Tea was my caffeine gateway drug at age 3. By 5 I was a hardcore coffee junkie.
broccoli, I loved braunschweiger/liverwurst but I can’t eat actual liver, steak, bbq, and lobster oh and sardines as long as they’re in oil or water … I’m told I started eating off the adult meant at restaurants when I was about 8 or so
I am told that I liked mushrooms until I started kindergarten, where I learned that I shouldn’t like them.
Also liked, and still do, pickled beets, pickled eggs and smoked oysters.
Got in trouble in 5th grade for sampling the vinegar for the science experiment. Was yummy.
Never had black olives or eggplant at home when I was little - neither parent likes them. Maybe I would have liked them then, who knows?
Me too. Raw or cooked. But canned is right out. Also: Brocolli. Raw or cooked. Both since as far back as I can remember.
The high school kids I used to work with were mostly Chinese immigrants. When we went out to lunch as a group, they always rejected the Chinese restaurants. They wanted burgers or pizza.
I loved to drink Schweppes Bitter Lemon. My mom didn’t hide it, thinking we wouldn’t like it. Well, I liked it!
I also loved all vinegary foods…anything pickled. Pickled beets, pickled herring ***, pickled mushrooms, Yum.
*** I had to buy the pickled herring for myself, because when my mom was a kid, her family once had nothing to eat for an entire month but a barrel of pickled herring. She refused to eat it as an adult.
Another person here who was raised being fed whatever Mom or Dad cooked, with no option to not eat it. So I grew up liking liver and onions (with bacon)*, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, spinach, and all that other stuff that kids aren’t supposed to like. Dad also introduced me such delicacies as goose grease on toasted rye, radish sandwiches, and cannibal sandwiches (raw ground steak).
I’ve always been a proponent of the philosophy that I’ll try anything twice (it might be an acquired taste).
*A few years ago I found out that my brothers and a cousin had started a Liver Eaters Club, which would go to a local restaurant and every one would order liver. (I had moved from Chicago to NC a number of years back, which is why I hadn’t been a member when it was formed.) One time when I was visiting Chicago they managed to schedule a meeting on the Sunday night I was there, so I was able to join them.
Liver was one food I refused to eat. And I’d willingly go hungry to avoid eating it.
But my mom was the only one of the six of us who liked it, so, we never had it at home. She had to satisfy her liver cravings with restaurant liver and onions.
best typo ever
I liked shrimp cocktail and kippers when I was a kid.
When I was a kid, we were served exactly what the adults age, so I didn’t have a notion of “grown up food.” There were a lot of things that I hadn’t tried or we didn’t get at home because it just wasn’t a part of my family’s routine or because it was considered extravagant. For example, I don’t think my parents have ever once made steak at home. And we only ever had steak when there was a deal at Ponderosa or Bonanza.
Are there many families that feed something different to the children than what the adults are eating? We had less adventuresome meals when my mother cooked lunch for the kids than when my father cooked dinner for company, but whoever was home ate the same foods. Or, if i rejected the spaghetti sauce (i did. It had cooked pepper. Blech.) I ate plain spaghetti with grated cheese, because that’s what else was on the table.
Similarly, my kids were served whatever we were eating.
I grew up on green olives because my mother doesn’t like ripe (black) ones. I prefer the ripe ones now, although I’ll eat either of them.
When I was about 10 years old, the 99%-white Methodist church our family attended had a curry dinner, and the adults were really looking forward to it, because that was quite exotic for the time (mid 1970s). We kids were all holding our noses and couldn’t believe anyone would be expected to eat that, and in the end, I just ate some rice that didn’t get any sauce on it. (I do vividly remember my band director with a big smile on his face, holding a piled-high plate with both hands!)
20 years later, when I was in college, I attended a Bible study (no, there’s no pattern here) which did a lot of outreach to the Chinese students, and when we had a July 4th picnic, they wanted to eat our food, and we Americans wanted to eat their food, which was delicious (and they said the same thing about “American” food).
p.s. If any of us kids didn’t want what was for dinner, the go-to was peanut butter. My brother ate a lot of those when he went through his picky stage.
Chinese food. Pretty much the whole family packed into a Chinese restaurant for our parents’ 25th Anniversary and I, having recently turned five, reportedly had no qualms about sampling the cuisine.
Asparagus. Canned. Okay, now I go for fresh but Mom and Dad loved asparagus and Dad would only eat canned (he spent 18 summers weeding the veg garden). My brothers hated it but I loved it. Unfortunately, Mom insisted that they each take 3 pieces which meant less for the rest of us. Now, I love that I can get decent (not great) fresh stuff at the store almost any time of year.
Pretty much everyone I know to some extent. At least children under 10.
Huh. We didn’t even buy “baby food” when we had babies. We just mashed up some of whatever we were eating, with the back of a fork, and gave it to the kids.
When we went to the local Indian restaurant, we fed the toddler pappadam, raita, and dal. At the Italian place they got soup and some food off our plates.
I was a fan of pretty much every vegetable and in fact the much-maligned lima beans were a personal favorite. About the only exceptions were eggplant and brussel sprouts, both of which I am fond of now. I put that entirely down to my mother’s less-than-awesome cookery in certain areas. Boiled brussel sprouts are in fact kinda vile IMHO. For decades I thought I hated curry until I discovered in my early twenties that curry WAS NOT, in fact, otherwise unseasoned ground beef and frozen mixed vegetables combined together with a healthy heaping of curry powder. shudder
I’ve gone in completely the opposite direction on those two. Loved raw beef preparations and sardines as a child (as well as stuff like canned salmon that my mother adored), but have largely lost a taste for them as an adult. Unfortunate - I periodically try to recapture my interest in sardines, but so far no go. I just don’t like them anymore. Have to try one of those fancy expensive imported versions one of these days, see if that makes a difference.
Well, my parents didn’t make a separate meal, one ate what was on the table.
My mom actually could properly cook vegetables, which back in the 60s was unusual - so we liked fresh spinach sauteed with bacon, lima beans, brussels sprouts, really I like most vegetables I am not actively allergic to with the exceptions of eggplant, okra and zucchini. Some I like more than others, like I absolutely adore artichokes - been eating them since before I have memories.
Didn’t like liver and onions, or ‘hamloaf’ [she made it exactly once, nobody in the house liked it - grind a picnic ham like ground beef, do the breadcrumb egg thing, loaf and bake. I think she probably found it in a women’s magazine]
I do have a rather funny memory of being taken out to lunch by my Dad at the Pen and Pencil in NY when I was 8, and ordering steak tartare, and the waiter kept trying to tell me the chef could take it back and turn it into a hamburger right up until he saw me eating it. I also when we were on a road trip out to Michegan had a cook try to serve me a well done crap steak after I had ordered rare, and called me a whiney brat about it - I knew damned well I liked my steak rare, and taking it into the kitchen and bringing it right back out will not fool me into thinking that is now a rare steak.
I loved lemons as a kid. No sugar, either. I didn’t like liver but I did like liverwurst, I still do but it’s an item where I’m very brand sensitive.
My grandnephew is 26 months, and I’m constantly surprised by his grown up food preferences. His absolute favorite snack when he’s at my house is matchstick sized shreds of Parmesan cheese, he loves dipping stuff in blue cheese dressing and according to his mom, will eat sour cream from a spoon.
He also likes seltzer water from a can ( although he mostly pours it down the front of his shirt) and coffee. I only let him taste my iced coffee once, I used a straw to give him a little taste - because I thought he’d hate it and stop grabbing for mine, but he loved it.
I liked braunschweiger, which (I think) is very similar to liverwurst. I haven’t had it in forever and can only vaguely recall the taste now. I’d probably be disappointed if I tried it today.