As a further elaboration: growing up, I absolutely hated pasta salad. I could not and would not eat it. But one day, when I was about 22-23, I was working somewhere that includes meals, since shifts were literally all day for a week (save eight hours for sleeping). The cook made a pasta salad that I could only describe as “orgasmic.” I ate that same pasta salad for every meal for the next two days until they finally tossed the leftovers. Ever since then, I have been “converted” to enjoy pasta salad. That one dish completely changed how my body reacts to a food that I already tried several times.
I recently came around on non-seafood sushi (sweet potato tempura rolls). I eat seafood once a year in good faith — all types, over the years — and it’s always a hard no, and I had just lumped sushi into that category. But I honestly didn’t know there were veggie sushi options until this past year, so I gave it a try and loved it.
“Sushi” technically just refers to the vinegared rice. There are a number of non-seafood sushi options. Cucumber, pickled gourd (kampyo), egg, avocado…
I’m similarly not a fan of seafood, and I’ve given it plenty of fair shakes, and will continue to do so, I’m not a picky eater by any stretch of the imagination and I want to like it, especially since I love fishing
But I do personally find raw fish to be more palatable than cooked. I wouldn’t say it’s good, but it’s not bad, I wouldn’t seek it out but if it’s what’s available I wouldn’t be mad about it.
I also, in general, find freshwater fish to be better than saltwater. At least around me I don’t tend to see a whole lot of freshwater fish on menus or in grocery stores, if you’re in a similar boat, that might be another avenue for you to investigate the next time you decide to give seafood a chance.
I’ve also played around making some oddball non-fish sushi since my wife doesn’t share in my dislike of fish and is a sushi fiend, so it’s a way to scratch her itch for that while also making something I’ll eat. Probably my best creation has been a spam, pineapple, and jalapeno roll.
Meanwhile, I like nearly all fish except freshwater fish (trout excluded).
If you make teriyaki Spam and eat that with rice and nori, it’s basically spam musubi, which is surprisingly good.
Sushi is the one food I can’t eat anymore after getting gastric sleeve surgery. I mean I can do sashimi still but what’s the point without the rice ya know?
High quality sashimi is fantastic.