The palate is educable and I suppose there are several reasons we might come to like foods we once found disgusting besides maturing taste buds, including different prep or different presentation as noted by Ed Sails above. There is also necessity, and, I suspect for many on this board, havng our curiousity aroused by reading a cookbook or hearing about it from others.
Unlike many kids, I always loved spinach (thanks to Popeye
); I was okay with salads but couldn't take cabbage, collards or other greens. In the case of collards and mustard greens that was possibly due to the strong flavors but cabbage is milder than spinach. But like many cooks of her era, my mother stewed all greens until they had the consistency of wet tissue paper and, regardless of the flavor, it was the texture I couldn't get past. When I learned not to overcook them I came to love 'em. Same thing was true of broccoli and asparagus, cooked until they were disintegrating I had no use for them. But I learned to lightly steam them and now broccoli is now one of my two favorite veggies and I love asparagus, too.
Nothing could ever get me to have okra after sampling it once and finding the sliminess disgusting until I came across a recipe in an old Roy Andries DeGroot cookbook pairing okra with cheshire cheese; the unique tanginess of Cheshire was, as he put it, a perfect foil for the sliminess of okra and I've loved okra ever since and eat it lots of different ways.
My parents regularly feasted gleefully on fried oysters when I was a child. My brother and I were always treated to salmon croquettes on those days but once we were allowed to sample the food that was just for Mommie and Daddy for some reason (this was pre-puberty; I guess they didn't want to take any chances on our hormones getting revved up
). I didn't find it particularly offensive but didn't see what was supposed to be special about it and never asked for it again. It was almost 2 decades later before I came across the recipe for Oyster Pan Roast Grand Central in a cookbook and knew I had to try it. Now I love oysters on the half shell and in a pan roast; I'll eat 'em fried, but seldom order them because most places over cook them like that.
