Same with me. I don’t buy that bullshit that it is all genetic. Cilantro tasted like cheap soap to me the first time I tried it and it made me furious like it was a bad practical joke but I learned to like it or even love it over time. Exposure over time made all the difference. It is just one of those odd tastes that you can learn to like if you give it repeated tries.
Brussels Sprouts - I think when I had them as a kid, they were not cooked all the way through, so they were kind of tough(like broccoli that hasn’t boiled long enough).
Lima beans and, by extension, succotash. Of course, limas have to be simmered in some kinda pork product for half a day.
Aw shucks :o 
When I was a kid I loathed bell peppers/sweet peppers/capsicum, call 'em what you will, they were vile. There was a horrendous bitter taste that was so strong that even if I picked them out of my food, they would contaminate everything with this disgusting favour and I still couldn’t eat it. It made me feel sick.
I can still remember what that taste was, but now I can’t pick it up at all from them. It’s not that I now like the flavour, it’s just… gone.
Now I cook with peppers regularly. I even try and grow them. I think the horrible taste vanished some time in my late teens, but I avoided them so assiduously for so long, I’m not quite sure.
A lot of cheeses fall into this category. My ex-wife is one of the foremost cheese experts in the world (cite - she is a judge for international competitions including one in Spain next week). In the early years, neither one of us liked blue cheese at all. The first time I tasted it, I thought is was some disgustingly spoiled dairy product gone really bad. I grew to like it over time though. That is what you call an acquired taste but it can be done.
I never liked those much as a kid (though, to be fair, they weren’t often served), until I discovered eating the cold leftovers with salad dressing one desperate, hungry night. Not bad! I do have a hard time with the more sulfurous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower) in general, unless prepared just so.
And then a few years ago I had the joy of helping to prep really fresh brussels sprouts off the stalk when I visited my inlaws in Louisiana. That’s a whole different, tasty, beast. Almost as drastic a difference between the supermarket “pink softball” tomatoes and one picked ripe and cracking off the vine.
I still like them old and cold with salad dressing, though!
As a child, an olive was just something that occasionally turned up on a pizza, therefore ruining the whole thing. Urrrgh.
Fast forward to me aged 19, in Amsterdam, quite mellow as it happens. We ate in a tapas-style place, and I’ve loved olives ever since. Loved many kinds of seafood ever since that occasion too, come to think of it.
There’s no single moment where I grew to love properly prepared veg - just wasn’t brought up with it really - but I do now really like sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower etc
An early memory for me is mum saying something like “You won’t like this cheese, it’ll be too strong for you”. Yeah, I did like it. Stilton, or Danish Blue, most likely, as that’s what my dad always used to keep around.
Fish.
Sauerkraut.
Olives.
Hot, spicy stuff (think Sriracha, not Ghost Pepper).
My parents never liked seafood. Or vegetables, for that matter . Now I enjoy both - I will always choose fish over beef.
Sweet potatoes – Until I figured out that I don’t like them candied or with marshmallow on top. But love them in soup, curry or baked with butter, salt and paper.
Try this: heat the tomatoes—like either in a skillet or in the oven, just enough for them to start to cook a tiny bit–you just want them barely warmed through. Then chuck them in the fridge if you want to use them later. Cooking them for a couple of minutes does something to them that makes them so much better in salads/sandwiches.
Olives, the only kind I like are some variety of purple-ish olives that are hyper-salty. I don’t know what they’re called but they’re in greek salads usually.
I didn’t get into coffee until I was in my 30s and now I can’t imagine a day without a cup and I love the good stuff.
For most of my life, I’ve hated squash. But then, some years back, a friend had me over for supper, and one of the side dishes was squash. Well, I figured, I’d better take a little and choke it down just to be polite… and it turns out it was actually pretty good.
At some point in my childhood, I went through a similar transition with green beans. I used to hate them, but now I love them.
One of these times, I really need to try asparagus again (my last remaining disliked vegetable).
when I was a kid, I hated baked potatoes, chili, and this casserole my folks used to make. I think it was something one of them got from their parents; it was called a “Mexican Casserole” but it was more like what 1950s suburban America thought Mexican food was. Basically elbow macaroni, ground beef, american cheese, stewed tomatoes, and a bit of spices (mostly chili powder.) Maybe onion too. Whatever the case, when I was little I hated it. Absolutely despised it. It was- along with baked potato- one of the rare things where I’d choke down just enough to be able to say I ate some of it, and felt like I was about to send every bite back up.
and I have no idea why. I head home every so often for Sunday dinner, and have no problems with baked potatoes. And a couple of times we had the “Mexican” casserole, and I loved it. It doesn’t taste any different than I remember it from when I was a kid (other than my mom using spices from Penzey’s instead of stale supermarket shit) so I have no idea why I so viscerally loathed it when I was young.
On the other hand, stuff kids are generally known to dislike e.g. green vegetables such as broccoli and brussels sprouts never gave me a problem. I think most of us just naturally outgrow the aversion to the bitter stuff in greens, except people in like my dad’s generation who grew up being forced to eat broccoli and sprouts overcooked to the point they were starting to turn grayish-brown. That’s just nasty.
on the other other hand, there are a couple of things I hated when I was young and still hate: olives and strong cheeses.
Easiest way to decide if you like it?
- Get fresh green (not the weird creepy albino/white kind) asparagus
- Chop off the bottom part that’s kinda woody
- Toss with some olive oil, salt and pepper
- Roast at about 400f for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally until some lightly browned patches appear on it. About 10 minutes before it’s done, toss in some fresh garlic and a little bit of shredded Parmesan cheese.
If you don’t like it roasted, you’re not gonna like it period.
Spinach. I never had it cooked right before though. My grandma I think probably just heated it straight from a can. I remember she bought the Popeye variety and tried so hard to use that angle to get me to eat it. I had no desire to be stronger if I had to choke that slimy wet grass. Now I cook it fresh and slightly wilted or squeeze the water out of the frozen to cook up with eggs and a little Parmesan and Italian spices. My kid is actually who got me in to it. Now we eat it about once a week. It’s her favorite veggie too.
Blue Cheese and Red Wine.
Could not touch either of these when I was younger, now I love em.
this. roasted asparagus tastes nothing like steamed/boiled/canned asparagus.
apart from maybe beans and peas, most green vegetables (especially leafy greens) turn to shit once canned.
Another thing about asparagus. The base of the stalk is tough and fibrous. the tip is soft and mushy. Cut it into four pieces. Eat the two end pieces in a single bite, and the two middle pieces in a single bite. The too-tough parts and the too-mushy parts balance each other out.
As a young child I ate cheese like a mouse then suddenly It tasted horrible if not melted I.E. Pizza or cheeseburgers. In 2015 we spent a week at a cabin in Maryland with my sister and Brother in law. I’m a late night snacker and the fridge was pretty empty so I tried some Colby Jack and found it delightful! Now I’m a full on cheeseaholic!
Also discovered I like mustard a couple years ago after hating it my entire life…