Couple examples from personal experience:
Spicy Food
I didn’t like spicy food for a (relatively) long time until I was 25.
2/4 of my roommates did. We’d order two pizzas, one spicy and one not. But the asshats who liked spicy would eat half the non-spicy pizza first knowing the other one was safe from us.
Well… we’d see about that!
I bought a jar of pickled little yellow banana peppers. At first all I could manage was a tiny little bit of one. But I had that tiny little bite every evening, every day. Eventually my tolerance grew until I was eating a whole one, then multiples. In a few weeks I realized I was crunching through them and loving it. (Didn’t love the first time I overindulged and found out what goes in can still burn going out, oof, lol.)
Beer
First time I had beer I did the movie-style stereotypical spit-take. Tasted like something I’d never want again. I drank when I was 18-19yrs old but it was usually Smirnoff Ice or some other “bitch-pop” as was said at the time by those around me.
When I was in my early 20s I supervised for a company that had us do a lot of traveling. Particularly three months of the year I was in a hotel more than at home.
There was a consistent crew of people who lived in a town nearby that I saw fairly frequently for those three months but not too often elsewise. As I said I was in my early 20s, 21-23ish. And they were in their late 20s to mid thirties.
They were inveterate drinkers, and they loved beer. And they undertook a self-imposed mission to teach me to love beer too. Them being older and me being impressionable, I went with it.
Every evening after work we’d hit up the local pub and I’d order three beers, based off their recommendations. One was an inveterate drinker as mentioned, the other a mid-thirties redheaded British woman I grew rather fond of and who was rather fond of me, along with some other crew. Basically, people who knew beer and in the case of the brit, someone who I would’ve listened to for a few reasons.
Didn’t take too long but I certainly “acquired” a taste for it. Eventually acquiring my own preferences to the point I was recommending them ideas.
Wine. I’ve never been much of a wine person, and I prefer beer with my food, but at some restaurants and events, the food is usually paired well with a wine. Because of this I tried to actually like it, and I am now at the point where I can enjoy white wine that isn’t too sweet.
I couldn’t stomach the taste of whiskey for years but I had friends who were really into craft stuff and I felt like I was missing out so I found something that was basically vanilla extract and learned how to enjoy other whiskeys from there. Now I’m a big fan
I’ve never been a fan of mushrooms. I did attempt to tolerate them though.
Turns out, canned mushrooms are the problem. Those are basically large boogers and not fit for human consumption. Fresh mushrooms don’t have much flavor and I’m relatively indifferent to those. They are now just something I chop up with onion and garlic sometimes now.
Yes. I tried mangoes every year untill I liked them, avocado too. Raw tomatoes I keep trying, can tolerate, can’t like.
Last year I made a deal with my coworker, who is a wine person but such a picky eater he went to Japan and just ate chicken tenders, same in the middle east. I told him if he honestly tried eating new foods I would try wines. He found some foods he likes, and I found I like dry elegant white wines (nothing sweet) and most wines made of Nebbiolo grapes, like instead of just sort of holding my nose and tolerating them, I can affirmatively like them .
I truly believe a wide palate is a positive quality, I gave my kids lots of different tasting foods when they were little and that helped them to enjoy more flavors. I think technically I’m picky (have strong likes and dislikes) but like so, so many foods it’s not limiting. And yes, I do try to like some of the foods I don’t.
Olives. I’ve really learned to like the ones at the local Portuguese restaurant that they cure themselves, and serve with crusty bread that you dip in olive oil and vinegar. My friend also marinated olives herself with this insanely good olive oil and herb mix.
Yes, those squishy store bought olives in oil are not nice. It’s a bad taste bomb for me. But I loooove the firm and salty olives in Spain and Greece.
Yes, with just about everything I eat and now I’m ok with most everything.
As a kid, I thought nearly everything tasted bad: cucumbers, mustard, relish, mushrooms, onions, peppers, different types of cheese, stewed tomatoes, roasted carrots, roasted potatoes, etc etc etc.
As a young adult, I tried some things for the first time and hated them at first brush (for instance, avocado, which was so rich tasting to me at first that it almost triggered my gag reflex). I kept going and got over it.
Nowadays, everything I order I do so without having the chef hold a damned thing.
I’ve learned that in isolation, many things taste pretty overpowering, but with proper preparation and seasoning most things can be part of a delicious dish.
Honestly, I always believed that if people like something, it’s “like-able” for anyone. It’s just a matter of understanding why and putting yourself in the shoes of the people that do like it.
So many many things that I at first didn’t understand or like, I tried hard to understand better and like as well.
From music, to food, to movies etc.
“Taste” is something that you build. It’s critically engaging with everything, and trying to understand it as best you can.
I like your general idea. My girlfriend however has the coriander soap gene and a horrid distaste for artificial sweeteners. She can taste trace amounts and she describes it as vitriol.
Ah yeah well, that kind of stuff aside of course. But dude, my grandpa also has the soap taste gene, and he started growing coriander and eating it and now he loves it. Idk if he likes the taste of soap now, or the taste itself changed. But he eats coriander all the time now.
Bud Ice. It’s $1 a can of 5.5% beer and I’m in poverty. Gotta drink something, so I made myself tolerate the cheapest.
you know there’s sites that track abv/$ cost for the real alcoholics out there, right?
if the purpose is to get drunk then abv/cost is the only thing that matters
Gotta drink something
Nah
I liked coffee, beer and spicy food right from the first time I tried them.
Anchovies were a personal challenge that I undertook - putanesca pasta was fine but the first time I tried them on pizza I thought they were unbearable. Over the decades I might get one anchovie pizza a year and each time I found them more palatable, but it was a bit of an exercise in willpower. Recently, it has paid off and I’ve found that I love them. Many pizzeria’s don’t offer them because they are so unpopular but if I get the chance I’ll eat them; has displaced peperoni as my favourite topping.
I worked very hard to like beer when I was in high school. It didn’t help that I was “borrowing” warm Old Milwaukee from my dad’s case in the basement.
Kombucha, the first couple bottles taste like fizzy vinegar, but then I got hooked on it. I was trying to get my gut microbes in a healthier zone.
I worked at a health food store in college. I thought the people who drank that stuff were nuts til enough vendors came by with free samples. Free shit to a college kid is irresistible. By the time I quit that job I was drinking 1 a day, sometimes more. Additionally, I preferred the weird multi green one to the fruity ones (those were for noobs obviously). I still grab one from time to time, but them not being 5 feet away from me 40 hours a week put a real damper on my consumption of them.
Ridiculously easy and cheap to make your own booch I’d you get the craving
It is demanding in the long-term, in that a starter will live perpetually and as such you must produce the booch perpetually.
Quite a few!
- Spicy food: didn’t grow up in a spicy-loving part of the world but tried a lot of Indian food in college and decided to just upping the spice level. I can handle some pretty extreme stuff, which always comes as a surprise when I meet Southern Chinese ppl
- Coffee: turns out it was less of an issue with my tolerance and just that I needed a good setup and locally-roasted beans
- Beer: surprisingly easy to get into, similar to coffee I just needed high-quality beer. I prefer the fruity ones over blondes/browns/pils though
- K-pop: unwillingly, because I play a “K-pop” game… I think I’m starting to get the appeal now though
Coffee and beer, my two favorite drinks
I find that a lot of ‘acquired’ tastes have a lot to do with one of two time based things:
Time itself, ages your palate and allows you to enjoy more nuanced tastes as it ages and changes.
As well as
Your palate being able to take food over time and the human brain numbs that which offends so you can enjoy what’s left.
Rice, ground beef, bananas, papaya
This is some list you got.
