetables (although I do like V8 juice.......specially when doctored with vodka, horseradish, a shot of Worchestershire, etc.).

And I too have had an association with a case of food poisoning that put me off a particular item, totally unrelated to the poisoning. Couldn't eat apple pie for years after making one the same day I wound up incapacitated from bad dry roasted peanuts.

gardengal - I never understood the appeal of fruit smoothies. In fact, when I first learned about smoothies... I figured it was a way to concentrate and enjoy veggies. ALL my smoothies have some level of onion in them, due to this. Maybe ONE fruit... for instance I like a bit of blood orange in one.

Yes, tequila, from a good source, I do like.

Raw tomatoes. I really want to like them, but it is totally a texture thing with me. Cooked are fine. Raw in salsa is fine. Slice of raw tomato is not fine!

A stop at a "fruit market" this morning reminded me of something else I keep trying to like, but I just don't: apples. Yeah, I know. EVERYONE likes apples. Except me, I don't even really like them in pie. I keep trying to like them, though, I've got apple trees and I can apple sauce and press cider and bake fritters and everyone in the family loves it. Except me. I can drink the cider, although it's not my first choice, but I just can't enjoy those apples.

Annie

Singularly, I like all food.

I generally don't like salty/sweet combos, so the latest trends with salted caramel doesn't appeal to me at all. You can put a bowl full of salted caramel candies in front of me, and I won't touch any of it.