Can you acquire a taste for a food you’ve always hated?
Matt Brady puts his taste buds on the line as he sees if he can learn to love the food he hates.
Tomatoes and I, we’ve never really got on. Over the last 10 years or so I’ve allowed myself to tolerate them, and even enjoy them once thoroughly cooked, in a sauce or stew – but never ever whole.
Raw tomatoes, in salads or anywhere else, are just a complete killer for my taste buds. That metallic tang which everyone says is just ‘sharp’, the rubbery flesh that other people call ‘juicy’, the seeds that don’t actually seem to make anyone else retch. I don’t have a phobia, but the flavour and texture disgusts me.
Pretty much everyone else seems to love them though, and I want to see if it’s possible to ‘acquire’ a taste for tomatoes in the whole, since I’ve already come to terms with eating them in other forms.
Week 1
I decided to start the challenge at the beginning of May, while I was on holiday in Bulgaria. My girlfriend, who is from the southwest region of the country, has always insisted that if I just try the tomatoes they grow there, I’d be converted. So I give it a shot.
A big dollop of diced tomatoes with feta cheese – plop – it drops onto my plate. I take a big bite with a hefty dose of feta to mask the flavour, and then another. It’s not actually so bad when I have something salty like this alongside it, but my enthusiasm wanes and I start to feel a bit sick after a few more bites.
Still, I give it another go later in the week and I don’t think it’s all that awful. Could there be hope for me?
Week 2
Back in England, I’m still determined to make the effort. I bought a pack of cherry tomatoes and ate a couple. They’re not actually so bad, and their natural sweetness definitely helps me not to gag so much. But I still can’t eat too many.
On Wednesday though, I bite into a baby plum tomato and immediately rush to the sink to spit it out and wash the flavour out of my mouth. Reverting to the cherry tomatoes for the rest of the week isn't too bad, but I'm getting less keen.
Week 3
Time for a new strategy. I’m hiding bits of tomato elsewhere in my food. I’ve been successful this week with slices in burgers, cherry tomatoes in stir fries and fresh plum tomatoes in sauces (as opposed to using solely the tinned kind).
It’s getting better again, I think, although I still can’t pretend that I’m in love with them.
Week 4
My enthusiasm for this project is waning. I’m still stuffing the things into my mouth, but I’m more and more inclined to spit them out. There seemed to be real hope after the first week, but I honestly don’t want to think about trying to get used to tomatoes any longer.
I tried for the first half of the week, but by Thursday I was done with the ‘experience’. I think I can live without fresh tomatoes in my life, but at least the experiment hasn’t put me off the tinned or cooked ones. Yet.
I’d better quit while I’m ahead.
Conclusion
It looks like it’s not possible for me to get over my dislike of fresh tomatoes. Perhaps persistence would pay off but it’s going to take way more than a month to undo more than two decades of hate.
There’s no other food that I’ve had such a problem with, but perhaps there are some foods that some people will simply never like.
Have you ever learned to like a food you detest? Is it possible? Which foods could you still not touch to this day? Let us know in the Comments below.
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