[pickle-wizard]

I was out with a friend a few months a go, who does not like seafood. I ordered some crab rangoon. I offered him one. He said he doesn't like seafood.

I told him to trust me and just try a bite. He ended up eating most of them and now every-time we go out to Chinese, he orders them.

I've discovered as I've gotten older. It is not so much that I don't like foods, as I don't like ways of preparing it. For example I don't like cooked fish, but I love sushi. Seriously I can go to a sushi restaurant and spent $150 by myself. Something about cooking fish gives it a different taste that I don't like.

[kian]

It might be something about the "cooking fish" that people serve that's different from sushi fish - freshness. I used to hate all fish, then liked only sushi, and only eventually moved into enjoying cooked fish as well. The last only happened when I discovered that fresh fish never smells like fish, even when cooked.

[bduerst]

Makes sense - most of the food neophobia that we have as humans is thought to be evolutionary. Basically children hate new foods because the children in previous generations that ate everything didn't survive to a reproducing age. As we get older, anything goes apparently.