Foods formerly blech now yum!
Beets
Blech: they tasted like dirt and had a funny texture.
Yum: I realized that I like beets when Peter prepared a salad for me featuring beets and dill. I buy the cooked packaged beets occasionally and in the last 5 days I have had beets three times – once on pasta. I was so delighted by my impromptu pasta that I’ve been telling everyone: girondelle, cut up beets, lemon juice, cream, leftover chicken breast, salt and pepper.
Avocado
Blech: waaah, what is this squishy stuff in my salad Mom?!?! Yuck.
Yum: avocados in all forms. I’ve been onto avocado for a while now, not sure when I started to really like them. Tomato and avocado salad is a favourite summer meal of mine.
Brussels sprouts
Blech: my all time most hated vegetable. I can’t begin to describe how awful I thought they tasted. In university a roommate made them and convinced me to give them a try after 15 years. They tasted awful.
Yum: Jessica and I spent my first Christmas in Berlin together and Jessica absolutely wanted to have brussels sprouts. I wasn’t convinced but decided to be a good sport. Sauteed in garlic, they were tender and delicious. Recently I sauteed some in some duck fat from the duck roulade from the market that I roasted. Of course, anything in duck fat is pretty good so it might not be a fair test.
I’d be interested in the food you’ve learned to love. Leave a comment!
VIVRE POUR MANGER 
I have some beets from my CSA. Want ’em? 😉 I will eat them now if they are served to me, but I will not cook or order them.
LikeLike
Mushrooms were always something I disliked, especially raw. Now, I have come around to liking them cooked. My favourites are portabellos grilled or roasted with plenty of butter, salt, and pepper. A drizzle of truffle oil makes them perfect.
LikeLike
I’ve been trying to think of some, but mostly I just have “formerly meh now yum” foods: pork, greens, potatoes (except mashed), onions. And then there’s the major “formerly yum now blech” food: eggs. I loved egg on toast when I was little. What happened?
LikeLike
This speaks for itself, I think:
http://www.tif.ca/misc/misc15.html
I have always liked beets. I also have always liked beet tops, which are delicious, if you can get passed the sort of squeaky feeling they leave on your teeth (that hardly sells them, I know). The next closest thing to beet tops I’ve had is chard. Maybe they are related?
The only thing I recall hating was rutabaga. We called it turnip when I was a kid in Ontario, and my step-father loved it. The only time he got it was at Thanksgiving and Christmas. He hated liver and onions so my mom stopped making it, but we got served watery, smelly, mushy turnip at the most special of occasions. He also introduced fried smelts to our house though, so for the turnip he can be forgiven.
Jeremy loves rutabaga, so when we lived together, I tried out a braised rutabaga recipe from (where else) the Joy of Cooking.
“Tiffany,” he said, nearly breathless, “This is world-class turnip.”
He was right 😉
LikeLike
Kristin, the real question is, “Have you learned to like cilantro?” Every time (well, most of the time) I use it, I think of your distaste for it’s rather soapy taste.
For whatever reason, I really could never make myself eat cantaloupe (probably because I couldn’t spell it)….now, just in the last few years, I love it….especially the Tuscan kind.
LikeLike
Ginny, unfortunately I can’t say that I have learned to like cilantro. Everyone once in a while I give it a try but it still just tastes like soap.
huh, I don’t think I’ve distinguished between varieties of cantaloupe. I’m going to have to investigate that.
LikeLike
I forgot about cantaloupe. That would definitely fall under blech now yum. I’ve never seen the Tuscan ones in Berlin, but they taste like charentais melons (and are just as expensive). Eating a charentais melon for the first time in France is what convinced me that cantaloupe was only blech because I had never had a good one.
LikeLike
Yup. I looked today to see if there were Tuscan ones. Nope. Trying to eat seasonally, especially while reading Omnivore’s Dilemma…..I wonder if they grow Tuscan melons in Uvalde?
LikeLike