Learning to Like

Why do people try to convince someone that they should learn to like a food they say they don’t like?  I don’t like raw tomatoes.  This is not because I have never had a good tomato.  My mother grew them and I know that straight from the garden (plump, juicy and fragrant) is the worst kind of tomato for me.  I will not learn to like them but I have learned to tolerate the hothouse tomatoes (barely pink and flavorless) that sometimes find their way onto a fast food item.

I understand that when a child has decided that they do not like vegetables we need to encourage them to keep trying and tasting different items.  Vegetables of course are healthy and to allow someone to just eliminate them from their diet at a young age would be wrong.  But I do not like tomatoes and I am a grown adult.  As a child, I was very shy and once when I was at a neighbor’s house I was served a tomato sandwich.  I was too timid to refuse the sandwich and then nearly threw up trying to get a few bites down.  I waited for the hostess to leave the room and quickly convinced a friend to take my tomatoes.  I see no reason as a grown adult to put myself through that kind of scene.

           

Additionally, many of the things that people try to convince you to learn to like are expensive or rare, such as lobster and caviar.  This makes even less sense to “learn to like.”  Should I spend excess money on an item in hopes that I can learn to like it enough to miss eating it when I can’t afford to buy it anyway?  I have no desire to eat truffles, at least of the mushroom variety.  I have tried caviar but did not like the saltiness of it.  I am educated about fine wine but most of the time I choose iced tea or cola.  I appreciate really good chocolate but find that usually if I crave chocolate I am happy with Peanut M&Ms.   I have tried sushi but if I am going to pay for fish in a restaurant, I think the least they can do is cook it.  And lobster does not appeal to me but neither do diamond earrings.  Should I learn to like those, as well.  Perhaps the people around me should just be glad that I am a cheap date.