There were certain foods that as a child, and even today, I can’t eat or smell (cauliflower, goat cheese, lamb, mung beans, among others). My mom had this Northern Italian dish she would make often: creamed cauliflower au gratin. Even the smell of it, as it was being prepared, would make me sick. I wasn’t acting out. I was never that kind of child. I just couldn’t smell it or eat it. But dinner was served and my mother would stand next to me until I finished the whole thing. (No water was allowed to help me swallow it either!) And the worst was yet to come. Since I couldn’t eat it I would throw up.
