Funny story.

This isn't me and the food itself wasn't bad but the experience...quite interesting.

So, almost 14 years ago, my now husband and I went out to dinner with my parents. My husband ordered fried calamari and as we ate, he spoke to my dad about our love for each other.

As a sign of respect to my dad, he asked his permission to marry me. And then we waited, and waited, and waited as my dad sat there eating a shrimp.

Finally, my mom slapped my dad on the arm and said, "say something!!" To which he replied, "good shrimp" and started laughing.

He already knew why we were out, he was just enjoying watching my husband sweat!

Then of course he said, "if she is fine with it, so am I. I hope you know what your getting yourself into!"

That night I ended up having to take hubby to the ER when he collapsed, thinking he was having a heart attack. Turned out to be severe heartburn.

We teased my dad about practically giving husband a heart attack but to this day, my husband won't touch calamari.

A $100,000 Dollar candy bar. You know the rules about so many insect parts allowed? Yea, well, I will never eat a candy bar in the dark again - sometimes little worms live through the manufacturing process... this I know ...yikes!

Poi. We went to a luau in Hawaii on our honeymoon trip. Everything was delicious except the poi. Vaguely gray-ish purple, and about the consistency of sheet rock mud. Only less appetizing. That was some nasty stuff.

Some things I declined to try in China: soup with brine shrimp still swimming in it. Some sort of bird, maybe sparrow-sized, whole and skewered. I did eat the eel, it wasn't too bad. Bony and not worth the trouble.

I think CEFreeman wins with the goat eye. Twice.

Bless some of you for even trying. I don't care who I offended. The goat eye wouldn't get anywhere near my lips.

Black licorice and goat cheese (together or apart). Most other things I'm fine with. Many of you have listed items I adore (tacos, tamales, rosemary, fish, broccoli).

When I was growing up, my mother would frequently serve roast leg of lamb. I remember loving it. For some reason, over the years my lamb consumption waned. Now when I taste it I find it unpleasantly gamy. Wonder if it's my tastebuds or if lamb just tastes different now.

Stinky tofu in China is pretty high on my list. At least it is aptly named! DH really just wanted some tofu and didn't realize it would come with the most horrible sauce on earth - luckily pretty much every other point and eat situation worked out well for us as we had no Chinese language skills.

Foie gras (goose liver) when we went to a snazzy restaurant in Paradise Island when I was ten. Haven't tried it since.

I also don't like raw oysters but really like raw clams.

Oh another worst--that I haven't eaten in 40+ years--Bugles--the greasy salty chips. Ate a whole bag of them. The results weren't good!! Also haven't eaten them since.

I ate a bag of prunes once in Jr. High. After I could go back to school, I had to have a note in case I had to leave class in a hurry.

Later (you'd THINK I'd learn) I ate a box of dried apricots. Did you know you get SO THIRSTY you cannot drink enough water. Then, those dried apricots swelled up...

I rolled around on the floor for a couple of hours moaning. '

Didn't say I didn't like 'em and didn't say I don't eat 'em. Just in [wait for it] Moderation now.

Lol, CEFreeman. I ate an entire head of raw cabbage in high school. Same results. :-(

I ate so much broccoli that I got a horrible tummy ache and got sick. Still love broccoli.

@Chris you win hands down with the goat's eyes. No matter how polite, I don't think I could even put one in my mouth.

I know that because I was in Portugal during college. I ordered a soup by pointing at what other people were slurping down. When my milky broth soup came, I started stirring the soup and tons of eyes just popped up and stared at me. I couldn't even bring myself to taste the broth.

@designsavvy those haggis just looks so unattractive and the list of ingredients were off putting. I don't think I would ever have the guts to try it.

@homepro. LOL grilled blue cheese. Yuck.

@linelle I hate licorice too. I won't touch it.

@Blfenton I don't like tapenade either and don't get the appeal. It's salty, salty, salty and bitter with the olives.

Beachum, I only ate a speck of the Haggis just to say I tried it. I held my nose. ;-)

I also can't stand black licorice, but like the strawberry (but, not cherry.....reminds me of Sucrets that my mom gave me for a sore throat when I was kid.)

For me, any shell fish, which is ironic since I have lived my entire life at the beach...never had Goat eyes...

Similar topic, at about 17 or 18 years old "learning to drink" I consumed way too much Bourbon...alcohol poisoning, and I threw up for what seemed like days... to this day at 64, can't even smell any type of whiskey without gaging...

It is a toss up. But seriously canned peaches that my grandma made me eat at around age 5-6 is my worst nightmare. I gagged and gagged but she made me chew and swallow one. I barfed it up after. It took me a long time to try a fresh peach. Of course it is delicious. But, canned peaches are on my worst foods list.

Most recent gag response was Opihi. It's a Hawaiian delicacy similar to an oyster. Never again! I knew I shouldn't have even tried it. Poi is not as bad, but is another thing I'll never try again. I think early childhood experiences, positive or negative, shape our taste buds forever!

My parents were the local health gurus and were also older. They had lived through the depression and mom in an occupied country so thrifty was also a must...

wheat grass. Only cause dad had dentures mom boiled the daylights out of it. Nothing like boiled lawn

lambs quarter...see above

cold boiled zucchini we sold veggies to restaurants, I never could figure out how there was an endless supply of day old cold ones in the refrigerator those took several swallows to convince to stay down

fish head soup. Dad would suck anything left on the bone and expected me to as well

salmon roe, boiled like that it is not caviar.

I am sure I can find more fun meals but thankfully I have blocked most from my memory. There was no not clearing your plate or not eating everything so I learned to swallow whole most with a glass of water

It's a tie.

1) Durian candy. I was teaching English in China, and one of the other teachers very sweetly handed out candy to all of us. IT WAS SO BAD. One of the most persistent flavors I've ever encountered too. Barely grazed my tongue before I spit it out, and I tasted it for hours.

2) Also, I married a Russian man with a big Russian family. I'm not a huge fan of Russian food (it's mostly bland white stuff plus a few pickled items). At his family's big gatherings (which they have a lot of), it's all traditional food. I usually eat my body weight in cherry tomatoes because it's the only fresh-tasting thing on the table. Till that one time I popped a cherry tomato in my mouth, bit down, and the thing EXPLODED pickle juice in my mouth. They'd pickled those too!

I can't say I've ever wanted just sudden influx of pickle juice in my mouth, but it wasn't even the fact of the pickle juice. It's not my favorite flavor, and it's a STRONG flavor, but I do like pickles occasionally, and I could have taken it better if I'd been expecting it.

However, a surprise pickle juice explosion is THE WORST. Zero to PICKLES!!!! in a nanosecond, and it flooded my entire mouth and utterly overwhelmed all my other senses. It sounds histrionic, but it was honestly one of the most viscerally unpleasant things that has ever happened to me. My mind couldn't even begin to make sense of what the hell was wrong with that tomato or what in hell was happening in my mouth and everything stopped working at once. All my normal thought processes screeched to a halt and went black.

I can't even imagine what my reaction looked like from the outside, but my husband about died laughing.

Childhood. 16 count? Southern Comfort

Broccoli. Tacos. Have I mentioned tacos?

Oysters. LOVE 'em. Someday, with much begging, I'll tell you the story of my dad and I at an all-you-can-eat oyster thing in Sarasota.

Off to work. Tex-mex, can you believe I work in a Tex-mex restaurant?

+1 on Russian food. When I was a teen, I took a group trip to Expo 67 in Montreal. For some reason, the adults decided it was a good idea to have lunch at the Russian pavilion. It was all horrible- even the ice cream! How do you screw up ice cream? My uncle was a top executive, and traveled all over the world. They were given the 'red carpet' treatment everywhere they went. He said that Russia had the worst food.

Another 'worst food' is chitlins. My SIL, a very good cook, decided to try making them. It takes all day, and the house smells like they are tarring the roof. Try as she might, there was no way to make them taste good.

The worst thing I ever made was gravlax, sort of Scandinavian ceviche made with salmon and dill. It was awful, and a terrible waste of salmon.

Sea Urchins. When my friend got married his reception was at a Chinese Restaurant. A real Chinese restaurant in Chinatown in Vancouver, not a "white man's Chinese restaurant." I was 3 months pregnant at the time. One of the servings was sea urchins. Yuck. I could not spit it out, there was nowhere to do so. After about 20 minutes I was able to swallow it. I can't even say if it was the taste, but the texture sure did me in. After that course, I stuck to stuff I knew I liked, shrimp and asparagus fried rice, lobster. I also don't like pickles or olives. They taste too bitter and vinegary to me. I haven't had sushi often, but I do like California Rolls (which I'm not sure really count) and I make those at home sometimes.

I'm not very adventurous when it comes to food, so the worst I've tasted is mayonnaise. Just the smell of it turns my stomach. When I was a kid I couldn't eat potato salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, cole slaw, and OMG, WHY would anyone put mayonnaise in a fruit salad??? If my mother wanted me to eat any of the above, she'd have to take out my serving before she added the mayo.

As an adult I've learned to make meat, fish, and vegetable salads with creamy Italian or Ranch dressing, and I make a delicious summer slaw with vinaigrette. I don't even like the fake mayo salad dressing made with vegetable oil. Blecch.

On the bright side, I once earned an A on an English essay in HS, by describing my distaste for mayonnaise.

Rebunky.....check your store for DelMonte canned "Freestone" peaches. They actually taste like peaches. They even have the classic red color in the cut center by the seed.

The other canned peaches labeled "yellow cling" do not taste anything like peaches and that's the only kind that there used to be.

CEFreeman_GW DC/MD Burbs 7b/8a

Childhood. 16 count? Southern Comfort

******

OMG, me too! I can't even look at that treacle.

On the bright side, I once earned an A on an English essay in HS, by describing my distaste for mayonnaise.

*****

Was "unctuous" used?

;-)

A word of advice: if you're ever flying Air China, pack a lunch. The worst food I've ever had on an airplane, and that's saying something. They served us -- something. They said it was duck. (True, they didn't say what part of a duck . . . ) The optimistic view was that it was eggplant. The pessimistic view . . . I don't even want to go there.

Otherwise, add my vote for oysters. I cannot understand why anyone would eat oysters unless they were starving (or maybe the alternative was sea urchin.) I ate an oyster once. It was like having a large blob of mucus in my mouth, except it tasted fishy. Blearrgh.

My first President's Club trip - I was 28 and so excited to have earned it: Paris for a week, all expenses paid for me and my guest! Only one night was dinner on our own rather than part of the group trip, and my friend and I, plus 2 other good friends, talked our way into dinner with the CEO, President, Sales VP, and their spouses. (It was like the peasants dining with royalty :) )

Probably the most expensive restaurant I've ever been in. I had pate, and ended up with food poisoning. The sales VP's wife had the same and was also sick, which is how we figured out the cause. Imagine being in a grand Parisian hotel that you could never afford on your own, and sleeping on the floor of the bathroom. At the awards ceremony when accepting our plaques one by one on stage, everyone else got a congratulatory speech about their fabulousness. Me? I got a story about barfing all night.

Okay, not the worst...but when I was 10, I made meat loaf. I'd made it a few times before and everyone liked the little bit of dried tarragon I put in.

So, if a little is good....you guessed the rest. Last time I overdid an herb or spice in my life! LOL

Mom was a great cook. I mean, great. Cordon bleu good. One night, she prepared a dinner for me and my brother to enjoy while she and Dad dressed to go out. Looked yummy. One bite and..."Dog food!" we protested loudly with lots of grimaces. It was, in fact, liver. Have never eaten it since (though, oddly, liver pate is okay). And I will never, ever, prepare it.

Thankfully and mercifully, we always got a dispensation from eating liver.

My brother and I traveled through Europe right after college. We didn't have tons of money so we were traveling on the cheap. When we were in Paris we found a "Youth Hostel" that was set up in a dormitory of City University of Paris, and found that the university dining hall was open.

The cafeteria looked very familiar with a line, trays, and a few dubious looking choices. The stereotypical-looking lunch lady asked which main dish we wanted -- in French. My brother spoke and understood a fair bit of French so he explained the choices were fish or something he translated as very young beef, he added "I think that means veal". The fish was breaded, deep-fried, and looked fairly dried out, the "young beef" was lumps of meat in a gravy, so I chose the "beef".

When I went to eat the "beef" I found that the gravy was grayish, gluey and gelatinous, and the "meat" had no meat-like texture. Instead it was unidentifiable gelatinous lumps with slightly tougher gristle-y bit inside. They seemed to be cross-sections of something that seemed to still have all of the bones. After a disgusting bite or two I decided that the "very young beef" description meant that it was much younger than veal, and further decided that the dish's name was really "Cow fetus in placenta sauce". As hungry as I was I threw out the rest and mooched half of my brother's dried up fish filet.

After a disgusting bite or two I decided that the "very young beef" description meant that it was much younger than veal, and that the dish's name was really "Cow fetus in placenta sauce"

*******

You have officially dethroned the goat eye poster. I'm astounded you could soldier on and eat anything right after that!

You must have been famished.

The worst thing I ever made was gravlax, sort of Scandinavian ceviche made with salmon and dill. It was awful, and a terrible waste of salmon.

However well made gravlax is wonderful. Yummy.

Well, I have never tried any animal eyes (although I did take a sheep eye home from anatomy class and put it in the egg section of the fridge to freak out my hubby), sea urchins, opihi, poi, uni, oysters or haggis (even when I was in Scotland). And, I don't plan to.

I can't really recall any truly awful food experiences. I don't like slimy, bitter okra, but I am not horrified by it. I don't like the smell or taste of goat -- that might be the worst for me.

Oh, and once I was on a sailing ship, seasick, and they served ham baked with clove -- the smell of that has been repugnant ever since, even though I like ham a lot and will use clove in baking.

Chicken hearts and eggs in Japan. Ugh.

I am also not very adventurous after looking at the myriad of foods on this list!

What is it with fruit salad? Fruit fluff? Yuck. The texture is just too much with the coconut and the marshmallows and fruit. I like all of the ingredients separately but together - no way. We were at a graduation open house last week and my kids seeing the delightful pink color and marshmallows took a huge scoop of it since I've never made it (after of course I said try a little and if you like it you can have more). He hated it and because I was so embarrassed at his waste of food I ate a few large bites and it was disgusting. I could barely choke it down. I ended up doing the put my clean plate on top of his plate to cover it up kid maneuver. :O

I have tried calamari and it was just fine - what fried food isn't. Ha! Oysters though I could not do. Anything that has a suction sound when trying to remove it from it's shell - no, no thank you.

No to okra, again the slimy texture is a no go. But...I love black licorice and black jelly beans. There are normally plenty left just for me as I am about the only person I know that likes them.

Love pickles but not pickled other things. I have tried pickled asparagus. While it wasn't bad I prefer it fresh in it's unaltered state.

My husband and I are adventurous eaters and enthusiastic cooks, and I love chicken livers, salmon, okra, and a number of other things mentioned here ... I even like a "Witch Doctor", sold only at the skating rink, which is made of Coke, Mountain Dew and pickle juice. I love rosemary so much that I grow my own. I make a delicious dish of chicken and prunes (I don't tell anyone what's in it, and everyone loves it).

But I would eat a dozen goat's eyes (not that I've ever tried one) before I'd ever touch Haggis again. Ugh, so disgusting. At first you think it's bad ... then after you spit it out, the taste seems to grow in your mouth, and nothing will remove the aftertaste ... it's like the bad gift that keeps on giving. I'm married to a whiskey-drinking, kilt-wearing Scot (he's kinda dreamy), and we eat lots of Scottish food (cock-a-leekie soup, rumbledethumps, Scotch eggs), but never, never, never will I ever go near Haggis again. There's not enough whiskey in the world to make me do it. I would go back to my college cafeteria and lick the nasty roach-infested cereal container ... and drink the warm milk ... and eat one of the sandwiches after seeing a roach run over it ... before I'd ever take a single bite of Haggis again.

Distant runner up: Bleu cheese.

And I'm not fond of mayonnaise or goat cheese, though I can choke them down if they're "in something". And beer. Nasty stuff. I could never drink anything that smells so bad.

I went with my Dad to an "Epicurean Dinner". Lots of restaurants and chefs promoting their skills. Very nice and fun. They offered samples as you walked from table to table. I took some jello mold creamy looking dessert and quickly discovered it was... salmon mousse! When you expect strawberry jello and get a fish taste, it's quite shocking!

My Dad cooked frogs legs. I wouldn't try them but they were weird looking, like basketball player chicken legs, much longer and skinnier than chicken legs.

My hubby talks about his Mom slapping down a cows tongue on the table, not cut up or anything, just a big fat tongue. He'll eat almost anything, but not that.

I think my home food experiences have me very hesitant at trying some things. I would have never tried the haggis and the goat eye or baby beef....nope. But I do remember thinking tongue was not all that bad. I never could figure out why anyone would like steak, after all it was served pan fried to a good solid brownish grey and completely dried out...then I ate steak at a friends house

i should not have mentioned the cold over boiled zucchini. Mom made a side dish for dinner tonight, you guessed it cold over boiled zucchini with over boiled onions

Nothing worse than soggy vegetables.

I am with CF on this- tacos and Southern Comfort- Mimi (on a different occasion than the tacos)

I was pregnant with my son, and after having a couple of tacos, I started a "Wommitin" ( a nod to James Harriot). And I mean from my toes, for hours...sweats, chills all of it and pain???? Hubby finally called OB when I was heaving uncontrollably.....appendicitis. Have not eaten a taco since. DS is 22.

Tacos- ICK, I can however eat anything else from the menu ;^)

Beer. I do not like beer, and truly do not understand the current surge in enthusiasm for it. I live near an A-B brewery which regularly gives off an odor of rotten French fries. But, when I was bike touring in southeast Holland (where not everyone spoke English some 35 years ago), I did drink it, because it was one of the 4 things I knew how to order in Dutch. I will say that the beer was more palatable there than it was here.

I've not had it in forever, but I did used to enjoy tongue from the kosher deli. Prepared and sliced, one wouldn't know that it wasn't just a variety of beef brisket.

Noodles and mayonnaise - two words student life. That combo still makes me sick to my stomach.

@debbie1000: I used to love Bugles, I wish they'd bring it back.

Mom, who is 92 and active and wants to help dispite dementia, made us mayonnaise and canned peach sandwiches. I should be glad it was not little friskies tuna salad I suppose

I try everything most every time at least once. And most of it I loved then, and still love. And both Mom and Dad were excellent cooks but every once in a while they came across some failures. Dad loved putting leftovers into pancakes on weekend mornings -- sorry, fried rice pancakes Do Not Fly! There was also the buckshot pheasant cooked with whole peppercorns -- one could not remotely begin to guess which nodules were peppercorns or bits of lead shot!

But I will say -- we were exposed to frog legs and cow's tongue (the latter was Mom's speciality) since being littles, and I for one loved them and I still enjoy these items.

As for more "traditional foods" (depending on where your traditions lie), I seriously dislike the texture of cottage cheese, am not fond of either carrots or chicken breast.

I got violently sick in my early college years after eating ministrone soup -- I KNOW the soup had nothing to do with it, but the whole embarrasing scenario surrounding it has put me off that soup forever. (ETA, and probably TMI, the New York City train system doesn't unlock the doors to the facilities until the train is under power out of the city. I didn't know that. I was trying to commute home early from my summer job in Manhattan, since I knew I was really too sick to remain on the job any longer that day.)

I actually used to love a wonderful dish called "lungen stew". Of course, once I found out what the ingredients were, and the fact that the ingredients were no longer allowed to be sold, I never could eat it again. Consisted of cow lungs and spleen. Really delightful looking as it sounds...ash grey wet dog food look. Of course it's been more than 60 years since I've seen or tasted it, but just the thought of it makes me gag. Awful offal!

I'm having the best time reading your memories.

@Kippy. ROFL boiled lawn. I read it to my husband and he said, "that's just like your pennywort drink but worse". At least my drink has sugar in it to offset the taste.

@jillius Durian smells really bad raw. Did the candy smell too?

@mushcreek. I had to look up chitlins. OMG hog's intestines and guts. And it's served with my favorite foods, collard greens and fried chicken? Say what!! The name sounds like little critters running around, especially chitterlings.

@mgmum Yes..... that's what I have nightmares and wrote about. Uni = RAW sea urchin. It looks like slimy, congealed barf.

@flamingfish I used to feel the same way as you about oysters until someone introduced me to the right kinds of oysters. The oysters that I've learned to love are small and sweet. They're slightly chewy like clams and are delicious with lemon and a dash of spicy red sauce. Even my husband likes them and he is afraid of any food that isn't processed or packaged in a box or plastic.

Those kinds of oyster are pretty expensive though so we only eat them when in San Francisco at a specific oyster bar during their happy hour. The oysters are $1/each then.

@ Bob. if it's really "Cow fetus in placenta sauce" , you definitely beat the goat's eyes.

@mrspete. Oooooh a Scots for hubby. I adore Scots and their accent. I will take your advice and NEVER try haggis. I don't need another memory scar.

By the way, have you seen Outlander?

@artemis "one could not remotely begin to guess which nodules were peppercorns or bits of lead shot!" - Too funny.

@blubird. Yuck and just curious. Why are the ingredients no longer allowed to be sold?

My neighbor's cooking. She is the sweetest person in the world and she sent dinner to me after surgery. Ugh! Boiled chicken thighs, plain steamed rice, and salad with raw onions. She tends to cook really bland dishes (plus I do not like chicken and hate raw onions).

I've never heard of many of the foods y'all have mentioned, and don't think I could have gotten past the looks of some of them! I have a disdain for oysters for that very reason. I do remember when I was a kid my mother frying something that smelled horrible. She had grabed a package of lamb rather than pork chops. To this day, i've not tasted lamb chops. I gave up meat years ago because I equated it with flesh, and cannibalistic, although i'm not a true vegetarian.

The one thing I would actually get nauseous smelling as a kid was when my mom would cook canned spinach. I've never tried it. So slimy and I couldn't get past the smell.

I'll eat spinach salad, though.

I can totally relate to hating the smell of beer (and the taste). When I first met dh, I wouldn't let him kiss me if he had any. Yuck. Thankfully he doesn't drink it anymore. :-)