Rootbeer Floats - Easy to believe. It’s a strong, spicy unusual flavor. I tried a ginger beer once and didn’t like it all. Too strong and spicy and I’m not used to ginger being used that way.
Sloppy Joes - The canned stuff is too sweet, and I can see how someone not accustomed to ground meat cooked into a sauce would be off-putting. Basically meat sauce over bread. Not that weird, but the presentation is strange. Anything served on a hamburger bun that isn’t a hamburger is a bit odd, unless you’ve ever eaten at McDonald’s where everything goes on a bun.
Velveeta - It’s just overly processed cheese that melts easily. People wouldn’t go on a romantic picnic with a bottle of wine, some crusty French breast and a box of velveeta. If you’ve ever eaten any kind of cheese sauce or melted cheese, don’t complain.
Hot dogs - Overly processed and perhaps a strange color for a sausage, besides the strange flavor of them. I’m not fond of those whitish colored breakfast sausages you get in the UK either. OTOH, I love a nice meaty bratwurst.
Cheese Whiz - Velveeta but even more processed until it’s almost a cheese foam. Understandable if you’ve never encountered something like that. I don’t like it much either. It seems like a completely synthetic substance, like flavored styrofoam spread.
Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie - Not my favorite, but it’s just a fruit pie. Is it the rhubarb that’s off-putting?
Pumpkin Pie - My least favorite pie, tied with pecan pie. I baked up a pumpkin pie for T-giving, had one slice and that’s all I’ll need for a year. If I can’t smother it completely in whipped cream, I’ll skip it. Does anyone ever make “fresh” pumpkin pie? You pretty much have to used canned pumpkin. I can’t imagine somehow separating enough pumpkin mush from the seeds for it to be worth it.
Frito pies - It’s kind of disgusting in the same way that eating a bucket of ice cream for dinner would be disgusting. It’s really fattening and greasy and salty and a little too much to be a main dish, or the only dish, if people are honest. Oh, I just have a spoonful along with my kale salad. Sure you do.
Grits - Mushy grains. Understandable if you didn’t grow up with it. I never liked warm mushy oatmeal either. First time I ever had grits was when I joined the army and went through basic training in South Carolina. I wasn’t used to southern food. They eat pigs feet and pickled eggs too. I learned to like grits with extra salt, butter & tabasco sauce. You know what’s gross? Okra. Tastes like a green thing you probably shouldn’t eat, and it exudes its own snail-like slime coat.
Corn dog - I’ve always found them mildly disgusting. Plus it’s on a stick and the stick scrapes against your teeth like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Jello - Easy to believe. Gelatin is kinda gross anyway. It’s usually associated with boiled meat or fish, and not something you’d expect to be a fruit flavored treat. Midwestern parents like to abuse their children by putting grated carrot in it.
Chicken fried steak - Battered and fried ground beef patty smothered in gravy. I can see how that would be weird if you didn’t grow up around it.
Red velvet cake - Cake with food coloring. I guess if you don’t like food that is the wrong color.
White sandwich bread - Sandwich bread that doesn’t crumble into a billion pieces with the first bite. I think a lot of it is snobbishness more than “gross.”
Peanut butter - Basically nuts ground into a paste. I don’t know why they don’t call it peanut paste. You might expect it to be a salty savory thing, or a very sweet spread like nutella or something, but it’s not either one. I could see people being shkeeved out by it.
Biscuits and gravy - Those silly Danes. Bread with some sort of meat sauce/stew/gravy. Who doesn’t have that? Must be the presentation of it.
