Tomatoes. Time was, the taste of uncooked tomato was almost enough to start me gagging. Now I don’t know how I ever excluded them from my food. Mind you, I don’t go around biting into whole tomatoes, but the usual slices or chunks of them are a staple on, say, sandwiches, etc.
Chinese food. Hated it as a kid, then started craving it when I was pregnant with The Sausage Creature! I loves me some good Chinese!
Menudo. Tripe Soup, as served in all the finest of Mexican restaurants.
I was a kid and watched my folks eat this at my grandmothers, and I would just retch at the sight of it. I would make my grandma prepare me something completely different, just so I didn’t have to eat that stuff.
I don’t recall exactly when the first time I tried it was, but it must have been quite the eye-opener. Properly made, it is sent from the gods to us mere mortals as a sample of what awaits in the next life. Poorly made, I wouldn’t feed it to my toilet though.
As a bonus, it is the only guaranteed, never-fail, “will cure the worst tequila hangover”, cure.
Sushi for me too. The first tiem i tried it was a couple years ago during frosh week–there was a floor gathering with sushi. I took a bite of one piece (yeah, I know you’re suppossed to eat it in one bite, I didn’t know at the time), and threw it out. A couple months ago a friend and I went to an anime club meeting in a Sobey’s community centre, and during the first break everyone went downstairs for snacks. Most of them bougth sushi, and I decided to follow suit. I had cravings for two weeks afterwards. I went again this month, did the same thing, and the container was empty (aside from some wasabi and ginger) within a half hour.
Potato pancakes are another one. I hated them as a kid. Then I discovered the wonders of sour cream.
Most kinds of meat I used to hate, or so I’ve been told. According to my parents, I used to love deer meat and wouldn’t eat any other kind. Now I love white meat, like red meat, and can’t stand deer meat.
It’s a shameful confession, but as a child I absolutely LOATHED ice-cream. In fact anything even remotely dairy - milk, cheese, yoghurt, cream. Not only wouldn’t I eat them - I wouldn’t eat anything with them in either (My poor Mother). It came from living abroad and only being able to have powdered milk when I was very small.
Now I adore it all (except for straight milk gag) Cheese…mmmm Wensleydale…Clotted Cream…Haaaaaaaagen Daaaaaaaz drools like Homer
I never liked veggies as a kid-because of the way my mother "cooked’ them: chop vegetables, add to boiling water; cook until mushy; add salt, cook until VERY mushy!
Now I love lightly cooked vegetables 9like stir-fry). You can actually taste them!
Avocados: never liked them until I had a good one. Now I kill for them.
Asparagus: Still don’t like it steamed, but grilled? OH yeah!
I couldn’t stand even slightly spicy food, Indian curry (I think it was the cumin), or cilantro. I gradually learned to like -or at least not mind - cilantro, because I otherwise love Mexican food. Not liking spicy food or Indian food was a pain in the ass because it limited going out to eat with friends, my food choices in general, and I didn’t want to travel only to countries with bland, cumin-free food. I read somewhere that all flavors are acquired tastes, except sugar, and that it takes something like 15 or 20 times of eating something to acquire a taste for it, and I decided that I would learn to like spicy food and curry. I started adding a little bit of hot pepper or curry to what I was cooking, gradually increasing it as I learned to like it. I still don’t like my food as spicy as my dad and brother do, but I do enjoy a good bite to it.
Olives, shrimp, avocado, spicy foods–all these were my hates as a child and things I adore now.
My one weird one is green peppers. I didn’t like them as a child, due in part to my mom’s habit of buying frozen green pepper slices and steaming them as a vegetable side-dish. Then I dated a girl who loved green peppers, ate them all the time; when she dumped me messily, I associated green peppers with her and refused to eat them for years.
Now I like them pretty well, and will actually buy them to put in food that I’m cooking. I still don’t like yellow or red bell peppers, though, not even roasted. They taste icky.
Daniel
Lots of stuff. Hated herring as a kid, tried it again on Midsummer’s Eve 1999, found that I loved it. Hated mustard as a kid, now I can’t get enough of it. Wouldn’t eat mushrooms as a kid (partly because of the icky texture which wasn’t offset by the nondescript taste, and partly because of a horror story told by an incredibly incompetent teacher), now I like them.
I hated onions when I was but a tadpole. Then on a trip home from college, I sprinkled some diced onions on a hot dog and found it really tasty. I think it was because they were fresh. I still can’t stand Sweet onions, but the rest are quite nice.
Greenbean Casserole
Rappi and potatoes.
My grandmother would make it all the time, and I would never even try it, even though I’m not all that picky an eater. Finally, the last time she made it, a few months before she died, I loved it.
I don’t know how she made it or what went in it. She never left a recipe. But in my mind, that was one thing that I was completely turned around on as I got older.
I’ll still never eat a banana, though. Blech.
Raw broccoli. Hated it with a passion as a child. Now I gobble it with salad dressing. :eek:
I actually had a friend in college who hated black pepper. We were vacationing together with friends and I was designated cook. Hhe tried to make me make a beef stew without any peppercorns. I put my foot down: eat it my way or make your own damn dinner.
Being a lazy sort, he opted to eat my stew and found much to his suprise that black pepercorns added a certain je ne sais quoi rather than the unspeakable foulness he expected. Since then he’s completely come around on black pepper, and now loves it. I take the credit, naturally. 
Exactly. Like with whole fish. Their little eyes stare at you so reproachfully. “You’re going to eat me, aren’t you? Story of my life, I tell ya.”
I love lobster, but I don’t know if I could eat a whole one, since I always go and say hi to the lobsters in the tank at the grocery store. My mom hates this, but little kids seem to love it.
Tomatoes: hated them for 47 years, now I like them.
Olives: Used to despise them. Now, if I don’t get at least 2 almond, anchovy or blue-cheese filled olives in my martini, I complain.
Mexican food, because growing up we’d always receive it in mushy take-out form from the same disgusting restaurant (dad’s favorite) every time. Well, either that or it was Tacoo Bell, which isn’t really Mexican food. I thought real Mexican food always had the same sort of rank old smell and sog.
Then a few years ago I started eating my bf’s mom’s cooking. drools
Diet drinks, too. Loudly decried the stuff before thinking about all those calories (I like sugary juice drinks). Now regular drinks seem too sweet. There’s still that sort of gross aftertaste, but oh well.
sushi, lobster, and fish in general
Ditto. I hated tomatoes all my life, except for cooked tomatoes, like marinara sauce. I liked salsa but I’d just leave the chips in the bowl to soak up the juice because I couldn’t stand eating the chunks. Then one day, all of a sudden, I realized I liked cooked tomatoes. Then I realized that raw tomatoes aren’t as nasty as I had always thought. I still don’t particularly like them, but I won’t pick them off if they are on something that I’m eating.
Also, Dr. PoopiePants, your user name and the fact that you’re at least 47 years old is causing me quite a bit of amusement tonight.