I like liquor, but really wish I liked beer and wine. It’s weird, I know, but I just can’t develop a taste for either. And yes, explaining this to people is really awkward. I’d settle for being able to fake liking it.
Oysters seem like fun to eat, too bad they look and taste like snot.
I second your motion - green peppers taste of offensive and possibly toxic chemical compounds, and the word “permeates” perfectly describe what they do to foods cooked with them. On the other hand, I like hot peppers…
There are foods I don’t eat that I really don’t wish I liked. Cilantro, for one (ick). Water chestnuts. And nuts and berries – I’m allergic to those, and they taste awful to me probably by association. But, I gladly avoid all of 'em, cause really it doesn’t come up that often.
Mushrooms, though, are too ubiquitious. They’re in everything. And horrid – the texture, the “taste”. Ugh. Yet all the time when I want to try something new, seems I bite in only to find I’m masticating more dirt-poop. Ugh.
I loathe cauliflower, too. But… roast it. Chop up a head of cauliflower into popcorn-sized bits, toss with olive oil + salt, and into a 400+° oven for about 20-minutes until golden-brown. Completely, utterly different taste and texture (and, quite good).
Mind you, it makes your entire house smell strongly of sulfurous compounds, so best done when you can open the windows.
Pasta. It’s cheap, filling, and everybody thinks I’m weird.
I also really don’t much like anything that started from milk. I think pizza would be better without cheese, but nobody else does (but, please–no extra cheese if I’m sharing. Please?)
There are plenty of foods I don’t mind disliking: ground beef, blue cheese, mayonnaise, black licorice/anise/fennel, wine.
But I really wish I liked:
Cilantro. Yep, one of those genetic mutants who taste it as dirty dishwater. I wish I liked it because the way it’s described by those who do—clean, light, refreshing—sounds delightful.
Coffee. So bitter! I wish I liked it because those who do seem to get so much enjoyment out of a good cup of coffee. And because it smells really good.
Bananas. I eat them even though I hate them. Once in a while I’ll eat one when it’s my own perfect degree of ripeness, and then I won’t hate them. But on the whole I think they’re gross. Especially gross when in baked goods. I wish I liked them because they’re good for me and because people who love banana bread really LOVE banana bread.
More beer. I’ve lately realized that I kind of like wheat beer, and I’ve been enjoying the benefit of not always needing to get a cocktail (and, therefore, drunk) when I go out with people. But I wish I liked dark beer because… it just looks delicious.
Me, too. Makes the concept of “dieting” or having a salad for lunch a problem. 
My mother used to LOVE liver & onions. Until my liver resection. She saw what the surgeon took out of me. She won’t go near liver now. I find it amusing.
Mushrooms and olives. Either or both of those are found in SO many vegetarian foods. And in a lot of situations it’s hard enough to find vegetarian options at all, then add to that like 90% of them having mushrooms or olives, and it’s a wonder I don’t starve to death.
I love sage, so I feel bad for telling you this, but just step on the plant. If you want to be sneaky, cut into the stems near the ground. One spray of roundup should also work, but you’d have to be careful cwPartner doen’t try to eat any while the roundup is on it.
Mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs cooked other ways besides scrambled, and pickles come to mind. I don’t like many vegetables come to think of it…
Cottage Cheese. I want to like it. I buy it. I try loading it up with pineapple bits and such. But I wind up feeding it to my dogs. They love it.
I also hate cilantro but I’m okay with that, even though it is in my two favorite cuisines A LOT (Indian and Mexican). To me cilantro tastes the way your mouth tastes after you throw up. When I go out for Mexican food with my friends and they pile the raw cilantro high-high-high… it boggles my mind. They might as well be eating bugs…
I’m going to throw another vote in for mushrooms. I’m sorry - I know just about everyone loves them and it would be a lot easier to not have to order everything without them and double-check before I eat it (I claim allergy a lot, but I just hate the darn things). I have tried them over, and over, and over again - stuffed mushrooms, grilled mushrooms, raw mushrooms in salads, sauteed mushrooms. I cannot get past the spongy mouthfeel. It’s not the flavor, far from it - I use mushroom gravy and cream of mushroom soup in several dishes - it’s the fact that when I’m chewing on them I want to throw up. It is a fungus that grows on death and decay - how can people eat them so readily? shudder I didn’t even partake when my friends in college discovered the “magic” kind. But I can’t eat them.
Another vote for steak. I grew up on a cattle farm and we had steaks like other people eat hamburger, but I would MUCH rather have hamburger. I’ve never liked the flavor of steak no matter how it’s cooked; not crazy about the texture either (though pork chops are roughly the same and I like those). I hate going to people’s houses and they think it’s a treat to serve you T-bone or whatever and I’m wishing it was any kind of chicken, pork chops, or roast beef (also not a favorite but preferable to steak) even though I know it’s an expensive meal.
The closest I come to liking it is when I cook it for others: grilled after a long simmering in wine and olive oil and spices. I’d still rather have a Big Mac than the best porterhouse on Earth.
And wine. I really hate it when people offer me a glass of supposedly good or expensive wine: I have no palate and much prefer grape juice to any wine I ever tasted. Also not fond of beer.
There are two good ways to get in to dark beer: either work your way up the darkness scale starting with, say, amber ales, or try a style like schwarbier, a German lager that looks black but actually is pretty mild tasting.
Seafood. This would open up so many culinary adventures for me, but every kind I’ve tried, I’ve tolerated at best. Well, canned albacore tuna doesn’t really count, that’s not fishy in the least, and I can handle some shrimp dishes (mostly shrimp cocktail / fried shrimp). Anything else though, BLECH.
Mushrooms. Since I’ve failed in my efforts to have them STRICKEN FROM THE EARTH, I wish I could learn to like them. Nasty, slimy, leaving their foul taste on whatever they’ve touched. One friend who also dislikes them said “they’re first cousin to athlete’s foot”.
Boy, I wish I *could *eat a lot of the foods being described here. After diagnosis at the allergist last year, I’ve been avoiding wheat, corn (includes almost any processed food), yeast and mold (so no bread, alcohol, vinegar or mushrooms), barley, nightshades (including potato, tomato, eggplant, peppers, tobacco and belladonna), ragweed (including iceberg lettuce, raddichio, sunflower, and marigold), celery, carrots, cucumber, watermelon, shellfish, walnuts, and dust.
I still have some foods I dislike, and have always disliked, though now I feel badly for disliking anything. When I tell people about my allergies, then decline a food for disliking it, they give me this look like I can’t afford to be picky. So, I now get to eat almost exclusively at home since eating out “clean” is nearly impossible, and eating at someone’s house is burdensome. I also get to make almost everything I eat from scratch, since the vast majority of packaged foods have one or more allergens in them (damn and blast the ubiquity of sunflower oil in health foods!)
I guess I wish I liked mustard and/or liquorice, but then again I don’t, since my hatred of both these flavours borders on religious fervor.
My exact sentiments.
Milk.
I don’t care for milk. I grew up with milk on cereal, and that was tolerable primarily because of the sugar. Had to drink milk at school (only options with cafeterias were milk) and only made it because of chocolate milk.
I don’t drink milk. I don’t like milk. Ice cream is tasty, but I don’t care for the milk aftertaste (after the cold sweet is gone, there’s still a milky film). I think it would be nice to like milk. But I don’t.
I wish I liked a lot of things. If I listed them all this post would be very, very long. But some highlights:
- Fruit (don’t like any of it. Apples are tolerable but not something I would choose to eat).
- Raw vegetables.
- Yogurt.
- Coffee.
- Condiments (mustard, ketchup, mayo, pickles, etc.).
- Wine.
- Beer.
- Spicy food.
Those are the ones that are most problematic for me when I go out to eat with other people. It would make things a lot easier for me if I liked them. People always tease me about my rather bland food choices, and it sometimes gets a little annoying. But hey, I doubt I’m going to change after all these years.