1mo ago

Any foods you prefer or can't stand depending on whether they are raw, fresh, pickled, cooked etc?

I thought I hated capsicum most of my life but lately (past my mid 30s) I've come to actually really like it raw. As in salads or sandwiches. I'm enjoying that. As a child my parents would add it frequently to meals but it would always be cooked and I was never a fan.

Or mushrooms for example. I love them almost any way except preserved. If they came from inside a tin or jar with long shelf life the taste is just horrendous.

Similar for artichokes, they must be fresh.

I love sesame seeds, but I absolutely hate sesame seed oil and I can't understand why. The taste is so different.

Curious about yours. Any similar examples?

71 comments

Raw tomatoes are a disgusting, slimy, mealy abomination. Tomato sauce, tomato soup, and ketchup are all excellent.
- They only get mealy if your refrigerate them. They shouldn't normally be slimy either. Juicy, yes, if properly ripe, but that's not the same as slimy.
  [Actually the seeds do have kind of a slippery coating, that I could see calling slimy.]
- None of that is true for a ripe tomato. Problem is, the vast majority are picked green and ripen on the truck, and they are indeed repulsive.
  Another issue is that we bred tomatoes to be nice and round and have smooth, evenly colored skin. That killed the genes that made them sweet and acidic. Try an "ugly tomato", or maybe an heirloom, if you can find one.
  Not a fan of the one on the right, but the pic mostly gets the point across.
- Ditto. Can’t stand fresh tomato’s, makes me puke (literally). Any other way (cooked, etc) is perfectly fine.

Raw celery. Most people seem to say it has no flavour. To me it smells and tastes similar to vodka and makes me sick to even think about. It's also kinda squeaky on the teeth which is unacceptable. Cooked in a soup or whatever is fine.
Cabbage rolls. Specifically that combination of ingredients has made me sick by smelling it in the past, though it's not as bad now as an adult, and they do taste good. Cooked/boiled cabbage in any other context never bothered me.
Pickled onions. I love onions and can eat them raw, but I couldn't even finish one mini pickled one due to the resemblance to stomach acid, taste and smell.
- Yeah well can't blame you on the celery. I also don't like it much. I can eat it but it's kinda eugh and I agree it absolutely has a taste. I also find it more bland if it's been cooked but I don't see it as an improvement.
  
  Yup, it can add some nice colour, but besides that there isn't much point. Thanks for the celery validation.
- Celery - at least what I get from my local supermarket(s) - definitely has a whole spectrum of flavour, so I wouldn't agree with anyone saying it doesn't have any.
  "Vodka-like" isn't an adjective I'd use either, but for me the spectrum runs from bitter and almost urine-like to sweet and mild (but unmistakably still celery), so maybe there's something in there that's reminiscent of vodka for some people. I should note that this can apply to stalks on the same root as well. Younger/inner shoots tend to be sweeter, but that's not a hard and fast rule.
- Celery is used as a flavouring. People who say it doesn't taste of anything probably had Covid or something...

Cooked chicken = me fed
Raw chicken = me ded
- Nuff sed

Raw spinach is great, I can just eat handfuls of that all day. Cooked spinach is gross, both in flavor and texture.
- It's dinosaur time
  
  Open the door, get on the floor!
  Everybody chew like dinosaurs!
- The only thing I like cooked spinach for is spinach dip. It's acceptable as a layer in things like lasagna, but I won't complain if it isn't there.
- Same. Raw spinach salad for days, but cook or can it and it immediately becomes one of my most hated foods.
  Carrots are not as bad but I don't care for them cooked, especially when raw carrots are so tasty.

Onions
Raw: arrgg can't stand them. Maybe if it is a sweet onion and very thinly sliced, but otherwise keep it away from me.
Sauteed: Mmmmm.... spread them over EVERYTHING!!!!!
Caramelized: Extremely inappropriate moaning noises...

Bananas have about a 20 min viability window for me.

I like pop tarts way more if they aren't toasted

Pineapple needs to be fresh. Coconut on the other hand, as awful as it is in shredded form, it turns out is actually WORSE fresh.
- Last August my family went to Maui and on our last day we toured the Maui Pineapple farm.
  OMG... I didn't know that was how pineapple was supposed to taste. It is NOTHING like what we get here in Wisconsin.

Raw Brussel sprouts are better than boiled. I can't eat raw apples because of the texture but I love apple flavoured stuff. Beans are good when they're not boiled or from a tin.
- What? Raw brussel sprouts? I haven't tried them raw, any recommendations?
  Beans? You mean like green peas right? Otherwise the red kidney or black beans are mega hard if not boiled or not from a tin.
  
  I mean peas, yes. Brussel sprouts are even better cut in half and slightly seared on a pan.
- Have you tried many different types of apples? I find that some have a gritty almost fuzzy texture that I can’t stand, but some other apples have a completely different texture.
  
  I have and I can't stand any of them. Probably related to my autism.

I don't like:
hot fruit
crisp vegetables cooked past al dente
salt (a little, but way less than anyone else likes)
putting fruit in pastries or bread (my wife's caramel apple crumble pie is an exception)
raisins in anything (especially cookies and bread)
I like fruits and vegetables, but generally speaking only in whole-form.

I think i do not, but my gf loves raw cabbages and cannot stand it when it's cooked in any form.
- Similarly I also prefer cabbage raw, but it's just a preference.
- Raw cabbages are delicious. It's a way better green for salads than any kind of lettuce. It's crispy.

I could never stand raw tomatoes as a kid and, for the most part, I still hate them. Most sorts of cooked tomatoes are fine. I can tolerate the shitty fast food tomatoes that are just the solid bits and are nearly flavorless, but I still don’t like them.
- I used to hate raw tomatoes too until I followed Alton Brown's advice: only buy tomatoes in season and then only from road-side stands.
  Turns out, he was right and I love tomatoes! AndI never buy any from the grocery store.

Broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, and brussel sprouts.
I've heard "you just haven't had them done the right way" so many times, from so many people, who then make them their preferred way and they still taste like straight up dookie.
No amount of butter, or cheese, or time spent cooking under any kind of application of heat makes these things taste palatable.
Plus they all stink like farts when cooked, which just makes it worse.
- I've got that gene that converts asparagus into, uh, interesting smelling piss. Weird thing is that it hits within an hour of eating it.
  I can only guess that you forgot and left out cabbage?
  
  Fun fact, that gene is only about whether you can smell the compound in the piss, not whether your body processes asparagus into that smell.
  They tested this by having people smell other people's urine, and found that the people who can smell it in their own piss can also smell it in the piss of everyone who eats asparagus, even of the people who claim not to produce that smell.
  
  Nah, cabbage is okay. Tastes like crunchier lettuce. I don't know what brussel sprouts taste different; they're basically little cabbages 🤷🏻‍♂️

Raw carrot good
Cooked carrot bad

Tuna. When I was a kid, I was sometimes fed canned tuna in sandwiches and they were vile. I always thought the person who made them put way too much mayo in (I was also off mayo for a long time) but it occurs to me now that maybe it was Miracle Whip? Anyway they were awful. My brother threw up all over the table once during such a lunch.
Anyway, as an adult I finally was brave enough to try sushi tuna, and it’s fine. If you sear it though, it tastes enough like the canned stuff that I can’t eat it. 100% raw is okay though.

Love tuna sushi. Hate hate hate canned tuna!

Onions cept crispy fried kind
Any thing canned
Cꝏked vegs but SPECIALLY carrots 🤮
Frozen pizzas save 1️⃣ brand . Always gets soggy in middle
- Can't say without potentially exposing what country I live in

I'm not a picky eater, I can appreciate most flavors and textures, even if it takes some time. I guess I don't really care for baked potatoes? I don't dislike baked potatoes, I'll eat em up, but I'd prefer practically any other method of preparation. Mashed, scalloped in a Dutch oven or stovetop, hash browns, fries, tater tots, soup.
Hmm, actually boiled has to take bottom rank, even in the best pot roasts the potatoes are the weak link

Parsley. Absolutely disgusting
Edit: i misunderstood - for the record parsley is awful in all shapes and forms

Hmm. Only thing I've found is I don't like hot lettuce (so on a hot sandwich where it also gets hot). My husband hates raw tomatoes but loves everything they become. Sibling hates raw onions but likes them soft and cooked into soups and the like.
- Fair fair. Yeah I'm not a fan of soggy lettuce, I can tolerate it now but as a kid I was adamant on not having it as part of my toastie or, even better, add it after toasting.

I'm the opposite of a picky eater, I'm a goat and there are almost no foods i won't eat. Except for raw celery. Good lord is that stuff difficult to choke down. Cooked up it's great!

- Ok... Do you like cheese alone? What about a cheese platter with crackers maybe?

I can’t stand raw celery because it makes me lightheaded and dizzy.
- ...... That seems like an atypical response to celery? Are you allergic to something in it that breaks down with heat?
  
  I’ve never been able to find an answer on this. It’s strange because as I’ve gotten older I realize celery that is only partially cooked is usually okay.
  I have had spontaneous allergic reactions to vegetables though. When I was about three I used to sneak into my parents’ garden and eat all the cherry tomatoes and end up with a rash. For a while I was allergic to strawberries too. It always goes away with time—my most recent case was eating too many tomatoes about two years ago.

The goo inside of a tomato reminds me of chunky snot. I enjoy a good tomato flavor, even raw.

Main one is cucumbers, after my generous neighbors in my childhood gave us 2 large paper grocery bags of cucumbers and my mother used them in everything for the next month I was done for life, can’t stand them raw, but I will eat pickles all day.
The other would be raw tomatoes, the seed slime is not good for my autistic mouth
- Oh no cucumbers have a very short shelf life if you spent a month eating cucumbers from the same batch they were probably going off by the end.
  
  I imagine my mother was chucking any that looked off or more likely cutting off the parts that were bad and using the rest.

As a kid, I passed a strawberry jam factory each day,on my way to school. The horribly sweet smell made me abhor any processed strawberry. But fresh strawberries? Anytime.

Okra, regardless of how it's prepared, is absolutely disgusting. And I say this as a veggie lover
- I don't think I've ever tried it, will keep in mind

Not exactly what you asked but while I do like fruits I don't like them in salads. I also don't like sweet and salty mixed together though there are some exceptions like pineapple in pizza.
- I can understand and I'm usually like you, not liking the sweet and salty mix. But Hawaiian pizza is not for me

Strawberries and watermelon. The flavors are terrible in any way but fresh.
- I'm 100% with you on the watermelon. Strawberry, I like good quality strawberry preserves and jams.

I not only hate vegetables but what they do to me is just plain nasty. I can only eat peas, artichokes and sometimes corn. Oh and marmite, I can eat that stuff right out of the bottle. I eat any veg and bam I am a fart machine for hours, my stomach hurts like hell and my bowels freak out. I am almost 70 and I have yet to die from not eating veg. What I almost died from was friends and family incessantly saying “eat your vegetables” like I am 5 year old.
- Do potatoes also go in your blacklist? Most veg rejectors I've known seem to be okay with that
  
  Love spuds, no issues at all. Avocados now that I think of it as well sometimes.

Cooked veggies in general. I need crispness to eat them, so mostly raw or very, very lightly cooked.

Cherry Tomatoes. Raw I hate them. Cooked they are great.
- Ahhh tomatoes yes forgot about these. I love them in all forms except sun dried. Interesting that your issue is with cherry tomatoes only, can you eat regular tomatoes raw?
  
  Yeah, I don't like them because they explode in your mouth and are too sweet for salads and most people ise them in salads. Funnily enough I love apples or pairs in my salads because of the sweetness they add but cherry tomatoes are a no no.

71 comments