My sister and I HATED sloppy joes. But for some reason my mom would still make them. I remember one time she served them (I was probably 7, my sister 5) and we did not want to eat them. Not even one bite. Now my parents were not hard-asses. They were quite the opposite but they must have been at the end of their rope that day. We were told that we were to stay at the table until we ate our sloppy joes. Never had such words been said to us! We were devastated. After my mom, dad and our youngest sister left the table we sat by ourselves and stared at our plates. We must have sat there for a half hour. My sister took a nibble and promptly threw up. Seeing her throw up made me throw up. That was the end of that. Never again were we told we had to eat our sloppy joes.
We both love sloppy joes now. We both make them for our families and they are often the main dish at get togethers. I have no idea when we decided we liked them. Maybe teenagers.
Brussels sprouts have changed flavor. Years ago Heinz did a poll and found they were America’s most hated vegetable. This led to growers trying to breed the nastiness out of them and they now taste better to most people.
Goya white butter beans in a can - drain, rinse. Cook some bacon and crumble, stir the beans around in the grease for a bit to heat, and top with the bacon. Just excellent. I make this every so often (though it doesn’t agree with my digestion).
One of my favorite childhood meal stories: my mom made instant mashed potatoes. Yeah, horrible, but I could choke them down if I had enough butter. My brother (probably 7 or so at the time) however said he couldn’t eat them or he’d throw up. My mom made him eat a few bites, and he threw up. I don’t think she forced food on any of us after that. Not that we refused much.
I hate Shepherd’s Pie, but my wife wondered if it was just my Mom’s recipe for it. I’ve never tried it again as an adult, but I remember it mainly just being ground beef(with juices) on top of Mashed Potatoes.
Actually, I meant to come back to this! It’s shepherd’s pie if it contains lamb; cottage pie if it contains beef. @burpo, it’s the pie belonging to the shepherd! Cottage pie, I assume, means you must build a little house with it.
Foodwise, most of mine have have already been mentioned. Onions, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, beer. Discovering I actually like raw onion on certain things was probably the biggest revelation. For the longest time I just assumed I didn’t like raw onion, and picked it off of anything that came with it. They I discovered a few years ago that some red onion in a Greek salad, or a thin slice on a burger, can be really good.
Oh, sauerkraut, I don’t think sauerkraut has been mentioned yet in this thread. I don’t think I exactly hated it so much as refused to even try it as a kid. But after I did try it as an adult mustard and sauerkraut has become my standard topping for hot dogs and brats.
From what I understand there is an actual reason people start to like foods they didn’t like as kids – your sense of taste becomes less sensitive as you age, so foods with strong flavors start to taste better. Especially things with bitter flavors, like broccoli, and hoppy beers. (And as has already been mentioned, Brussels sprouts actually taste different now due to selective breeding over the past 20 years or so).
On a different note, as a kid / teenager I didn’t like Cheers and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I was probably too young for Cheers when it was in its original run, and most of the jokes went over my head. And as a teenager I preferred the “monster of the week” format of TNG over the political and religious intrigue on DS9. Only from rewatching them on streaming as an adult did I realize what good shows they actually were.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention avocados, and by extension guacamole. I think they were another one of those things I just refused to try, because I thought that green, mushy stuff looked gross. Turns out I actually like them.