Your comment reminds me of a personal experience which seems appropriate to this thread. I had heard for years about kimchi. All sorts of things along the line

Your comment reminds me of a personal experience which seems appropriate to this thread. I had heard for years about kimchi. All sorts of things along the lines of how it was cabbage buried in the ground and isn't that weird / disgusting? I finally found myself at a Korean restaurant, and they brought out the banchan, and there's some kimchi. I try some. And holy shit, it's just spicy sauerkraut. I have Polish heritage; I grew up eating sauerkraut. This was literally nothing special to me. I think the lack of reaction was disappointing to my friends. I took them to a Polish restaurant later and introduced them to good sauerkraut.