We recognize five basic tastes: sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and savory. But we also identify an enormous range of flavors, as every variety of every ingredient has its own distinct characteristics.
We do this with our taste buds that are housed in the small pink bumps on the tip of our tongue. So while we might have an idea of whether or not we will like a certain food, we simply cannot be sure until we put it in our mouth.
#1
Green beans. Turns out fresh ones are a completely different taste from the canned ones.Cheesecake!! Cheese in cake form didn't sound appealing. I was 34 when my eyes were opened!!Scalloped potatoes. I had been made to eat the instant box kind as a kid, and the texture and taste made me gag.
Turns out that I love homemade scalloped potatoes.Meat loaf. We had it as a kid and it made me gag. My wife then made it and I thought this is fantastic! Years later my mother made it for us again. I gagged. Sorry Mom.I thought roasted potatoes must be horrible until I was in middle school. I ate over a friend's house and knew that, as a guest, it was impolite to decline any of the dishes, so I took a few red potatoes. And so the love affair with potatoes began! .Pineapple on pizza. I was once one of you but I have seen the light. The trick is you have to have jalapeños on it too. You want that contrasting heat and sweet. I don’t do the traditional Hawaiian thing. Pepperoni, pineapple and japs is where it’s at.Green Eggs & Ham
Luckily, thanks to one almost-unbearably persistent little fellow, I eventually tried it and found that I do, I do like Green Eggs & Ham.My grandfather would never eat pizza because he didn’t like how it looked. In his late 80s we took him to dinner with us for my brother’s birthday for..pizza. So he ended up trying it. After that he loved it and said he wished he’d tried it years ago!Kimchi, turns out it’s delicious!Sushi, until i actually had it 10 years ago. its so legit. not an acquired taste at all. hits like a good steak , or lasagna or something. easy to enjoy.Indian food. A whole cuisine.
Edit to clarify: The smell put me off for years. Not because it was bad just because it was pungent I think. I adore Indian food now, nothing compares. Greek is a strong second.Salt and vinegar potato chips.
My sister had really bad ingrown toenails when we were kids and she soaked her feet in white vinegar every night. I couldn’t imagine why someone would want to put something that smelled like that on a potato chip. I found it revolting.
Then one day, I tried a vinegar chip accidentally and it changed my whole life. The sour flavor is actually amazing!Rhubarb Pie.Tzatziki!Saurkraut and cabbage.
Then I ate at a German restaurant and the saurkraut was good and they had something called rokult(pickled cabbage) that is really good.COTTAGE CHEESE.I grew up Muslim so bacon and whisky.Sushi, guacamole, hummus.Asparagus.Eel.
I was with a friend eating from a big platter of sushi and telling him how I would never eat eel, because it just sounded gross and creepy. “Not like this - this is good. What is this?”
”Eel.”.Ceviche.Pho. I didn’t know there was a version without tripe. The first time I had it a friend ordered for me and did ask beforehand if there was anything I don’t eat. I said no, not expecting tripe. I don’t like tripe. Hesitantly went again 10+ years later and got it with sirloin strips. Delicious.Cooked carrots, add some butter and salt, god damn!Grits. I’ve lived in the south for most of my life and only recently cooked them myself- turns out I just dislike how they’ve been served to me.Guacamole.California rolls .Egg rolls. I didn’t like eggs.Chick peas.Spam!! I love it. I always thought it looked nasty. Then I grew up.Capers. I don’t like green olives and for some reason I assumed they tasted like green olives since someone told me that once.Calamari.Split-pea soup.Sushi. So freakin good! Can’t believe I lived half my life without eating it. Sad.Sauerkraut.Tres leches. I hate soggy breads/cakes, so the thought of it grossed me out. But OMG, when you have someone who makes tres leches really well, it is delightful.Brussels sprouts, nowadays I cant get enough litterly, living in South America, there hard to come by, when they been available it was just a couple pounds.Radishes, they are peppery and earthy and amazing.Pecan pie. It just always looked nasty to me.Tongue. My son convinced me to try thinly sliced tongue at a Korean bbq and it was pretty good.Ranch. Mostly because when I was in a kid, I was in a busload of 15-16 kids in a van. Said van had NO air conditioning, and we were in a 4 hour road trip in the hottest month of the summer. Two girls were in a seat in front of me fighting over a ranch packet which split, and all of its contents plastered all over my head and torso. Luckily we only had to go another 3 hours before I was able to change….
