I’ve been working with Nestle’s pre-melted chocolate lately. Like Baker’s chocolate squares, only melted. It looks awesome coming out of the package - like delicious, rich chocolate frosting.
But if you’ve ever tasted unsweetened chocolate or cocoa powder, you know that it tastes awful. Just bitter and nasty (ymmv - I’m a “super taster” for bitter)
It’s hard to remember not to lick my fingers after I’ve finished with the package. Ack!
What other edible stuff looks delish but is anything but?
Marzipan. Looks like fruit, tastes like chalk.
Not looks, but I certainly recall giving into the temptation to taste the vanilla extract when I was a kid. It does not taste like it smells.
Is this opinions or more objective?
Looks like chalky fruit, or sometimes lumps of chalk. Tastes like awesome.
For me: mmm… look at this red fruit, it’s like a cherry. Tomato, you say? Let me try… bleeagggghhh (it’s the “mouthfeel” mostly).
Jelly Belly’s Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, and whatever replaced them. “Flavors may include sardine, black pepper, grass, horseradish, vomit, booger, earwax, dirt, earthworm, spaghetti, spinach, soap, sausage, pickle, bacon, and rotten egg.”
More sadistic is their BeanBoozled series, which has normal, good colors on gross flavors.
Yes.
Ha, that was the first thing that came to mind.
Raw tomatoes look so good that I find myself eating them every once in a while just to make sure I actually hate them as much as I think I do (yep, I do). I just made a soup with a carton of heirloom tomatoes from a local produce farm – they came in all kinds of colors and shapes, some with stripes, some with marbled coloring, very firm juicy flesh, positively brimming with vitamins and sunshine. As I cut them up for my soup (cooked tomatoes are fine by me), I just had to try a piece of a bright jewel-like yellow one that looked absolutely delicious…and nearly gagged as I tried to swallow it. Blecchh, still hate those things. They just taste ill.
Man, this liquid stuff looks absolutely delightful, particularly after you added the cream. And it smells so wonderful.
takes a sip BBBBLLLLEEEECCCHHHH!!! spits it out
How can anything that looks and smells so wonderful taste so disgusting???
And that’s my basic summary of coffee.
Sushi
Star-fruit and dragon-fruit look stunning, like the makers of “The Wizard of Oz” decided they needed something to hammer home the splendidness of their technicolor transition. And yet…meh!
They aren’t awful, they are just bland. They can’t live up their appearance.
The inverse of this has to be the oyster or the brown shrimp. Unpromising looks but fantastically tasty.
Flan. When I was in high school Spanish class, I tried flan on 3 different occasions (homemade by classmates’ mothers, and then at a restaurant). It was equally bland all 3 times. It just didn’t taste like anything. It was like eating air-flavored custard. But it LOOKED so good! 
Maybe I would appreciate flan now that my palate is more mature. But it disappointed me greatly at the time.
Watermelon. I’ve never been able to stand it. Sure looks good, though.
Cantaloupe. see “watermelon”
How about non-foods that smell good but taste awful? I don’t know if it’s changed since the 50’s, but the aroma of Play-Doh used to drive me insane, because I found out the hard way how bad it tasted.
Pan-fried liver and onions. Smells divine, tastes like zombie anus.
Joe
Most Whole Foods bakeries have these cute little dessert cups…the cup is made of chocolate, and is filled with a lovely mousse. It looks sooooo yummy, but the filling tastes like a slightly sweetened paste, and the chocolate isn’t very good. (The experience of eating it wasn’t exactly awful, just extremely disappointing.)
That layered torte from Swiss Colony that’s advertised in the catalog during the holiday season. Thin layers of cake and mousse covered with frosting. Looks a whole lot better than it tastes. That’s the thing with elaborate concoctions (not confined to Swiss Colony). But it’s not inedible, and it certainly looks pretty!
Biscotti. You know, the crunchy Italian almond biscuits. They look like they should be delicious, but they actually taste like gravel.
Green tea. Looks (and sounds) like it should be an irresistible, fresh nectar of pure, steaming naturalness. Actually tastes like soap and hay.
Edit: Oh, and cotton candy. Looks like it should be pleasantly candy-flavored. Actually tastes like what it would feel like to have syrup injected directly into your bloodstream, while having every bodily orifice stuffed with sugar.
Celery looks pretty delicious but I don’t care for it unless it is cooked soft, like in stews.
Papaya looks way better than it tastes, even though I still like the taste somewhat.
Those are both good ones. Papaya is OK if you sprinkle some lime on it, otherwise it’s bleh!
Grapefruit. Looks like an orange, should be sweet, and the first time I tried eating one, I was very much unprepared for the intense dry bitterness. I still haven’t found a use for the damned things, other than to throw at people who claim that they’re somehow delicious.
Maybe I got ahold of a bad one, or maybe I was blindsided by the sweetness.
But man, what a disappointment.
mmm
Oh, but keep drinking it, and you’ll get used to it. Or at least addicted. And then, before long, you’ll love it and want it all the time. Of course, you’ll also begin stabbing people in the eye with cutlery if they talk to you before you’ve had your morning fix. Coffee is a strange and wonderful substance.
I’ll see your Biscotti and coffee (although I like coffee with enough cream and sugar to take away the coffee taste and make it taste like it looks/smells) and I’ll play the Ace: fondant. Seriously, *why *does fondant taste so terrible? It’s like, sugar with sugar and more sugar and a little gelatin and water. Why should that be so awful? But it is.
You say that like it’s a bad thing…
