Wow, are you me?
Beef. And the aversion has a biological basis.
About this time last year, I had the mother of all gall bladder attacks, and my GB actually died inside me. Long story short, my liver was damaged in the process.
One of the markers of a healthy liver is alkaline phosphatase, and mine went sky high. When it is out in the ozone, it is difficult to eat anything because food is so unappealing. My level has come down quite a bit, but is still elevated. For me, beef is the worst offender. The less fatty a type of meat is, the more I can eat it.
I can eat a small burger, or something like a taco or spaghetti, but to this day I cannot handle a steak or hunk of roast.
One of my sisters is the Queen of Picky Eaters. One example: family gatherings at Mom’s will often include a bowl of potato chips. Said sister only like ONE SPECIFIC BRAND of chips and will not eat any others. We’re not talking flavored chips or baked crisps or kettle cooked chips - just plain sliced and fried potatoes. She claims she can recognize her brand by the way it looks. Um, OK…
Another sister absolutely refuses to use tap water for anything other than cleaning. She keeps a big water dispenser in her kitchen and she buys ice cubes from the grocery store. Where does she think that water comes from??? I can’t imagine how much money she’s spent over the years on her silly quirk. And it didn’t matter when she was on city water or on a well. She’s just nuts.
I don’t eat raw celery or raw onions, but I’ll cook with both. In fact, I use lots of onions in lots of my cooking, but don’t try to slip a raw slice on my burger - ugh!!
All food aversions are crazy to me on some level.
I mean, cognitively I understand that people have food aversions, and I of course have foods I prefer and some I don’t, but there’s simply nothing I’ve ever come across that I truly hated.
For once I’m not the pickiest person in the (virtual) room! I promise I will not point and laugh at any of you because I know what if feels like to have , uh, extremely discerning taste.
I will not eat cheese of any kind on anything but pizza, and then I really prefer it be mozzarella. No four cheese pizza for me. You cannot imagine what a pain in the ass this particular quirk is. Everything everywhere seems to have cheese on it as the default.
Don’t like seafood, except for shrimp, lobster and crab. And those I don’t like enough to have as my main dish. I’ve tried other kinds of fish but that underlying “fishiness” is just something I can’t get past. I don’t even like to spend too much time in the seafood dept. at the grocery store as the smell is fairly nauseating to me.
Hells no on the mayo or any mayo based dish - your slaws, and salads and all those other revolting picnic type concoctions.
How anyone could find iced tea drinkable, never mind refreshing is beyond me.
Hot tea is the bees knees though.
There’s tons more that I don’t like but those are the ones I can think of that most people do like.
As for other people, I’ve met many folks who don’t like / won’t try Thai or Indian. I don’t know if that’s weird but it is kind of funny that Miss Picky McFussbudget here loves it and can barely find any dining companions when I’m jonesing for a curry.
I had lunch with a lady the other day who ordered her hamburger well done. She was so excited because “they usually don’t cook it enough”. Gag.
There’s tons of people who don’t like spicy things. I’ll try almost anything if it’s spicy enough.
My boyfriend detests peanut butter. Peanut butter!
I do. And I’ve had it raw, too (in Japan).
I love hot roast beef, but I won’t eat a cold, roast beef sandwich. Yuck! Not because it’s rare, since I eat my steak rare, it’s because it’s cold.
Jello.
I’ll try it now and again if it’s there, especially if I’m not feeling well, but nope.
I love liver and onions if it’s done right. I don’t eat it often because it’s so unhealthy, but I’ll order it occasionally if I’m someplace where it’s on the menu (which isn’t often).
I’m no Andrew Zimmern, but I’ve done a lot of traveling and eaten a lot of very odd things. I consider myself an adventurous eater compared to most and am generally willing to give anything a go, at least once. However, there are three things I can’t/won’t eat: liver, oatmeal and bleu cheese. With liver, it’s all about the texture. That’s a fault of organ meats in general, but liver is the prime offender. Oatmeal got a bad rep with me after being forced to eat it as a punishment meal (“no dinner for you, young lady, you get oatmeal”). I have no idea why oatmeal became the punishment meal in my family instead of, say, bread and water, but to this day I can’t stand the sight or smell of it. Bleu cheese aversion is the result of having had a particularly nasty bout of stomach flu after eating some. It is the most gawd awful thing coming back up. Now I fear the bleu and won’t go near it.
You’ve probably started associating it with not feeling well.
oh, and I can’t drink most hard liquors, at least not straight. one bad night with Southern Comfort when I was 17 took care of that. just a whiff of 'em (especially whisky) elicits a horking noise from me.
Evidently many a greedyguts here was taught not only to clear their plates, but to go around the table afterwards clearing everyone else’s plates.
No- I’ve always hated it, even when it was served as a treat at friend’s houses. I kept kosher growing up, so it was never in my house and my parents didn’t know about it being a go-to food when you’re not feeling well. It just seems like it’s supposed to be appealing when I’m not feeling well, so I try it, but I’m back at nope.
Raw Tomatoes: Blech!!!
Raw tomatoes taste just like Satan’s rotting pancreas (…well, at least how I imagine his pancreas to taste).
I love tomato catsup, tomato sauce, tomato paste, tomato puree, tomato soup, tomato bisque and even fried green tomatoes.
I start to get a little suspicious around the stewed tomato stage: kind of cooked, but not quite enough.
But, don’t let a raw tomato anywhere near me or my food.
When I was a kid, I would refuse to eat any food that was even touched by a tomato. You could put my favorite sandwich before me, a Philly-style Italian Hoagie dripping with olive oil, but it there was even a speck of slimy tomato innards on it—no dice. It didn’t matter if you removed the tomato or not, the fact that it touched my food was enough to turn my stomach. Even a homeopathic dosage of tomato would nauseate me.
And, yet, I freely admit that a plump, ripe, juicy, sliced tomato slathered with mayonnaise really does look kind of appetizing. For that reason, I do a little tomato taste test every 5 years or so, just in case my tastes have changed (they did with mushrooms—used to hate them, now they are better than sex).
But, alas, after 5 decades, I still can’t stand those slimy balls of hell that can’t make up their mind whether they’re a sweet vegetable or a sour fruit. I’ll keep trying, though.
Me too.
IF I am in the MOOD for them at the time. If I am not in the mood at the time I’ll probably gag and vomit trying to eat it. Same goes for chicken gizzards, chicken livers, raw oysters, and hot dogs.
Go figure.
I once dated a girl who was the pickiest eater I’ve ever known. Since I’m a pretty adventurous eater and I like to cook, this was problematic.
Not long after we started going out, I tried to cook a meal for us, making something as bland as possible yet still somewhat enjoyable to me. I decided on chicken soup made from scratch with only carrots and celery for vegetables. She picked out all the celery pieces, ending up with a little pile of it next to her bowl.
At the time I thought it was the most amazing example of literal pickiness I’d ever seen-- who doesn’t like celery?!? Since then I’ve heard for some people it’s like the dislike of cilantro, and I saw the couple mentions in this post about not liking celery. So I still don’t quite get it, but understand it’s a thing.
Corn tortillas are basically never eaten in countries like Peru, Boliva, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil. Even then, when we eat them we’d go for wheat ones.
There’s lots of “Hispanic” food that is not spicy, and, usually us white hispanics are not as big on super hot food.
Sir, you have no taste. Calves liver & onions, chicken gizzards, chicken livers and raw oysters are in my Top 5 favorite foods of all time and place, as should they be, with every blood-blooded gastronome. You can keep your hotdogs—unless they’re Nathans and are dressed all the way.
Lemme guess, you’re probably one of those cockamamie raw tomato eaters, too, aintcha, billyfish?
Fortuitously, I was blessed with perhaps the only kid in America who loves Liver & Onions as much as I do. She’s my angel-child. My other daughter hates Liver & Onions. I’m putting that devil-child up for adoption.
So, if you’ve never tried it, you might want to try real (NOT quick cooking), high-quality steel cut oats sometime. Might be a pleasant surprise. Served with a little butter and brown sugar, it’s a totally different animal from the mushy, pasty cereals like rolled oats or Cream of Wheat. Almost like a cousin of wild rice, but that’s a weird comparison because I hate wild rice…