Matter over mind

Am I the only one who has a mental block about eating some foods? I ate eel many times when I was in Japan, but I cannot eat it here; there's something about consciously consuming giant snake-worm that makes me want to gag. Ditto cauliflower, which I unknowingly but enthusiastically ate at Saravana Palace this weekend and now feel vaguely sickened by due to memories of traumatic childhood dinner experiences (solution to having to eat cauliflower is not to mash up in potatoes; this only gives you twice the volume of cauliflower-flavored food). Ditto huitlacoche.

UPDATE:I blame canned vegetables for my childhood hatred of all veggies, which lingers to this day. I refuse to eat bell peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, English peas, lima beans, cooked carrots, squash, asparagus, and yams. Many veggies were first presented to me in in canned form; only recently have I come around on green beans, which were historically associated with mushy, fibrous, dull-colored matter floating in liquid vaguely reminiscent of urine, and on spinach, which to my childhood self also smelled like pee and was typically prepared with mayonnaise.

The best ways I found to learn to like veggies are the PG-advocated curry method and budget travel (if you only have money for one non-picnic meal per day, you will eat everything). But the aftereffects of being raised on canned crap still have not been shaken. Alas for my queasy stomach.