Olives. A greek salad with some big ol’ kalamata olives sounds really good right now.
Hummus
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.
Seconded. Oven roasted or air fried, they’re little balls of joy.
I always got boiled ones in the old days, same with spinach 🤮
Airfrying…thank you, good tip!
I always fry them in butter, small onion, garlic and little bacon, then add a very small amount of stock and steam them lid on till the stock has evaporated.
I use more onion and bacon when I am preparing them for Dutch Stamppot.
Oh! It’s not just that we got better at cooking them! Brussel sprouts were actually bred to taste better around the 1990s/2000s.
https://www.mashed.com/300870/brussels-sprouts-used-to-taste-a-lot-different-heres-why/
Oh super interesting! I love that we’ve bred all kinds of vegetables and fruits to be more palatable over the eons.
Life never gave us lemons, we made them ourselves.
Soooo goooood… My go-to now for a really good really “bad” meal are Memphis style ribs with roasted brussel sprouts with butter and garlic.
…why can’t you be on sale now ribs lol
I keep hearing this, have to bite the bullet and try sometime.
No wait! I read something about this! Those were totally different brussel sprouts! I guess they came up with a new species that didn’t such so bad and that’s why brussel sprouts suddenly got tolerable.
Now I have to go see how much of this is true.
Edit: What do you know? All of it! https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/30/773457637/from-culinary-dud-to-stud-how-dutch-plant-breeders-built-our-brussels-sprouts-bo
I did not like many vegetables at all as a kid.
Tomato and onion are two of my favorites
I’m pretty sure most of my vegetable phobia is being forced to eat them anyway as a kid. I love trying new foods, including vegetables, and new ways of preparing things from anywhere in the world, but vegetables, the way they’re always prepared here are just gross.
I don’t know if tomatoes are a good example but I have an immediate reaction to want to spit them out if I accidentally get some. Yet I love a good salsa, pico, marinara, etc
Broccoli is something i don’t even like touching
I only ever had steamed or boiled vegetables as a kid and it was bland and mushy and unpleasant. Roasting vegetables changed everything for me.
Yeah, I’ll second that. In general I strongly prefer uncooked vegetable to cooked (except of course obvious ones like potatoes), but I’ll eat roasted. I’ve even chosen to roast vegetables myself
Broccoli and brussel sprouts for me
Kale, because my parents had no idea how to cook it. When I make it myself it’s awesome.
How do you cook it? I’ve only tried it raw in a salad.
If you have an air fryer put a little olive oil and salt on it and fry it at high heat. Like 5 minutes and it’s light and crispy and almost nothing. It’s amazing
First make sure you rip all the stems out and are eating only the leaves. Then I saute it in a light coat of olive oil and with garlic and onions, or steam it. I think the real trick is to not overcook it. Don’t let it cook for more than 5 minutes. You don’t want it to get squishy and boiled down like you do with spinach, it’s not the same thing as spinach. It should still hold its shape somewhat after cooking.
Two standout ingredients: avocados and horseradish.
I used to wonder how anyone could even enjoy horseradish until I tried it with salmon and was like “Ohhhhhhhhh, so that’s why”
I’d say avocados, I still wouldn’t eat a slice of avocado but a little guacamole on a taco or something is OK.
Tomatoes. I disliked them for a long time but a few years ago I tried them again. I don’t remember how I made that decision - it may have been from forgetting to ask for no tomatoes on a burger but I ended up trying them more and came to like them. I don’t like all tomatoes and not in everything, but I do enjoy them in sandwiches, burgers, and a few other things.
It makes sandwiches a little too ‘wet’ for me, but I’ll drag 'em onto the side and eat them separately so they don’t ruin it.
Ranch.
I’ve grown to hate ranch, as it expands to everywhere and there are too many cheap “ranch” flavorings that just taste like chemicals
I moved to the suburbs and suddenly I liked it. Seriously.
Maybe that’s the problem. I moved from suburbs to a more urban area and ranch is now so vile and overdone 🤪
I used to dislike anything battered, but now I absolutely love it! Battered fries/chips are honestly such a step up that I’ll only eat normal ones if I don’t have a choice
Mushrooms - I once puked them up on the table when my mom made me eat them…canned mushrooms FTW! I now, of course, can not get enough of them - sautéed, baked, sliced/raw on a salad…gimme some fungus already!!
I get so jealous when people post pictures of their locally owned supermarket selling chanterelles and morels… I’m just sitting here like a chump eating button mushrooms which are apparently the only mushrooms that exist according to all the store owners in my city. ;-;
Onions, like slices of onion on burgers or in a dish.
At some point it just didn’t matter anymore and they are kinda nice.
I was the same. The cellular looks of onions, especially when cooked made me want to retch. Now I put onions in nearly everything I cook.
What’s it like to be dead Inside?
Avocado, young me thought it was a Kiwi so it might just have been the surprise of how different it was.
Sauerkraut! Used to be toilet cheese, now it’s a delicacy that’s earned its place on my sandwiches.
Pickled everything.
Korean food changed my perspective on pickling and fermentation, and my digestive system!
I always liked sauerkraut but I was weirdly against the idea of kimchi as a kid. I think the first time I heard of it, it was described by someone who didn’t like it because it sounded super gross, and I had zero spice tolerance. These days, I put it on practically everything or eat it by itself as a side.
A few years ago, I was working at a restaurant when it went under, so as sous-chef they let me take a few bits home with me. I took 5kg of kimchi home. I used to, like, come home drunk and eat a handful of it out the fridge, haha.
Oh man, that’s the dream. I buy it from a local guy who started making his mom’s recipe for friends during the pandemic and now sells at farmers markets and stuff, and I go through about a gallon every month or two. I need him to start selling me buckets of it.
I LOVE home-made kimchi. Store bought kimchi is just… meh.
