The foods we hate

I’ll go first. I hate milk skin, that crepey film on hot milk. I blanch at butterscotch mousse, having eaten enough of the sickly tan stuff at school. And I have a fraught relationship with broad beans, which Niki Segnit categorises in her new book The Flavour Thesaurus: More Flavours (Bloomsbury) as “half vegetable, half mammal” for their “obscurely bloody, offal-like and a bit cheesy” taste. Here at least I’m in good company: Pythagoras is thought to have had an aversion to broad beans due – among other things – to their resemblance to the human head.

Most aversions boil down to lack of familiarity

There are many reasons people hate foods. We are all born disliking bitterness, for instance. But we get over that in pursuit of sophistication (eg, coffee) or intoxication (ie, alcohol). Some remain sensitive to bitterness and other pungent flavours. Genetics also mean we respond differently to certain olfactory stimuli, which is why some people find coriander tastes like soap.

But most aversions boil down to lack of familiarity: “That wariness of novelty is exaggerated in children aged two to six who insist they don’t like something even if they haven’t tried it, but holds generally true for people of all ages,” says Professor John Prescott, author of Taste Matters (Reaktion Books) and a specialist in food preferences.

As Chinese culinary expert Fuchsia Dunlop points out: “It’s normal for people to have cultural boundaries when it comes to [unfamiliar] foods, because it’s all about safety.” On trips across China, she’s consumed delicacies such as pig’s stomach and intestines that she found hard to, well, stomach. But “when I give it a go, I find eventually it’s fine”, she says. “That’s happened so many times now I don’t take that initial moment of disgust seriously.”

As Segnit also notes, some flavours mask other more polarising ones: cheese dampens the cruciferous notes in cauliflower; tamarind offsets the mustardy whiff of papaya; nutmeg suppresses the sulphurous egginess of custard. It’s turning “I don’t like that” to “I haven’t found a way I like that yet,” she says of the search for the right pairing.

Of course, that supposes you want to conquer your dislikes. “Milk skin? Just awful!” affirms Segnit with a wince.

The hate list

Fay Maschler, restaurant critic

“In a closely run race the worst pudding at my boarding school was ‘frogspawn’, which is how we all described tapioca. Insidious slimy little bubbles that much later I discover are made from cassava root (what?) received a dollop of ‘jam’, something red and sweet from a tin with scant reference to fruit. Now when I see youngsters queuing to imbibe bubble tea I want to push them over. Tapioca: it could have meant a sexy dance.”  

Tom Aikens, chef 

“I have always disliked smoked salmon. It’s a combination of many things including a bad experience at some point. But it’s mainly the slimy, greasy texture that I dislike, as well as an old fishy taste. Another dislike is our friendly little anchovy, which reminds me of being back at school taking cod liver oil! Mint choc chip is a totally gross mix of flavours – wrong on so many levels. Like bad air freshener. Finally, another chocolate mix that as a child made my skin crawl: Terry’s Chocolate Orange. Cheap perfumed chocolate… Awful!” 

Meera Sodha, chef/author

“I am still suspicious of the potato. ‘Bateta nu shaak’ or Gujarati potato curry was one of the most regular meals on our family table and forced consumption of it dealt a life-long blow, forever propelling me away from wet and floury potato dishes.” 

Lerato Umah-Shaylor, cook/author of Africana

“If you want to torture me, force feed me spaghetti or any form of pasta. I always hated it but then grew to loathe it even more after I was forced to eat it as a tween at boarding school in Nigeria. I passed out and was hospitalised. It was jollof-inspired broken spaghetti, mushy and pungent with mackerel – another ingredient I can’t stand.”

Ravinder Bhogal, food writer/restaurateur

“There is something about kedgeree that always leaves me cold and I don’t really love the taste of smoked haddock. Perhaps it’s the lingering taste of a colonised India I find hard to swallow, or maybe it’s just the muteness of spices trying and failing to speak.”

Tom Parker Bowles, restaurant critic

“Goat’s cheese. I want to love it, really I do. And have tried so many times. But it’s that sinister, feral pong that does it for me. Eating a piece, however mild, tastes like licking a filthy farmyard floor.” 

Sami Tamimi, chef/author 

“I’m not keen on any type of fermented fish that has a punchy smell and taste. As someone who grew up in the Middle East, I am obsessed with how certain fish and meat should smell and taste. I remember once a Swedish friend brought a tin of fermented herring. She had to open it outdoors because of the smell and I couldn’t bring myself to even come near, never mind trying it. The same goes for Thai pla tuu (fried short mackerel), boo kem salted crab used in fresh papaya salad, and hákarl, the notorious Icelandic fermented shark.”

Niki Segnit, food writer

“I have always associated mushrooms with slugs. I don’t want to eat them, touch them or even look at them in the supermarket. I can find the tiniest chunk of mushroom if it’s been slipped into a meal. When people say, ‘Oh I did put a few mushrooms in that dish but they’re just diced up’, I’m like Liam Neeson in Taken. I will find them...”

Fuchsia Dunlop, food writer

“I love cheese and butter. I quite like cream. But I have never drunk milk. My mother has always been intolerant so we weren’t given milk to drink as children and I’ve grown up thinking of it as being really disgusting.”

Jeremy Lee, chef/author

“Spaghetti Bolognese. I loathed it as a child. It was always something I struggled with; no real reason, other than I think I adored my granny’s pot of mince and tatties, bested only by mum and dad’s. I suppose that reflects a dour Scottish appetite. Now I adore this dish, although it has to be made from scratch with a fine Bolognese of freshly ground mince – the packet stuff is always somehow wanting. Also, I have never managed to cultivate an appetite for those huge, flouncy gâteaux, full of whipped cream and tinned cherries..”

Margot Henderson, chef

“I don’t like the taste and texture of sous vide meat. I find when a piece of beef has been cooked very slowly and for a long time it gets sort of flabby and the texture too soft and pappy. The flavour becomes sort of insipid.”

José Pizarro, chef

“I’m afraid I say ‘no way José!’ to truffle oil: it’s overpoweringly strong, erases the beauty of other ingredients, gives me a stomach ache and can ‘repeat’ for hours afterwards.”

Rachel Roddy, food writer

At Crabtree infants’ school, when I told the dinner lady I didn’t like the stew, she told me that the stew didn’t like me either. The perfect comeback from a smart dinner lady, and never forgotten. Avocado and I don’t like each other either, at all, each thinking the other slimy. So we avoid each other at all costs. 

@ajesh34