What foods did you hate until someone prepared them differently?

[Nervous Rex]

The food crimes thread reminded me of this. What foods did you hate (or grow up hating), until you had them prepared differently?

Eggs - growing up, I was served soft-boiled eggs a lot. I hated the texture and runniness, and would gag while eating them. But I lived in a "this is what I made so you've better eat it" house, so I had to choke them down. 25 years with a wife who loves eggs and knows a dozen better ways to prepare them has actually got me liking eggs now. I like eggs hard-boiled, hard scrambled (nothing runny left), fried over-hard, in omelets - I sometimes think, "Of all the ways to cook an egg, why did my step mom decide to always do soft-boiled?"

Spinach - As a kid, the only time we had spinach was from a can, heated in a small pot, drained and plopped on our plate. I was surprised the first time I had a salad with fresh spinach in it. I don't know why anyone eats spinach from a can when it's available fresh.

Liver - I grew up hating liver because my step-mom would cook it by frying it until it was so hard that you could patch a tire with it. It was always hard to chew and so dry that I needed a tall glass of water to get it down. Then one time my dad cooked a fresh deer liver over a campfire and I was surprised at how tender and moist. I also had a very moist and soft liver pâté and really liked it.

 

[unperson]

Prawns - the texture, weirdly crunchy, cellular. Can eat them now.
Mangos eeuw slimy, stringy, strange flavour. Still don't eat.

 

[Thinx]

My mother was a very good cook, so it probably worked the other way for me , where I tried to cook it myself or bought precooked items that weren't as nice as childhood meals. I also eat most foods, perhaps partly because food always seemed yummy so I didn't get picky.

 

[Kit]

I hated lasagna growing up. I wasn't a picky eater, I just didn't like lasagna and that was the only food I didn't like. My mom had no problems serving me plain hamburgers and plain pasta but she would cook lasagna and make me eat it and it was so disgusting. This is the part where I think it was wrong of her to do this to me because kids are humans too and are also allowed to dislike food and it wasn't like I was a picky eater where I rejected anything she made. I never did that. There were just a few foods I didn't like.

It turns out it was the texture of it, she would put in things like cottage cheese and other things and it made it taste terrible. Now I like it because it is pasta and sauce and cheese, nothing else.

And funny thing, while my favorite food is mac and cheese, I hated the mac and cheese at my school because it tasted funny. I never had that problem anywhere else. But wait, when I was 21, I ate at this one restaurant for my 21st birthday and I ordered this pasta, whatever they put in it, it tasted terrible and it was too rich for me I couldn't even eat it and it was over priced. I hated their food. it tasted nasty because of what they put in it and it wasn't much food. My family didn't like the food either and once I said I didn't like my food, everyone else then all of a sudden said how terrible the food was. My parents, my brothers and their friends. I guess they had that same opinion as me about their food but didn't want to offend me because it was my birthday but once I said the food was nasty, they all agreed.

 

[ZebraAutismo]

Rice cakes

 

[Aspychata]

Just still pissed my mom put a cornish game hen in front of me as a young kid. It had the exact shape of a little bird so that was hard to stomach. But l ate near the downstairs toilet, and also had a dog that was not picky about scraps from plate. I haven't had cornish ever again. But l did see a vegan shaped turkey at Trader Joes that l wanted to try. Anyways - it ended up in the commode or the dog's mouth if l couldn't eat it.

 

[lateundiagnosed]

i think everybody likes green beans but me, never would eat them ,not even today. except when i was low on food and just had some green beans left in the cupboard a light bulb went on in my head to add these to pinto beans and the rest is history.

 

[Gracey]

Roast Beef.

It was only when I started cooking it myself I discovered it didn't have to be like road tarmac and dry.

A 'stew' (meat & vegetables)

again, when cooking it myself, it didn't have to be a watery liquid with huge pieces of veg' in it.

 

[AuroraBorealisGazer]

French toast

When I was a kid my mom would sometimes make 'French toast', which she'd smother in copious amounts of butter, sugar, and cinnamon, and cook in the little oven. I could hardly finish a bite, it was sickeningly sweet.

A few years ago my mother-in-law (just BF's mom at that time) made us French toast and I found out how it's supposed to be made: dip the bread in egg and cook on a frying pan. Served with maple syrup and berries.

It was 1000 times better than what I had growing up!

 

[Progster]

Eggs: Always hated them, but can eat them if they are an ingredient in something like pancake. It's the texture and smell that I don't like, so if they are cooked, or if I can't smell them, I can eat them. I can manage small pieces in egg fried rice for example, because their smell and texture are disguised.

Liver and offal: no way.

Tomatoes: can't stand to eat them fresh, but will eat them cooked in pasta sauce, for example.

 

[Bolletje]

I never used to like green beans as a kid. This probably had to do with the Dutch tendency to boil vegetables endlessly and serve a plate of wilted grayish veggies.
Until I ate green beans that had been cooked just long enough to make them al dente, served with garlicky tomatoes. It was so good I did a complete 180 on green beans and I started stealing one or two raw green beans from the fridge whenever my mom bought them.

 

[Suzanne]

Chorizo. Could not stand the smell and had to cook them up for hubby and hate the colour of the liquid that comes from them and would gag each time I dealt with them, then suddenly, the smell one day did not seem so bad and I found myself taking a disk and found it to be really tasty, but the spice was too much, so I now have the mild version. But, still the liquid is stomach churning.

I am very particulary with foods and so, currently that is all that has changed.

 

[Streetwise]

Vegetables,spice ,liked lettuce, cucumber, tomato ,potato ,for some reason at fifteen I liked vegetables.

 

[Tom]

The food crimes thread reminded me of this. What foods did you hate (or grow up hating), until you had them prepared differently?

Eggs - growing up, I was served soft-boiled eggs a lot. I hated the texture and runniness, and would gag while eating them. But I lived in a "this is what I made so you've better eat it" house, so I had to choke them down. 25 years with a wife who loves eggs and knows a dozen better ways to prepare them has actually got me liking eggs now. I like eggs hard-boiled, hard scrambled (nothing runny left), fried over-hard, in omelets - I sometimes think, "Of all the ways to cook an egg, why did my step mom decide to always do soft-boiled?"

Spinach - As a kid, the only time we had spinach was from a can, heated in a small pot, drained and plopped on our plate. I was surprised the first time I had a salad with fresh spinach in it. I don't know why anyone eats spinach from a can when it's available fresh.

Liver - I grew up hating liver because my step-mom would cook it by frying it until it was so hard that you could patch a tire with it. It was always hard to chew and so dry that I needed a tall glass of water to get it down. Then one time my dad cooked a fresh deer liver over a campfire and I was surprised at how tender and moist. I also had a very moist and soft liver pâté and really liked it.

I had to chuckle when I read the Spinach part. Back in the day it seemed like people would rather not bother with fresh or frozen if they could get it in modern, sterile, cans.

 

[Gerontius]

I had to chuckle when I read the Spinach part. Back in the day it seemed like people would rather not bother with fresh or frozen if they could get it in modern, sterile, cans.

View attachment 64266

The reason being for that was the difficulty of treating food-poisoning during the Great Depression--at that time, people started using more canned goods.

 

[Tom]

The reason being for that was the difficulty of treating food-poisoning during the Great Depression--at that time, people started using more canned goods.

That sounds right. I don't go that far back, to the Great Depression I mean, but my parents did. According to my Dad, during the depression they only had sticks and gravel to eat.

But I thought too it was partly the idea of conveinance. Nothing to wash, prepare and cook. Just grab a few cans and there you go. TV dinners were big too, covered in foil, with mashed potatoes that always tasted the same and slightly inorganic. The bread was 'Wonder' which had no taste and a whole loaf could be squeezed into something the size of a gold ball.

 

[Pats]

Green beans. I gagged on them growing up. My aunt made a green bean casserole and I actually liked it. After that I got a can of no salt green beans and liked them. Then one night I was fixing green beans with dinner and my mom came in and started dumping salt in them. That's when I realized I didn't like HER green beans - they were too salty.

 

[GrownupGirl]

My mother is a really good cook, but one thing I had no love for as a a kid that I like now are mushrooms. But they have to be fresh mushrooms pan-fried with butter, and no onions. Canned mushrooms are gross.

 

[Mary Terry]

My mother made the worst rice in the world. She boiled the heck out of it and then washed the cooked rice with hot tap water to get the starch off it. It was gross, gooey, and devoid of nutrition by the time she got through with it. When I started cooking, I discovered a better way to cook rice. I toast the rice in a little vegetable oil before I add water. Toasting it gives it a nutty taste and the grains do not stick together.

 

[Mary Terry]

Chorizo. Could not stand the smell and had to cook them up for hubby and hate the colour of the liquid that comes from them and would gag each time I dealt with them, then suddenly, the smell one day did not seem so bad and I found myself taking a disk and found it to be really tasty, but the spice was too much, so I now have the mild version. But, still the liquid is stomach churning.

I am very particulary with foods and so, currently that is all that has changed.

Are you cooking Spanish chorizo or Mexican chorizo? Spanish chorizo is precooked when you buy it but Mexican chorizo is raw pork and must be thoroughly cooked before eating. Both of them get the orange color and a lot of their flavor from paprika although Mexican chorizo may also contain annatto seeds a/k/a achiote which also imparts an orange color and has a unique taste. I like both of them.