Discovering new foods

We are all working class.There are very few in society who do not need to work for their living and who do not rapidly find themselves in the financial soup if for any reason their job ends.

I confess I have never enquired about someone's social demographic antecedents in my life.I take people for what they are when they are. Does anything else matter?

How boring GabbyG - and still to be obsessed with an out of date class system -oo -Er!

You may be suffering from that well-known disease of old age
“Hardening of the attitudes”

Having been introduced to what people in those days might have classed as “fancy foreign foods” at a very early age I find it hard to dislike much, but would draw the line at chocolate coated locusts I suppose. ???

Tripe and pasta in any form, YUK!

Apparently coriander tastes like soap if you have the appropriate genetic makeup. - interesting as when I was a child I thought this but later decided I liked it a lot.
I also disliked mangoes and capers but love both of these too!

My father used to bring “odd foods” back from trips to London. He brought an avocado back once (loved that) and I was amazed at the size of the stone. The other delight was the first time I tried a lychee... oh bliss!

I can’t bear coriander. It tastes like tea to my palate. I hate tea. I got a jar of sun dried tomatoes in a hamper last year. They transform a basic pasta sauce into a tasty sensation. Chopped up they go a long way and I use the oil as a dressing or as a drizzle over new potatoes. I keep a jar in the larder now.

I'm not going to ask what middle class is because we're talking about food.
Recently GabriellaG54 recommended M&S fish fingers so we bought them, had some and binned the rest. Sorry GG54, they don't compare with Birds Eye imo.
I've discovered M&S sell a tub of mashed avocado and lime. Lovely on toast.
I too am not very adventurous.

I cannot bear sloppy food like porridge. I like dry and crunchy.
I also dislike fat and fatty foods.
Except for unsalted butter which is wonderful...

I'm quite conservative in my tastes.
Good old home cooking does for me.

I can't stand fish, but have often given it a try from someone else's plate (with permission!)
I must have tried so many different combinations of fish dishes, but I don't like fish!

So I tend not to bother with things I know for definite I dislike.

I will try anything once and have discovered amazing things. I am lucky in that I'm surrounded by people from all over the world and try their food as they try mine. I brought up my kids to know I wouldn't force them to eat anything they didn't like but they had to at least try a mouthful first and if they thought it was foul they could spit it out as long as they did it discreetly. They're all great cooks as adults who try all sorts of new delicious things.
A Lebanese neighbour introduced me to pomegranate molasses. Lovely stuff in food, and mixed with sparkling water it makes a delicious refreshing drink (it's very syrupy so it needs a stir).
I don't like some things about the way we eat now. A lot of food is bred to travel well, out of season and is now pretty flavourless. although attractive to the eye. Strawberries spring to mind so I grow my own.

I couldn't bring myself to try meat type stuff. I could get very queasy very quickly, although I do eat meat.

Anything else I would be up for trying though.

I must admit there are quite a few items in the vegetable section of the grocery shop that I pass. Living in western Canada, there is a big Eastern influence and some veggies that I am unfamiliar with.

I do use bok choi which is nice, but haven't tried gai lan, gai choy, large radishes (not sure of the name, but they are as big as eggplants).

Though I suppose if I had a dish with some of these veggies, and a lesson on prepping them perhaps I would branch out a bit.

It is amazing the amount of diversity in food stores and restaurants.