Vegetables
Herring. Specifically pickled herring.
Once i realized you’re supposed to have it as a condiment to other food, everything changed. Chopped matjes herring with new potatoes, butter and red onion is like crack cocaine.
Chilies of all kinds. Right now I have a selection of chili purées in my fridge : Madagascar, Sénégal, Réunion island…
Olives. Growing up poor in New Zealand in the 1950s/60s my only exposure to olives was in American magazines. You’d see a martini with a green olive in it. It looked sophisticated and was surely delicious.
Fast forward to my parents’ silver wedding anniversary, which they celebrated with a family meal at a very fancy Italian restaurant. I would have been ten or so, first time in a restaurant. I was thrilled to see dishes of green olives on the table. At last, I’d get to eat one!
I put that olive in my mouth and tasted something overwhelmingly vile, alien, disgusting. I faked a coughing fit and spat it into a napkin. So sophisticated!
These days I eat handfuls of olives - green, black, stuffed, whatever. Kalamata is my favourite. Yum!
Asparagus, Broccoli, and broccolini… although to be fair, I didn’t discover broccolini until about 20 years ago, when I was in my mid-30’s.
Also, I found out it wasn’t the veggie that I disliked, but the way it was prepared. My family boiled (ok Blanched) all vegetables when I was growing up. That’s about the worst way possible to cook most veggies, especially the three I mention above.
Here is what I do to prepare them:
Asparagus: Heat oven to 350F. Trim woody ends and place them in a single layer in an oven proof dish. Salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle with olive oil. Finally top with Parmesan Reggiano. Roast in the oven for 25 minutes or when cheese is browned.
Broccoli (florets only) and broccolini (trim woody end, but leave as much of the stem as possible: Heat oven to 350F. Place veggie in a single layer in an oven proof dish. Salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle with olive oil. You can top these two with Parmesan, but I usually do not. Roast until slightly charred about 25 minutes.
I will never blanch a veggie ever again, except for green beans. There are times when you’re serving a spicy dish, or something with a sauce and just need something plain to go along with it. Case in point, for my General Tso’s Chicken, I serve it with blanched green beans. Otherwise, I sautee them with salt pepper and red pepper flacks and a bit of high temp oil.
Pizza and burgers
Liver, tuna casserole, sardines. Getting old is weird man.
At the same time?
Brussels sprouts.
No one in the 80s-90s knew how to cook them and always overcooked them. Now they’re made roasted and absolutely delicious.
No wait! I read something about this! Those were totally different brussel sprouts! I guess they came up with a new species that didn’t such so bad and that’s why brussel sprouts suddenly got tolerable.
Now I have to go see how much of this is true.
Edit: What do you know? All of it! https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/30/773457637/from-culinary-dud-to-stud-how-dutch-plant-breeders-built-our-brussels-sprouts-bo
Seconded. Oven roasted or air fried, they’re little balls of joy.
I always got boiled ones in the old days, same with spinach 🤮
I keep hearing this, have to bite the bullet and try sometime.
Spinach. Maybe it’s availability but growing up we only got it canned and my mom cooked the hell out of it. I hated the black slimy bitter salty …. Just not even a food . But now that I’m an adult and fresh spinach is available year round, I love a nice spinach salad and even slightly wilted spinach in a pasta
Pickled everything.
Korean food changed my perspective on pickling and fermentation, and my digestive system!
I always liked sauerkraut but I was weirdly against the idea of kimchi as a kid. I think the first time I heard of it, it was described by someone who didn’t like it because it sounded super gross, and I had zero spice tolerance. These days, I put it on practically everything or eat it by itself as a side.
Olives. A greek salad with some big ol’ kalamata olives sounds really good right now.
I’ve grown to like mustard but in low quantities.
I used to scrape it off my burger until I was in my 30s, but now I’ll mix mustard and ketchup for my fries, and use a lot of it for eating smokies.
I always liked mustard but I’ve really grown to dislike ketchup. I just taste sugar now, and I’m not interested in pouring sugar on my burgers or fries
I mix a tiny bit with mayo to bring the sugar down.
That’s a great idea! But I’ve generally headed the opposite direction: malt vinegar for fries or fried fish, spicy mustard for beef, garlic 🧄 Parmesan or wing sauce for chicken. I tried some HP sauce from England (not bad but similar to A1), curry ketchup from Germany (love the taste but too thin to stick to fries), etc. instead of mayo, either miracle whip or kewpie mayo. Lots of different bbq sauces worldwide: currently working in a variety pack from japan
Child pickiness and Brassicus-Cultivar appreciation aside, I have another:
There were those weird times when things just wouldn’t taste right. ~10 years ago I disliked cherries for tasting somewhat like alcohol, and more recently Orange juice tasted soapy to me for a time. Both of these things have since gone away and I’m back to eating just about anything.
I did not like many vegetables at all as a kid.
Tomato and onion are two of my favorites
Broccoli and brussel sprouts for me
I’m pretty sure most of my vegetable phobia is being forced to eat them anyway as a kid. I love trying new foods, including vegetables, and new ways of preparing things from anywhere in the world, but vegetables, the way they’re always prepared here are just gross.
I don’t know if tomatoes are a good example but I have an immediate reaction to want to spit them out if I accidentally get some. Yet I love a good salsa, pico, marinara, etc
Broccoli is something i don’t even like touching
I only ever had steamed or boiled vegetables as a kid and it was bland and mushy and unpleasant. Roasting vegetables changed everything for me.
Yeah, I’ll second that. In general I strongly prefer uncooked vegetable to cooked (except of course obvious ones like potatoes), but I’ll eat roasted. I’ve even chosen to roast vegetables myself
Mushrooms - I once puked them up on the table when my mom made me eat them…canned mushrooms FTW! I now, of course, can not get enough of them - sautéed, baked, sliced/raw on a salad…gimme some fungus already!!
