Picky eaters: Have you ever tried to learn to enjoy a food that you dislike, or is there a food that you dislike that you wish you didn't?

Have you tried putting bananas in other things? Banana bread, banana pancakes? You can get higher quality plain yoghurt than if you bought the fruit in the bottom stuff and mix the bananas in.

Also, you can make salsa or chutney with fruit. So almost anything you like to eat works.

I never learned to like coffee. I tried, but the bitterness made me shudder. “Want to go out for coffee?” I learned to say yes and ordered tea, but I always felt awkward. I still wish I could like it, but even in desserts, I really dislike it.

I wish I didn’t dislike sushi. Everyone in my family loves it, and often wants to go out to eat it. I miss out on family time because they never ask me to go because they know I don’t like it.

@ANef_is_Enuf Try eating them as early in the ripening stage as possible, I don’t like them really soft. Or, if they get a little soft try them in a smoothie. Mix them in cereal if you like cereal.
@Sunny2 Are you drinking it black or with creamer and sugar? And is it fresh brewed or instant?

@Adirondackwannabe I can’t decide if I am more turned off by a soft banana or a firm banana. Which, sounds NSFW. :\

They just don’t appeal to me. I could eat them in banana bread, it’s the texture that I don’t like. I don’t mind the smell or the flavor, in fact, I love plain banana chips. Most foods that I dislike are directly related to the texture. But, I don’t want to make a loaf of banana bread every time I have a few bananas hanging around.

@6rant6 I don’t like anything in my yogurt. Not crunchy, not fruity, not… anything. I like my yogurt to be smooth. I am weird about textures. lol.

@ANef_is_Enuf I was thinking dried fruit would be a good idea in your case. It keeps and if you buy it in a bulk food store it’s cheap. Or you could dry your own in the oven or in a food dryer.

@ANef_is_Enuf What about blended drinks? Or frozen deserts?

@6rant6 I guess that’s an option. It’s not really a big deal. I just wish that I could peel a banana, bite into it, and enjoy it.
I need a new tongue.

Hve you tried bananas in a smoothie ? Like @Adirondackwannabe said ? My parents used to make this milkshake consisting of a few bananas+a lot of cold milk. It has a different structure than plain bananas, and is a great way to use the soft, leftover ones…

@scuniper I like the milkshake idea. Throw in some of your favorite ice cream too. A calcium and potassium bonanza.

Okay, let’s redirect. I’ll figure out the banana thing. I want to hear other people’s stories about trying new foods or learning to like foods that they previously disliked.

@ANef_is_Enuf Grow your own and eat it fresh out of the garden. It’s so much better than anything you’ll find in a store. I even like brussel sprouts that way.

I wish I loved more vegetables to make different salads to enjoy. I’m fine eating lettuce, tomatoes, onions and occassionally cucumbers in a salad but that gets old fast. I also love corn, beans, peas, carrots, and potatoes and sweet potatoes, but all heated, not cold.
I hate brocolli or any vegetable that resembles it and asparagas.
I do like some other vegtables but I may like them in other things but my salad, and some I just can’t stand eat alone.

I can’t speak for myself. I like everything, have as long as I can remember. But I cook for someone else who is – or was – at the other end of the spectrum.

The way I got her to enjoy vegetables and fruit was to find a soup base that she likes (tom yar – Thai, it turned out) and then gradually cut up different fruits and vegetables and add them to the soup. She would ask what was in it. And since she always liked it, she learned that those things could at least be acceptable. After that, it’s easier to try them on their own.

@Pandora oh my gosh, I am definitely eating a salad with corn and peas for dinner. That sounds so good. Thanks for the inspiration.

I used to LOATHE onions, avocados, and ginger. They were the bottom 4 rungs of my ladder of food that I hate, along with tomatoes. This past summer, it was like something just CLICKED and suddenly BAM I couldn’t get enough of any of the three! It’s so nice to not have to pick out onions from everything now! Tomatoes, I’m pretty sure I will never like, which is fine. I hate the texture. Cheese, I never used to eat it in block form (raw) until a WEEK AGO when I got a craving for goat cheese and, with crackers, ate almost an entire small log of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But goat cheese is unique among cheeses with its texture and sweetness and I’m pretty positive I will never ever ever ever ever ever enjoy any other raw cheese. I’ve tried it sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many times and every time I almost vomit.

Anyhow they say your taste buds change every 7 years, and I think they’re right! Thank god for me.

There aren’t many foods I don’t like. You could count on one hands the things I don’t like, and even then, I’ll eat them if they are served to me. I may not love the food, but I’ll eat it anyway. (Except for cabbage. Which I love but I am deathly allergic to it.)

My mom was a stickler that you had to try new things. To this day, I really have to control myself when I hear my son-in-law talk about things he doesn’t like and transfer this to my granddaughter. “Addie’s like her daddy. She doesn’t like tomatoes or fruit either. Do you honey?”

For the love of God. She’s two. Try to get her to try everything and experience new things.

I just got my husband and two friends to try sushi Saturday night when we went out to dinner. They loved the different kinds. They wouldn’t try the raw fish. But at least they like the other varieties.

@deni The texture can be firm to soft for any kind of cheese. And lots of cheeses are sweet. If you have a chance, you might drop in a real cheese store sometime where they will allow you to SAMPLE. I think you’d be amazed at the variety available.

Yes, there’s so many foods that I wouldn’t touch for years, such as mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, etc. I was quite a picky eater so the list is long. However, I’ll eat pretty much everything apart from meat and chicken now.
I tried mushrooms on a pizza first and I was surprised by how much I liked them. I tried mushrooms in pepper sauce next and loved them even more. It’s usually from not liking them as a kid soI try to put that stuff out of my head and enjoy the flavours.
I haven’t found an appreciation for the flavours of Brussell Sprouts just yet though :/

@stardust Try picking the sprouts and throwing them in to cook within a few minutes.:)

@6rant6 It also has to do with the smell, and the taste, and in all the cheeses I’ve tried I’ve never enjoyed either of those with any cheese. But, mostly I think cheeses do have at least slightly similar textures, and that is really my biggest problem. I just cant do it.

Sushi. Tried it after 30 years. Bearable, but still not on my top 100 list of foods.

Um, we prefer the term “particular.” ~
I have found that many meals when actually cooked with expertize are rendered palatable, for the most part. That said… FUCK ONIONS. :D

I’ve learnt I enjoy foods grown in the correct regions of the globe, cultivated in the correct fashion, and then prepared by someone who actually knows what the fuck they are doing helps loads. :D :D :D The bananas we have in the store today at vapid and mediocre, compared to the fruits of yester years past.

Having taste just means that all food is ash, until you are presented with a superb varietal or sample prepare or cared for in the proper fashion. Foods have their seasons, which they are ripe and good to eat, nice to look at, and desirable for making someone wise… Then you munch the… the… thing up. [cough]

After I went to culinary school… [sigh]

@everephebe I actually find it shocking that you have ever been particular. I suppose I always assume that someone who would be so passionate about food as to make it their career, that they would be the type of person who will eat/try/love just about anything.

Oh I do eat/try everything… all things I do not love though. See passion means, if it ain’t good pathos demands culinary fury!

@Adirondackwannabe I’ll give it a go so, thanks. Ever the thrill seeker, eh!

I skipped to the bottom, so I haven’t read the other comments yet, but I will.

When I was a kid, I was extremely picky. I would eat mac and cheese (only Kraft from the box) and P&B sandwiches and carrots and hot dogs and that was about it.

But when I became an adult, in my early 20’s and decided that it was best for me to be a vegetarian, I knew that I needed to try new foods and try them again and again and again and to embrace new foods. I read several articles that said that you may need to try a “new” food 10 or 20 times to develop a taste for them. 1 or 2 times is not enough.

And I knew I needed to learn how to cook, and I did.

Luckily for me, most of the weird veggie foods like tofu and Brussels sprouts came after just a few tries. Now they’re staples. So are mushrooms (which I despised for the first 20 years of my life) and mayonnaise and spicy stuff. Used to hate it, till I ate it.

Sometimes it’s not the food, but the cooking technique that makes a food seem “yucky” to us. And sometimes it’s a cultural stereotype. Once you get past those things, it’s likely that you can find at least one preparation of just about any food that will be palatable for you.

So look beyond boiled, and see what you can do with fried, baked, roasted, fricaseed, dried, sauteed, braised, grilled, broasted, toasted, made into a pie or a cookie or a quesadilla or an enchilada or a lasagna or enchiladas or a sandwich or a salad or topped on a pizza or encorporated into a soup or a chili or a quiche or a stew or a dip or a spread or an appetizer.

As for your specific dilemma, Banana Bread is your best option. Banana Pudding or Banana Ice Cream, or Bananas Foster or a very yummy condiment Banana Ketchup are some other delicious possibilities.

That is the second time in only a few hours that banana ketchup has come up in conversation, and I have never heard of it before today. We weren’t even talking about bananas in the other discussion, either.

@ANef_is_Enuf The first time I tried banana ketchup was about 20 years ago, when one of my colleagues from the Phillipines brought some in to work. I’ve been hooked ever since. You can try some out, in bottled form and see if you like it, before you try to make your own. It tastes pretty much like regular ketchup only spicier. I don’t recall if you like spicy food or not (I love it!)

I made myself like chocolate, I really really hated it before. But now I’m able to eat some ;) You can still chase me away with a bar of milk chocolate, or chocolate+caramel filling, or any of those yogurt creations though…. :-S

@deni, I’m not saying you’ll like any of them, but they have a great range of texture. Think butter at one end and dark chocolate candy bars at the other.

Some of the stronger tasting cheeses take a little bit of getting used to, but once you’ve moved beyond brie, the tamer stuff seems horribly bland.

I don’t know if you’re aware, but cheese (real cheese, not processed cheese) strengthens in flavor as it ages. So “fresh” cheeses, those no older than a few weeks are very mild. If you like butter on bread, you will like these on crackers. At the other end, there are cheeses aged 24 months or longer. They tend to be drier, sharper, and more colorful.

@6rant6 Now I’m drooling! I’d much rather eat cheese than chocolate any day.