I noticed that nice places to eat have a large chunk of their menu as fish or seafood which means my options are normally cut by ~50% to start. I guess I am just not the typical person that goes to those places. I do eat chicken and beef.
I wish I ate seafood, since I’m definitely missing out on something other people enjoy, but I just don’t like the taste or the texture.
Me: Sorry, no thanks, I don’t eat seafood
Them: How about some Tilapia then?
Me: Did it live in the water?
Them: Yes
Me: Then it’s seafood, I really really really really don’t like seafood.
I’m not sure why it is that if I tell someone I don’t like seafood, they immediately offer me fish. When that happens I have found it’s easiest to say “If if lived in the water, I’m not eating it” Kind of a knock off of Phoebe’s “No food with a face”.
Do you have some particular objection to it, an allergy, or just don’t like it very much?
I like most fish, and love salmon. I’ve never really cared much for shellfish, though.
I checked the menu of the place I am going tomorrow and of 16 main dishes, 11 are fish or seafood. They also have a vegetarian menu with about 7 items. So that’s about 1/2 fish or seafood.
I have no allergies, just can’t stand the taste of fish or seafood. I also really hate onions but those are easy to avoid.
A lot of times “seafood” means “shellfish”; clams, oysters, crab, lobster, mussels, etc. It’s possible to dislike those and still like fish.
Fresh Walleye or Bass that I’ve caught? Sure. But it’s been like 17 years since I’ve had that.
Grilled Marlin? Like it, can’t afford it very often.
Very very occasional and only if necessary; a small number of fish sticks.
Otherwise no.
Crab, Lobster, etc? Sorry no, I don’t eat bugs.
We went to a seafood place for the combination Sister’s BD dinner (2 birthdays in same month). I had the Bar Steak.
I like some fish, sometimes, but it’s never been a big part of my diet. I’ve never had sushi and don’t care to try it. I have no idea why some people rave about shrimp and lobster. I think they are edible in a pinch, but nothing special. The thought of eating oysters or clams is disgusting to me. (I’ve never had them though - they could very well be delicious.)
I’ve never liked fish and I really hate that this is the case. It’s nutritious and often times cheaper than other dishes. I’ve tried a lot of different kinds of fish as well as shrimp and it all makes me want to hurl.
Tuna salad I can do, and Filet-O-Fish. But the way I like them prepared, there’s not much fish to it.
Save the odd tuna fish sandwich, I eat fish less than once a year. I wish it were otherwise, but I just can’t stand most of it. It’s the taste, the smell, and somehow the idea . . . don’t ask me why, but fish are creepy. There are a few exceptions. My wife made some tilapia something-or-other that was very good, but she lost the recipe, and when I was a kid my uncle used to fry me walleyes that he caught in Minnesota’s various ten thousand lakes. But that’s about it. For health reasons, and simply variety, I’d like to include fish in my diet . . . I just haven’t found many fish that don’t have that fishy flavor.
I’m slowly starting to like some kinds of fish prepared in certain ways. My mother never cooked fish or seafood when I was a kid, because my father hated it, so I never developed a taste for it.
Now I’m in Maryland and I am surrounded by seafood wherever I go. Crabs are the big thing here - my husband’s family does a crab feast every summer where they dump a huge bag of steamed crabs onto a newspaper-covered table and then start ripping at them with hands and mallets. I always sit a little removed from the action, eating the chicken sandwich his mother is always so kind to make for me. The crabs look like huge red crunchy spiders. With claws. Too many goddamn legs. Same issue with lobsters. They are insects according to my poor little brain, and I can’t get past that. I have been able to eat crab cakes when they’re offered to me, but I would never order one at a restaurant.
Shrimp and scallops are a different problem. Texture. I guess I expect them to feel like meat but they don’t. To me, they can seem like rubber, squishy, or like a very stale Cheeto that’s starting to get soggy and has lost its crunch but retains that weird stiff sponginess… Yeah. Even when my husband has me try a shrimp or scallop that he says is done perfectly, I hate the texture.
And if it looks like snot and I have to pry it from a shell, I’m not having it for dinner. Period.
Fish don’t give me that texture problem. I just don’t like very oily or “fishy” fish. I’m learning to like tilapia, for example, but I will never enjoy salmon. I still haven’t gotten to a point where I will volunteer to choose fish over steak or chicken, by ordering it as my meal at a restaurant, but I will sometimes have it for dinner at home, and I wouldn’t claim allergies if someone served it to me at their house.
Onions are easy to avoid? I’m surprised. Onions are everywhere. I think about 80-90% of my recipes have an onion involved somewhere. (ETA: And I’d be hard pressed to find a restaurant where most of the non-dessert dishes do not have onions [or shallots] as an ingredient.)
My brother won’t eat any kind of seafood. Not even the popular stuff like tunafish sandwiches or fish sticks or shrimp cocktail.
I had a friend who wouldn’t eat any kind of seafood. But she had very narrow food preferences. She grew up in a home where they didn’t eat anything “exotic” - and they considered pizza to be exotic.
Myself, I love seafood and eat it all the time. I had scallops and shrimp for supper yesterday.
I haven’t eaten any kind of meat or poultry (including broth, gelatin, marshmallow etc.) for 16+ years, but I absolutely love most seafood (with a few exceptions) and eat it at least a couple times a week.
Different strokes-Different folks…
Where are do all you seafood-challenged folk live? I grew up in US Midwest and hated seafood, then in my 30’s moved to an area near the California coast, and found out that I love fresh seafood. It’s like homegrown tomatoes, which are always better than grocery tomatoes. Is it possible that some of the dislike is for frozen/packaged fish/shellfish/etc ? The difference between fresh and frozen/shipped can be remarkable, depending on the type of seafood.
The only seafood I will willingly eat is clam strips. People are like “oh, how can you like them but not fish? They taste so much stronger!” Maybe they have a “stronger” taste, but they don’t taste like fish. Things having a strong taste isn’t objectionable, it’s tasting/smelling like fish that’s the problem.
Ugh, all seafood has that horrible fishy taste and smell. I never eat it. Last time I tried some was about a month ago at my anniversary dinner - my husband was having some tuna that was apparently amazing. So I tried some. Drowning in the very nice sauce. It tasted like…fish. I’ll probably give it another 5 or 6 years until I try another bite.
I hate anything that swims in water and refuse to eat any of it. I don’t understand how people can look at giant cockroaches (lobster) and go “oooh, that looks good, I’ll have that”.
What I hate is when I tell people I don’t like seafood and they look at it as a challenge. “Oh you haven’t tried THIS, I bet you’d like it!”
So now I find it easier to tell people I am allergic to seafood…
And I’m sure there’s stuff out there I would like, I just don’t want to try it. Most of that stuff is either horribly “fishy” smelling, or it looks just plain gross. I know that makes me a bad person, and I really should broaden my horizons and open up and entirely new culinary experience, etc, but I don’t care. No seafood of any kind on my table!
Clam chowder is about all for my seafood tastes. I used to eat Filet O Fish type stuff when I was a kid, but I think I ended up “overdosing.”
I’m not as hardcore as some of you, but I’m definitely part of this crowd. No seabugs for me, either, please, and no fish that tastes fishy. I do like shrimp, but not if there are legs still attached; I also hate it when I get shrimp poop in my mouth, or grit - eeee-yew. Scallops or squid - very much a case-by-case basis. No full body squid, please; that icks me out. I also hate fish with any bones in it. I do like a nice halibut, though - halibut has a good, firm texture and no discernible fishy taste.