This is not about airline food, so stop reading if bored!
evansb
PAXboy's revulsion to specific cooking odors suggests a possible psychological aspect to his food preferences, as well as physiological.
Interesting, with one type of food, I have always thought that the case: Pasta and it relates to a very bad boarding school. Fortunately, our parents realised it quickly and took my brother and I away. But I cannot eat any kind of pasta.
However, with the other two categories, the revulsion is instintive.
I recall the first time I encountered spices. I was 11 years old and (on a holiday) we visited the Durban Indian market. After the halls of fabrics and so on, we entered the food hall and I well remember the piles of brightly coloured powders. Immediately my stomach heaved and my nose felt like a thousand daggers were attacking it, I turned and ran.
I have never liked the smell, leave alone taste, of things bitter. From an early age (probably five, certainly for as long as I can remember), my brother had enjoyed supping our father's beer and I found it revolting. Likewise coffee. When I was about 15, I was offerred a cup of coffee by friends of my parents at their home. I thought that I'd better try this (to be sociable) and because everybody said how wonderful coffee was. I took a small sip and felt it go all the way down. I had to prevent myself going to wash out my mouth (it was a very polite dinner party!) and I felt ill for a couple of hours - that was my first sip of coffee and my last.
The same goes for bitter chocholate, whereas I have never found a limit to how much sweet chocholate I can eat. For some reason this includes drinks made of Grain, such as whiskey as well as beer. Whereas I can easily drink Grape alcohol. That said (!) my tongue likes dry red wines but NOT dry white wines. I don't know why but that's how it is. Fortunately, plenty of red wine in the world.
So, that's why I say that my body knows what it cannot accept and warns me by smell and look. I have met a number of other people who are also repulsed by spice and bitter. I have described it: My sense of taste is so far up the 'sweet' end of the scale that I cannot take ANYTHING even slightly bitter.