I’m the sort of person whose initial response to a consensus that something is good is “well, it can’t really be that good.” People’s tastes, including mine, are base and arbitrary, and many things that we deem notable or praise worthy are the things that just happen to be in front of us at the time.
That said, a few years ago my wife and I went to Amsterdam. There are two things from that trip that surprised me with how much I enjoyed them:
Belgian fries. The “fries served in a paper cone” fad seems to have come and mostly gone in the states, and that, along with the occasional side of a garlic mayo, was what I associated with “Belgian fries”. I got some at a fry shop on a random corner, and was… pleasantly surprised. Good, thick fries (and fresh), and a great selection of sauces. I had never had a curry sauce on fries, which was a great. And the fries were not too salty. A perfect street food or on-the-go meal substitute. I also had mussels and fries for a meal and the fries were equally good. I feel like fries in America have devolved into super thin salt bombs.
Amsterdam itself. We went because it was a destination my wife was interested. I think years of rarely hearing Amsterdam referenced without including the red light district or their drug scene had me dismissive of the city in general. We had an amazing time… great food, museums, culture, and people. I hope to go back sometime.
Oooh, I just knocked a couple off my list last night. We went to the local Christmas Village (German-style Christkindlmarkt). I hadn’t ever had a raclette sandwich (broiled/melty raclette cheese scrapped over a baguette, with prosciutto, spring onions, dijon and cornichons) or glühwein (mulled German wine). I also had feuerzangenbowle, which is glühwein with rum.
I was a full 21 year old, living on my own adult before I tried sushi. The idea of eating raw fish sounded disgusting, not to mention possibly dangerous. No sushi for me!
That is, until I dated a girl who had a wide knowledge of pan-Asian cuisine (her father was a chef) and she introduced me to sushi, which I absolutely loved, and to this day is one of my favorite things to eat. I even like uni, which many people who like sushi draw the line at. I probably would have eventually tried sushi if I hadn’t dated her, but it might not have been for years after that.
I already figured I knew what to expect. I had seen it hundreds of times in photos and on TV.
Boy, was I wrong.
I remember thinking specifically “Holy shit, this is even more amazing than I thought it would ever look in real life”.
Photos don’t show you…TV cannot convey just how incredible it is. I already thought it looked great in photos. Well, that should tell you something.
Photos do not do it justice.
Snorkeling. I didn’t learn to swim until I was 50, so I never bothered to look into it.
I tried it last year in the Philippines with a young lady who could not swim and after having some drinks at the resort bar the bartender explained that her husband ran the resorts water excursion adventures and would guide us though it with life vest.
The next day we went out to see a giant clam bed (about 800 of them!) and then out to the reef to see the water life. We were beside ourselves, one of the best days of my life.
More recently: gumbo. What I thought I knew about gumbo was that it had okra in it and therefore I thought it would be slimy. My neice made gumbo for Saturday supper of the Thanksgiving weekend. It was delicious. (It also had no okra. But it was so good, I’d now be willing to (cautiously) try some with okra.)
On that note, mayo on French fries. I tried them that way when I was in Europe once, just because when in Rome… (actually I was in Athens, but you know the expression). It’s actually pretty good, and I kept eating them that way for the remainder of my trip. I reverted to putting ketchup on my fries when I got home, but I learned that I do like mayo on them, too.
Seconding this one. Or specifically guacamole. I never wanted to try it as a kid because I thought it just looked like green glop. But I finally tried it as an adult, and discovered it’s actually pleasantly creamy, and now I can’t have a burrito without it.
I was well into my adult years before I tried sushi. It was available at a Chinese buffet, Crazy Buffet in Chesapeake, Virginia, that I was trying for the first time. Tried some sushi and loved it, and now it’s one of my favorite things to eat.
For that matter, I didn’t eat Chinese food when I was a kid, either. I called it “sneaker food” because it smelled like feet to me. I like it now, though. My favorite is lo mein.
I had yogurt as a kid before the advent of all the sweetened varieties in the 60s. So I never tried them assuming that they were disgusting. Some time in the 70s I ate some out of politeness and discovered that it was great. Decades later there is invariably a tub of plain Greek yogurt in my fridge. I learned from this to be very suspicious of my automatic reactions to food and will try just about anything.
Thirded. In fairness, when I was a child, I had no idea there was such a thing as guacamole. Then, when I grew up and learned about it, it was just as you said: green glop. But my wife liked it, and could actually make it from scratch, and it was delicious. I’ve enjoyed it ever since.
Continuing the French fries theme, poutine was always presented as a weird thing those wacky Canadians did but, when I saw it on a pub menu and ordered a dish, it really hit the spot. I shouldn’t be shocked that potatoes, cheese and gravy was a winner but I’d only ever seen it referred to as some alien thing.
Edit: Amused to hop over to the parent thread and see people complaining about being disappointed in it. Coincidence, I swear!
And since In-N-Out Burger was mentioned in the other thread, the first time I tried In-N-Out burger after I moved to California I really liked it. I guess I can’t say I was “surprised” since there is so much hype around it, but to me it did indeed live up to the hype.
I think the In’n’Out hype really got going in an era when McDs, Burger King, & Wendy’s were decimating the ranks of one-off Mom n Pop burger joints and smaller regional chains all over the country.
So Cal was a big enough market, and one with a lot of pop media reach, such that its local hero could be the plucky chain that shows up the big boys. There were several prospering SoCal burger chains then, the mid-late 70s. As much by happenstance as by food quality In N Out won that battle.
Fast forward to 10-15 years ago. In’n’Out is very famous for being famous. It’s also still only a regional chain. Which means that despite the nationwide reach of social media, you can’t get one in Chicago. A Chicagoan can only get one when touristing in SoCal or a very few other touristy cities. Which means of course in the FOMO era they have to go get one when they do travel to a place that has In n Out.
Coors beer was legendary in the 1960s. But much more so where you could not buy it than where you could.
Now the last dozen years the hype is dying out, but us geezers keep repeating it as current gospel. And meanwhile other regional chains are expanding again. 5 Guys being one of them. They’re all pushing the same narrative: “We’re not bland cheap garbage burgers like McDs, BKs, or W”.
My bet is in 5 years we’ll all be wondering what the In n Out hype was all about. I grew up with them and ate an awful lot of them in HS & college. They were good by comparison to what else was on offer. Are they standout special in 2025? Heck no. When will the public notice that change? IMO 2030, maybe 2035.
Yeah. My family moved from LA to San Jose in 1979, when I was eight years old. Whenever I was back in the LA area, I’d eat at In-N-Out multiple times, since I missed it so much. Then in the mid '90s, the first In-N-Out opened in the South Bay Area. I went there a couple of times, and haven’t been back since.
Now I’m in Portland, and an In-N-Out is being built about a quarter-mile from my house. I may check it out, or I may not. I suspect it will always be ridiculously busy, which isn’t something I’ll want to deal with.