Heavily depends on how well it is prepared, as brocolli reacts not in a good way to a suboptimal cooking process.
Vegetables provided by child catering services tend to be overcooked, because of keeping them warm.
While that is fine for e.g. carrots, it converts brocolli into a textureless pulpy or even slightly watery-slimy stuff.
Everything changed when I had to start cooking for myself.
Turns out, my parents didn't know how to cook broccoli. Or... Most vegetables really. Real steak'n'taters folks.
Yes and no. Broccoli, like a lot of other veg, contains bitter flavors that kids can still taste, but adults can't. So, for them it may actually taste horrible, even if it is delicious for you.
I recently forgot my broccoli on the stove and finally understood why there are people who don't like it.
I always assumed it was because the writers didn't know how to cook and had only ever eaten over boiled broccoli that has no flavour left, instead of garlic and chili roasted broccoli.
Think it comes down to how it's prepared, I love me some raw broccoli with some vegi dip, or roasted with some light oil and s/p. When I grew up I only had it offered steamed or boiled and it was awful.
Broccoli and cauliflower are the only foods I detest. I hate their taste. I hate how they feel in my mouth. And I hate their smell.
Bro that was me my whole life. Never understood kids not eating brocolli and peas cuz i always loved em ha
I find broccoli discorse fascinating, because it seems like there's a lot of people who feel the need to shower it in praise because it's the default "eww vegies suck" vegetable.
IMO broccoli is ok. it's like median tastiness veg. Makes some dishes good, makes others suck.
But if you look at the dishes where broccoli is good, it's always something along the lines of "we lathered this in cheese" or "dunked in salty oil and roasted". It's good and the broccoli definetely makes it better, but I also question if you just like cheese and oil.
In Japan, it's piiman which is a type of small green bell pepper
cooked broccoli tastes like the farts they make.
steamed broccoli is lovely with some lemon pepper.
fresh broccoli is great with some ranch or sourcream dip.
My suspicion is that a lot of young (American) people have only ever had canned, or horrifically overcooked veggies and conclude on that basis that veggies suck. My SO thought she didn't like green beans until she was 19 and had the ones my dad made and was like "Wait... Why aren't these mushy?".
Brussels sprouts, too.
It all comes down to two things. The first is timing, because broccoli is best when blanched and not fully cooked, with an appropriate amount of salt and (optionally) nutmeg. The second is deception, because even the pickiest child will eat broccoli when it's covered with some buttery sauce, like butter and breadcrumbs heated in a pan.
I'm in my 40s, and Brocolli (and all other cruciferous brassica) still smells and tastes like farts to me. It smells/tastes less like farts than it used to, but the overall flavour is still farts. My partner doesn't smell/taste it the same as I do, so we eat it quite often.
As an adult, I just accept that "sometimes, part of my dinner will taste of farts" and move on with life.
As someone else mentioned, many people taste all the foulness and bitterness in these things when they're younger, but as their taste buds age/deteriorate/mature, the foul/bitter flavour can't be detected any more. In other people, they could never taste it, and in others they will always taste it.
In my case, I look at how much I enjoy the taste of blue cheese or beer, compared to how "yucky" they were when trying them as a child.
I just don't care for the texture of it. The flower part of it is completely fine and tasty, but I hate how the stem feels and crunches in my mouth and doesn't taste good either.
I don't like broccoli... I've tried it in several ways, it's not to my taste
I love broccoli. Steamed, grilled, whatever. It's good. Toss in a sauce, hell yeah. A touch of butter? Delicious. Mm hm.
Broccoli is mid, at its best.
Boiled broccoli is terrible!
Steamed broccoli is great!
You don't need to add extra stuff on correctly steamed broccoli.
Brussels sprouts however, are just bad. No way to cook them that doesn't taste awful. They should be the childhood horror vegetable.
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