three_slightly_disliked_vegetables epitome of incomprehensibility I've never met a vegetable I've intensely hated - I was the kid who'd munch on broccoli and cauliflower, and nibble the parsley on catered plates. But! Whenever I've happened to dislike a food in this category, each dislike has been met with surprise. Tomatoes: As a kid, I thought they tasted weird - sweet but not quite sweet. Particularly, I avoided cherry tomatoes - the taste and texture of the burst of tomato juice in my mouth felt uncomfortable. Mom, who was into Italian food (and great at making it), found this an odd dislike indeed. Nowadays, tomatoes and I are mostly on good terms. I still don't care for cold tomato juice, but that's just one teensy aspect of the tomatosphere. Water chestnuts: Mom would use these whitish-grey disc-blobs in a couple of recipes. She didn't understand my dislike. To be fair, "But they don't taste like anything! They taste like wet paper!" wasn't quite coherent - but that's how I felt. Texture, colour, taste...all blah. These days, I don't know if I'd eat them by themselves, but they're good in a Chinese-style stir-fry. Sauerkraut: "You don't like sauerkraut???" someone asked in surprise in a blog that no longer has an active forum. "I'll pretend I didn't read that" (or the like). The weird thing with this one? I have a memory of eating some and liking it as a kid, but whenever I've had it as an adult, I haven't really liked the flavour. I DID try some in Germany and found it...well, too sour, without being balanced by other flavours. Maybe someday I'll encounter some I like better. ("I have and it's called kimchi," says the snarky side of my mind, "because *Asia* knows that spices exist.") 240129 ... e_o_i Alas, poor sauerkraut: it turned out the thing I liked as a kid was actually horseradish. (I tend to like radishy/mustardy/gingery tastes, even when they're too strong to have in large quantities.) 240712 what's it to you? who go blather from