I love the smell of fresh coffee before it’s brewed. But I hate the taste. It’s too bitter, no matter how much I try to sweeten it. I also love the smell of fresh-cut onions, but I can only eat them in onion rings or White Castle burgers.
What about you? What foods do you love the smell of, but the thought of eating them turns your stomach?
Pumpkin pie.
Pumpkin spice anything.
The frosting on cinnamon rolls keeps me away from them, but they make the house smell great when the wife makes a batch.
Roasted chestnuts: they smell nice but taste like library paste.
Popcorn - love the smell but it’s nothing but a third tier choice for a salt and butter delivery vehicle.
OK, I can’t say I hate the taste, but: chips/french fries. They smell great - actually, way beyond great if it’s the smell of a fish and ship shop on a cold winter’s day - but the taste is invariably a severe disappointment.
j
Coffee for me too. I love the aroma but have never been able to drink it. My husband always lets me open the new container of coffee so I can get the first whiff!
The general smell of Mexican food is very appealing but aside from the spices, I don’t like most of the individual elements, i.e. cheese, refried beans, sour cream, guacamole. I wish I liked it.
Cotton candy and many other super sweet things. Sugar is a yummy smell but actually super sweet things are nauseating to me.
Oh, that’s a good one. I was struggling to find something, but roasted chestnuts fit the bill for me. I used to live in Budapest, and come Christmas season, you’d have vendors all over the city roasting and selling their chestnuts. The smell was enticing. The eating? Not so much. Like a blander version of a potato.
I tried several times over several years to see if my opinion changed. Nope. Just bland, mealy mush.
Walked by an ice cream shop yesterday and smelled the homemade waffle cone smell. It smelled great, but I’m not an actual fan of waffle cones. (it’s too strong to say I hate the taste.)
Exactly. Smell lovely, especially if roasted over an open fire (schmaltzy crooner music notwithstanding).
Taste like nasty. But at least they can burn the crap outta your mouth at the same time. So they have that going for them!
I don’t hate the taste but strawberries always smell way better than they taste. I always find the taste pretty blah.
Freshly baked bread smells amazing…but in the end it’s just bread. I don’t love bread, I don’t hate it, but I don’t understand the need to bake it at home because in the end all you get is bread…one of the most bland, boring foods around.
Liver. Ultimate bait and switch.
Dan
Another vote for coffee.
And it’s not a foodstuff, but while I understand the appeal of tobacco, smoking the stuff is not for me.
And another vote for coffee. Smells great, but I’ve never been able to take more than a sip. In my entire life, I’ve likely consumed less than a few tablespoons of it.
I’m not sure if this totally fits the OP, but popcorn. It’s not so much that I don’t like the taste, it’s that I can’t stand the hulls getting caught in my throat. I don’t like it happening while I eat it and I don’t like coughing them up hours later. At some point in my life, I realized it was just easier not to eat it.
Similarly, even if I liked the taste of oatmeal in cookies, all those little pieces getting caught in my throat is the reason I never ate them.
This is probably weird, but for me it’s wine. I love the smell of several aged fruity wines as well as several meads, but the taste never delivers from those hints. Now, I’m sure I don’t have the worlds best palate, and I’ve tried aeration, temperature and the like, and still never found more than a few wines that deliver on their promise. Now a good hard apple cider gives you apples in the nose, and apples in the mouth. 
I totally forgot about wine. I’m almost the same way. The only thing is that I have yet to find a wine that I actually like. I find them all disgusting.
Put me down for roasted chestnuts. Actually chestnut anything. I’ll eat them if they are part of a meal (such as venison, red kraut, mushrooms), but I refuse to eat chestnut vermicelli anymore.
I will generally not like wines and spirits that have too much oaky smell.