There’s been a lot of interesting responses to my post yesterday about food dislikes. I’m especially interested in the puzzlement people are expressing about my question, which I’m going to try to answer now.

It seems to me reasonably clear that there is one species of dislike which somehow manifests itself physically, to the extent that some people even fall ill when they eat the disfavored food. I can’t quibble with that sort of visceral reaction, of course, although there is no actual food that causes it in me. So that’s not really what I was asking about. I can understand and grasp illness.

But there are other forms of dislike, clearly, that stop sort of being physically manifested. As Will suggested to me privately, this is probably best understood as a sort of spectrum, ranging from (a) things that are revolting and impossible to reasonably eat (soap, mud, whatever) to (b) those that are edible but really very unpleasant (the coolwhip american cheese ketchup concoction someone came up with, perhaps, though I can imagine eating that if there were enough fries involved, or perhaps chicken burned to a complete char) to (c) things that are unpleasant to many (anchovies?) to (d) things that are merely mushy, or slimy, or whatever else, and are therefore less favored.

When people say that they don’t like peas, I’m assuming they mean (d). As a matter of full disclosure, I happen to think that (d) is basically a matter of mutable preference. That is, my prejudice is that anyone can eliminate (d) if they want, and that those who profess (d) are doing so as a matter of will. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but I believe myself at liberty to harangue (d)ers about peas. I think somewhat the same way about (c). I’m less tied to this position, but I think people can learn to like things that are in the (c) category if they want. The final part of what I think is that most people’s food dislikes are (c) and (d), and not (a) and (b).* In fact, I think there are some empirical studies around, though I can't cite them now, which claim to show that people's preferences change dramatically when they don't know what they're eating. (a) and (b) should be impervious to that kind of control experiment.

What I was trying to get at with my question, then, without explaining too much in the original post, is exactly what people meant when they said they disliked some food. Having seen people's responses in the comments to the post below, my guess above might be just wrong. It might be true, in fact, that eating soap and eating anchovies, say, are more or less equal in the minds of people that don't like anchovies, and that there might actually be something biological, or so ingrained that it can’t be got rid of, involved here. If so, I think that’s an interesting point.

What do food-dislikers think? Which categories are your dislikes in? Would you rather eat soap than mushrooms? Mushrooms than charred chicken?

* In response to the implicit question, (c) and (d) are completely empty sets for me. I think it’s because I have a less, rather than more, sensitive palate than most people.

John Quiggin hates endnotes in books:

is there any excuse for persevering with endnotes in books*? ... If the material is of too little interest to be included in the main text or in footnotes, and can’t be omitted altogether for reasons of academic nicety, couldn’t it be placed in a supporting website?