I found this thread because I was wondering the same thing. I have an identical hated of bell peppers. I hate the smell and flavor of them. I believe they distroy anything they touch. My mother used to make meatloaf stuffed green peppers (shudder) and make me pull the meatloaf out and eat it. This was like a living hell for me. I also hate them raw or cooked into anything.
I am adventurous with food otherwise having deleted in sampling cuisines from all comers of the world. I love strongly flavored food like capers Greek olives, feta and Raclette cheeses.
The only other ingredient I don’t enjoy is raw tomatoes… But it would be acceptable to “pick them out” …kind of. If a bell pepper came near my food… Sorry I won’t go there.
I can’t even go in the supermarket, because there are bell peppers in the produce department and my scalp tingles, my teeth fall out and I involuntarily have a giant bowel movement if I’m within 200 feet of them.
Still can’t understand why I’ve been banned from Giant Eagle.
Indeed, they should be banning the peppers, not you.
shrug. I love 'em. They can have a strong aroma and flavor which I can imagine can come across as bitter or excessively piquant for those with very sensitive palates (similar to the cilantro supertasters mentioned up above), but I’m evidently insensitive.
I realize this is a zombie, but it you think cucumbers are bitter (and even if you don’t) you may like them a lot better it you slice them in half and core them. It’s simple to do with a table spoon. It’s the seeds that are bitter.
Also home-grown are much nicer than store-bought, but then that’s almost always the case.
I also loathe bell peppers, as well as the hordes of people who come out of the woodwork to tell me it’s the green ones I hate, but that I’ll find the red ones much nicer, especially cooked.
No, loser-balls, it’s the FLAVOR I dislike, not the intensity of the flavor or the color or the crunchiness or anything else. Bell peppers taste unpleasant, period. (Hot peppers are fine: the heat overwhelms the pepper flavor, which is milder anyway, though I still prefer just the seeds.)
And there is a special circle of hell for the lazy caterers and purveyors of processed food who believe that a bit of red bell pepper (for color!) improves their product without affecting it much. No, you morons, it takes “edible” and makes it “inedible.” Not a positive change.
IMO, they are fine raw, like in salads, but cooking them gives them an unpleasant texture. Not to the extent that I won’t eat them cooked, or as a pizza topping (where they tend to retain some firmness). Also, one can pick them out of salads, if so inclined, not out of stuff they’re cooked into.
At any rate, if you happened to have SF writer Glen Cook as a dinner guest, I would suggest not serving stuffed peppers, or any dish featuring green bell peppers, given his predilection for slipping editorials on the subject of their general inedibility into the mouths of his characters.
I have a similar reaction to peaches. The smell sends a chill down my spine like fingernails on a blackboard. My wife likes to cut up peaches and mix them with her breakfast cereal, but it’s an effort for me to sit in the same room when she does this.
Green vegetables I have no problem with. Cucumbers and kale don’t particularly thrill me, but other than that, I love 'em all. I can’t stand beets, though, but I’m more turned off by their color and appearance than their aroma.
I’m one of these. I’m 1 out of 6 in my immediate family that experiences this. I believe genetics is pretty much agreed on even if a specific cause has not been identified. Also mango skin smells like diesel fuel and grated parmesan cheese smells like vomit.
But I like bell peppers as a snack and yellow varieties can taste more sweet. I’ve started noticing that even hot peppers can have a nice pepper smell/flavor before one experiences the hotness.
Several people in my family dislike bell peppers. When I make chili I use a lot of bell pepper. If they are going to be eating my chili I puree the bell peppers and they love my chili. I don’t exactly know what it is they don’t like about bell peppers.
Regarding the color:
Green bell peppers do turn color when very mature. And those do tend to have a milder taste.
But breeders have created varieties that turn color (red, yellow, orange) much younger, because they are desired, and people will pay more for them. And they are younger, so will last longer in the distribution & sales process. Green peppers that have turned color are very mature, and won’t last long – but they are fine from your own garden or farmers markets.
I’m not going to tell you you will like red or orange bell peppers, because you clearly do not. But I do dispute your implication that they basically taste the same as green bell peppers. I really like the taste of sweet red, yellow, and orange bell peppers, but cannot abide the taste of green ones and will not eat anything that has them in it.
My claim is that the same flavor element that I dislike is present in green and red. (I haven’t spent enough quality time with yellow peppers to say, though I would assume it’s there, too.)
Yet my experience is that they taste very, very different. They obviously have the same shape and texture, but other than that it is night and day for my taste buds.
Point being that this is all subjective, but there is a legitimate reason for people to expect that you might well dislike the more common green bell peppers (the only kind I ever encountered growing up, and the kind less expensive restaurants tend to use) and yet find you do like the other ones, just as I discovered. So even though this is not true for you, it is true for many others–therefore, your “loser-balls” rant strikes me as wildly OTT.
I sense green bell peppers as tasteless. Raw, I don’t like them for the same reason I don’t like water chestnuts - they are just papery and pulpy. Cooked ones are innocuous, but tasteless.
Actually, I sometimes enjoy a fresh green pepper, raw. But when they get old, or when they are cooked, or when they ripen and turn yellow or red, they develop a really nasty flavor.
I don’t like hot peppers, either. I like some other warm spices, like black pepper and ginger. But I despise capsicum.
