31
votes
What are your food aversions?
Mine is canola/rapeseed oil. It's ubiquitous here in the US, but it tastes like old liquid cardboard to me. And it's the most popular cooking spray!
What bothers you?
Mine is canola/rapeseed oil. It's ubiquitous here in the US, but it tastes like old liquid cardboard to me. And it's the most popular cooking spray!
What bothers you?
Seafood.
My parents do not eat any seafood, so I never ate any growing up and had it hammered into my brain as a child that seafood is gross. This is probably the greatest disservice my parents ever did me! I have tried as an adult to develop a taste for various seafoods with minimal success. I can choke it down if I have to but there is a psychological block that I just cannot overcome.
I grew up nearly as far from any ocean as you can possibly get in the US. We never ate seafood but I didn't have any negative exposure, just none at all.
I moved away for college and got invited to a birthday party at a hibachi place and tried sushi on a whim and holy fuck sushi is so good. I am sorry you have to miss out on that.
I like sushi so much more than cooked fish. Cooked fish usually tastes kind of dull and mushy to me. It's generally been frozen previously. Other than salmon, the most commonly available commercial fish are mild, white-fleshed, and don't have much fat to carry flavors. I've really grown to enjoy tinned fish (sardines, anchovies, mussels - ok, not a fish, oil-packed tuna), stronger-tasting species that remain firmer and tastier through processing.
Fresh-caught trout is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that will transform your understanding of what fish should taste like.
Turns out, most sushi fish in the US and EU are required to be flash-frozen to kill parasites. In Japan, many of the finer fish are eaten fresh. I had no idea until maybe a year ago.
Ice crystals tear cell walls. The texture change is probably not as noticeable when previously frozen fish is served raw, but thawed fish tends to leak more moisture in cooking and it's just not as pleasant to eat.
If I remember right, Japan has a very thorough health inspection process for sushi-grade fresh fish - not something that lends itself to cheap bulk commercial sales. You can buy fresh fish in the U.S. and DIY it as sushi, but I wouldn't recommend it. OTOH, definitely get fresh fish for cooking if you can.
Fresh caught mackerel :D fresh caught ling cod, bass, ....oh boy any especially salt water fish
I like a good deep fried battered cod, but white fish fillet is not really in the same category as seafood
I am jealous!
Interesting.
All tuna are warm blooded. The Bluefin can also thermoregulate. There's nothing squishy about them, they're more like our cows than even a chicken.
What if you try a grilled bluefin tuna steak?
That's me!
^pls label joke
My wife thinks I'm weird cause I don't like any seafood that tastes like the sea or fish or whatever. She tells me that's the point.
I like crab, sushi, tilapia, smoked salmon, shrimp, that kind of stuff. But yeah, if it tastes like fish, no thanks.
I can't fathom what does taste like fish to you if the several fish you named don't count.
A "fishy" taste would be what the ocean smells like. Have you ever been near a pier or anything? That smell? That's what a "fishy" taste is. It smells and tastes the same.
Tilapia tastes as close to how that smells as any other fish to me tbh. Probably more so than something like a fried and battered cod does.
Do you only like smoked salmon and not salmon that's cooked other ways? I definitely will agree that smoked salmon tastes less like that smell than cooked salmon does (but I like both).
Yeah Tilapia definitely has some of that flavor, but it doesn't bother me as much there. But that's also a fish I usually fry for fish tacos.
I mostly only like smoked salmon. Grilled salmon isn't bad and I'll eat it prepared in other ways, but it would never be a primary choice for me if I had other options.
Actually as an aside, I've been thinking about my weird preferences lately and peanut butter is another one. I will happily eat a spoon of peanut butter, but I very much dislike it in other things. I'll still eat it, but again, it would never be a primary choice for me. Peanut butter cookies? Nah. Stuff like that.
I'm guessing that one has to do with the strong flavor of peanut butter and how it kind of taints everything it touches. Much like fish, actually...
Ah, I can see the rest of the taco fixings contributing to it not being as bad in fish tacos.
Peanut butter is something I definitely have to be in the mood for, so I can feel that. If I'm not in the mood for peanut butter, can't stand it.
Really "fishy" tastes sometimes come from fish that isn't super-fresh - it's actually ammonia from breakdown of the proteins. I can totally get why that would be unpleasant and aversive, as /u/dustylungs mentioned.
Saltwater fish usually have more iodine (a big part of "ocean" smell) and that's an acquired taste (think lowland whiskies). Do you dislike seaweed as well?
I used to dislike seaweed, but I've come to like it more. But again, it has to be not too fishy. I generally put some seaweed in my ramen, stuff that comes in big sheets from the Korean supermarket. And I do like the little wafer style ones that generally come in a plastic package.
But it would make sense, I don't get a lot of fresh fish, given I'm in the landlocked middle of the country.
I grew up with an aversion to seafood as well, associating fishy smell with rotten animal carcasses. I pushed myself to get over that general sense of disgust, but I can't get over the fact that crabs are arthropods. When I see people cracking crab shells and picking apart the innards, I can't stop the revolting mental image reminder that they could just as well be picking apart large beetles, centipedes, bees or spiders. Crabs are nasty and I can't understand how anyone can eat them.
The smell of seafood is gross. I don't mind the taste, but I'll never get over the smell.
This me, kinda-ish.
I don't mind fish-type seafood, for the most part, as long as it's cooked. I struggle with raw seafood not because of the flavor, but because the texture causes a strong involuntary gag reflex that can be very difficult to surpress. I think that in my mind, raw fish is hard-coded to be in the same category as raw chicken, or maybe it just comes down to having been raised in mid-atlantic US ~300mi inland, where everything save for some raw fruits/veggies is possibly battered and fried, baked, boiled, or grilled.
I have a hard time with shellfish, too. My family never ate it so there's some mental barriers to eating the weird alien sea bug things. With shrimp, the texture and squeaky noise/sensation that occurs when teeth make contact with them weirds me out, almost like nails on a chalkboard. If it were served to me in a more processed and unrecognizable form (like crab cakes) that could probably work, but I've never tested that theory.
Out of shellfish, oysters are probably the biggest struggle. Once again, texture issue; it reminds me of snot and is thoroughly unappetizing.
I've forced myself to eat some of these when I found myself in settings where refusal would look impolite or crude (e.g. highish end formal restaurants), but it's a real battle.
Mine is mayo. Always hated it. No, you can't add garlic and I'll like it. No, it can't be spicy and I'll like it. It usually can't even be an ingredient because I'll taste it.
Mayo is pretty ubiquitous here in the States so it does make trouble when I'm trying to order sandwiches but the real problem (and sort of less logical one) is that it's lead to a distrust of any creamy sauce because "what if it's a mayo base?" Even though I know a hollandaise or sour cream based sauce is different, I can't make my brain see it differently.
I congratulate you, fellow mayonnaise hater. It taints everything it touches.
We're out here! There's 10s of us!!
One more to add to the tally, whenever I try to eat mayonnaise I always end up gagging
I can eat mayo mixed with mustard on a sandwich, but I despise mayonaise as the primary flavor. I cannot stand tuna salad or chicken salad sandwiches.
I get your distrust of white sauce. I'm instantly suspicious of "red" flavouring for fear of it being fake strawberry or fake cherry or that weird processes cherry that remind me of childhood antibiotics
Same, but even worse. I eventually figured out that the common link of my dislike of most sauces and dressings is vinegar. That rules out pretty much all common condiments. I basically only eat tomato or alfredo sauces.
I liked mayo when I was young, until I tried a 'mayo hair mask' when I was a teen. I
dunno, something sbout slathering tonnes of mayo in my hair really turned me off it.
I don't particularly like it now, but I can tolerate it with certain things.
I don't hate mayo, I just don't like it in excess because it's greasy/slimy and seems to mute the flavors of whatever it's applied to. A nice sharp, lemony Hollandaise, spicy remoulade, or garlicky aioli/toum are much better options.
Broccoli, Cauliflower and Brussels Sprouts taste awful to me. Always have. Boiled cabbage is also on my shit list.
I don't drink root beer, for the simple reason that it makes me throw up. I suspect I must have had a bad experience as a child, but one sip makes me gag.
Canola oil, on the other hand, seems almost tasteless to me, and it is my primary cooking oil.
Depending on the last time you tried these foods, in the past 15 years commercial Brussels sprouts and broccoli have had their bitter flavor (sinigrin and progoitrin) bred out of them. So they objectively taste better!
Have you tried roasting veggies in the oven until they're crispy/browning? Totally changed my opinion on them. We coat them in olive oil, sprinkle salt/pepper on them, roast on 425 for like 20+ mins, flip halfway through, and they come out so much better than I remember as a kid (probably because my mom was always boiling them). My kids legitimately like the broccoli we make. Cauliflower and brussels are a tougher sell.
I was exactly the same as you! I could not stand broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprout and as you said boiled cabbage.
Now that I am a middle aged person, as cliche as it sounds, I started to care a bit more about my health with the new year. Last week, I forced myself to eat some broccoli (and zucchini) and it wasn’t half bad. What I did was I found a cheat. With some garlic yogurt and a bit of MSG, broccoli and zucchini’s taste profile take a backseat to that of garlic and yogurt and become somewhat a pleasure to eat. I was so surprised how good it tasted, I ended up preparing it two dinners in a row.
I am now slowly preparing myself for Brussels sprouts. I think that’s a tougher challenge, especially compared to cauliflower given how close they are with broccoli which I already started liking, but we’ll see. One thing I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accomplish is getting over how gross boiled cabbage is to me, though. There’s this dish called Kapuska and whenever my mom made it when I was a kid, I’d either lock myself into my room or just leave the house. I simply could not stand the smell and I still can’t. That being said, to this day, I love munching on pickled cabbage. Given how low calorie it is, that is also a cheat code for those who want to lose weight. (Though it’s pickled, so gotta watch out for excess sodium.)
I hope you don’t give up!
Sprouts : Blanche, then quarter (or, half them if you're feeling frisky), stir fry them with a bit of maple syrup and cashew nuts. Or walnuts. Or some paprika spiced seitan or something. You're welcome.
I'm pretty fond of this recipe myself: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1890-roasted-brussels-sprouts-with-garli
Sprinkle some parmesan on top for a little something extra. Divine.
That sounds delicious (assuming I’d like the taste of the sprouts) but unfortunately it’s not for me. I am on a strict diet and stir frying and maple syrup (which would be hard for me to source) is a no-go.
I was thinking of using an air-fryer to cook the sprouts. My goal is to make it dry/crispy as much as I can without using oil. As for dressing, I’m not sure.
Air fryer is how I usually prepare mine because of how dead simple it is. I'll halve them, quarter if they're large. Tossing with a tiny bit of oil helps, but it works dry like you're planning too. Without a preheat, it's usually 15-20min at the highest temp on mine. They can stack up a bit, so half way through I give things a shake for more even cooking.
Thanks for the tip! I’m glad it works with an air-fryer. I’m curious, do you salt them before or after?
Ideally, after oiling so it has something to stick to. Without oil… tough call; dry going in, mostly dry coming out. Maybe when you do the mid-way toss would be best since it should be a bit moist on the surface at that point.
That’s a good point. I’ll order some next time I do my groceries and hopefully it turns out well. Thanks!
One of my favorite dishes is a Sheperd's pie with Brussels sprouts ("hachis parmentier aux choux de Bruxelles").
Same on canola being tasteless, and root beer. But for me I just can't drink anything somewhat licorice flavoured like that, having grown up with extremely bitter traditional Chinese medicine.
Root beer can have such a huge spectrum of tastes its honestly wild. I've had some great root beers out of the tap that are smooth and creamy and taste absolutely amazing, and on the other spectrum I've had ones that taste like cough syrup and make me want to gag.
I don't eat any fruit. Since I'm in the tropics, that means I detest all tropical fruits.
Oh!! Lou, that's the first time I've heard of someone not eating fruits*, usually it's leaves and stems that people avoid. What about "sideways" fruit like .... Peas, squash and coconut milk?
'* Edit, Lou and Hobofarmer
I do like conocuts specially coconut water (which is not the same as coconut milk that we only use for cooking). I'm okay with peas, don't love them. I don't eat squash. I also like tomatoes, which are technically fruit. But only on tomato sauce.
I find most fruit to have a horrible taste and texture. Tropical fruit are specially pungent.
Tropical fruits are very much their own thing eh, very pugent for sure.
Yeah. And I'm pretty sure the versions of non-tropical fruits we get are more "vibrant" as well. Which is great for fruit-lovers but not so much for me.
I wish to volunteer for Brazilian tropical fruit paradise tribute - send them to me =..= we only get watery bland picked before ripened and shipped from a lot way slowly fruit in Atlantic Canada
Years ago we got visitors from Argentina all they did was to eat fruit. Fruits are here are cheap too.
Do you generally dislike acidic foods? Many fruits run very tart, but maybe some of the creamier, sweeter apples, pears, or dates would be more pleasant?
I don't believe I dislike acidic foods. For example, I don't put sugar on tomato sauce precisely because I don't mind and even enjoy the acidity. Up to a level. Tropical fruit, which are plentiful here, are usually vibrant and exuberant. It is too much for me.
I do believe my taste in food may be a reflection of autism, which I was recently diagnosed with.
I completely understand the sensory sensitivity - I got the auditory version and many forms of sound that other people find tolerable or enjoy are unpleasant for me. Sometimes, I can lean into an overly intense exposure and find enjoyable aspects of it, but it's hard work and definitely not achievable on a constant basis.
I hope the rest of your food experiences are rewarding, though!
Same. I'm not in the tropics, but I basically never eat fruit.
I'm so sorry - the best part of South Florida life for me was having my own tropical fruit trees (mango, guava, sapodilla, papaya, starfruit, coconut). I kind of understand it, because many tropical fruits have mushy or watery textures, but the flavors and aromas are magical to me. Becoming allergic to mangos and cashews was a major disappointment.
Footnote: Do not drink wine made from tropical fruits, ever.
Adult-onset food allergies are tragic. I developed a couple seemingly unrelated ones in my 20s, all of which were foods I previously looked forward to. Thankfully no throat swelling, but itchy tongue immediately and severe chest cramps within a minute that will last for 1 to several hours.. It's been a pain as some are have gained popularity as ingredients, but often aren't immediately visible (if at all), and are uncommon enough allergens that they never get called out. At least it's not as bad as my friend - an ethnically Chinese person who's absolute favorite food was scallops - developing a shellfish allergy as an adult.
That sounds pretty serious, and it's a mess that you've got problems with invisible, unlabeled ingredients. I'd carry Benadryl at least, and maybe talk with a doctor about an EpiPen. [I'm acquainted with someone who has severe egg, wheat, cow's milk, and nut allergies - they basically live with an EpiPen in pocket all the time. It's very difficult to find clean ingredients that don't contain traces of any of those allergens even with vegan products more widely available.]
At least I can avoid the things I'm allergic to on a menu, and send food back if I see those ingredients weren't called out. It's usually not a problem for me anyway, provided that everything in the dish gets cooked. Though I once had house-made vegan ice "cream" at a restaurant that didn't disclose the source was raw cashews, and that was a [delicious!] disaster. My doctor gives me heavy-duty prescription antihistamines and a prednisone dose pack every year, just in case.
I think I'd probably give up on life if I suddenly got an allergy to a real favorite, like chocolate or cheeses. It's been hard enough cutting wine down to a glass a week.
There's no need to say you are sorry. I do not like fruit, but I have no issue with other people enjoying it :P
I'm glad you ate some fruit you love. It is unfortunate that you became allergic to some fruit, but aren't some allergies curable?
I'm not so deprived in avoiding mangos and cashews, and they're rare enough allergies that there's no specific desensitization program. [There's no available desensitization for poison ivy/oak, either, and these allergens are related.]
Since the urushiol allergens undergo chemical changes on air exposure (just like Japanese lacquer), I can usually tolerate accidental exposure to small amounts of roasted cashews or frozen/dried mango. I can't even touch the raw ones, though - I've got permanent scars from the last time I came into contact with mango sap.
Oh ouch ! It makes sense if ivy and oak don't want to be eaten, and I guess the weird cashew fruit thing sorta make sense, but...
Why do mango plants not want to be eaten? Or just evolutionarily not by us?
I've no idea - maybe bugs and animals don't enjoy the irritating chemicals either? There are 600+ plant species distributed globally that contain urushiols, so it's a popular evolutionary strategy. We got perfect mangos with no chemical applications, so that's my guess.
And I ate those gorgeous, amazing-tasting mangos skin and all for years before suddenly having problems. I offered them to friends and people I worked with, and about 1 in 4 had the same story - many years of eating mangos daily, then abrupt onset of allergy. Most of them just got "mango mouth", and could still eat peeled, rinsed or cooked mango flesh since urushiol is concentrated in the fruit skin and breaks down when heated.
But a couple had the same extreme reactions I did - blisters on contact, weeks of whole-body hives, scary mouth and throat swelling, gastrointestinal irritation... I even started getting hives and asthma from the pollen when the trees were flowering, but then we decided to GTFO Florida for many other reasons.
The other wacky thing is that I thought I was immune to poison ivy - I grew up walking barefoot through fields of the stuff without the slightest itch. Apparently, the same kind of sudden poison ivy/oak allergy happens to full-time foresters and gardeners frequently as well. Japanese Urushi (lacquerware) makers - same thing.
My goodness that's crazy scary with the throat constriction, especially if it could be just breathing in air with pollen.
(Unrelated: it's kind of always been hilarious to me that the ancient Greeks got a bunch of things right. Miasma theory was correct but it's that there's bad stuff in the air not that air itself is bad. Or yes Antarctica (ἀντι- ἀρκτικός anti-bear) really doesn't have bears on it but that not what they meant. Or why the earth really does spin around the sun but not because Fire is a nobler element than Earth)
My impression from modern medicine is that we still don't know everything about how allergic reactions work. I was also so allergic to cats until my one foster, then suddenly I'm not allergic to any cats. I swear to you I used to be allergic to foods prepared by certain restaurants, and I know MSG allergies is not real but it's what I went through for many years until I wasn't.
Sorry to hear your lost your ivy immunity as well, that was a good superpower to have. Maybe you hit your lifetime hidden urushiol quantity counter and then bam, privilege revoked.
I know someone who doesn't like fruits because of the "juiciness". Vegetables are fine, but fruits are a big no no from a sensory perspective.
I'll eat anything!
I have an old air filter I've been meaning to throw away, but I hate to waste food...
I support whatever decision you make
Same! I will eat anything and everything offered to me, even if I don’t like it.
The reason I do this is repeated exposure to foods you don’t like may eventually change your taste to enjoy it. source
It is the mere exposure effect.
I also have the mindset that if a large group of people like something that I don’t, perhaps it was prepared wrong when I tasted it. It might be different the next time I try it.
I went from being incredibly picky to now loving a large variety of foods.
Doing this really worked for me.
Even snakes? :)
Never tried but I've sure made gross noodles before and those went down!
:D haha as king of snakes you have the duty to try! I've had snake in stews, very tasty fall weather kinds dish. I can assure you it's more chicken like than gross noodles.
It took me a while after moving to a city that most people have never eaten snake lol. I grew up in a pretty backwoods part of the Midwest US and my grandma would cook about any animal brave enough to step on her property. Squirrel, rabbit, raccoon, opossum, deer, frog, and occasionally snake could all show up on her table along with typical meats.
I'm not sure what the common opinion on eating those animals are, but I will argue that slow cooking and shredding raccoon meat beats pulled pork every time.
Fascinating! Do you notice if omnivores taste different from herbivores, or if the wild caught version is different from farm raised?
I would love the opportunity to try opossum and raccoon
The neighbours eat hunted deer here, but I'm too paranoid about CWD and other prion disease to try, even though it is probably silly because there have been no known human cases of CWD and I definitely eat beef.
When I'm super old, I'm going to eat all kinds of "maybe only edible once" things.
I never actually thought about herbivore vs omnivore, but I guess there's sorta a difference there. Squirrel and rabbit is pretty similar as just a slightly tough, sometimes gamey meat that we fried as a chicken substitute. Raccoon is a darker meat with a strong almost tangy taste. I think I just attributed that to their size rather than diet lol. I can't really remember what oppossum tastes like since it was usually just cooked into soups and it's been 10+ years since I've had it.
Wild caught frogs are the only thing I can compare to a farm raised equivalent. I generally avoid frog legs at resturaunts and grocery stores. They almost all have a very strong metallic taste that the wild ones had much less noticably.
Despite deer being pretty common at stores and butchers around me I've only ever had what my family hunts and keeps in bulk in deep freezers. So i can't really say how it compares.
I sure didn't think I'd be talking about my childhood of eating wild animals on tildes today.
The joys of Up-North living - read Jim Harrison's The Raw and the Cooked sometime.
At one time or another, I've tried all that, plus bear, elk, boar, porcupine, pheasant and various other birds, alligator, rattlesnake, python, all kinds of fish, and other stuff I can't even remember. Courtesy of dinners at the county gun and rod club my dad was a member of, and hanging around chefs.
Omnivores definitely taste different than herbivores, is the overall theme. Wild fish, poultry, and hog taste very different from farmed because of the more varied diet and lower fat. The meat tends to be tougher and stringier, with more connective tissue, just because the animals are free-ranging rather than confined, and they aren't harvested the minute they're at maximum weight.
Also, as /u/Gummy said, the muscles in small game aren't big enough to be roasted or grilled, so they're prepared as stews, braises, or soups to moderate the toughness, and that changes the flavor, too.
And occasionally you'll get a dish with leftover buckshot as seasoning - that little bit of lead intake in my youth probably accounts for some things.
***We've got too many suburban deer right now, and spouse has joked that he could hunt them by dropping a cinder block off the back deck.
That answers a long-standing wondering I've had: if an animal was killed with shot how does one eat it. So I guess you try to eat around it and just accept a bit of it? Is rock salt shotgun shells a real thing and if so is it edible / flavours the meat a bit?
The shot usually gets picked out with tweezers, but it's easy to miss the small (roughly 2 - 3 mm) pellets used for birds and small game.
Rock salt shot gets used for non-lethal home defense. The salt is painful, but the irregular crystals aren't dense enough to penetrate deeply, aren't aerodynamic enough to travel very far, and tend to shatter on impact.
I wish someone would take me hunting. I'd be very good at dispatching and dressing too, and when I feel comfortable with firearms eventually I'll get a license
Lol, I absolutely should. My Kingofsnake is more about ravers (also snakes, but probably with dreadlocks and more general filth)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G_SBPZ_pdv4
I’ve only had snake once, it reminded me more of octopus than chicken.
I would love try snake again and prepared in a bunch of different ways. Grilled would be my first station. I love boiled/grilled octopus so that would be a straight win. Stew snake was like chicken for me, but maybe because it's been in the pot for a while
I have stopped eating octopus since I realized they were probably going to take over the world, so best be careful.
Yes, octopus and calamari have been totally off my menu since studies of their intelligence came out, and I pretty much avoid mammal meat as well. I'm not holding the line on birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish very well, though.
Yeah, I'm trying to minimize suffering as much as possible, and limit consumption, when it comes to octopi, cuttlefish, squid, and lobsters crabs sea urchin scallops etc. I won't expect mercy when they take over, fair is fair.
King snakes do feed on other snakes!
I dont like olives. They have a strong taste that stand out when they are added to anything.
I did not grow up with olives, and their smell really puts me off. Same with olive oil unless it's crazy fresh, and even then it's merely tolerated. As a result I also don't like balsamic dressing with olive oil.
Supermarket olive stands smell very strongly to me and I walk around them.
Olive oil goes rancid pretty quickly when it's exposed to air, and those olive stands (or the barrels of olives in brine at specialty stores) definitely smell rank. But I like the olives themselves, even really bitter, salty ones like Kalamatas, in cooking.
Castelvetrano olives are really buttery, don't age long, and they're not bitter at all - super tasty if you can get them.
I discovered these only a few years ago and even as someone who likes regular green and black olives, was amazed. They might blend in on the shelf with the salad olives but they're a whole different deal, especially the fancy jumbo ones.
A lot of grocery stores don't sell them, unfortunately. The Kroger's out in the sticks in my hometown doesn't have them, and only some stores in the major metro I currently live in stock them.
No one has said mine just yet! Beets.
But it gets more complicated. I was out to a nice small menu restaurant in the depths of the chilly winter this year and my partner seemed a little peckish, whereas I wasn't quite as famished. I offered to get the beets as an appetizer so that they could have most of it, and I could have a tiny bite to confirm beets were still disgusting to me.
I had my small bite, and they still tasted like beets. But I noticed I didn't hate it. Now, disliking beets has been a core part of my identity for a few decades now in my family life. I felt myself turning over the idea of acknowledging that I no longer detested well-prepared beets. I decided to leap off the deep end and acknowledge that they weren't bad!
I look forward to trying them a few more times to see where my evolving tastes take me. I suspect it's rather like brussels sprouts for other folks: when I was young, I was eating canned beets that weren't an amazing expression of the range of tastiness of beets.
Baked beans in a can are disgusting, bruh. Still completely disinterested in those. I like almost every other bean. Kidney, black, and pinto in a chili? mmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I used to work for a vegetable-breeding company, and I did a lot of work with the company's beet breeder. This is a man who travels all over the world to different farms to select beets for breeding, and he has to taste test all of them — hundreds and hundreds of beets a year — and he was really good at selecting for flavor.
He told me, "I hate beets — but I know what they're supposed to taste like." Poor guy.
Oh no!!! If only he could work with a fruit/veg he actually likes :'( I don't know that I can do a food job that I hate
Work in a kitchen or food service business, or adopt the kind of culinary adventurism that my family did ("Try anything that doesn't have a skull-and-crossbones or a radiation symbol on the label" was the official motto...), and you'll at least learn what you don't like, and probably why.
A lot of people assume they hate a food in general, when they really hate ill-chosen or badly executed preparations of that food. I thought I hated eggplant until I tried moussaka and stir-fry, Brussels sprouts until I tried them roasted, and so on.
In addition, the loss of smell and taste with age makes many foods more palatable. There's probably an evolutionary defense mechanism to keep children away from potential food toxins until they're done growing, similar to food aversions in pregnancy.
I kind of made it a point as an adult to retry anything I disliked in childhood (e.g. lasagna, if you can believe it, when what I really disliked was my mother's recipe and the burnt edges...), and I've discovered all kinds of new delights.
Good point that the preparation is a big factor, also echoing your point about the rancid stinky olive carts (blerh!)
I like that attitude to food, with the labels, but what if we tried to sun dry it and put it in the ground forever and grind it up and put it in soup? Might still be edible....
My grandma figured out at some point that I don’t like ricotta, so she made me lasagna with mozzarella. Took me years to figure out why all other lasagna had such a weird texture.
Ricotta is another grainy-textured food that I wasn't crazy about, until I started making tiramisu in the pastry kitchen. Turns out that if you whip it long enough, it becomes velvety smooth and delicious.
Interesting, I’ve never made that before. Maybe I’ll give it a try, I do like tiramisu and didn’t know it had ricotta in it.
It makes sense to me. Beets taste like soil smells. Turns out I really like that taste, especially with a citrus sauce or quick pickling marinade.
I also find that there are varieties of beets, and fresh vs canned, which might make a difference. I don't often eat canned because they taste extra tinny and muddy to me. Can you tolerate the leaves fairly okay? Good luck on the exploration :)
Peeling, and golden beets were big discoveries. One of the things I kind of disliked about red beets was how messy the juices were and earthy (dirt-like) they tasted. Turned out my mom scrubbed but didn't peel fresh beets, and the skin carries geosmin and other dirt flavors/aromas.
Golden beets seem to have fewer of the bitter flavor components (probably anthocyanins that give beets the red color, and are good for you...) but are still fairly nutritious (carotene and fiber).
Beet leaves in a salad I haven't got any issues with!
I think you're right. The canned ones always just had an odd aftertaste and a soft texture. Fresh ones are a whole new world now!
Costco carries vacuum-packed cooked beets that are pretty good - unseasoned and recipe ready.
Canned foods have gotten better since the advent of plastic-lined metal cans, but frozen or vacuum-packed fruits and vegetables will always have more natural tastes and textures since they're not processed at high temperatures and pressures.
This is fun for you! I enjoy when I realise I now like a food I used to dislike, because it can open up novel flavours/dishes to explore.
I don’t like beets cooked, but can tolerate them raw. Pickled beets are a trap.
If you ever get the chance, give beet tops a try. I grow them mostly for the tops, they’re excellent roasted.
I cannot be the only raisin-hater here...
I don’t hate raisins, but the sun maid ones in particular are awful and I think their ubiquity is the reason why many people hate raisins in general.
I don't hate raisins, but I do hate sun-dried tomatoes. All the texture of raisins with a sugary tomato flavor. Yuck!
Coriander/cilantro because of the soap gene. Even a tiny bit can ruin a dish for me. There is frequently coriander added to some Portuguese dishes, which I grew up eating. I used to think I hated seafood rice, but it turned out it was the coriander ruining everything. There's also a dish called Carne de Porco Alentejana made using pork medallions and clams that is absolutely drenched in the stuff. My mom used to make it frequently and it still haunts me to this day. I'm trying to learn to power through because I love mexican and indian food so much.
I also have a similar experience with grapefruit. If there's a small bit even mixed in fruit juice I will know. You know that nail polish used to stop kids from biting their nails? That's what grapefruit tastes like to me. Alcohol and especially hard liquor are the same. I can tolerate beer, wine and cider but the taste of ethanol is still pretty present so I just don't drink alcohol 99% of the time.
Edit: I forgot papaya. I remember eating some and vomiting it up when I was very young (think first memories). Avoid it like the plague to this day. Doesn't help that it smells like vomit.
Beans, which I feel really bad about because they seem like the ultimate food for so many purposes and I really want to like them.
I think it comes from childhood "trauma" where I was forced to eat bean soup at school and at home and I absolutely hated the taste/texture of it and even vomited over it.
Now, every time I taste beans in my food, I instinctively feel a gag reflex and the taste lingers in my mouth and spoils the whole dish. I've tried different varieties and I think black beans were the least offensive but I still can't really handle them.
I do not consider myself a picky eater. I am one of those people that loves chicken innards. I even eat and like some insects. Even if something doesn't taste very pleasant to me, I usually have no issue finishing a dish even if only out of courtesy. There are only a handful of ingredients I will absolutely not eat because of the taste, but I hate that beans are one of them and make me look like an unbearable picky eater (most other foods I can't stand are stuff you'd rarely come across so it doesn't come up. It's stuff I tried just to say I tried because, again, I'm not a picky eater and love exploring new foods).
And another thing - many bean dishes are heavily seasoned with cumin, at least in the Latin American recipes I'm most familiar with. To my taste, cumin is fine as part of spice mixes like Indian curries, but not when it's the dominant flavor.
Fifteen-ish years ago, my wife labeled our cumin container as "I'm only cumin" with a goofy innocent face, and that has allowed me to forgive some of the pungency. :) We have to be careful with it, though.
For me, it isn't even all beans. Cannellini, black beans, big lupini, are fine as long as the skins aren't too tough. But thick-skinned beans like kidney, navy, and some others have an unpleasant taste that makes me vaguely nauseated.
Edit: I hated chickpeas for a while, both due to the tough skins and the fact that I only ever tried canned ones, which tasted metallic and mealy to me. You can get frozen chickpeas now, and they're pretty good.
While I love all beans, I do empathize with this as I am not a fan of lima beans because the skins are just weird and the texture is all wrong. Even when I learned later in life that the cooked version is actually butter beans, I still don't like either of them.
They made for great biology experiments at the table though. I loved to dissect them instead of eating them.
I used to be a picky eater and have lost most of my worst food aversions, but beans are still something I can't handle. But I'm pretty sure for me it's more of a texture thing than a taste thing.
Man, I love beans but they DO NOT agree with my stomach and it sucks.
I say I don’t like beans, but I do love garden fresh green beans. I’m going to order some niche varieties to grow this year, maybe I can find a dry bean I like.
I always thought I disliked peas just as much and kind of categorized them by general shape. Last year I grew some “Super Sugar Snap” peas because they sounded so good and holy cow am I in love. It’s amazing how many options are out there when you have a bit of land and a seed exchange.
Blue cheese ruins everything. It's not even the mold I dislike, I love Brie. It just tastes awful.
Peanuts too.
I'm reminded of a quote from a former co-worker who also detests blue cheese. In his words:
A bit dramatic, perhaps 😂 But pretty funny, particularly in the heat of that moment
We can't all be Egyptian goddesses
This would have been an excellent comeback if I were more educated
In the event you haven't seen/heard it, I think you might agree with Cathie that Bleu Cheese Has Mold In It
Spouse doesn't care for blue cheese, so more mold for me!
Ground meat/plant protein products and some of the grittier grains. I detest the texture, it's like eating dirt or rodent droppings no matter how it's seasoned or what it's in. Even vegan burgers or plant-loaf usually trigger that horror, the way the particles sit on my tongue without any chewing.
There's no particular trauma or taste aversion I can attribute it to - just a specific texture aversion as unaccountable as an ASMR sensation.
I'm not very picky otherwise - I enjoy strong moldy cheeses, bitter vegetables, potently aromatic foods in general. Except nattō, and everyone hates nattō.
There's something about the beyond meat burgers that I can't stand. They smell like chlorinated dog food to me. Do you also get that impression?
I find that when cooked, Beyond Meat burgers smell like neither seared animal protein nor plant protein, but a kind of aromatic uncanny valley. Maybe scorched plastic?
Yeah that sounds about right
I'm the same with natto. I like a lot of fermented foods. I like a lot of foods that are slimy. I just cannot agree with both slimy and strong fermented flavor at the same time. It's just too strongly indicative of spoiled food, which is exactly what natto is.
Deep fried stuff. Working at McDonald's had one positive impact on me, apparently. I have a very very very mild PTSD that comes to mind whenever I even smell it.
For me, anything with mushroom where the physical mushroom pieces end up in the dish. I think it’s a texture thing. I like the flavor of mushrooms. So a risotto made from a mushroom broth? Fantastic. A mushroom risotto with pieces of mushroom grated into it? Terrible.
Interestingly this means that I like almost everything labeled truffle, but almost nothing labeled mushroom. My theory is that truffle is expensive enough that it is added to dishes in small quantity for the flavor, but not large pieces that have the terrible texture.
Corn syrup is my biggest one. I can taste it no matter what the product - American pop is especially awful. At a work event in Canada I was given a can of non-diet coke and out of desperation, I drank it - only to actually somewhat enjoy it? Turns out Canada doesn't put corn syrup in everything like the States.
I also absolutely detest truffles. Turns out I'm one of the 40% who perceive androstenone as rotten and it's absolutely vile - nearly baby diaper levels of unpalatable for me.
I also don't really like meat that much - it's not so much a texture or taste thing as I just don't like eating it a lot of the time.
Fruit is a weird one somewhat - I like apricots a lot but none of the other stonefruits. I love all the berries and the pride of my garden is a nice raspberry thicket. I also like durian and breadfruit quite a bit too. But I don't like the basics - apples, oranges, pears, grapefruit, etc.
i don't like stuffing and I don't like hard-shelled 'tacos', which are absolutely not tacos.
otherwise I like everything so long as its prepared right.
you mean this hard U-form tortilla? I dont' understand them, they seem made for people who don't know how to eat tacos. but tacos dorados exist and they are amazing. do you like them?
those shitty, crisp U shaped ones are the ones and they’re the worst. dorados isn’t too bad, but like a nice soft exterior that i can pinch :)
You know what? Rapeseed oil does taste a bit like cardboard now that I think about it! I don't mind it at all though.
The only strange thing that I cannot stomach is tangerine flavored foods. I thought it was some weird synthetic flavoring, but apparently not, it happens with natural tangerine extracts, whether it's ice cream or San Pellegrino (which I love in its orange variant). This is weird because I definitely do like actual tangerines.
The only thing that reminds me of the weird, apparently natural, tangerine flavor is dihydromyrcenol, a synthetic perfume ingredient used to create a feeling of freshness in many perfumes (most famously and possibly most strongly in Davidoff Cool Water) but also in washing detergents etc. It smells like a synthetic metallic tangerine.
With your synthetic tangerine thing, that makes me wonder what chemical compound is responsible for me disliking peas, unless they're extremely fresh. Canned are the worst, but even quite large, sat for a few days in the fridge peas from a fresh pod has a weird smell/taste to me. Fresh off the plant is totally fine.
I bet it's something similar - either an aromatic quickly decomposes into something that's completely harmless but triggering for some people similarly to cilantro, or perhaps it just changes concentration. From smelling perfumes I found out that, at least with smells, different concentrations and/or ratios of the same aromatics can smell like a completely different thing and go from pleasant to disgusting.
This one is easy for me: shrimp. I essentially have no other food aversions, but the texture of shrimp is just detestable. Fortunately, I also do not find the flavor to be enticing, so I'm not missing out. But my goodness, the texture. A shrimp is similar to an orange slice; full of little self contained packets that burst as you bite through. But the packets are mealy and made of meat. Yuck! This is most notable with cocktail shrimp, but it is so off putting that I avoid most all shrimp.
I love all shrimp lobster crawfish, but when they're not fresh they can be mealy and mushy, or when they're over processed for "crispness" in some dimsum places they are very off putting to me as well. I also refuse to eat ama ebi sashimi because I find the buttery squish texture unpleasant
Lobster, crab, crawdad have all been fine for me. There's likely some bias after I've seen what I'm eating, because it's very much isolated to shrimp. The preparation could have an effect too, but I don't have the desire to seek out the perfect way to prepare shrimp.
I used to have an issue with tomatoes, and honestly sometimes still do. It was never the taste and almost always this weird reflex my body would have when I would try and eat them - I would gag and not be able to swallow the food.
As I got older I realized I have a pretty acidic stomach (maybe GERD? I never got it checked out) and tomatoes are some of the most acidic food you can eat. I've grown to love tomatoes now but I can't eat too many or I get really bad acid reflux and my body reverts to trying to keep the fruit out of me.
For me it's Cucumber and most cucurbits in general. There's some chemical in all of them that tastes absolutely vile to me that other people don't seem to notice or taste. It's strongest in Cucumber and melon rinds and even the smell is pretty off-putting to me, to the point where I can tell if a salad had cucumber that was picked off by staff at a restaurant.
Today I learned the group name, order Cucurbitales
My partner also dislikes them, including cantaloupes. There's another relative on their side, same. Perhaps there's a genetic component to it. They like pickles a lot though, so the offending compounds can be processed out it seems
I didn’t realize cucumbers, melons, and squash were all in the same family until I found a melon on what I thought was a cucumber vine. Sneaky thing.
"hello friend, am definitely cucumber, please, allow ripen, make more cucumber" . Very sneaky. If i recall correctly the vine and leaves, especially as seedlings, look very similar.
I grew up with the overly simplistic notion that they're all pretty much the same because of language. My ancestors had the incredible foresight to lazily name all those with the same word 瓜 which looks ㄙ on a vine.
Etymology, cn『在木曰果，在地曰蓏。』瓜者，縢生布於地者也。」-- if it's on a tree it's a fruit; if it's on the ground it's a cucurbit.
On the other hand, I continue to be unable to tell if something is a pea or bean because both only map to one word (豆）.
Apparently even weird ones like chayote are in the family.
The thought process behind Chinese characters shows a perspective I find fascinating. I never got past meats and water, so didn’t know about this. I still think it’s great that the character for house is a pig under a roof.
Oh I find English etymology interesting in the same way: it's a small window into the thoughts and concerns of our ancestors.
Yeah it's very funny that family is a pig under the roof, maybe a version of "a home without a cat is just a house"? I really like that many are fun/reasonable like that, eg, a 貓 cat is a 豸 predatory vertebrate that says 苗 Miu.
Another fun one relevant to this thread:
Modern word 鮮 is the concept of freshness / umami, writen by combining a fish 魚 with a goat/sheep 羊. In ancient times, freshness was depicted with another character 鱻 which is a 3 stack of 魚 (fish). The word 鮮 was originally used to refered to a particular type of fish from a nearby nation (貉國 Tanuki nation?) to the North East who eat lots of fresh fish raw, which then became the Kleenex brand of all things fresh, combining 羴 (goat ³) with 鱻 (fish³) to form the modern fish-goat of ultimate freshness and tastiness.
And in English, bear just comes from the word "brown." There was a proper word meaning bear, but it was a superstition at the time that if you said the word bear, a bear would come out of the woods and eat you. So everyone just called them the brown things, and forgot their real name.
I didn’t know that radical meant fish! How fun.
I think my husband has the same thing. He can’t stand cucumber water.
Chicken feet.
It's bone and cartilage with a little bit of meat, there are many more offerings for meat (and non-meat proteins) out there, I would prefer all of them over chicken feet. I've tried it, I gave it a shot, I don't like it, I don't need chicken feet in my life.
More collagen for the rest of us! I also eat duck and goose feet, deep fried battered chicken knees, and the like. But yes you don't need it in your life and luckily fairly easy to avoid :)
Eggs. Unless they're baked into a pastry or something similar, they're an absolute no for me. Every aspect is beyond foul.
I generally do like eggs, but every so often I get a deep aversion to them and they become disgusting to me. I have to take a break to re-like them again. I couldn't explain why it happens.
Anything slimy.
That sounds vague I know, but it's the best description I have for why I can't stand mushrooms, aubergine, or courgette. Soft on the outside and strong on the inside, instead of the other way around.
I'm a fairly picky eater so I have a lot I could add here haha. Mushrooms, many types of cheeses, and beans are probably my top choices. The texture of mushrooms are off-putting to me, very rubbery and slimy. Blue cheese, brie, and a few others taste terrible to me so I try to avoid them at all costs. Beans seem super versatile and useful but something about their texture never sits right with me for some reason.
I don't like bananas, i think they smell too strong and perfumey. Oddly, I do like feijoas, which are also strong and perfumey, so I wonder if the dislike is more due to artificial banana flavor I tasted as a kid.
Brains are kinda grainy in texture, don't want to eat those again.
There's almost nothing else I won't try, but generally draw the line at things with 6 or more legs.
ETA: used to love deep fried foods, now they cause major heartburn.
was it that banana flavored medicine? i loved that stuff.
I think banana flavored candy. I don't recall medicine, though I'm not ruling out blanking out a memory lol.
I don’t even know what the medicine was for, but it had the cool measuring spoon. I think my sister is in your artificial banana flavor hate camp. Childhood memories are so unreliable. I probably liked the medicine purely because I got a form of attention from my parents. haha
https://i.redd.it/w5ra476ojri01.jpg
I grew up in the rustbelt, nowhere near anywhere to get "real" seafood, and so I have a huge aversion to fish, tuna, etc. I can handle shrimp, but that's about it. I lived in Baltimore for 18 years as an adult and really tried over and over to like crabcakes...but no bueno. My wife and kids love sushi and seafood so I'm happy about that at least.
American crab cakes are mostly flavoured by that one particular Old Bay American spice. People make vegan versions that taste the same (different texture) -- What about freshly steamed crab with butter?
My neighbors in Baltimore would regularly do crab boils and use a seasoning called JO. I tried that as well. You use a wooden mallet to crack them, and then use your hands to do the rest. Couldn't stand the taste no matter how hard I tried.
Crab boils are excellent and if that wasn't it, you gave it more than a fair try :P
Anything anise flavored or flavored with a similar taste herb/seed is a solid no go for me.
I also really get sensory ick if i have to use my hands to eat, i need utensils at all times. I eat pizza with a fork/knife etc.
I tend to avoid foods ive eaten constantly while growing up.
My taste buds betrayed me not too long ago and now i avoid stinky cheeses entirely.
Oh and strong perfumy synthetic fruit flavors make me wanna puke - im looking at you fake mango flavor..
Nothing. Or at least nothing I've tried before, and I'm quite adventurous in that aspect.
Maybe a bit of a strange answer to the question, but the thing is I sometimes wonder if my brain is actively blocking bad tastes. You might know the Beanboozled candies. Harry Potter type sweets, of each color there is a tasty and a disgusting version, (think rotten eggs, vomit, ... Obviously all safe to eat). For me, the bad ones simply don't 'work'. The good ones taste good, the bad ones just taste like nothing. My sister was basically dry-heaving next to me, while I was trying to taste the rotting eggs.
I do taste when something is actually bad or spoiled, though.
For me it's anything fermented. Like Kimchi, natural process coffee, fermented soy of all kinds. Can't stand the smell or taste of any of it. I'll eat anything else in my sphere of food, but fermented things can get in the bin.
Lettuce!
I realized some years ago that I have some kind of hypersensitivity or aversion to it. I can taste if even small amounts of it are in something I'm eating. (E.g., a couple months ago I was having a Philly cheese steak at Jersey Mike's, noticed the lettuce taste, looked inside and found that, sure enough, a piece or two had gotten mixed in - probably with the onions.) And it's not just the texture - I discovered that I can taste it even if there's just been contact but it's now gone. Yech! Weirdly though, I'm fine with cilantro, oregano, basil and herbs in general.
And that probably explains why I hated salads so much as a kid, and still refuse them to this day. (I'm a moderately picky eater - seafood, mushrooms, and mayonnaise are also on my hate list.)
Cheese.
Not allergic. Not lactose. Cream cheese is for bagels only.
I also have a general issue with most cheese. Mozzarella on pizza is a rule braker, though.
Personally, texture is more of a struggle than taste. Water chestnuts are the absolute worst. Like chewing on eyeballs
I can't stand water chestnuts either. The texture is off, just like you said, but I can taste it too.
Sour cream.
It all stems from an incident probably 25 years ago. My family went to a church dinner event. Big spread, lots of options. Hot dogs, hamburgers, tacos, chili, and more. I lathered up a hamburger bun with what I thought was some mayonnaise. Imagine my surprise when I took a big bite out of it and learned it was sour cream. And I haven't been able to eat it since.
Mushy or slimy food. I've got a whole lot of other sensory issues besides food though.
Applesauce, mashed potatoes, congee, mushrooms, and oysters. The smell of cooked mushrooms is also revolting as it smells like athlete's foot to me.
I used to be much pickier in my youth, but I've grown to enjoy a wide palate as I get older.
That said, the foods I dislike that surprise people are:
What changed your mind about bacon? Different cuts, prep, just new tastebuds?
One day I decided to try some bacon bits in a soup I was making and was instantly hooked. Not sure what changed, but suddenly I loved the flavor where before I hated it!
This is no joke, but you should try making bacon in a frying pan and add a little water to it. It's a game changer. Once the water evaporates the bacon starts to get crispy on the outside and the inside stays super moist. It takes a bit longer to make it this way, but it's totally worth it.
Yes, America's Test Kitchen method!
Oh what! I'm trying this next time I make it. Just a splash when the pan is still not hot, or when bacon is about 75% done?
Add the water at the start of the cooking process. Just enough water to fill the bottom of whatever sized pan you're using. I usually do this with the pan on low temp for the first few minutes and then add the bacon, and then turn the heat up once the bacon starts sizzling. Trust me, it's the best bacon you'll ever have.
Past aversion ... weird story.
As a child, cauliflower made me nauseous. Even the smell of raw bothered me, a lot, and cooked, it literally made me throw up. My mom loved the stuff and I had to leave the house when she cooked it. Not an actual allergy, but a very extreme smell reaction to the odor. Hypothetically, if I didn't have to smell it, I could eat it, though I never liked it.
IDK exactly when it went away, but as an adult, I've never had a problem with it, and in fact, I quite like it.
More texture than a specific thing, but usually anything with cartilage or similar, so a lot of meat-related items: tripe, chicken organs, cow tongue is not cartilage but it’s weird to me, the fatty or cartilage parts in steak or pork chops, bacon sometimes (has to be crunchy not chewy), octopus (sometimes it’s cooked ok), some other seafood. Shrimp is ok. Scallops are ok. Fish is ok.
Lately tho, meat in general is becoming less appealing to me. Bacon’s flavor just doesn’t inspire any pleasure anymore, for exact. Chicken wings and any chicken with bones turns me off these days. I keep thinking “this is a dead animal” and can’t get that out of my head. Been eating a lot more veggies and fruit as a result. I used to love pho, and these days the rare beef in it just doesn’t appeal anymore.
I say all this but I know that if I were really hungry — REALLY, truly hungry, I’d eat anything. We are spoiled for choice.
Ginger, steak sauce, mayo, blue cheeses, and anything more bitter than arugula.
On the other hand, I will eat any brassica you put in front of me in just about any preparation. Brussels sprouts? Broccoli? Cauliflower? Cabbage? Kale? Bring them all on. Cabbage is one of my favorite foods, and I've been known to eat an entire head in one sitting if no one stops me.
Shellfish, mushrooms, eggs, some melted cheese and melted butter situations, peanut butter, some tofu textures...
Asparagus: Not even once.
Garlic: Gives me mouth sores and makes me feel sick. People put it in everything here. It also makes everything taste like garlic during and for several hours after the meal, which I dislike. I like the actual flavors of things.
There are a bunch of things that impact my digestion that I love, such as modern brussels sprouts, chestnuts, artichokes, chili peppers, etc.
I like almost everything people have mentioned so far. Not a huge fan of shrimp or blue cheese but I will eat them in a pinch. Seafood, fruits, cabbage-adjacent vegetables, eggs and olives are all extremely common and an integral part of the gastronomy here, and our food has an excellent reputation.
(Americans in particular seem to have a strange aversion to olives that I've seen portrayed in popular culture multiple times. It's so strange to me.)
Garlic upsets my stomach. I love it, so it's a bit tragic, but I feel your pain in trying to avoid it in a garlic-infused world.
Raw onions, raw celery, basically any kind of cronchy vegetable. I hate the texture. It's like nails on a chalkboard to me, I have a visceral reaction.
I can deal with them in small amounts, like the tiny onions at McDonalds on their small cheeseburgers, and I LOVE steamed veggies that are soft enough to melt in your mouth, but nothing that gives me that crunch of raw vegetables. I love caramelized onions too. And crunchy tator tots and similar are fine. Just not raw.
Maybe the only exception would be lettuce, but on a burger.
The other one is Kimchi. Usually when it comes to food I can sort of understand why someone would think it's good even though I don't particularly like it, but Kimchi is an absolute mystery to me why anyone would ever go near it. I get that it's cultural but to me I can't even smell it.
Tends to be fruits. I like the taste of fruits, the sweetness and all. But a lot of fruits give me an "itchy tongue." I think it's called "Oral Allergy Syndrome," and it's not necessarily a "traditional" food allergy where I could die if I have, for example, cantaloupe. I can eat it, it just makes my tongue feel weird. Anyway, I think it's more related to my seasonal allergies (hay fever).
But the uncomfortable feeling of my tongue afterwards means I avoid fruits. Not completely; I'll still once in awhile eat grapes or a banana or oranges. Especially if it's like part of a dessert. I like the taste. And not all fruits lead to it (though cantaloupe is the big one), but regardless, it's led to a general aversion to fruits.
I love cashews, but it turns out I'm allergic. I still eat them, and then complain about it. I guess I just assumed it's normal for your mouth to itch after eating nuts.
Be careful with that. I had the same reaction to walnuts and pecans, and filberts to a lesser degree. I thought it was harmless, and at most would give me a little heartburn as well as the itchy mouth reaction. But the last time I accidentally ate a pecan it sent me to the hospital and it took a couple of epinephrine shots to make my body calm down.
Mayonnaise.
When I was younger, I had a general sauce aversion, no ketchup, no mustard, no BBQ sauce, nothing. I grew out of the aversion, mostly, except for mayonnaise. The color, texture, and smell just disgusts me.
I do eat things with mayonnaise in them. In these cases, I'm usually clueless of the addition. Blissful ignorance, so to speak. So for me, I think my aversion really is just some childhood hold over.
Pears. When I was a kid I choked on a cubed pear in a fruit cocktail because of the gritty texture and my dad/his girlfriend went on to assume I was sick, and not just intolerant of pears leading to a pretty bad day. Not sure that contributed to my aversion, but as far as I can remember I've found the texture quite unpleasant, so I simply avoid them. Fresh pears are worse with the bitter skin.
I've sort of had a few come and go, like I can only tolerate so much Jell-O before the funky protein flavor becomes overwhelmingly unpleasant. Aside from those, I'm basically a bottomless pit that can generally acquire a taste for anything.