Is there a food you wish you could love?

Rutabegas.

There’s no food that I wish I could love, because for the sake of convenience (i.e. the vegetarian example the OP gave), I like most popular foods. I know that olives are usually pretty popular and I can’t stand them. Pepperoni I am not a fan of, but it’s not hard to avoid.

Avocado.

Cilantro, because it seems to be in everything these days. I have the genetic trait that makes cilantro taste awful.

@Kardamom Have you tried to make eggplant? You mentioned it’s on menus. I’m still experimenting a bit with it, but I can make it so much better than I’ve ever got from a restaurant. I agree, what I’ve got elsewhere is mushy crap. I did the last one uncooked before I made lasagna, not parmed.

Kale is good nutrition wise, but its the most disgusting thing ever.

@Blackberry I love kale. This Recipe is one of my favorite go to recipes. Everyone in my family loves it. Even the ones who thought they didn’t like kale.

@Adirondackwannabe I have never attempted to make any eggplant dishes at home. One of my friends made the worst grilled eggplant that I’ve ever tasted (after she decided that she would briefly become a vegetarian) so I’ve never even brought one into my house. They look so pretty though. That color of purple is exquisite.

@thorninmud I sympathize with you my friend. Cilantro is one of those things that you either love or hate. Luckily, I love it. Cilantro Chutney is one of the most exquisite things in the world. But if it tastes like soap to you, you won’t ever be able to stomach it : ( Damned genetic traits!

@gailcalled I live in Southern California. Guacamole is one of the best things in the whole world. When I was a kid, I hated avocados, due mostly to their weird texture. But when I got older and had some guac (as we call it here) it changed everything. Now I love it. Maybe you’ll come around some day.

@jca Kalamata Olive Tapenade is da bomb.

@Kardamom Try it, it’s easier to work with than it looks. I haven’t hit it perfectly yet, but I’m close. My sister is a lousy cook. The dog wouldn’t touch her’s.

@thorninmud Me too. It tastes like soap to me (like clarinets sound).

@Kardamom I love it in ratatouille. Also moussaka, which could be made vegetarian.

@Adirondackwannabe I may have to make eggplant a New Year’s Resolution to try. My mom loves it, so even if I don’t end up liking what I make, she’ll enjoy it. I think I’d like to try the babaganoush first. I don’t think I could wreck that.

@marinelife I loved the movie Ratatouille, but I don’t like the dish. I wish I did. It sounds so romantic. I don’t like moussaka either, even though it sounds so exotic and yummy. One of my friends specifically makes a vegetarian moussaka, but I just can’t stomach it, mostly due to the texture.

@Kardamom I think the problem is most people overcook it. All the recipes say fry it for so many minutes on both sides. I put it in raw, and it was a little undercooked, but excellent texture and taste. I’ll experiment a bit more and let you know.

I love moussaka! The best moussaka is from a plain old Greek diner, which we have a lot of here in the northeast. Very filling, and they serve a huge portion that would easily feed 3 people, for about $12.

Blueberries and avocados. I would say tomato too, because tomato is on everything, I constantly have to order food without it, pick it out, or take it off of something at a restaurant, but it isn’t that I don’t eat tomato at all, so I don’t feel like I am missing the nutrients. I love tomato sauce and I like tomato in many salsas. I just really dislike plain fresh tomato.

@JLeslie Maybe you should grow your own. I have a 93 year old guy that loves my tomatoes. He comes up in the Spring asking how the plants are doing.

I don’t like them. My neighbor in TN gave us fresh red tomatoes out of her garden every year.

My mother grew cherry tomatoes on our terrace when I was little.

Trust me, these are amazing. But they are very thin skinned. They split easily.

@Adirondackwannabe You aren’t getting it. I don’t like fresh tomatoes. Not unless they are diced small and combined with tons of lemon, salt, a little onion, and a lot of serano or jalapeño peppers.

Rhubarf pie.

Bring on the Eggplant, Brussels sprouts & Cabbage in any way, shape or form, 3 things many despise.
I am still traumatized from getting Rhubarf pies instead of Cherry from my local bakery a couple Christmases ago. Nastiest stuff ever IMO. Looks like chopped raw chicken in a pie crust tastes like ^&@$#!!!

I could live on toasted tomato sandwiches @JLeslie :-)

Peeps. They are so adorable and available at every drop-of-the-hat these days. Maybe a vegetarian version would change the texture and make them palatable? ~

OH, I KNOW!. I wish I could like boiled/cooked carrots. They’re everywhere, they’re everywhere!

I think I’ve cured most of the other aversions? I do not like okra, and I have no desire to. Sooner have a fondness for crabgrass, as there is less cultivation, same appeal.

My mom used to eat artichokes, and it seemed like the most disgusting thing. Take the leaf, scrape the green stuff with the teeth, totally gross. To this day, I’d never do that unless I was starving and that was the last food on earth.

I don’t like artichokes either, but I don’t care. Do they have some sort of special vitamin or mineral I am missing out on?

Art hearts are delicious.

Eggs. I have been very egg-intolerant since I was 18. Just happened within a few month’s span—went from loving eggs to not being able to stomach them, literally. Now, I can’t even stand the smell.

I can eat some foods with eggs in them (i.e. cakes, donuts, pancakes) if the egg ratio is very low, but lemon bars, macaroons, meringue, angel food cake—no can do. Mayo, ranch dressing, thousand island, or potato salads—no can do. It makes breakfasts and brunches with friends/family difficult. If I go to IHOP or Denny’s, and order a lunch meal during breakfast, I still get sick because the food’s all cooked on one grill with all the other egg dishes.

I’d love to be able to eat them, not for taste or smell, but for convenience’s sake.

@JLeslie I get the tomato aversion. I didn’t like raw tomatoes until I was into my late 20’s. I still don’t like big slices of them. I love those little grape tomatoes and I can eat chopped tomatoes in salsa, but I don’t like big pieces of juicy, seedy tomatoes, no matter how yummy they are in small doses or how fresh they are. Although, fresh ones, right off the plant are a million times better than the pink mealy ones that always seem to come served as one of the “vegetarian options” at many restaurants: iceberg lettuce salad, with mealy pink tomato wedges, stale croutons and big thickly sliced nasty cucumbers. I’ve eaten more of those salads than you can shake a stick at.

@jca I too don’t like to eat artichokes in that manner, but I love, love, love Hot Artichoke Dip

@ibstubro The only place I’ve ever seen cooked, boiled carrots is at Hometown Buffet. Where are you seeing all of these cooked carrots? Peeps are disgusting.

@Coloma I’ve had sliced raw rhubarb that was quite tasty (don’t eat the leaves, they’re poisonous). They tasted like lemon and had the consistency of celery. Not sure why anyone would ever want to mush them up and put them into a pie with strawberries.

@linguaphile That’s a shame about the eggs. We were having one of the most marvelous discussions about egg salad on one of @ibstubro‘s threads.

Oysters. My husband LOVES them. I think they’re like snot. I can’t stomach them at all.

I had oysters in a carpetbag steak once and got food poisoning. That did not help my dislike.

I can manage Oysters Kilpatrick but I wouldn’t ever order them off a menu.

On the flipside, I love aubergine.

@Earthbound_Misfit Is there something in oysters that are really good for us? Or, you just want to like them so you can indulge when your husband does?

I, too, didn’t like raw tomatoes until I was in my twenties. I will eat them now, and don’t hate them, but don’t particularly love them either. Meh.

47 and the hate continues. Lol.

I think I might have been in my 30’s before I could tolerate like a tomato. Now I LOVE them, fresh, raw, skinned. I think the skin may be the key.

Carrots are ‘filler’ in frozen meals, @Kardamom. My S/O treasure hunt? A frozen meal-in-a-bag without legumes, carrots or onions. I think there are two, neither universally available.

Yet, my carrot cake is reveled. Go figure.

I hate when too many carrots are in soup or veggie mixes. I love carrots, but too many is overload. I agree—filler.

Honestly?
I think the appeal of carrots in American prepared foods is color.
Green (beans/peas/spinach), yellow (corn/squash), orange (carrots), or red (pimento/tomato), you need at least two, the cheaper the better.
Carrots are cheap and you only have to add one other color to score.

Few prepared foods include (the American carb obsession) potatoes, because they are white, the same color as the popular meal vehicles of rice and pasta.

I like sautéed carrots. I agree color is part if the appeal, but it also indicates different vitamins than the green veggies. Carrots have quite a bit if sugar if I remember correctly. For a veggie that is. I love raw carrots, but can’t eat a whole carrot without tearing my insides up. My limit is about a half carrot.

@JLeslie Good thing you were not born a horse, our horses here can eat about 6 carrots in 6 bites. lol

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed.

Go right to the source and ask the horse
He’ll give you the answer that you’ll endorse.
He’s always on a steady course.
Talk to Mister Ed.

People yakkity-yak a streak and waste your time of day
But Mr. Ed will never speak unless he has something to say.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And this one’ll talk ‘til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse?

Well listen to this: “I’m Mister Ed”.

I hate artichokes, can’t stand them, or the taste and hate even looking at them. I also hate any veggies that has been cooked too long, some people tend to cook them till they are mush, like baby food, that totally freaks me out and makes me so nauseous. They have to be cooked but firm. Will eat anything like that, except artichokes.

Mmmm artichokes. I grill mine, they are amazing. haha
I also hate beets, in any way shape or form, especially the nasty pickled ones people put in their salads. A baked real beet, ( yellow beets not red ) are kinda, sorta, okay. I am also not a fan of Yams & Sweet Potatoes, ick!

I hate beets.
I made Harvard beets last week and they were delicious.
Yams and sweet potatoes are a delicious dessert. I hated them for years because I thought all that candied marshmallow crap was a vegetable. Eaten as a dessert, it’s pretty great…I learned that from sweet potato pie, which is much better than pumpkin.

Artichoke hearts are awesome!

@ibstubro I’ve never tried SP pie…now I am intrigued.
I’m willing to step out of the box, a little. lol

Similar to pumpkin, only better, IMO. It gave me a whole new take on sweet potatoes – as dessert.

I’m still not buttering the bastages and eating them with a nice piece of fish like a baked potato!

^^^ gag!

Honestly, I sometimes wish I could like a cooked carrot. There are many delicious cook-and-eat frozen meals that are loaded with [cheap nasty] carrots that I cannot abide. I’ve tried fishing the carrots out before I cook them, but it diminishes the end product considerably and is a pain in the butt – defeats the quick-and-easy aspect.

Whenever I think of cooked carrots I’m taken back to my childhood, sitting miserably at the kitchen table with my father, brother and sister (mom wasn’t good enough to eat at the table, to took her plate at the sink), guessing how big a chunk of cooked carrot I could swallow at once, the washing it down with [ICK, with a meal] milk.

Good times. ~
Me liking cooked carrots is probably about as likely as my winning the lottery. lol

Oh yeah, I hate cooked carrots too unless they are all basted in the juice from a pot roast with ptoatoes, onions or in a stew or soup. I love raw carrots in salads though.

I use carrots in some recipes to season broth, etc, but I throw the nasty bastages out with the rest of the garbage. lol

What’s a food I’m tickled to hate? Marshmallows.
Unless, of course, they’re baked brown on top of sweet potatoes with brown sugar and pecans. lol

Haha..I’m not a fan of marshmallows either, I think I had a toasted marshmallow for the last time camping like 20 years ago. I also hate green jello. Gak!

I remember my grandmother serving green Jello with grated carrots. Disgusting! I was never fond of marshmallows, Jello or whipped cream.

Maybe we should have a thread about foods we wish we could hate. Like chocolate and cheese.

Oh man..I JUST bought some awesome smoke Gouda…“Hi, I’m Coloma and I am a cheese-a-holic.” lol

@ibstubro I had an aunt in the 60’s/70’s that made this HIDEOUS tomato aspic salad. It was so nasty. This molded jello creation with V-8 juice, green onions, bits of peppers and olives and other terrifying bits bobbling around on a bed of butter leaf lettuce. I was so traumatized by that stuff.

I must have 30+ pounds of cheese in the fridge. I just can’t help it! Still 10 pounds of grated Parmesan alone that I paid $8 for. The grocery had 8 oz. shredded 4 for $5 last week and that was another 4 lbs. Currently I have over a gallon on whipping cream in there, too. 50¢ a quart yesterday, and they tell me it’ll freeze. I could make Alfredo for dozens…there’s at least 6 pounds of real butter around @ $1 a pound.
(Don’t even THINK about it!)

Someone made aspic in my past that I liked, lol.

I’ma try a new thread and turn the tables.

I wish I could love cilantro. It’s in so many dishes that would probably be fabulous if I liked it. Unfortunately, it tastes like soap to me. I replace it with basil in most recipes, but I’d like to be able to go to restaurants and enjoy cilantro dishes.

I wish I could enjoy marzipan and anything anise flavored as well. I feel like I’m not fully German because I hate the stuff. My grandmother was so disappointed that I didn’t share the love.

Cilantro is a good one. It is dish soap for many of us. I can eat it now in little bits. When I was younger I really hated it so much I didn’t want to see a speck of it. I guess being married to a Mexican for so many years my taste buds adjusted a little. A little, just enough to tolerate some stray pieces in a dish.

I always thought cilantro smelled like urine. lol I now make an easy, delicious salsa that has a decent amount of cilantro in it and I’ve not found a person yet that doesn’t like it. (Although I’m sure @JLeslie is in line to be the first, lol!)

I like marzipan, @keobooks! It’s sweet almond…what’s not to like? And anise has so many permutations that I can’t say I like or dislike it…some I hate and others I love.

Dish soap is actually a very common description of cilantro. There must be some sort of genetic thing. Just like some people really do taste broccoli as a very negative flavor. I can’t remember how they describe broccoli? I seem to think the word is bitter, but I might remember incorrectly. I like broccoli.

We grew Cilantro along with about 5 varieties of tomatoes and onions last summer and my friend makes the most awesome alfresco salsa. We ate boatloads of that salsa all summer long. Chips, salsa and Cerveza. Mmmmm. :-)

:)

I grow cilantro a few months at a time in my kitchen window. One plant last me about two months, and then it usually dies. It’s cheaper than buying a bunch and using half of it a few times a month. Plus, it’s always available for my husband if I have a plant. When I have the plant. In the winter months I haven’t tried to keep one.