Virgin Food Experiences: The first time you ever had...

In My Humble Opinion
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My virgin food experience tonight is lamb. I’ve never had lamb before, but hubby and I saw a recipe for Irish Stew that looked great! We bought the stuff, put it together, and it’s simmering right now.

I’m a little apprehensive about how it will taste. I’m really hoping this will be better than the first time I tried hummus. My friend Sue made her hummus with orange juice. I had to run over to the bushes and spit it out. On the other hand, the first time I ever ate steamed squash was a pleasant experience- crispy, with a hint of sweetness under the garlic butter.

So share your bad or good virgin food experiences!

FaerieBeth

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The first time I ever had pickled ginger, I was not in the immediate vicinity of any Japanese food, so I assumed it was cold cuts. Then I wondered why the cold cuts were spicy and crunchy. Blech.

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You’re in for a treat. Lamb is yummy. Irish stew is particularly yummy. You do have to be careful to get most of the fat off.

Hmmmm, my daughter is rather adventurous when it comes to fruits and veggies, and will frequently bring home stuff that I’ve never eaten from the grocery store.

I’d never eaten a pomegranate. THAT was an experience. We had no idea how to cut it open, or whether to eat the seeds. But we decided that we’d eat the pulp and spit the seeds, and even though it’s messy, we now have pomegranates somewhat regularly.

The mangoes were less of a success. We don’t know how to tell if a mango is ripe. I like mango flavor, so I’d probably enjoy fresh mango, but we always seem to get hard, bitter ones.

We either didn’t cook the fresh asparagus properly, or we just don’t like fresh asparagus as well as we like the canned stuff.

Yellow watermelons look odd, but I think that I like the flavor better than regular red watermelon.

I was prepared to enjoy venison, but MAN is it ever strong-flavored! No matter how well my husband field dresses it, I don’t like it. We’ve had it home-butchered and commercially processed. I don’t like it. For that matter, I don’t care for squirrel or (wild) rabbit. I guess I just don’t like that gamey flavor.

The first time I tasted flan (a Mexican dessert) I immediately fell in love.

I was up at a modfest in Chicago a couple of years back, and TubaDiva and C. K. Dexter Haven took me to a dim sum restaurant. We have a lot of “Chinese” restaurants in Fort Worth, but I don’t think that most of them are very authentic. At any rate, I’m not sure which dishes I had, other than potstickers, but I liked just about all of them. Even if I CAN’T eat with chopsticks! That’s one of my projects, one of these days I’m gonna learn to eat with chopsticks.

Sometimes I like new foods, sometimes I dislike them, but I’m almost always glad to try something new, if it’s something that I can eat without gastric distress. I can’t tolerate much black pepper at all, for instance, which means that I will never, EVER try a Pepper Pot.

4

I ate a persimmon for the first time a couple of days ago. I had always looked at them in the store and wondered how to eat them. Then I read some discussion here at the Straight Dope that made them seem a lot less formidable.

It was easy.

5

OH, and I forgot the time my daughter brought home a cleaned rainbow trout. She had no idea how to cook it. Neither did I, as I generally don’t care for fish, other than cod and tuna. My cat, however, was quite sure how she wanted it prepared…she wanted it put down in her supper dish! The cat knew that it was FISH, and she wanted some, she didn’t care if it was cooked or not. This cat also recognizes uncooked poultry. She knew I was defrosting a turkey breast in the fridge before Thanksgiving, and she wanted it.

Speaking of poultry, my daughter sometimes decides to cook a goose or a duck. I’ve tried duck several times, and I just don’t care for it. It’s mostly dark meat, and very bony. It’s all right for soup, but I don’t care for roast duck. At least I can say that I’ve given it a fair chance. Now, when my husband and daughter eat duck, I eat a ham steak, which THEY don’t much care for, and everyone’s happy. Especially the cat, as she gets scraps from the duck AND the ham.

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First time I tried shrimp.
Dinner after my parents “marriage”.
They’d been married long before, but this time in a church.

It was large and not breaded. looked horrid.
Tasted horrid.
I tried the red sauce dip,which was good,but it didn’t improve the shrimp, which I have never eaten since and won’t.

First time I tried brown rice, i didn’t like it. Second time, I did.

First time I had broccolli(age 21) I loved it!
Still do!

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Luckily, the recipe specified that, so my faithful Corgis got an extra treat tonight!

I, too, have never had good luck with mangoes. The second try made my tongue swell up and itch!

**
My hubby, Stonebow is a venison virgin. I can tolerate it if it’s well roasted with lots of mushrooms and brown gravy. He has several young men working for him who hunt a lot, though, so he may get to try it this winter.

Other first time foods I left out in the OP:

Sushi was, um, icky. I know this makes me less cosmopolitan, but darn it! It was just way too fishy tasting. I tried California rolls that same night and could tolerate them, but the seaweed still tasted pretty much like low tide smells.

Creme Brulee was divine! I had a rose flavored one on Valentine’s Day several years ago at Circa (restaurant in downtown Philly).

My husband’s family is West Indian, so he made West Indian Curry for me. I don’t think I liked it, plus it made my house smell funny.
FB

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Is that something that usually happens with mangoes? It happened to me, plus swollen eyes and lips and a rash. I was pretty sure that meant I was allergic to them …

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You’re not going to believe this:

pizza – age 18
sour cream – age 20
shrimp – age 23
ketchup – age 25

It took a while to develop a taste for the cocktail shrimp, but the rest had successful debuts. I tell my grandchildren that I am older than pizza, but actually we didn’t know about it in the rural South of the 1950’s. Sour cream sounded horrible. It reminded me of the soured milk we would get from the dairy from time to time. One taste on a baked potato and I was hooked for life. Once I tried fried shrimp I understood what the fuss was about.

Ketchup was on our table all the time when I was growing up. But it looked yucky – especially when my sister put it on eggs. Once I used it on French fries in college, I couldn’t get enough. I remember leaving class to get still more one day.

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The first time I ever ate broccoli, as a little girl, it was with cheese sauce. No, let me rephrase – it was with Cheez Whiz globbed all over the top of it. Generic Cheez Whiz. I thought it was absolutely disgusting, but I didn’t realize that my objection was to the crap on the top of it, so I refused to eat broccoli for years. I was in high school before I had a nice, lightly steamed, lightly buttered piece of broccoli and realized that it was delicious.

The first time I ate mango I also had an interesting experience of itching, swelling and all of that yada yada. I’ve since learned that sensitivity to tropical fruits like that often goes part and parcel with a sensitivity or allergy to latex, which I also have. I’ve also learned that people who have reactions to mangos, papaya, avocados, kiwis or bananas should check with their physicians about latex problems just in case they should ever be in an emergency medical situation. A perceptive nurse who asked me about food reactions to tropical fruit probably saved my life when I had surgery a few years back. I’m forever grateful.

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Bagels and cream cheese I discovered on my own when I was a kid. Needless to say, yum. My best friend (who was Puerto Rican)'s mom made some dish with haddock and avocados, deeelish.

Thai food almost made me cry the first time (in a good way).

Same for Indian.

I just had edamame for the first time back in July and it was great.

I didn’t appreciate Ugli fruit. The chitlins didn’t go so well. Actually, I didn’t even eat them, the smell made me want to puke. BUT, I wonder if they were bad? Are they supposed to smell nasty?

12

The first time I ever ate broccoli, as a little girl, it was with cheese sauce. No, let me rephrase – it was with Cheez Whiz globbed all over the top of it. Generic Cheez Whiz. I thought it was absolutely disgusting, but I didn’t realize that my objection was to the crap on the top of it, so I refused to eat broccoli for years. I was in high school before I had a nice, lightly steamed, lightly buttered piece of broccoli and realized that it was delicious.

The first time I ate mango I also had an interesting experience of itching, swelling and all of that yada yada. I’ve since learned that sensitivity to tropical fruits like that often goes part and parcel with a sensitivity or allergy to latex, which I also have. I’ve also learned that people who have reactions to mangos, papaya, avocados, kiwis or bananas should check with their physicians about latex problems just in case they should ever be in an emergency medical situation. A perceptive nurse who asked me about food reactions to tropical fruit probably saved my life when I had surgery a few years back. I’m forever grateful.

13

:eek: Things are beginning to fall into place. Maybe that is why my hands swell when I handle certain types of shopping bags. Thanks you so much for bringing this to my attenition, I’m going to have it checked out ASAP.

14

My first meeting with mangoes was fresh off a tree in India. Kind of a strange taste, but pretty good. And I really enjoyed the mango milkshakes I had later on the trip. I also experienced fresh coconut, including the milk right out of the meat, and curry for the first time on that trip. I didn’t know what curry was supposed to be like, so it was quite a surprise. :stuck_out_tongue:

15

I first tasted Nutella when visiting my aunt and cousins in Germany. This was 1980, I was in junior high, and I don’t think Nutella was available in the US yet. I was astonished: spreads like peanut butter but tastes like chocolate? Where had this been all my life?

I didn’t become an addict or anything, but there’s a jar of Nutella in my cupboard today. It has Kobe Bryant’s picture on it. Should I save it as a collector’s item?

16

First time I tried coffee was when I was ~10 y.o. on a beach. No milk, no sugar and straight out of a thermos at near boiling temperature.

Didn’t try it again until I at 18.

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The first time I had Calimari (fried squid) was about six months ago at a Persian restaurant in London. I loved it, and now I feel I must go back there to have it again. Pity I live about 150 miles away. :frowning:

As for mangos, I’ve eaten those for as long as I can remember. The green, firm ones tend to be rather tangy, and the best way to eat those is to slice them up (around the stone, discard the stone!), refrigerate for an hour, and then sprinkle with a mixture of chilli powder and salt. Absolutely divine. The sweet mangoes tend to be the Alphonso and Kesri types, and are yellow in colour. The Alphonso and Kesri mango season tends to run from late June until mid-August, and its at this point that they’re at their best. I like slicing the mango up, sprinkling liberal amounts of sugar on them, putting them in the fridge for a couple of hours, and then eating. You’ll have to go a long way to find a better, sweeter desert.

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Notable virgin experiences:

Crispy Aromatic Duck: my English teacher took a friend and I out for a Chinese meal and ordered this for us. It was such an intense and delicious experience that I nearly cried.

Truffle: my anniversary this year. The most complex and interesting taste I’ve ever experienced. Wouldn’t want too much of it, but good God I understand why people bang on about it so much.

Wasabi: On a flight from Portland, OR to Tokyo. I thought it was a little candy. I put the entire flower-shaped blob in my mouth and chewed. Then ran up and down the aisle of the plane with tears streaming out of my eyes, trying to find the toilet to spit it out.

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At a restaurant in Death Valley, I once decided to try the canape of pureed rattlesnake. Not bad at all. . . tasted a bit like chicken. :wink:

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Sunny Delight
I was walking downtown several years ago and people were giving away free samples of Sunny D; barely a sip, but more enough.

First contact with the substance was when I started to feel the enamel being dissolved off my teeth. 'Twas not a pleasant experience, and I pondered whether to spit or swallow. Since I was in a crowded street I thought it would be un-gentlemanly to spit and swallowed.
As briefly as the slurry trickled upon my tongue, it managed to infiltrate my papillae like burning acid. The vile substance rushed passed my throat, which, besieged, responded by producing instantly vast amounts of mucus.
For a split second, I thought the ordeal was over but alas, when the liquid reached my stomach, evil things started to brew - and Lord did they ever brew.

Smelly tofu
West Lake causeway, Hangzhou, China, summer 2000. I really wanted to like this, after all, I had just been served one of the most exquisite dishes I had ever been served: beggar’s chicken. (Stuffed chicken wrapped in lotus leaves and clay and slowly baked - to die for.)

In true banquet form, we sat twelve at the table. Each of were enthusiastic gourmets eager to try something new. Upon whiffing the aroma of the smelly tofu, six called it quits; “I’m not putting that shit in my mouth,” they cried. The remaining six braves replied: “oh, come on, it can’t possibly taste like it smells!”

We ate, we chewed, we… swallowed. And through it all we kept our composure. “So, what does it taste like?” the cowards asked. We didn’t know quite what to tell them. “It’s a bit hard to describe” said one. “I can’t really liken it to anything” said another. Then, Seamus spoke. Seamus had a way with words. “I know what this tastes like. It tastes like sheep shit. That’s what it tastes like, eh.”
We objected, of course, but deep down inside, we all knew Seamus was right.