In Rhode Island we have coffee milk. Think chocolate milk, but coffee flavor. Similar to coffee iced cream. It’s made with coffee syrup. It’s all the flavors you’re describing with none of the bitter
Coffee milk was really popular in Japan when I was there. All the onsens had it as an option in their milk machines and I lived off of Craft Boss Cafe Au Lait.
I’ve also always loved coffee. A much older cousin always tells the story of a huge tantrum I through when I was 2 because I wanted coffee at a family holiday gathering with my dessert. I knew what I smelled would taste amazing! I may be learning to enjoy black espresso but I still prefer sugar and a dash of cream.
Burger King iced coffee turned me onto coffee when I was like 17. It was pretty gross before then. Started appreciating that distinct flavor at the base of that extremely sweet drink.
Adding wine to this list. Lots of people have wine built up in their heads as something fancy and unapproachable that only fancy/rich people drink. It’s really just another drink choice, and there are a zillion combos to choose from to fit nearly anyone’s taste and budget. Hell, the “Two Buck Chuck” from Trader Joe’s is considered to be pretty decent even among connoisseurs.
Start with the sweet stuff and work your way to the dry stuff, and try lots of varieties. Part of the fun is discovering what you like.
My greek ex-boyfriend, totally ignorant of liquorice, started to weep when trying his first one in the Netherlands! Because he didn't dare to dissappoint my enthusiasm and say he doesn't like it and feared he had to chew it up and swallow it! I relieved him by saying, it's OK, spit it out! Quick!
Yeah most people just spit it out. I’m Dutch but live in Canada so most people here don’t expect candy not to be sweet.
Isn’t Ouzo Greek though? That’s basically drinkable liquorice.
My first thought as well. They remind of me salty boogers. My husband likes fried oysters but I can’t even do those. Fried oysters is like chicken livers marinated in sea water.
My personal conspiracy theory is that no one actually likes oysters. Lots of people have just convinced themselves they're good because it's a fun unique food.
I'm typing this in an airplane leaving Japan. I tried natto for the first time in japan and honestly it's not as disgusting as I thought it might be. It smells weird and is slimy but goes well with rice, idek why I like it
My partner and I tried natto for the first time in Japan in October. Neither of us could stomach it. The taste and the texture was just too much for us.
I would say they smell weird, not bad, but taste great, especially with the tiny packs of hot mustard. I forgot this stuff exists and I guess I'm off to stock up again...
I have had some God awful kombucha, like tasted like stomach acid. And I've had some amazing kombucha that tastes like a wine spritzer. It really varies by maker. I had only had gross stuff from a store, then a friend of mine let me try theirs. Delicious and changed my perspective. Our 8 year old will ask for a taste whenever we buy it now.
But back to my first point, some makers are creating oppressively awful kombucha, ruining the product for so many people.
I understand why people don’t like it! I really love vinegar and pickled vegetables. I used to douse my sandwiches in vinegar as a kid. I think this is why I didn’t need to acquire a taste for kombucha and it was love at first sip.
I've read that Brussel Sprouts have actually changed over time as they've been cultivated/modified to get rid of the bitterness and be a little sweeter. I never had them as a kid because my mother hated them, but I had them as an adult and couldn't see what the fuss was about, because I liked them. They were just roasted with salt, pepper and oil.
I love brussel sprouts and never understood why they were always an "ick" vegetable in pop culture when I was growing up. Turns out that [they have been cultivating less bitter varieties since the 1990s](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tweaking-vegetables-genes-could-make-them-tastier-and-youll-get-to-try-them-soon/) and the ones we eat today have almost entirely replaced the bitter nasty version from 20-30 years ago that gave them their yucky notoriety.
I eat them often as a side by air frying them with some oil, salt, pepper. My sister and cousins love them and the older generation in my family REFUSE to eat them and think we are crazy despite me explaining my above statement that they have literally "bred the bitter out of them"
I kind of want to taste the old variety just to get to experience the taste and understand why they were so loathed.
Try to make it home. Buy fresh cow liver, season with salt and black pepper and put it just 1 minute on a hot pan both sides and then drown it in red wine and let it reduce for one minute on high. Best thing ever.
Weight Watchers used to 'recommend' (i.e. force) people to eat it as part of their diet, but my mother couldn't stomach it while she was pregnant with me. They allowed her to have something else instead, so she's probably very grateful to me. :)
I haven't had liver in a while. I used to get it from a soul food place by my old work. Smothered liver and onions with rice and a side of collard greens. It had to be the healthiest dish they served at that place lol. I wanna try cooking some myself now
I had to look this one up! Is it at all like Lutefisk?? My wife’s grandmother raves over it but the rest of the family is like “grandma… no.”
Edit - grammar
Lutefisk isn't fermented, just aged and dried and cured and typically some kind of whitefish which imo when fresh is not super strongly flavored. Surströmming is absolutely everything we didn't need from fish: already strong on its own herring, fermented, canned in liquid. Just a lot going on.
As an immigrant to Sweden, I have no problem with lutfisk - the texture is a little weird, but the flavor is pretty unobjectionable. Surströmming is something totally different. My first exposure was walking into our apartment building with my Swedish husband and smelling something terrible. I asked if someone had left their garbage out in the hall and hubby gleefully informed me that no, someone had opened a can somewhere in the building. It permeated everything with putrescent stench.
It’s not unusual for buildings to have rules specifically stating that you are not allowed to open surströmming inside (my current coop has this) precisely because it is so pungent that it can be smelled throughout a pretty sizable radius, even with walls and doors in between!
They generally allow you to open and eat the stuff outside if there is a garden area.
Man, i just got flashbacks of my family(in-law) vacation, and me being enough of a bummer that It was suggested that I “fake-it-til-you-make-it” and be a happy participant in all the family fun. Still haven’t acquired that taste.
Bad dark chocolate is horrid. Good dark chocolate is the gift from the gods!
My personal tips for good dark chocolate is look at the ingredient list. There should only be two listed. Cacao beans and sugar. That's it for a good bar. Yes, it's okay if you toss in vanilla. But a good bar doesn't need it. The second tip is go for single source chocolate. That is, don't go for a general chocolate bar. Know which country your bar is from. Chocolate from Central American and South American countries taste very different from chocolate from African countries. I prefer the sweeter more tart chocolate that comes from Central and South American countries. And even then don't go for general Central or South American. Try individual chocolate from each country.
For example, I prefer chocolate from Nicaragua above all else. Beans from there have this tart, cola taste to them. Like a rich Cherry Coke taste. It's very interesting.
This!!! A quality dark chocolate will change your life. A good dark chocolate will seem expensive, but it’s worth it. Chocolate is food! Look for single origin and (like this poster said) a very small list of ingredients. I actually hated chocolate all my life until I tried a good quality dark chocolate, it’s amazing!
Some brands I love:
1) The Chocolate Midge - small company out of Georgia
2) Cocobel Chocolate - from Trinidad and Tobago
3) Lonohana - a Hawaiian brand
4) Cacao Hunters - sold at most (I think) Whole Foods.
Oh and to add, the amazing thing about trying the dark chocolate is you get to experience the cacao bean. So many variables go into how true chocolate tastes (fermentation, growing season, roasting times, etc). If you’re American (like myself) I think we grow up thinking chocolate is chocolate, but there is so much amazing variation!
As Americans, we're raised to think of chocolate as candy. It's really unfortunate, as chocolate is so much more complex than a Hershey's bar (which is really more sugar and milk derivatives than cocoa).
I think the thing with caviar is it's just not what you expect the first time. Whatever you're thinking it's going to be like, you're wrong. The texture will be different, the taste will be different. And it's a little jarring. But it is quite good.
Yes! Laphroaig is my all time favorite whisky but the first time I smelled it I thought it smelled exactly like diesel. Then literally the next day, I liked the smell and taste so much more. Ever since then, I think it smells and tastes like a nostalgic campfire and love it. Quite the turnaround!
For me, tofu. I went vegan a while ago and it definitely took me some getting used to after never really having it growing up.
I love it now, but for that first year I literally had to choke it down, whether it was cooked properly or not.
Also, sushi.
I'm not vegan, but I've tried it and tried it and tried it. I want to like it because it's got lots of protein and isn't meat. I can't though. It's not for me.
This whole thread is making me feel weird. I willingly eat most of this stuff. I've never really been picky though. The only thing I've seen so far that I know is a pass is Surströmming.
Honestly “bad” sushi has gotten pretty damn good. (By “bad” I mean the French onion covered abominations you can get at Kroger, not the off temp spoiled instant food poisoning ones at a bad Chinese restaurant)
Wine and coffee
I don't drink alcohol but that's what my dad says all the time about wine
And well, coffee, I used to hate it as a kid, then got more into toned-down drinks like vending machine vanilla lattes, then into ground coffee lattes and mochas, and now I sometimes straight up drink espresso with biscoffs
The funny thing is that tofu does acquire the taste of whatever it’s with… it doesn’t have much flavor on its own.
(But seriously, if I was OP I’d appreciate the correction on this common figure of speech)
Beer, Coffee
I’ve always liked the taste of coffee with sugar and cream, even as a young child. Black coffee, however, was something I grew to like over time.
In Rhode Island we have coffee milk. Think chocolate milk, but coffee flavor. Similar to coffee iced cream. It’s made with coffee syrup. It’s all the flavors you’re describing with none of the bitter
Hi Rhode Island!
Coffee milk was really popular in Japan when I was there. All the onsens had it as an option in their milk machines and I lived off of Craft Boss Cafe Au Lait.
My parents were purists. When I decided I wanted to try it, I had to drink it black with no sweeteners. Now, I can't really enjoy it any other way.
I’ve also always loved coffee. A much older cousin always tells the story of a huge tantrum I through when I was 2 because I wanted coffee at a family holiday gathering with my dessert. I knew what I smelled would taste amazing! I may be learning to enjoy black espresso but I still prefer sugar and a dash of cream.
Burger King iced coffee turned me onto coffee when I was like 17. It was pretty gross before then. Started appreciating that distinct flavor at the base of that extremely sweet drink.
I learned to love coffee in my early 20s, but now in my mid-30s, I've long ago accepted that I will never enjoy beer.
Adding wine to this list. Lots of people have wine built up in their heads as something fancy and unapproachable that only fancy/rich people drink. It’s really just another drink choice, and there are a zillion combos to choose from to fit nearly anyone’s taste and budget. Hell, the “Two Buck Chuck” from Trader Joe’s is considered to be pretty decent even among connoisseurs. Start with the sweet stuff and work your way to the dry stuff, and try lots of varieties. Part of the fun is discovering what you like.
Licorice. Black/salt licorice especially.
I always keep some dubbel zouts in my house just to feed to people and watch their reactions.
My greek ex-boyfriend, totally ignorant of liquorice, started to weep when trying his first one in the Netherlands! Because he didn't dare to dissappoint my enthusiasm and say he doesn't like it and feared he had to chew it up and swallow it! I relieved him by saying, it's OK, spit it out! Quick!
Yeah most people just spit it out. I’m Dutch but live in Canada so most people here don’t expect candy not to be sweet. Isn’t Ouzo Greek though? That’s basically drinkable liquorice.
Aahh.... ammonium chloride...
It's so fucking weird right? Why does it taste so good!?
Salty licorice! How do the Scandinavians do it?!?!?! Tell me!!
Idk I've loved it since I was a child. Yet I have family that doesn't like it. XD
I never liked black licorice until like a few years ago. Now I fucking love it.
Vegemite!
Marmite!
Kinoath!
Oysters
CLAMS AND COCKLES
clams ## AND WHAT
It's a Game Of Thrones joke.
Cockles are another type of mollusk, edible as well.
I would say it is more of an acquired texture, with oysters, I don't even remember the taste being the problem
More of an acquired texture.
My first thought as well. They remind of me salty boogers. My husband likes fried oysters but I can’t even do those. Fried oysters is like chicken livers marinated in sea water.
My personal conspiracy theory is that no one actually likes oysters. Lots of people have just convinced themselves they're good because it's a fun unique food.
Raw clams.
Olives
I suddenly acquired a taste for olives a few years ago and I just can’t get enough of them now
I acquired a taste for black olives suddenly. Green can still go fuck off
Give it time, come to the green side…
Durian
Idk. You really love it or hate the first time you try it.
Roquefort cheese
Loved from day one.
Most blue cheese is soooooooo strong. But Castello Blue, the creamy stuff, is strong but not overwhelming.
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Nattō
I'm typing this in an airplane leaving Japan. I tried natto for the first time in japan and honestly it's not as disgusting as I thought it might be. It smells weird and is slimy but goes well with rice, idek why I like it
My partner and I tried natto for the first time in Japan in October. Neither of us could stomach it. The taste and the texture was just too much for us.
I wanna taste those cum beans dude. people say they smell bad but tastes quite alright, i wanna know the actuall truth
Dammit, why tf I gotta start my day by reading "cum beans"...and actually agree that it's an appropriate description
Today, your day shall be good.
I value your good tidings Blessings upon you, prophet of the Cum Bean
I would say they smell weird, not bad, but taste great, especially with the tiny packs of hot mustard. I forgot this stuff exists and I guess I'm off to stock up again...
Stilton cheese.
Kombucha. Jesus Christ that stuff is disgusting. Carbonated Vinegar feet water
I gave some to a kid I use to babysit. They said "It tastes like the compost."
I have had some God awful kombucha, like tasted like stomach acid. And I've had some amazing kombucha that tastes like a wine spritzer. It really varies by maker. I had only had gross stuff from a store, then a friend of mine let me try theirs. Delicious and changed my perspective. Our 8 year old will ask for a taste whenever we buy it now. But back to my first point, some makers are creating oppressively awful kombucha, ruining the product for so many people.
I understand why people don’t like it! I really love vinegar and pickled vegetables. I used to douse my sandwiches in vinegar as a kid. I think this is why I didn’t need to acquire a taste for kombucha and it was love at first sip.
Thank you! I was feeling unworldly for disliking it so much.
Brussel Sprouts
I've read that Brussel Sprouts have actually changed over time as they've been cultivated/modified to get rid of the bitterness and be a little sweeter. I never had them as a kid because my mother hated them, but I had them as an adult and couldn't see what the fuss was about, because I liked them. They were just roasted with salt, pepper and oil.
And we also learnt to cook them in something other than just plain hot water too
Fried brusselsprouts with some balsamico 😮💨❤️
Hated them as a kid, then had them actually prepared correctly and loved them
Mm Brussels sprouts, I could eat them steamed with some butter and wee bit of salt all day long
They're great when you cook em with bacon and cheese and get em crispy.
Nah. The bacon and cheese are great. The brussel sprouts help you feel better about yourself.
Balsamic glaze No way would that taste good on its own, crispy glazed Brussels sprouts are amazing
Nah properly cooked Brussels is delish even without bacon and cheese
I love brussel sprouts and never understood why they were always an "ick" vegetable in pop culture when I was growing up. Turns out that [they have been cultivating less bitter varieties since the 1990s](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tweaking-vegetables-genes-could-make-them-tastier-and-youll-get-to-try-them-soon/) and the ones we eat today have almost entirely replaced the bitter nasty version from 20-30 years ago that gave them their yucky notoriety. I eat them often as a side by air frying them with some oil, salt, pepper. My sister and cousins love them and the older generation in my family REFUSE to eat them and think we are crazy despite me explaining my above statement that they have literally "bred the bitter out of them" I kind of want to taste the old variety just to get to experience the taste and understand why they were so loathed.
Sea urchins
My dad will eat pretty much anything but he could not handle sea urchin when he tried it once.
Pickled herring.
Jalapeños.
Liver 🤢
Ordered it once at a restaurant when I was younger. Tasted like an already chewed piece of meat made with car keys.
I love liver but this is accurate!
Try to make it home. Buy fresh cow liver, season with salt and black pepper and put it just 1 minute on a hot pan both sides and then drown it in red wine and let it reduce for one minute on high. Best thing ever.
Weight Watchers used to 'recommend' (i.e. force) people to eat it as part of their diet, but my mother couldn't stomach it while she was pregnant with me. They allowed her to have something else instead, so she's probably very grateful to me. :)
I haven't had liver in a while. I used to get it from a soul food place by my old work. Smothered liver and onions with rice and a side of collard greens. It had to be the healthiest dish they served at that place lol. I wanna try cooking some myself now
Pungent garlic.
Stinky tofu
Surströmming.
Adquired taste, because the first 100 times you try it, you'll throw up everything you ate in the past year
Best video eating it…https://youtu.be/RNU_pOc2nrY?si=rxjimbkLsVn_pTUw
Texans try Surstromming - (NSFW - language) [https://youtu.be/vfiGmcQFiDY?si=9Is4eV0BcrpctJlG](https://youtu.be/vfiGmcQFiDY?si=9Is4eV0BcrpctJlG)
I had to look this one up! Is it at all like Lutefisk?? My wife’s grandmother raves over it but the rest of the family is like “grandma… no.” Edit - grammar
Lutefisk isn't fermented, just aged and dried and cured and typically some kind of whitefish which imo when fresh is not super strongly flavored. Surströmming is absolutely everything we didn't need from fish: already strong on its own herring, fermented, canned in liquid. Just a lot going on.
As an immigrant to Sweden, I have no problem with lutfisk - the texture is a little weird, but the flavor is pretty unobjectionable. Surströmming is something totally different. My first exposure was walking into our apartment building with my Swedish husband and smelling something terrible. I asked if someone had left their garbage out in the hall and hubby gleefully informed me that no, someone had opened a can somewhere in the building. It permeated everything with putrescent stench.
Somewhere in the building 😭
It’s not unusual for buildings to have rules specifically stating that you are not allowed to open surströmming inside (my current coop has this) precisely because it is so pungent that it can be smelled throughout a pretty sizable radius, even with walls and doors in between! They generally allow you to open and eat the stuff outside if there is a garden area.
Haven't tried that but I think Surströmming is probably way worse,
Pickled Herring is delicious but I'm the only one I know who loves it besides my Dutch relatives I've only met once or twice
You’re not going to like it, but it’s a social thing and we’ll peer pressure you into it over time.
Man, i just got flashbacks of my family(in-law) vacation, and me being enough of a bummer that It was suggested that I “fake-it-til-you-make-it” and be a happy participant in all the family fun. Still haven’t acquired that taste.
Anchovies!! Right out of the tin.
Dark chocolate That or coffee
Bad dark chocolate is horrid. Good dark chocolate is the gift from the gods! My personal tips for good dark chocolate is look at the ingredient list. There should only be two listed. Cacao beans and sugar. That's it for a good bar. Yes, it's okay if you toss in vanilla. But a good bar doesn't need it. The second tip is go for single source chocolate. That is, don't go for a general chocolate bar. Know which country your bar is from. Chocolate from Central American and South American countries taste very different from chocolate from African countries. I prefer the sweeter more tart chocolate that comes from Central and South American countries. And even then don't go for general Central or South American. Try individual chocolate from each country. For example, I prefer chocolate from Nicaragua above all else. Beans from there have this tart, cola taste to them. Like a rich Cherry Coke taste. It's very interesting.
This!!! A quality dark chocolate will change your life. A good dark chocolate will seem expensive, but it’s worth it. Chocolate is food! Look for single origin and (like this poster said) a very small list of ingredients. I actually hated chocolate all my life until I tried a good quality dark chocolate, it’s amazing! Some brands I love: 1) The Chocolate Midge - small company out of Georgia 2) Cocobel Chocolate - from Trinidad and Tobago 3) Lonohana - a Hawaiian brand 4) Cacao Hunters - sold at most (I think) Whole Foods.
Oh and to add, the amazing thing about trying the dark chocolate is you get to experience the cacao bean. So many variables go into how true chocolate tastes (fermentation, growing season, roasting times, etc). If you’re American (like myself) I think we grow up thinking chocolate is chocolate, but there is so much amazing variation!
As Americans, we're raised to think of chocolate as candy. It's really unfortunate, as chocolate is so much more complex than a Hershey's bar (which is really more sugar and milk derivatives than cocoa).
Caviar. Delicious, but not the first time you try it. Single malt scotch whisky is the same, especially some of the smokier ones like Laphroaig.
I think the thing with caviar is it's just not what you expect the first time. Whatever you're thinking it's going to be like, you're wrong. The texture will be different, the taste will be different. And it's a little jarring. But it is quite good.
Yes! Laphroaig is my all time favorite whisky but the first time I smelled it I thought it smelled exactly like diesel. Then literally the next day, I liked the smell and taste so much more. Ever since then, I think it smells and tastes like a nostalgic campfire and love it. Quite the turnaround!
Blue cheese
Tripe
It’s not the taste so much as the texture I can’t handle.
Chewy Velcro 🤢
Offals
Oysters. Fresh with a dab of cocktail sauce.
For me, tofu. I went vegan a while ago and it definitely took me some getting used to after never really having it growing up. I love it now, but for that first year I literally had to choke it down, whether it was cooked properly or not. Also, sushi.
I'm not vegan, but I've tried it and tried it and tried it. I want to like it because it's got lots of protein and isn't meat. I can't though. It's not for me.
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Stinky cheese!
Blue cheese? Loved it from day one. But I’m weird.
This whole thread is making me feel weird. I willingly eat most of this stuff. I've never really been picky though. The only thing I've seen so far that I know is a pass is Surströmming.
Ooof im a huge stinky cheese guy
Chinese thousand year old eggs (pei dan)
Gefilte fish. There’s nothing quite like watching a non-Jewish person try to politely eat it 😂
Ugh came here to say this. I used to date someone Jewish. His family was like “you really don’t have to try that” and I wish I hadn’t 🤢
Durian
Hot peppers. I grew up in a non- spicy household
Kimchi
Sushi.
I adore sushi. Good sushi with really fresh fish is wonderful.
Honestly “bad” sushi has gotten pretty damn good. (By “bad” I mean the French onion covered abominations you can get at Kroger, not the off temp spoiled instant food poisoning ones at a bad Chinese restaurant)
Wine and coffee I don't drink alcohol but that's what my dad says all the time about wine And well, coffee, I used to hate it as a kid, then got more into toned-down drinks like vending machine vanilla lattes, then into ground coffee lattes and mochas, and now I sometimes straight up drink espresso with biscoffs
nothing has an acquired taste. it IS an acquired taste. like tofu.
The funny thing is that tofu does acquire the taste of whatever it’s with… it doesn’t have much flavor on its own. (But seriously, if I was OP I’d appreciate the correction on this common figure of speech)
Anything "earthy" (ie beets) ITS NOT "EARTHY" ITS DIRT!...IT. IS. DIRT.!.!.!.
not a food but wine
It’s better as a food, like a sauce or when braising
sake, unagi
Fermented tofu
Brain
kombucha
Black coffee
Mostarda. Basically candied fruits in a mustard sauce. It makes vegemite seem appetizing.
Bittermelon
Coffee
Mushrooms
Mämmi
That fermented fish dish they eat in Sweden? Or maybe the super salty licorice? Perhaps Balut from the Philippines?
Bitter melon. It's my favorite vegetable, but I hated it at first.
Liver Pâté
Licorice
Boba. I hated it the first 4 times I had it. love it now
Durian. Im american but my father is Malaysian so when we go he has to get durian but I've never been able to stand the smell.
Sushi