Virtually everything. I grew up poor with a talentless cook for a mother, so it was Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, generic hot dogs made from chicken with generic American cheese and catsup, spaghetti with meat sauce from a box (sauce included!). For special occasions, we’d get a Little Ceasar’s pizza, or go to McDonald’s, or better yet the Coney Island restaurant downtown. On really special occasions, we’d go to Pizza Hut back when it was primarily a real sit-down chain. On the most specialist of occasions, I’d get a well-done steak at Ponderosa.
Because this is what I was accustomed to, it’s what I thought that I liked. I would sneer at vegetables of all sorts, distrust any meat that still had a resemblance of pinkness to it, and stay away from all fruits except for apples and bananas.
I’m not sure how or when I changed. I like virtually everything that’s commonly available in normal and certain ethnic food markets. I avoid the crap I grew up on, other than hot dogs, but I do ensure that they’re excellent quality, and I prep them Chicago or Mexico style. Man, am I ever ashamed of my culinary heritage.
I’m still a little bit of a picky eater, although I’m much better than I was as a kid. One of the big perks of adulthood is that I can politely turn down any kind of food I don’t want to eat and nobody is allowed to give me grief about it.
I could have posted this, word-for-word. Except that when we went to Ponderosa, I got my steak medium-well instead of well-done.
My own kids are much more well-rounded eaters than I ever was. I let them each pick one food that they don’t even have to eat one bite of at dinnertime, and my son picked lima beans, but my daughter went with hot dogs. They both eat a lot of the things that have already been mentioned in this thread, e.g., avocadoes brussels sprouts, squash, mushrooms, etc. They do avoid sharp/strong cheeses, though.
I find it so weird that some kids don’t like guacamole. I wasn’t a huge fan of raw unprepared avocados growing up, but that was an issue with ripeness- as long it was it perfectly ripe and not bruised I still loved it. Guacamole was almost my favorite food.
I didn’t like bleu/blue cheese as a kid, or the rind of Brie. Now I like bleus on mixed-green salads, as long as there’s some dried fruit mixed in, and I only cut the rind off the Brie because the dogs will feel betrayed if I don’t.
I thought I didn’t like chanterelles for a while, but it turns out that Mom hadn’t fully cleaned the leeks and the sand had migrated into the mushrooms. Now that I’m the one cutting up the leeks and asparagus for the Chicken with Many Lilies, I know I like chanterelles after all. (It’s chicken with onions, garlic, asparagus, leeks, any other edible lily you want to put in, and chanterelles.)
Liquid egg yolk: Hated it as a kid, now love over-easy eggs as long as I have tortilla chips, toast, or hashbrowns to sop it up.
i love being able to decide to eat my entire dinner of 3 artichokes … quartered with the choke removed, bit of lemon, some sea salt and olive oil and a dab of butter then baked in a covered casserole until soft … nom! and I dont have to share or explain to anybody [well, I have to make some for hubby too or he pouts]
Beer. I never really developed a taste for it at all until my mid/late 20s, but learned to like it while living/working in Europe. I see twentysomethings pounding PBR and Bud Light like it’s ambrosia, and turn up their noses in disgust at my lovely brown porters and coal-black stouts.
Always liked cheeses though, and mushrooms (there was no juvenile stigmata associated with mushrooms when/where I grew up).