On the plus side, I don’t think anyone would really consider those “normal.” They’re pretty niche-market.
My peer group (baby boomers living in L.A., the relatively “cool” parts.) evidently think that raw fish is all that.
I think raw fish is just about the most revolting thing you could ever put in front of me to eat. I barely tolerate the idea of cooked fish.
So my answer would be “sushi”.
For everyone who has listed green beans: canned ones taste like garbage and are NOTHING like fresh. The fresh ones are crunchy, and almost a little tough (but in a good way) … in other words they have a texture that is not mushy. Perhaps the next time you are at a Chinese type restaurant, try some if they are on the menu. Generally they will be cooked with onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, and soy sauce.
I recently discovered this with brussels sprouts. I always just assumed they were gross, because the ones I had seen were slimy and snotty looking. I had some cooked properly, and WOW. Very rich and almost meaty, in a way. Seriously one of the best things I had eaten in quite some time. The same person who cooked them for me also had me try a dish composed primarily of beets. Didn’t work. Still tasted like dirt.
I don’t like plain chocolate chip cookies. The dough is great, but once they are cooked … blech.
Olives will trigger my gag reflex. I can’t think of anything more disgusting. Usually, I understand why people like foods that I generally dislike. But anybody eating olives really perplexes me.
Tomato sauce.
Cherries.
I’m another one who doesn’t really like cake. Brownies and cookies and, especially, pie, I love, but I always end up taking a bite or two of cake and thinking that I don’t really want to waste that many calories on something I’m not enjoying all that much.
Green peppers do bad and lingering things to my digestive system. Only the green ones, though, I can eat red, orange or yellow ones just fine.
Spaghetti. I’ll eat it, and I make it for the family, but I really can’t fathom all the fuss that other people make about it. I’d never order it in a restaurant.
Raw tomatoes used to be at the top of my ick list when I was a kid. Now I can enjoy a really good one (I just had a tomato, basil, and mozzarella salad for lunch), but the pale, styrofoam ones go in the trash.
I like cake, but have little use for chocolate cake. It’s not on my ick list, but I just don’t care for it. Same goes for chocolate shakes, pudding, brownies, and stuff like that. Actual chocolate, though, is divine, and mole sauce is food of the gods.
I eat pretty much anything, and I find some of the previous responses pretty bizarre (to each his own, eh?). Still, if I had to list my dislikes:
Licorice - boggles my mind that people actually enjoy that flavor. I find it revolting.
Melons - I don’t really like them, but if I eat one by accident (like in fruit salad), I just grimace and go on.
That’s it for me.
I am shocked and amazed to find that I, arguably the pickiest eater evar actually like a great many things listed here. The thing is, not liking, say, green peppers isn’t likely to earn scorn from the public at large. They’re very easy to avoid and not ubiquitous like cheese. It seems one cannot go anywhere without cheese being foisted on them and I will absolutely not eat anything with cheese on it (except pizza and that’s only if it’s mozzerella and not any of them there fancy cheeses). And amen on the potato salad/coleslaw/whatever disgusting mayonnaise concoctions hate. Foulness in a plastic tub is what it is.
Wow. 88 posts, and I’m gonna be the first to say it.
Chocolate.
Any and all freshwater fish. I grew up going to fish-frys every summer (people in central Illinois tend to get quite excited when someone’s having a fish-fry), which led to several nights going to bed hungry in my childhood because my choices were catfish: take it, or leave it.
Most saltwater fish (unless it’s in sushi). NOTE: I like ocean shellfish, like shrimp & such, but not, you know, fish.
Beer.
Cantaloupe.
Rhubarb.
Greens (turnip, collard, mustard, etc.).
Most beans and bean-based products.
How about sushi that involves cooked seafood, or sushi that doesn’t involve any seafood? Do you eat that at all?
Bacon.
My friends and family think I am insane but it just makes me want to throw up.
There is a story though. I used to love bacon. Until…I was a teenager and would go out and share more than a few pints with my friends. My dad would notice my intoxicated state and not tell my mom (who hates drinking in all its forms). He would just quietly get up the next morning, grab a pound of bacon and cook it up. The smell would wander through the house. My untrained hungover self would throw up repeatly. When I would finally emerge from the bathroom, my dad would just give me a knowing smile.
Brownies.
Coleslaw.
Cauliflower.
And people, sushi does not equal raw fish! That’s sashimi.
Yup, sushi is just qualified by the vinegared rice.
I used to know someone who refused to eat Japanese food. She thought that every meal was a live fish flopping around on your plate. And she’d claim “I don’t like raw fish” when in fact she’d never tried it.
I eventually turned her into a sushi addict, though.
Mashed potatoes. I hate them to death and everybody thinks I’m crazy/makes fun of me.
It’s my dad’s favorite food, so I’m not quite sure how that happened.
tdn, you should have boggled her with tamago nigiri.
I never hated them, but didn’t start liking them until I was well into adulthood. I love potatoes baked and fried and scalloped, but mashed or boiled, not so much. Now I like them and will happily eat them if they are served.
Fish, although I had some swordfish at a swank restaurant in San Antonio that tasted like steak, so that was OK. Canned tuna fish makes me retch (as does canned cat food).
Shell fish. I have eaten mussels and they tasted OK, but the look of them grosses me out. Deep fried soft shell crab with home made tarter sauce was good, but I could get it out of my head that I was eating a giant cockroach. I don’t do shrimp and lobster (although I will cook them for my wife).
Eggs. I have been known to eat stuff like quiche and I once screwed up making some stuffing so that it turned out like a frittata that was pretty good, but generally, no. I don’t like the sulphur.
Fruit. I love citrus fruit and dried fruit is ok, especially in breads, and I can deal with good apples, but I am not fond of most berries (unless they are wild). Bananas are awful.
Cheese. I don’t mind it in stuff (as long as it is not runny), but I wouldn’t eat it plain.
Alcohol. I hate drinking, but I love toasting. Isn’t it ironic?
Greens. Baby greens are OK as is lettuce and cabbage, but most leafy greens are too bitter for me. Properly cooked collard greens and ham hocks are sublime though.
It’s cool to see I’m not as picky an eater as I thought, and that many others share my dislike - like green peppers, and zucchini, and liver (actually how did anyone think liver is healthy for you - yeah it’s got iron, and lots of toxic junk too).
Also people mentioned the condition of serving - for me, ice cold milk is quite tasty, while lukewarm milk is bleh.
But a great day in my life was when I learned you can order White Castle burgers WITHOUT onions (a worthless, foul plant which needs to go extinct today) - now, I fear somehow onions must still be involved (as they are in seemingly in 99% of all food products nowadays, including Ice Cream and Orange Juice I think), but a White Castle burger without those slimely little foul tasting smelly scuzz-strips is actually…fairly tasty, believe it or not, and do not have aftertastes or other more serious bodilyafter-effects - it’s great, and I highly recommend it.
I long ago adopted this concept for Chinese food and Philly Cheese-steaks, but alas the wonderful Philadelphia term “without” - meaning no damn onions and no damn peppers - has not carried over to the New York area, meaning you must repeat in a loud voice “no onions and no peppers” a minimum three times at the counterperson, to get at least a 50% chance of no onions and no peppers (otherwise I send it right back, with a glower - they always get it right since they are now eating the costs of messing up).