But it tastes awesome. Limburger cheese. Fish sauce (in e.g. Pad Thai). Other examples?
Extra credit for a recipe using fish sauce and limburger cheese. 
I’ve never quite understood how something doesn’t taste like it smells, smell being such a large component of taste. The foods you mentioned taste, to me, like they smell. Luckily, I happen to like or at least appreciate the way they smell. I had the same line pulled on me when I ate surstromming (a fermented fish “delicacy,” the foulest stench I’ve ever encountered in a foodstuff.) No, it tastes exactly like it smells, like a cross between a rotting corpse and dogshit.
Tea. (Lipton)
Aroma is awful, the taste nearly gags me.
.
Like pulykamell, I actually like the way Nước chấm smells and tastes (due to the amount of Viet Namese refugees and descendants thereof here in France, it’s the most generically available fish sauce 'round here). It’s just the fabrication process I’d really, really like to not know about :).
I also share his revulsion at fermented fish in brine. I once was bold enough to try lutefisk. Never, ever again. It’s like someone had the bright idea to make piss-flavoured rubber. The way the horrible taste matches the ghastly texture and consistence to perfection is dang near genius. Evil genius.
Also, that horrible brew y’all drink, coffee, is just a huge no to me. It smells horrible (and isn’t it just *awesome *how long that smell carries on your breath ? yeah…) and everything flavored with it is just so much bitter disgusting garbage to me.
I guess re-reading the subject line, I did misunderstand the OP, as he is saying that the food stuffs tastes like they smell, but I guess I don’t understand something smelling awful, tasting as it smells, but that taste being “awesome.”
Truffles probably fall into that category. As I think I’ve recounted before, I was making a truffle tarte for a girlfriend who had never encountered them before, and when I took the lid off the jar she looked startled and said “something is terribly wrong”. It tastes how it smells, but it tastes awesome - she loved the tarte.
sauerkraut (shudder)
Durian. Game. Set. Match.
My #1 food that smells great (and looks great, and makes you feel great) that tastes awful is coffee. No wonder people put so much into it just to get it down.
I still don’t understand how Limburger is so popular. I would sniff it in the supermarket, like a toddler smelling his finger after scratching his asshole, thinking “it must taste better than it smells, which is like a greasy Taco-Bell fart…” One day I tool the plunge and bought it, and it tasted EXACTLY like it smelled, and exactly as awful.
How the hell is this so popular? It’s in every supermarket in the country! Is there a large segment of the population filming “Two Girls One Cheese” type flicks in their basements?
I can’t explain. It smells terrible, tastes like it smells, but I love it! Maybe something to do with the texture?
I don’t have any sense of smell, but I’ve always heard that Limburger stinks. I figured, if it smells so bad but people eat it anyway, it must taste good, so I got some and tried it.
It has an odd aftertaste, but it wasn’t awful. I wouldn’t buy it again, but I’d eat it if it was served to me.
My father used to RAVE about limburger cheese. If he ever accompanied anyone to the grocery store he’d pick up a package, smell it, and look orgasmic. Whenever my mother would be out of town or away from home he’d promise the kids that he’d treat them to limburger cheese. Then when it actually happened, we’d learn the ugly truth.
I don’t know if he really liked it or just like the reaction he’d get from the kids. How can anyone eat something that smells like sweaty gym socks?
Mmm, limburger. Wonderful stuff. After eating some of that, I’m actually tempted to try to eat my socks. 'Cause they smell so much alike, how can my socks not taste awesome on a baguette?
Maybe gin? (I love it, it tastes like it smells, and its smell can definitely make you cringe)
Rio by Duran Duran. Wait, I was looking for the “it smells like it sounds” thread.
Quoth Dung Beetle:
Appropriate, given your user name.
Oops! nm
Well, I can possibly conceive of a fondue of not only Limburger and Fish sauce, but garlic and anchovie as well. Maybe a blend of a small wheel of true limburger, Asiago, and Fontina, added to a base of sweet roasted garlic, fish sauce, and anchovies done with some olive oil and a bit of Sambuca, Kirsch, or wine. Dip some decent bread and sausage in there.
My husband and I were discussing this a little while ago…cheese is one of those foods that you smell before buying/eating it, and the worse it smells, the better the cheese is likely to be. A friend of ours was repulsed by the smell of a local cheese we had (I don’t remember what it was) but we convinced him to try it - turns out he loved it, but couldn’t figure out why!