Child pickiness and Brassicus-Cultivar appreciation aside, I have another:

There were those weird times when things just wouldn’t taste right. ~10 years ago I disliked cherries for tasting somewhat like alcohol, and more recently Orange juice tasted soapy to me for a time. Both of these things have since gone away and I’m back to eating just about anything.

Asparagus, Broccoli, and broccolini… although to be fair, I didn’t discover broccolini until about 20 years ago, when I was in my mid-30’s.

Also, I found out it wasn’t the veggie that I disliked, but the way it was prepared. My family boiled (ok Blanched) all vegetables when I was growing up. That’s about the worst way possible to cook most veggies, especially the three I mention above.

Here is what I do to prepare them:

Asparagus: Heat oven to 350F. Trim woody ends and place them in a single layer in an oven proof dish. Salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle with olive oil. Finally top with Parmesan Reggiano. Roast in the oven for 25 minutes or when cheese is browned.

Broccoli (florets only) and broccolini (trim woody end, but leave as much of the stem as possible: Heat oven to 350F. Place veggie in a single layer in an oven proof dish. Salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle with olive oil. You can top these two with Parmesan, but I usually do not. Roast until slightly charred about 25 minutes.

I will never blanch a veggie ever again, except for green beans. There are times when you’re serving a spicy dish, or something with a sauce and just need something plain to go along with it. Case in point, for my General Tso’s Chicken, I serve it with blanched green beans. Otherwise, I sautee them with salt pepper and red pepper flacks and a bit of high temp oil.

Olives. Growing up poor in New Zealand in the 1950s/60s my only exposure to olives was in American magazines. You’d see a martini with a green olive in it. It looked sophisticated and was surely delicious.

Fast forward to my parents’ silver wedding anniversary, which they celebrated with a family meal at a very fancy Italian restaurant. I would have been ten or so, first time in a restaurant. I was thrilled to see dishes of green olives on the table. At last, I’d get to eat one!

I put that olive in my mouth and tasted something overwhelmingly vile, alien, disgusting. I faked a coughing fit and spat it into a napkin. So sophisticated!

These days I eat handfuls of olives - green, black, stuffed, whatever. Kalamata is my favourite. Yum!

I’ve grown to like mustard but in low quantities.

Liver, tuna casserole, sardines. Getting old is weird man.

Beans

Sweets in general.

As an alcoholic, when I was drinking I never cared for sweets. Now that I’ve been sober for some time, I crave candy and ice cream and sweet cereals.

Probably has something to do with the way I process alcohol / sugar.

Spinach. Maybe it’s availability but growing up we only got it canned and my mom cooked the hell out of it. I hated the black slimy bitter salty …. Just not even a food . But now that I’m an adult and fresh spinach is available year round, I love a nice spinach salad and even slightly wilted spinach in a pasta

School food ruined so many things for me. I used to hate rice and gyros but they are really tasty if prepared well

I did not like many vegetables at all as a kid.

Tomato and onion are two of my favorites

I’d say avocados, I still wouldn’t eat a slice of avocado but a little guacamole on a taco or something is OK.

Brussels sprouts.

No one in the 80s-90s knew how to cook them and always overcooked them. Now they’re made roasted and absolutely delicious.

Olives. A greek salad with some big ol’ kalamata olives sounds really good right now.

Two standout ingredients: avocados and horseradish.

Pickled everything.

Korean food changed my perspective on pickling and fermentation, and my digestive system!