When I was a kid there were a lot of things that my folks made that I just could not eat. Sometimes it was textures, sometimes it was tastes, sometimes a combination of those. But you could have put a gun to my head and there’s a good chance I would not have been able to eat them. In several cases it involved my dad beating my ass with a belt because I couldn’t eat what they served. After a while I learned to chew stuff up and spit it in a napkin for later disposal if I found it particularly offensive. I’d choke down what I could.
As I grew older my sensibilities changed. Some of what my parents made, particulalry my mom, was just bad food. But I have a very sophisticated palate for food, I can taste ingredients and differences that many/most people would not notice. Now I’ve eaten many foods that I would never imagined eating back in the day… escargot, insects, sushi, innards, etc. Still can’t choke down calf’s liver, and prefer to avoid my parents’ meatloaf.
Because of those experiences, I just don’t bother with my son. I like to get him to at least try a nibble of things before he turns up his nose at it, but I know that certain (most) tastes and textures don’t appeal to him. Sometimes we just give him something different for dinner, sometimes we make him eat around us. For example, if we make phad bpai gaprow gai he just gets bits of chicken and rice. He is slowly coming around to some things on his own, like a few months ago when he blew us away by asking what shrimp tastes like, tried some fried shrimp, and decided he liked it. If I’d forced him to try shrimp, he’d have never gone for it. He still complains things have too much flavor and I keep meaning to test him to see if he’s a supertaster, but he is slowly expanding his list of acceptable foods.