What It Takes to Like the Foods You Hate
Revisiting places, experimenting, and giving second chances. Still a better love story than Twilight.
Halo and Happy Monday!
You may notice that this newsletter is a week late and that’s because I was sick last last weekend. I know I don’t need to explain myself to take some time to rest and recover, but I’m doing it anyway just because. Anyway, I’m back and running now :)
Today’s piece is more of a review of an experiment that I did last year where I cooked several dishes using an ingredient that my friends hate. The goal was to see if I could convert them into liking a food they used to hate, and I think it was somewhat successful.
Continue reading to see:
😩 Discussion on food aversion - what they are, how they are shaped, and some personal experiences.
🔬The experiments with my friends! Including some strategies to unpack the reasons why they don’t like certain ingredients.
🥘 Dishes I cooked to convert my friends into liking the food they used to hate. I made Tofu Nuggets, Pea and Edamame Dip, and Beansprouts Pajeon.
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Most of the time, I have a strong opinion on food. I know what I like and how I like it to be. Like how I’m obsessed with an iced matcha latte, but will specifically use white sugar despite avoiding it on any other occasion. White sugar just gave a very neutral and generic sweetness. A type of sweetness that does not interfere with or change the taste of my matcha. And as someone who claims to be a foodie, surprisingly, I also have something that I don’t like. I don’t like soggy gorengan (fritters, usually made out of vegetables) and room-temperature food. So don’t be surprised if you find me reheating my gorengan in an air fryer and my white rice in a microwave every mealtime.
We all have our food preferences, and sometimes, it can be very specific. For example, I know someone who will always add kecap manis every time they eat, be it Padang food or Chinese food. Since both of these cultures don’t usually use kecap manis, one could say that it’s blasphemy both for the kecap manis and the dish. And I do agree. But according to them, kecap manis adds a layer and a depth of sweetness that makes the taste more rounded. Again, I disagree. Not everything needs to be sweet. But whatever. As long as this made their eating experience more enjoyable, who am I to judge?
On the other spectrum, I also know someone who just refuses to eat something without any real reason for it, and that is my brother.
He doesn’t really eat fish and seafood, and it’s not like he dislikes the taste or texture, or that he’s allergic to it, because, on several occasions, he would eat it when he didn’t know it was there. It’s almost funny how all this time, he would eat siomay just fine, but suddenly stopped one day when he found out that there were mackerels in it. He also really liked the prawn toast that I made one time. It’s a toast that is smothered with a paste made from minced chicken and prawn, and grilled with loads of oil until everything is crispy, charred, and glistening. He said it was really good, and I didn’t tell him that there were prawns in it. He wasn’t suspicious of the taste, so, he finished everything.
This food aversion, or the reluctance to eat certain food is a normal thing to have.
According to The European Food Information Council (EUFIC), many factors can shape how we choose the food we’re eating. It could be:
🧠 Biological: We choose food that we like, food that we crave, food that brings joy and fulfillment. We don’t eat foods we’re allergic to or food that we dislike the taste. Most of the time, we don’t control these biological factors. Some of us just don’t get to choose to have the cilantro genes.
🏘 Culture: We eat food that we are familiar with and accustomed to. We may have a soft spot for food from our childhood even though it might not be the most appetizing or healthy. Or, some of us may have heavier seafood appetites than others because they live in a coastal area. These factors are built and shaped by time and exposure.
🤔 Attitude: Attitudes and beliefs are one of the most complex food decision factors. It determines how one defines a food. What do you consider fresh food? Is a $4 iced long black expensive for you? How often do you eat instant noodles in a week? There is no right or wrong in this one because everyone will have their own take, and it may also change with time. So I would say, while this factor is complicated, it is also one of the most human ones.
I too, can relate to some of these factors, especially the third factor.
I used to hate pare (bittergourd). I had it once when I was still in the second grade in my school canteen. It was sitting nicely with every other component that you would find in a plate of siomay. There’s the siomay, tofu, potato, boiled egg, and pare, all steaming hot, and drenched in a sweet and spicy peanut sauce. A pretty hearty snack for a second grader I would say.
I was already familiar with everything on the plate but pare, so it was a very normal eating experience for me until I tasted the pare. With full confidence, I picked up a whole slice of pare with my fork, and put everything straight into my mouth, expecting that it would taste just like another green vegetable. And after the next few bites, it just hit me that it’s fucking bitter. I could almost feel like my saliva was producing at double the usual rate, and I didn’t even dare to chew it even more. So it was just sitting on top of my tongue the whole time I was reaching for some napkins.
Since that day, I avoided pare at all times. I know they’re still there every time I’m going to a siomay stall, but I just pretend that they don’t exist. And every time I see someone eating a pare, I’ll just pretend that those kinds of people don’t exist too.
But to my surprise, on a random Saturday, I was converted to like pare because of one dish.
OK, maybe it’s not solely because of this one dish. It was 2019 and I was 21 years old. I was seven years old when I had that traumatic experience with pare, and on that random Saturday, I had just tripled my age. So a lot of things have happened in between. I have tried a lot of new food and ingredients, got exposed to many many spices and flavor profiles, started drinking coffee, and most importantly, I remembered that I approached the situation with intention. In short, I was mindfully, giving pare a second chance. I guess what they say is true, it’s all about the mindset!
This time, the pare came in the form of a sauteed pare in this vegan restaurant in Bandung called Kehidupan Tidak Pernah Berakhir. It was a very humble yet pare-forward dish because it’s just slices of pare, sauteed in oil, salt, and chilli. Nothing more. But through its simplicity, great cooking technique, and maybe also the quality of the produce, its bitterness was very much tolerable, even enjoyable. It’s still bitter, I’m not gonna lie. But it’s a bitterness that toned down the heat of the chili and the salt, almost like a balancer to the entire dish.
This experience made me question: What does it take for someone to learn how to like something that they previously hate, or unlearn a pre-conditioned belief that they have of a certain food?
Reflecting on my pare experience, I would say that this is not impossible. So to test this hypothesis, I invited three of my friends to check whether I could interfere with their food beliefs.
I ask them for one ingredient that they are mildly averse to. Nothing extreme. Something like a jengkol for me. I don’t crave them, I wouldn’t look for them, and if it’s served at my home, I also would not touch it. But if that’s the only thing that I could eat at the table, then yeah OK I’ll get it. Maybe I’m cheating by choosing these criteria. But also, I’m not gonna shove food that I know my friends would 100% hate down their throats. And I promise, they all did it without any sort of pressure. I hope.
I also asked them why they didn’t like it. This part is not cheating. It’s called trying to understand, and finding the easiest way for me to make them like it. For example, if it’s the taste, then I can hide the initial taste by adding stronger-tasting spices. But if it’s the texture, I can then introduce more cooking processes to alter that original texture. Ugh, my mind.
Here’s what my friends told me.
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Aya: “I don’t like tofu. I don’t like their texture, I don’t like their taste, I don’t like how they smell. It’s soggy, doesn’t taste like anything, and it just smells like… tofu…”
I was very surprised when Aya told me she doesn’t like tofu. Not only that because it’s a very staple food here in Indonesia, she also basically doesn’t like everything about it. From taste, texture, and smell. But this is actually a good starting point because now, I know how to make it more palatable for her.
I decided to turn the tofu into tofu nuggets. To hide the beany taste of the tofu, I marinade them first in a sweet and salty brine made of sugar, salt, soy sauce, garlic, and vegan oyster sauce. Nothing crazy, because the tofu itself is such a blank canvas. For texture, I covered them in breadcrumbs before frying them and made sure they were fried just a little bit longer so they were extra crispy. They are then served with gochujang mayo and wedges of lemon - just a couple more extra steps to distract her from the actual taste of tofu.
“When I bite it, the outside is a bit crunchy but the inside is still soft. It still tastes like tofu to be honest, but it didn’t back me off as the texture is not as soggy. Seasonings are marinated well and I love the dipping sauce! It makes the smell of the tofu not as strong.” Aya said after finishing her second piece of tofu nugget.
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Bianca: “I feel like when peas are boiled, it gives a very langu (unpleasant, beany, almost like a sulfur smell) smell - like dirt and uncooked veggies. The texture is mushy too and I don’t like how it feels in my mouth”.
Much like Aya, Bianca knows exactly too why she doesn’t like peas. Which is good as this gives away what I should do and not do. First, I should try to hide or at least mask the vegetal taste of the peas, and second, I should prep them in a way that doesn’t result in a mushy texture.
I decided to make pea and edamame dip for Bianca and serve it with toasted pita bread. The dip was made by sauteeing a can of peas with olive oil and salt and blending it with tons of strong-tasting ingredients, like edamame, roasted sesame seeds, garlic, mint leaves, cumin, and more olive oil. So despite how simple and humble it looks, this dip was packed with flavours. Plus, the blending action also serves to get rid of the initial mushy texture that Bianca didn’t like, because once it’s all blended, it's now basically a fatty, creamy, and luscious paste of dipping sauce.
“Turns out I really like this dip! The taste is definitely not flat and I taste no langu. It also tastes fresh because of the lemon and mint, and the sesame seeds add a level of creaminess. I’m now curious about peas’ potential.”, Bianca said.
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Fasya: “I don’t like beansprouts because of their taste. It is almost like dusty water and it tastes green. It smells unpleasant too.“
Now this is a tricky one. Even though Fasya told me that it is the taste that makes her not a fan of beansprouts, her reasoning was more… abstract. This is still valid though, because taste is a subjective experience. So while I don’t personally think beansprouts taste like dusty water, it doesn’t change the fact that Fasya may still taste it.
Descriptive words like dusty water and green gave me some sort of idea of what kind of taste Fasya is referring to, but it is not as straightforward as words like bitter, sour, or vegetal. So to tackle this, I decided to go full force on getting rid of all the flavours and texture of the beansprouts.
I settled for making pajeon for Fasya, a Korean green onion pancake. It is traditionally made with only chives, and on its own, it tastes very savory, pungent, and with a slight oniony kick at the end. But since we are in the spirit of smuggling some beansprouts into a dish, I’m modifying the pajeon to include some more vegetables like sliced shiitake mushroom, onion, and two handfuls of pre-boiled beansprouts. The batter is then pan-fried until golden and crispy, and they are served with a side of kimchi.
"I so can eat this. The beansprout's taste and texture are not that strong, maybe because they were pre-boiled. But I still would not eat them if it’s in the form of a topping, like something that you would find in nasi lengko or soto. But I think I’m OK if they’re cooked and masked with some other ingredients”, said Fasya.
Most of these treatments feel like it’s straight outta a parenting magazine - “Hacks to Sneak More Greens to Your Child’s Food (No. 5 Will Blow Your Mind!)”.
From this experiment, I discovered that food aversions can still be influenced or changed, especially if it’s a mild one. Treatments like adding more ingredients to balance the taste, or introducing more cooking processes to alter the texture is a great way to enhance the overall experience, thus making the food more palatable.
But sneaking or masking the ingredients is another story. While it sure does the job to make sure the food is being integrated into the dish and the diet, I personally don’t think that it is successful in changing how one feels about the said food. Just like Fasya, the beansprouts are edible only because she can’t really taste them. In a jargony word, this treatment is solving the problem without addressing the root cause.
If you ever have a second thought about revisiting foods that you don’t like, I would suggest that you dig deeper into why you don’t like that food. Do give them a second chance by experimenting it cooking differently. Who knows, you may find your next favorite food. You know, sometimes, hate does turn to love…. or whatever…
Do you have a specific food that you don’t like and want me to try to cook? Comment below and tell me why!
Other contents that I made recently:
📖 Read my story on an Indonesian Christmas feast: here.
✍️ Read my reflective essay on my 2023 content-creating journey: here.
🏆 A recap video of my 3 most viewed TikTok videos in 2023: here.
🇵🇸 A video recipe of Palestinian maqloube: here.
🍵 A video of me trying vegan Ochazuke: here.
🍰 A video of me reviewing Jajan Pasar using only emoji: here.
If you like today’s newsletter, please like and share it with your friends! Comment down below your thoughts and let me know if you have any other topics you want me to discuss. Until then, I’ll see you in two weeks!
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I've just found your Substack and OH it's such a gem! I used to hate buaya (bunga pepaya) for the same reason you hated pare, the bitterness caught me off guard out of nowhere. I found that you need to boil it with tamarind juice and salt, then really squeeze them out after you strain them. Now I love them!
Chicken breast though, unless it's sous-vide or pressure-cooked... I still have mild aversion to it.
Omg! Another piece of your writing that I like! And agree with! Aku merasakan sendiri, seiring berjalannya waktu, bertambahnya umur, ada beberapa makanan yang dulu aku ngga suka dan ngga mau makan sama sekali, jadi aku makan (walaupun ngga sampe suka sih) dan sebaliknya. It feels like my palate "grow" as well. And you are totally right, what it takes is only a second chance. But to give it the second chance, I have to convince myself that no food is bad and it's okay to have particular preference so I don't have to feel bad about not liking it. Hahahahah. Kadang kalau misalnya ada orang-orang di sekelilingku ngga suka sama sesuatu, terutama yang aku suka, aku suka bilang "Mungkin kamu belum nemu (nama makanan) yang tepat aja kali..." (talk about being hopeful dan rada maksa), but I also try to respect their preferences too.