Or for that matter, foods that you couldn’t face for a prolonged period? In which latter category I offer: Marmalade. Just in case it’s a bit too culturally specific for everyone, here’s the wiki - it’s a kind of jam/jello usually made from bitter oranges, and today I ate some for the first time in seven years or so. And I really enjoyed it.
Seven years ago I was put on azathioprine for UC. It may make you feel a little nauseous, said the doctor, but stick with it. Well, the effects kicked in over the weekend so I couldn’t get to the GP for anti-emetics. I bought some crystallised ginger because it has a mild anti-emetic effect: no use at all. Even when I did get a script for metoclopramide, that had no discernible effect either. I’ll spare you a description of my state at that time, but I was not good at all; they took me off azathioprine after a couple of awful weeks. Failed.
One of the odder effects of this episode was that the things I was eating at that time became repulsive to me. Over the years, most of these I have been able to enjoy again; and today, after seven years, I saw Mrs Trep’s jar of marmalade in the fridge and I thought: you know what…….and I ate some, and it was good.
Mind you, even the smell of sweet ginger still makes me retch.
So: anyone else have the experience of foods that you can/could no longer face? What’s the story?
When I was a small child the family would always visit one or the other grandmother on weekends. This involved a car ride of an hour or so each time. My father insisted on a full breakfast on weekends which often included blueberry pancakes. I have always suffered from motion sickness. So pretty much every weekend I would barf up my breakfast in the car. Even knowing what would happen, I had to eat breakfast before we set out. (My father was the essence of inflexible, among other things.) Anyway, the result was that I couldn’t eat blueberries for decades. Literally could not swallow one if I knew that’s what it was.
Sometime in my forties I was able to overcome that reaction and can now happily eat them but it took a while.
about 14 years ago my doc put me on an injectible for diabetics that works on the intestines called Byetta. Most people have issues with it, so you start with a microdose and work your way up to the full dose. I was able to basically start full dose with none of the nausea issues. Gradually over about 24 months my body grew less able to tolerate the med, at about the 18 month point, I noticed that sitting there with a plate of breakfast sausage, as I brought the second one I was readying to eat the smell made me absolutely certain that if I ate another bite, I would vomit. So a few weeks or so pass, and then bacon presented an issue, then ham, then finally fresh pork. So I stopped eating pork. Then beef suddenly started giving me the same problem, then chicken. I was getting ready to go to my quarterly doc call, when we discussed it - I was effectively down to tofu, fish, eggs and TVP for protein choices. So we made the decision to take me off it, and he put me on a pill instead, januvia. After about 5 years, a new injectible came out - Victoza. It worked quite well for about 4 years, then I started having gut motility issues and losing pork again. It turned out that it was basically slowing my digestion down to a halt - I could eat breakfast because it had worn off from the previous morning injection. So I would eat, then shoot up, my digestion would slow down again, and about 6 hours or so after breakfast, nothing - my stomach contents would be moved out by my annoying body in the easiest way it could think of - vomiting. So we gave up on modifying how my body handled foods and we went to Lantus, a slow acting insulin glargine. Works like a champ, however to ths day I have issues with specifically breakfast sausage [I am ok with keilbasa, which is fine] but if I eat something several days in a row, it starts to nauseate me so I have to stop eating it for a while [like I cant do scrambled eggs for 3 days in a row]
I also while in chemo developed an absolute instant vomit reaction to the smell of italian sausage, peppers and onions frying up … and to this day it will cause a vomit reaction. No idea why it has hung around, but since I happen to dislike bell peppers anyway, no big loss.
Don’t care for hummus. A friend made up some, using his old family recipe, authentic from his Lebanese forebears. I tried it…and had to spit it out. I couldn’t even force myself to swallow it to be polite. The sesame seed oil was, to me, like sewing machine oil One of the most embarrassing moments of my life.
Since then, hummus just isn’t on my list, even softened and Americanized versions.
I can understand it, my brother also hated humus for about the same reason, h said it had a funny metallic taste to it. I personally think he was allergic/sensitive to sesame seeds.
I would love to try you on a medieval recipe called white sals - walnuts, olive oil and garlic pounded together into a hummus like paste, used to spread on breads [recipe is 14th century] or a Roman recipe that is pounded cheese [like a young parmesan or a feta] herbs and garlic.
Makes me wonder if the tahini was rancid, giving it that metallic oil taste.
My parents went through this (to me at the time) weird bake potato phase. Baked potatoes for or with dinner. Every. Single. Damn. Night. For Years! I was 5 or 6 when this started (and it was instrumental in fostering my interest in cooking) and it lasted 3 maybe 4 years. I was 40 before I ate baked potatoes again.
Looking back now, I can sorta see some justification, maybe. Baked taters are an inexpensive way to fill out a dinner plate if times are lean.
But I will still carefully consider all the options even today before going with a potato
Graham crackers and tangerines. Just the smell. When we were little Dad was working at a Georgia naval base, or maybe Florida, I forget. Parents kept popping out kids, so we were poor. Mom took us on a train back to Pgh. Packed the above for food and that was it. The back and forth motion of the train meant I puked, a lot, and puked nothing but graham crackers and tangerines. Still won’t touch them.
When I was 5 or 6 years old I had some Nutter Butters cookies that were bad. I was violently ill for nearly ten days; I’m talking no solid foods. After I started feeling better the first solid food my parents gave me?
Yup.
Ten more days and 45 years later I can eat peanut butter but no peanut butter crunchy baked goods.
Pizza is my favorite food. During my first pregnancy I couldn’t eat it, the smell alone would make me vomit. I remember going to someone’s house and they were eating pizza. I had to go in another room and shut the door until they were done. Luckily, I was able to get over that after giving birth.
All pregnancy related, still cannot eat or drink 26 years later: Bologna sandwiches, a specific salad at Applebee’s (don’t know if it’s even on the menu, haven’t had Applebee’s in over a decade), fountain soda with too much syrup, and SPAM.
Other random things that are 100% olfactory based: I have to time when I go to my favorite Asian mega market. I have made the mistake of getting there when they’re stocking the seafood department. The smell of seafood, either cooked or fresh, makes me pukey. I have been to Red Lobster once in my life and it was a very miserable experience.
The smell of cooked liver, the smell of scrambled eggs, the smell of overripe zucchini and eggplant, and the smell of apple sausage all make me immediately lose any appetite I may have had.
I can only thing of a very small number of things that I can’t eat now for now reason other than over eating them in the past. And even with most of those items, if I leave them alone for a few years, I’ll come back around to them eventually. I mean, I over ate them because I liked them, right?
My brother, OTOH, peanut butter. One day he had like 6 slices of peanut better toast in a row and announced “If I even smell any more peanut butter I’ll puke”. I waved the jar of peanut butter in front of his face and he did, in fact, puke. That was probably a little over 30 years ago and only in the past few years has he been able to stand being in the same room as it.
Ugh, butternut squash. My ex went through this ‘try every weird diet’ phase, one of which included an enormous amount of squash. I can’t stand the sight of them now - they’re a pain to peel and make your hand all sticky, the texture is mushy/slimy and they taste just blandy bluergh.
I’ve run across tahini that has a pronounced bitter flavor, and others that are milder, more like a sesame version of peanut butter. I don’t think the bitter one was rancid, just from different sesame seeds or differently prepared ones.
Papa John’s pizza. It used to be a guilty pleasure but one day I ate one that gave me horrible heartburn. Ever since then I can’t eat one without becoming nauseous.
Chicken Soup. My mother made a terrible soggy bland chicken soup frequently when I was a child. I never liked it then, and now I don’t like any version of chicken soup, even good ones. I’ll eat it, but even when I taste it and say, “yeah, that’s actually pretty good” I’m not really going to want seconds. It’s just this deep-rooted antipathy I can’t shake. And I have a list as long as my arm of foods I didn’t used to like, but now do: avocado, hummus, mushrooms, olives, etc. Chicken soup is just a no-go so far.
I’m skinny. Almost always have been. At about age 25 while in USAF overseas I contracted intestinal parasites. The preferred treatment at the time was to starve them out. I started out at 5’11" and weighing 130#.
After 3+ weeks on a diet of water & some jello I was down to about 100#. The worms finally were absent from the almost clear liquid that passed for my poop & I got to learn how to eat again. Slowly. It took about 9 months to get back to normal weight & condition. Friends told me I looked like an Auschwitz survivor but with cleaner PJs.
I have not eaten jello since and intend to die at a ripe old age not having eaten jello since.
Mom used to make it when I was a kid, so didn’t have much choice. But I’ll never eat it again. Wife has a yard full of it on the hoof, and the stench reinforces my disgust on a daily basis. But they ain’t for eatin’. Or lovin’.
I had a potato thing, but for a very different reason (which I think I’ve posted here before, but what the hell). I grew up in the sparsely populated far north west of England. At junior school (age 7 - 11) the school I went to had no kitchen - instead, the meals were cooked in Carlisle, nearly forty miles away, and shipped along country roads, stopping at village schools, taking god-knows-how-long to get to us. One of the staples was mashed potato, loaded into aluminium canisters (rather like milk churns) for the trip, and served tepid directly out of the canister. The stench… it’s one of those once smelled, never forgotten things.
I was in my thirties before I ate mashed potato again.
