Have you ever had a time a food so good it "converted" you?

I recently came around on non-seafood sushi (sweet potato tempura rolls). I eat seafood once a year in good faith — all types, over the years — and it’s always a hard no, and I had just lumped sushi into that category. But I honestly didn’t know there were veggie sushi options until this past year, so I gave it a try and loved it.

So many times. Hated asparagus until my aunt made it for me at 16/17 years old. Now I can't get enough.

A Peruvian/Japanese fusion restaurant in DC ended my absolute disdain for mushrooms (specifically shitake) when I was in my mid 30s

I have learned to keep trying things I think I don't like every few years because you never know what meal will change your palette - and maybe your life

one time a popsicle turned me bi

In 2016 I was traveling around New Zealand and had an amazing mushroom and cheese toastie. It was so good that I remember thinking, as I drove away, that I'd be happy to eat that toastie over a lot of foods I normally enjoy.

Around a year later I decided to stop eating meat. I begun by allowing myself to eat fish and over a month or so gave up that as well. While not directly related, that mushroom toastie planted a seed in my brain that being a vegetarian didn't mean eating salad every day.

I don't know if or when I would have become a vegetarian anyway, but that toasted sandwich certainly helped me decide when I was ready.

The first time I had a Hefeweisen was the first time I genuinely enjoyed drinking a beer. Since then I've been much more receptive to other types of beer but wheat beers will always be my preference.

Same here! I always felt like the odd one out for not liking any beer. One day I was at a friend's house and they had a random assortment in their fridge and I saw one with a really cool label and it claimed to be from "the world's oldest brewery" which sounded promising.

It was Weihenstephaner Hefe Weißbier, which was of course the easiest thing in the world for me to remember and to request at the time 😆



After that, a local brewpub restaurant had a wheat beer with a hint of raspberry flavor that I liked, and eventually I learned to drink most any beer, but I still love a Weihenstephaner when I come across it.

When I was a child, we'd often see people walking at the edge of a farm fence adjacent to a country road near us.

I asked my dad what those people were doing. "They're looking for asparagus," he said. Hmph. I knew my dad was just making shit up again, especially with a funny word like asparagus.

Some time later he told me to go up to the fence at the edge of our yard and find some asparagus. Oh, dad, you slay me.

You know what I still see to this day? People walking that same country road, with the same grocery bags. They are foraging for wild asparagus. It's a real thing.

"Sushi" technically just refers to the vinegared rice. There are a number of non-seafood sushi options. Cucumber, pickled gourd (kampyo), egg, avocado....

Ajitsuke tamago ("ramen eggs". I hate eggs. Always have. But it turns out that I love eggs when they are soft boiled or poached and overwhelmed by savory marinade/sauce. Still don't really like the whites.

When I cook meat, eggs or with ginger for people who don't like them, they're usually converted. Turns out most people who don't like steaks, ribs, roasts, etc just haven't had good ones

Reminds me of a King of the Hill quote:

Hank:
[Presses his tongs into the steak cooking on the grill] Firm but with a little give. Yup, these are medium-rare.

Bobby:
What if somebody wants theirs well-done?

Hank:
We ask them politely, yet firmly, to leave.

Kenya AA…

I always drank coffee just for the caffeine, but I wanted to cut down on the cream and sugar. So when I’d order the brew of the day, whatever it was, I started taking a sip before drowning it in other flavors.

Buuuut, then I’d go ahead and dump some stuff in it, because I still didn’t like the taste. Until one day, I got a cup and took a sip… and another sip… and decided that THIS cup didn’t need a bunch of stuff in it.

Now I pretty much never add stuff to my coffee( I’ve learned what origins and roasts I like, so I can stay away from coffee I don’t like - and if it’s nasty, it still gets the cream and sugar treatment…

Because life’s too short to drink nasty coffee.

I had a similar experience with steak.

For the longest time growing up, I just wouldn't eat steak, id eat meat, bacon was fine, chicken was fine, but steak made me wanna throw up. My parents would keep throwing all these sauces on it, and none of them worked. Eventually, at my dads best friends 50th birthday, and he had a really nice roast, I tried it (with no sauce), and suddenly I got it. Ate steak all the time after that.

You tried leaves before lettuce... true rural child energy