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Anything that makes my nose run - it that a taste or a sensation?

Hm. I love ginger and hate cilantro. I'd describe pickled ginger as astringent but not soapy. Cilantro tastes like soapy murky water to me. And I totally think that beets taste like dirt. But I'm not sure that I think mushrooms taste like dirt. I really like things that taste very fresh and green - for example asparagus - you might say these things taste grassy?

I think by far my favorite taste is pickled things/vinegar. My parents could get me to eat canned spinach as a kid by letting me put as much cider vinegar as I wanted on it. I'd have seconds, even though I found the texture absolutely foul.

About the only food item that I ever dislike due to taste is things that are laden with a whole lot of cilantro. Most of the time it's a texture thing if I really dislike something, and even that is unusual.

It's easier to identify what I don't like. I've never liked beets but someone convinced me that roasted beets would transform them so we bought a small one of each kind they had at the store (4). The cashier laughed and told us we'd be back... but turns out we'd bought way too much! They tasted completely like icky flavored dirt. I'd prefer straight dirt.

However, cilantro had always just tasted like something I need to get out of my mouth NOW! Never gave much consideration to what it tasted like. However once I heard people say soap in regards to it I was reminded of the time I was at my fave Mexican place and the green salsa which had always been safe (and I love tomatillos which taste "fresh" to me) tasted as if they'd left the soap in the containers when washing instead of rinsing. Maybe even as if there was an extra squirt or two of dish soap in the batch. It was awful.

Have never liked vinegary stuff either though I have liked good pickles (not sweet, ew) and sauerkraut and even used to drink the pickle juice. I did finally discover the joys of good balsamic which amazes me because I don't like grapes in any other incarnation including raisins and wine (and I have really tried there). Also avoid hoppy beer. Too bitter. Not big on lemon either (though it can help temper the bitter in beer somehow) but lime is divine.

My sis-in-law has spent years trying to trick me into liking mushrooms. I'm not sure if that was calculated to get me to stop coming over or what. Apparently I exacted revenge on her one time by fixing a bell pepper centered dinner.

wellred, are beets supposed to be peeled? :]

I can't remember. It was a bit of a trauma. I'd needed a lot of convincing because the childhood memories were deep. I'm sure we scrubbed them well and cut them up to roast with a bunch of other veggies which were then colored and flavored by the beets so those were tossed as well.

Guess that would make a good thread too. Those things we just don't know about some food that keeps us from eating it.

I do like black licorice even the very strong stuff. Basil is dreamy but I've never noticed the licorice taste (though I'll pay extra attention next time). I also haven't had fresh fennel that tastes licorice-like to me but I don't like fennel seed much (which has licorice-ness but something else) and cloves in savory stuff are really unpleasant but I loved spice drops as a youngster.

Your mention of body reactions is interesting. I never liked spicy-hot Mexican but loved spicy-hot Thai. It seemed to me the pepper burn happened in different places with the first being up front in the mouth and the second more a throat thing. Burt Wolf on PBS did a show about peppers and confirmed that sensation for me which was akin to giving me permission to just enjoy and not feel bad about what I do and don't like.

I adore sour flavors. As a kid, pickles were a favorite snack. Really, there's not much I don't like. I hate coconut because of the texture, but I don't mind coconut milk in curries. I dislike raisins, but that's a whole long story, and it's a mental block more than taste or texture.

Sometimes my tastebuds will go all wonky on me, and I'll start tasting odd things that no one else does. I can remember a week where I was trying to track down an elusive soapy taste that seemed to be invading a variety of things. I thought maybe dishes hadn't been rinsed well enough, then I thought maybe it was the butter that had gone off.

DH thought I was nuts, because everything tasted fine to him. Eventually, it just went away. Maybe I was coming down with a cold or something, because that always throws off my sense of taste, but it was truly odd, tasting soap in so many things.

I love bold flavors, but I like subtle flavors as well.

Textures can be more off-putting. I don't like really stringy celery, for instance, or getting really woody aspargus that should have been trimmed shorter. I hate fish with tiny bones. I hate hate hate finding eggshells in anything.

I also love salty, briny, acidic things. People are always telling me to get the lemons and limes out of my mouth, because I'll ruin the enamel on my teeth (they say this while sucking down a Coke, but that's another story). And I can't resist a tinge of bitter. My favorite drink in the world, hands down, is Schweppes bitter lemon. And my favorite food is oil-cured Sicilian/Moroccan olives.

I could eat Japanese pickles every day of my life, gladly.

Ha! You just described my daughter dbcurrie! I can't tell you how many times she's said she just wishes she could take a pill and skip the whole have-to-eat-something ordeal. I think she likes food well enough but she hates the need to eat and the need to put it together and the rules around it like needing to think about it, bring it with you (say to school), to balance and only eat so much of this and so much of that and that it can make you overweight (which she was for a couple years in elementary school and experienced all the cruel even though it was just a bit plump -- finding clothes was really hard too).

But, we also have wildly different tastes. If taste is genetic she didn't get it from me. I'm not a bread eater but she loves it (and unfortunately seems to be gluten-intolerant which doesn't help her like the idea of food). I don't like cilantro and she does. I love salads and soups and she doesn't like any. I could go on. It's been a struggle for both of us. However, I predict ten years from now she'll be quite the foodie and the toast of her friends if not her town. I forced several months of focused cooking classes on her (since she wouldn't learn from me) and she's opened up her world immensely and her buds are all excited about her skills which makes her happy. She's cooked several things for me too so the payback is well worth it. What's funny is even though we'll both have a veggie burger for instance, we'll have two different flavors and then completely different toppings. But there are certainly times I wish I could just eat when I feel like it and not because I really need to because I'm miserable otherwise.

Have you ever cooked with your MIL? Have you seen her cook? She may have some issues around cooking that may even have been exacerbated by the FIL in all new ways. She may have never learned how to cook and has been winging it this whole time and is very insecure and/or clueless around food. I left home knowing essentially nothing. I could toast bread (and poptarts) but pretty much nothing else other than follow directions on box and can labels (ie: condensed soup and the helpers). The ex™ made it all much worse with his food issues and general nastiness. My cooking skills and food knowledge have come from PBS cooking shows and especially the internet mostly from the last several years. With those skills have come some confidence I used to only wish I had and felt keenly when I'd see it in others. There were lots of days I felt like an impostor and as if I'd be busted any day...