Couple examples from personal experience:
Spicy Food
I didn’t like spicy food for a (relatively) long time until I was 25.
2/4 of my roommates did. We’d order two pizzas, one spicy and one not. But the asshats who liked spicy would eat half the non-spicy pizza first knowing the other one was safe from us.
Well… we’d see about that!
I bought a jar of pickled little yellow banana peppers. At first all I could manage was a tiny little bit of one. But I had that tiny little bite every evening, every day. Eventually my tolerance grew until I was eating a whole one, then multiples. In a few weeks I realized I was crunching through them and loving it. (Didn’t love the first time I overindulged and found out what goes in can still burn going out, oof, lol.)
Beer
First time I had beer I did the movie-style stereotypical spit-take. Tasted like something I’d never want again. I drank when I was 18-19yrs old but it was usually Smirnoff Ice or some other “bitch-pop” as was said at the time by those around me.
When I was in my early 20s I supervised for a company that had us do a lot of traveling. Particularly three months of the year I was in a hotel more than at home.
There was a consistent crew of people who lived in a town nearby that I saw fairly frequently for those three months but not too often elsewise. As I said I was in my early 20s, 21-23ish. And they were in their late 20s to mid thirties.
They were inveterate drinkers, and they loved beer. And they undertook a self-imposed mission to teach me to love beer too. Them being older and me being impressionable, I went with it.
Every evening after work we’d hit up the local pub and I’d order three beers, based off their recommendations. One was an inveterate drinker as mentioned, the other a mid-thirties redheaded British woman I grew rather fond of and who was rather fond of me, along with some other crew. Basically, people who knew beer and in the case of the brit, someone who I would’ve listened to for a few reasons.
Didn’t take too long but I certainly “acquired” a taste for it. Eventually acquiring my own preferences to the point I was recommending them ideas.
I found out that a lot of stuff I thought I didn’t like was because it wasn’t made very well
Yes for black coffee and tapioca pearls, as well as hot food because good lord the dopamine is so nice.
And in reverse I’ve conditioned myself to be disgusted by alcohol.
Yeah I hate the pearls, my wife loves them.
Black cofee can be really great from a good place. Mink Cafe was the best black coffee I’ve had, where milk took away from it.
Coffee. I really wanted to be able to enjoy black coffee, cuz it smells so deceptively good, is cheap as fuck, and basically zero calorie. Except it tastes like concentrated dirt. Bitter. Acrid. None of the appeal promised by the smell makes its way to the taste.
Unless I acquire the taste!
Typically my coffee has a similar cream and sugar content to a milkshake, so I actually measured it out to get a baseline, then over the course of about two months phased down to just black coffee. …and over the course of two months, my coffee phased more and more into tasting like shit. But I tolerated it - eyes on the prize. After that, I spent another month drinking it black. At the end of that month, I finally accepted that black coffee tasted just as much like shit as it did on day one.
My coffee is back to resembling a milkshake… fuck.
I tried.
New hypothesis: there’s some kind of generic factor at play like there is with cilantro. That shit is delicious to some and absolutely vile to others, and no amount of trying to acquire it will flip that switch. I drew the short straw on that horrid plant, too.
What kind of coffee are you drinking? See if there’s a local brand or cafe to try. Some coffee brands are usually much worse when they don’t have additives to hide the flavor (ex, Starbucks)
Starbucks is among the worst. I tried grounds from a good variety of brands, all prepared with a normal coffee maker which another poster suggested is not actually a good way to brew coffee. They all fell somewhere on a spectrum between bad and REALLY bad. Didn’t go for the crazy fancy stuff - my favorite ended up being a hazelnut flavored whole bean from the bulk section of WinCo. Which is still my favorite, I just milkshake-ify now.
I had a similar journey… adding a splash of coffee to my cream and sugar slurry 😂
What did it for me was experimenting with different beans, brewing methods, and grinding fineness/coarseness before finding a combo that tasted rather sweet on its own.
My new problem is that I don’t enjoy coffee made elsewhere clownface.jpg
The quadfecta of disgusting foods that are commonly enjoyed are coffee, raw tomatos, peanut butter and pickles. For coffee, the smell is so gross. I’d rather be in a barn than a coffee shop. But l love tomato sauce and peanuts. Well peanuts by themselves and not mixed in anything like ice cream or candy bars.
Try doing lattes then americano’s with cream, then drop the cream. If you can do americano’s it’s a baby step above black coffee, and when you get a black coffee just accept that it’s shittier than an Americano, but OK more or less.
What you’re looking for is the super taster gene, read up on the Wikipedia article. I have it and agree coffee tastes like shit.
Adding a little pinch of salt to black coffee helps with the taste! It’s how I switched to drinking it black myself.
I’ve never been a fan of mushrooms. I did attempt to tolerate them though.
Turns out, canned mushrooms are the problem. Those are basically large boogers and not fit for human consumption. Fresh mushrooms don’t have much flavor and I’m relatively indifferent to those. They are now just something I chop up with onion and garlic sometimes now.
I’ve tried so hard with celery and onions. Turns out I like the flavors just fine, it’s the textures I can’t handle. So I just have to chop them up into the tiniest pieces so they don’t squeak when I bite down. Food shouldn’t squeak when I bite down.
The cheese curds in poutine must squeek when you bite down.
Haahaha, ew, no! J/k, thanks for letting me know something I should never try 😂💜
I prefer them melty from the fries / gravy. I hate when it’s just a hunk of unmelted ass cheese.
Some melted, some hunk of unmelted ass cheese is the way to go.
I still barely fuck with raw onions, but grilled onions are great, and were the gateway drug to my appreciation for Onions in general. When I was a kid, I’d pick them out of everything. Had a burger unknowingly with grilled onions. Shit changed my life. Started to appreciate the flavor and even incorporate it into my cooking. Now, most things I cook have onions in them in some way, shape or form.
Hmmm. Do they still squeak like a mouse tho? 😂
Tried and succeeded: Guinness. Nom nom nom.
Tried and failed: black tea and black coffee
Coffee is another example I could go into actually. Did not like it the first time I tried it. “Acquired” a taste for it too, given my grandmother owned a café that I’d eventually work in, lol. That was fairly easy.
But I also eventually tried to acquire a taste for black coffee too. Succeeded in the sense I can have it and don’t hate it, but failed in the sense that I now know I vastly prefer my coffee with a bit of sugar a lot of cream.
Still, was informative. (I’m a ‘texture’ kind of person more than flavour and I like that creamy texture.)
Most days now I mix instant coffee with hot chocolate and cream in the mornings for a pseudo-mocha that’s quick and easy. Can’t be arsed to brew it. (Most days.)
Might try that last one. Definitely sounds interesting.
Happy Christmas!
Funnily enough, Guinness was the first beer I ever liked, and I liked it first try. I greatly dislike most other beers. Which makes sense to me, given that most people who like other beers can’t stand Guinness.
Wine. I’ve never been much of a wine person, and I prefer beer with my food, but at some restaurants and events, the food is usually paired well with a wine. Because of this I tried to actually like it, and I am now at the point where I can enjoy white wine that isn’t too sweet.
I did it with black licorice. We were on a road trip and it was the only snack we had left
Ugh, never could try it. Maybe I need to be in a situation where I’m lost in the woods and it’s the only food left, I’ll try to remember that next time.
Quite a few!
- Spicy food: didn’t grow up in a spicy-loving part of the world but tried a lot of Indian food in college and decided to just upping the spice level. I can handle some pretty extreme stuff, which always comes as a surprise when I meet Southern Chinese ppl
- Coffee: turns out it was less of an issue with my tolerance and just that I needed a good setup and locally-roasted beans
- Beer: surprisingly easy to get into, similar to coffee I just needed high-quality beer. I prefer the fruity ones over blondes/browns/pils though
- K-pop: unwillingly, because I play a “K-pop” game… I think I’m starting to get the appeal now though
Yes. I tried mangoes every year untill I liked them, avocado too. Raw tomatoes I keep trying, can tolerate, can’t like.
Last year I made a deal with my coworker, who is a wine person but such a picky eater he went to Japan and just ate chicken tenders, same in the middle east. I told him if he honestly tried eating new foods I would try wines. He found some foods he likes, and I found I like dry elegant white wines (nothing sweet) and most wines made of Nebbiolo grapes, like instead of just sort of holding my nose and tolerating them, I can affirmatively like them .
I truly believe a wide palate is a positive quality, I gave my kids lots of different tasting foods when they were little and that helped them to enjoy more flavors. I think technically I’m picky (have strong likes and dislikes) but like so, so many foods it’s not limiting. And yes, I do try to like some of the foods I don’t.
Bud Ice. It’s $1 a can of 5.5% beer and I’m in poverty. Gotta drink something, so I made myself tolerate the cheapest.
Gotta drink something
Nah
you know there’s sites that track abv/$ cost for the real alcoholics out there, right?
if the purpose is to get drunk then abv/cost is the only thing that matters
Isn’t cough medicine more cost effective per alcohol percentage? That’s what I remember the alcoholics drinking when I was younger.
Over the past year I used less sugar in my coffee until I could just drink it black.
Music fan here. Pretty eclectic but mostly leaning towards metal and prog. The melodic kind.
Currently experimenting with deathcore like Lorna shore and stuff. Just to see what the fuss is about and if I can find something beautiful in it.
Do you like bands that you need to acquire the ability to read their names on event posters?
I’m into hardcore and metalcore mainly. I started listening as a kid a bit ironically: it was loud, offensive sounding, and I was an idiot who sometimes sought attention. Fast forward and I really fell in love with it. I like screaming, although not all screaming. But Josh Scogin and Keith Buckley kinda opened the doors for me, and they were two of the best for sure.
I’m also into metalcore! Love that stuff although I do agree that not all screaming is good. So generally I lean to the more melodic tracks. Thanks for the tip! I’ll check Josh and Keith out! Have you heard of Enter Shikari? I really really love that band although they’re not really metalcore. More genre bending.
I definitely remember Enter Shikari. I feel like I still am in into the offshoot of their genre, bands like Dwellings, Ben Quad, Hail the Sun, just guitar heavy, melodic, progressive stuff. They’re all kind of offshoots of emo while also being post hardcore in the vein of DGD and that whole swancore movement. And Hail the Sun don’t really deserve to be lumped in, Donovan is a crazy talented musician and has certainly pioneered the genre on his own.
Yes, with just about everything I eat and now I’m ok with most everything.
As a kid, I thought nearly everything tasted bad: cucumbers, mustard, relish, mushrooms, onions, peppers, different types of cheese, stewed tomatoes, roasted carrots, roasted potatoes, etc etc etc.
As a young adult, I tried some things for the first time and hated them at first brush (for instance, avocado, which was so rich tasting to me at first that it almost triggered my gag reflex). I kept going and got over it.
Nowadays, everything I order I do so without having the chef hold a damned thing.
I’ve learned that in isolation, many things taste pretty overpowering, but with proper preparation and seasoning most things can be part of a delicious dish.
My wife has been trying to convince me that broccoli tastes great for years now… My mind hasn’t changed. Maybe the best tasting things have to be had in moderation and the blandest, most insipid things can be consumed basically whenever for a reason? I’d rather accept that than being gaslit, as if my tongue didn’t know better! 😅
How do you guys prepare it? If broccoli is a side, I roast with evoo salt and pepper. In a pasta dish it gets blanched and just kinda takes on the flavor of the dish. I’ll steam it if we’re making Chinese food, and then toss it in the fish soy myrin concoction.
Honestly, different strokes for different folks, but I always want to know if people tried broccoli roasted with oil, salt, pepper, paprika and garlic powder before solidifying this opinion.
Blanched/boiled broccoli is meh at best, and I’ve met folks who have never had it prepared any other way. And raw definitely isn’t for everyone (I like it but could see how others wouldn’t).
Some people grew up forced to eat the stalks or that frozen bullshit.
Fresh broccoli only, and only the crowns. Lots of butter.
You may still hate it, I have no idea.
