in reading this thread, I was reminded of my daughter’s youngest- he loves mashed potatoes, even as a baby, and I’m not sure why, but about the time he was 9-10 months old, my daughter started making a "mashed potato" salad (YUCK!!!!!) with all the normal stuff in potato salad but the potatoes are mashed- and PS she adds pickles and mustard-
so here is this young boy, thinking he’s going to get to eat his favorite food of the moment (mashed HOT potatoes) and he gets a mouthful of cold, icky, mashed potato salad! It took him almost an entire summer to actually try to eat real mashed potatoes again! To this day, and he’s 7 now, he still wants to be reassured that they are real mashed potatoes and not that cold version he remembers from that summer.