Biggest surprise in food?

ShellyMacchi

Hard to fit the whole question in the subject line *LOL*

What i am curious about is...

"What one food have you discovered you now 'love' as a result of your re-worked food choices, that you used to always think you hated?"

Mine?
There are a few.. but I think the biggest single surprise for me would be... BROCCOLI

I have hated the stuff all my life... seriously!
I would gag when mum tried to force me to try some. T
The smell of it cooking was alone enough to make me leave the house... just smelled like hot seaweed to me (I've since realized she was over-cooking it and salting it to death too, hence the seaweed smell)

And within the last 2 years (I am now 56 btw), I have suddenly discovered I don't hate broccoli.. i simply hate OVER-COOKED, salted, broccoli.
And over-cooked, over-salted was the way most people presented it to me.

It took small steps mind-you... from discovering I did not 'mind' the raw stems (still could not handle the flower part)
to discovering that 'barely' steamed stems with a touch of lemon juice were sort of 'ok' too...

to nowadays it becoming my 'go to' vegetable of choice! flowers and all - no salt!
It just has to be 'barely' steamed or raw and I am happy.

A shame I never learned that a LOT of years ago.
Same holds true for carrots (which I also once hated) and a whole host of other vegetables!

Can a vegetable hater learn to enjoy them?
I am living proof it's possible.

What food have you learned to 'love' that has surprised you?

ruwise

When I first met my husband he hated all vegetables apart from potatoes and onions. I'm vegetarian and just couldn't understand it until his Mum cooked for me. I then had to explain to my husband that vegetables were not meant to taste like that over the years he has started eating most things though there are a few he still refuses to eat.

I'm quite lucky in that apart from being vegetarian I like food (healthy or not) so not really had any surprises though I have discovered i like sweet potato even more than I thought and it is surprisingly versatile.

filthyfit12

Broccoli and Asparagus!

KyleB65

For me it was spinach!

Hated it growing up!!!! It was the one thing that my Grandmother would cook that I could not tolerate. It smelled and it tasted funny! :-(

When I started looking at eating better, spinach kept showing up as having lots of health benefits. So, I started bringing spinach salads to work. These days I eat the stuff 4 - 5 days per week and in massive quantities! :-) I have a special container to bring my salads to work. It holds probably 6 - 8 cups of spinach along with mushrooms & red onions!

DAM5412

Grapefruit... I used to feel like it was punishment, but I am now totally in love with Ruby Red Grapefruits and actually crave them.

LoosingMyLast15

carrots and brussel sprouts.

hated them both for as long as i could remember. NOW I LOVE THEM! oh and spinach leaves (ie salad) i didn't mind cooked spinach (creamed spinach if we're being honest) but not plain old spinach, cold as a salad and forget it cooked. now i eat spinach salads all the time and love cooked spinach. yummy

sassafrascas

I never really ate many vegetables growing up, but once I started trying to loose weight while buying my own food I realized I love Asparagus! and almost any other green veggie!

MayaSPapaya

Greek yogurt-the first time I tried it I thought it was too tart and thick, but now I love it! And its such a good, healthy source of protein.

vaceves

Brussel sprouts, spinach, asparagus, yams, green beans.

I also didn't like greek yogurt the first dozen times that I forced myself to eat it but am actually starting to like it now.

Just recently tried cottage cheese for the first time in my life. It always grossed me out (texture). I have been eating it for breakfast with my scrambled eggs & spinach. It is so yummy.

LisaLamb1

Brussels Sprouts. I hated them, but then I had them roasted - amazing! Actually, a lot of things I used to not like, I roast now and really enjoy. I try not to eat too many Brussels Sprout though...it becomes an output problem...!

bdburch

I HATE bananas!! But then I discovered that I don't hate the taste of bananas, just the texture. I can totally put them in a smoothie or mash them up and put them in a "healthy" cookie.

vanguardfitness

Yogurt. I used to hate it for a long time. Funny smell and flavor. But now I developed taste buds for it. Plain or with fruit. Prefer fruit though.

RhonndaJ

Yeah, you a veggie lover is just too weird.

For me, green salad stuff. Cucumbers, celery, radish, lettuce, onion. I don't recall ever being a fan of salads. Ate them under duress, but never by choice.

purple_furry_aubergine

I hear ya! I was a massive veggie hater, from birth up until about 25, the only things I'd even contemplate were raw carrots (cooked were bleeeurgh!) broccoli florets (definitely not the stalks though, I used to shave off the flowers to avoid them!) and onion if it was cut up VERY small. In general, I had a massive aversion to trying new things, my diet was mainly based arounf pasta and potatoes, and my palette just interpreted anything unfamiliar as yucky.

I'm not even quite sure what happened, one of my best friends is vegan, so eating round her house started introducing me to "other" foods (not even particularly adventurous ones, 5 bean chilli was a big jump for me.) The major turning point was meeting my fiance 4 years ago, whos a massive foodie and has introduced me to an amazing world of delicious food. That in addition to a holiday staying with a friend and her cousin and eating the scary stuff because I'm polite (even if I did spend the nights crying because of it!)

Now there are very few things I wont at least try, veg taste completely different now than how they did. I made my mum cry when we went round for lunch the other day becuase I ate three sprouts and a beetroot fritata! The major vegetable discovery for me has been courgette, never something that even registered before, except it looked like cucumber and I HATE cucumber (and still do!) Now we seem to be eating it every other day, it's awesome! Spinach as well, have it on pastas all the time instead of meat / sauce. And mushrooms, they freaked me out immensely, hated everything about them. I think I'm most proud of starting to eat them because getting over that one was all down to me, I've made a determined effort to keep mushrooms in the frame when I didn't like them, I cooked casseroles just for me with them in and picked them out when I ate them! Blended them into sauces, and slowly got the bits bigger and bigger, til now I just eat them.

My mum always said she hated veg until she was in her mid twenties, and then something just flipped and her palette completely changed. I never in a million years would have thought that would be me too, but here I am, eating healthier than I ever have and actually enjoying it!