One bite of sweet potatoes would make me want to vomit when I was a child. Now they’re merely disgusting. Back then, I didn’t like liver, Brussels sprouts, and black olives. I still don’t like them. I know my taste buds have faded somewhat and many things don’t have as strong a flavor as they used to. It makes me wonder just how terrible cilantro would have tasted when I was a child, since it’s positively awful now.
Raw tomatoes
Eggplant
Brussels sprouts
Cabbage in general
Less than well-done meat
Mayo (We were a Miracle Whip family)
Mom never was a very good cook. Pedestrian to fit my father’s tastes (or lack thereof) but always ready and filling. But as I grew older I started enjoying foods that weren’t so…plain or boiled to death and beyond. For the last several decades I’ve come to adore spicy/hot/intense flavors as well as those offered by properly prepared vegetables.
I never would eat my vegetables growing up. Now I like them.
I was never a picky eater as a kid, but there were certain textures I didn’t like at all: cooked mushrooms or onions, cooked broccoli, raw tomatoes, bananas. Raw mushrooms or broccoli were fine, I just didn’t like when the crispness was cooked out of it.
I outgrew this almost completely. I love a good mushroom saute, but I’m still not crazy about the texture of bananas. I’ve also noticed that as I get older I’m drawn more to the savory and bitter flavors: mustard, olives, capers, all kinds of pickled vegetables.
I’m really glad to see that other people like pretty much all foods. For a while there I thought I was alone in that respect.
I suppose there were some foods that I didn’t like as a kid. Green olives, onions, maybe a few other strong-tasting vegetables. Now I like almost everything.
The only food I sort of dislike is shrimp, which I used to like. If I’m having Chinese food, I won’t order anything with shrimp in it; if a few stray shrimp find their way onto my plate, I’ll generally pick them out and offer them to someone who likes them. Sometimes I’ll just eat them, but they don’t inspire any enjoyment or revulsion in me.
There are a few foods that I don’t eat or seek out nearly as much as I used to. I’ll go months at a time without having chocolate, and I have ice cream maybe once or twice a year. I still like them a lot, but not enough to justify the calories.
I now love all kinds of cheese. When I was a kid, anything other than American was too sharp (white American was best).
In the other direction, I loved hot dogs with ketchup and sweet pickle relish. Obviously I was a disgusting ageusiatic as a child.
I no longer have the sweet tooth I used to, though I eat sweets occasionally. But I don’t crave it anymore. I’ve had a small container of lemon ice cream in the freezer for at least half a year, untouched…
Nowadays I tend to lean towards spicy/sour/salty. We have a lot of hot sauce in our house. And cucumbers in vinegar with a bit of hot sauce? Yum.
Reminds me of when I, with fond memories, sat down to eat a bowl of Frosted Flakes. The first bite was nice but by the third mouthful. . … How could I have eaten that bowlful of liquid sugar with such enjoyment?
I wonder what Captain Crunch would taste like today?
“Ageusiatic”. What a mellifluous word. Lets make that our word of the day.
As a kid, I enjoyed candy and baked goods. As an adult, I eat virtually no sweets. It isn’t a health issue; I just don’t have a taste for those things any more.
I loved Campbell’s Chicken Noodle-O’s when I was a kid. One time in my early 30’s I bought a can just to see if I still liked it. I literally had to spit it out then dump the rest because it was waaayyy too salty.
We drank Kool-Aid or Freshie every single day as kids (with it’s 1 cup of sugar per jug!) I took a sip of Kool-Aid as an adult and just couldn’t do it.
without a thorough examination of my life at this time in the morning.
while i still like corn, now i like it less.
i do now like brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli.
I believe I’ve mentioned this once or twice but my mother was a truly terrible cook. If it didn’t come out of a box with explicit instructions it wasn’t edible by anyone with taste buds. I thought I hated vegetables when I was a kid. Turns out I just hate vegetable mush. I’ve also found that all meat is not tough and dry requiring lakes of gravy just to chew it enough to swallow. Just to put this in perspective, the food at basic training was delicious to me.
As far as “other” cuisines my options as a child were not widely available, so I didn’t try much. As an adult I’m not fond of very hot dishes of any variety. I like a little spice but once it starts burning my throat I’m out. I’ve never been able to find a way of preparing parsnips that I like and I still have a little issue with raw fish. I’ve tried other types of sushi but as I also dislike to seaweed wraps I’m pretty much a pain in a sushi restaurant.
Learned it from Cecil. along with anosmic. Which I’m not.
I grew up in a university community, so was exposed to all kinds of different ‘ethnic’ foods as a child. I learned to love all kinds of off-the-wall food but didn’t care for many of the things that ‘regular’ children love. I loved fresh tomatoes, but hated anything with tomato sauce - spaghetti marinara, pizza, etc. I didn’t care for macaroni and cheese, either. I thought it was much too bland. Same for mashed potatoes. I also didn’t care for mayonnaise or sour cream.
Since my parents were also part of the ‘cook it until it’s incinerated’ generation, I thought I didn’t like beef until I had medium rare prime rib in a restaurant and was enlightened. I can’t think of a vegetable I didnt like, but wasn’t fond of mango, papaya and don’t even get me started on durian fruit. I liked candy, but have never been much of a sweets eater. What really got me going as a snack food was movie popcorn, which I still adore to this day.
I’ve gotten over 99% of these issues as an adult. I am a very catholic eater and there are few things I avoid. I don’t eat sushi because I can’t get past the concept of raw protein, not because it doesn’t taste good. And I don’t eat liver or tongue or kidney because of the texture of organ meat which I find off-putting.
I think I’m just generally open to more things, mostly vegetable-related. I enjoy brussels sprouts, green beans, spinach-- all things I wouldn’t touch when I was a kid.
I still hate seafood of all kinds, though. Blergh.
I didn’t hate seafood as a child, but I didn’t see what the big deal was either. That’s because in West Texas at that time, seafood meant Long John Silver’s. Then I discovered seafood in San Francisco and other coastal areas. Much better.
I’ve never been a picky eater, but it seems like my sense of taste has changed over the years.
As a kid, raw onions were overpoweringly oniony and funky, and more spicy than I liked. I’ve never liked raw tomatoes, sweet potatoes or winter squash either- they all have a sort of musky funky taste that I don’t like.
But as time’s gone on, I don’t have nearly such a problem with raw onions and tomatoes. Still don’t like sweet potatoes or summer squash.
In the other direction, I loved liverwurst as a kid, but don’t really enjoy it anymore. Too organ-meaty.
In general, I think I’ve moved toward stronger tasting things and more heat in my food than when I was younger; some of that’s just taste evolution, and part is because my parents aren’t big spicy or strong flavored food types, and I just didn’t get them or learn how to cook them until I was older.
Been diabetic for 30 years - and in general make my food from scratch. I will occasionally try something from childhood - spaghetti-os, ragu spaghetti sauce, whatever brand frozen pizza my brother eats, commercial salad dressing … it is amazing how overly sugary everything tastes. I also am genetically programmed to hate cilantro, and am also a supertaster - but oddly enough a lot of the veggies that most supertasters hate, I like because I like bitter/sour/salt much more than sweet. I find that if the veggies are cooked properly and not cooked into a mush the bitter is nice and contrasts with the rest of the flavor profile.