What meal made your heart sink as a child

Whenever I refused a meal I was reminded that the "starving children in Africa would kill for this meal" and my response was "I don't mind if you want to send this to them... I'm not hungry".

My mum's mashed potatoes were basic but decent enough. She used to put a bit of butter in them. She then raved about DH's mash, and mine too, that had loads of butter and then no butter, just loads of creme fraiche.

She could never bring herself to buy creme fraiche because it was too fancypants. So I'd buy a tub, take out a scoop and then give it to her saying: 'I bought two of these by mistake. Take this one before it goes mouldy.'

I think she knew the deal but the deceit was acceptable. I like to think of her eating her mash and the cats eating a big dollop of creme fraiche.

Liver and onions. I used to cry. Tasted like metal sheeting.

Faggots. I hated them, especially seeing as my mother wouldn't buy the Brains Faggots, which were slightly edible, if you didn't take too long to think about what was in them, but insisted on buying faggots from a market stall that probably had all sorts of nasties in them.
At least the factory-made Brains faggots had some sort of quality control, but the ones from the market always ended up looking like a huge, grey, gristly blob on a plate that tasted horrendous.

Faggots

How did we even survive to adulthood?
The food was so disgusting that a lot was regularly thrown back up, or very little was eaten forced down and the food that we did manage to eat and was slightly edible, was boiled to hell and gone, so there were never any vitaimins left in them!

Why did the mothers have to boil everything to death?

Oh yes, dry, dusty dessicated coconut is renowned for its cooling qualities!

squoosh, we used to get the curry, (loaded with sultanas) and sliced bananas on top. But my mother used to sprinkle a ton of dessicated coconut on top of the bananas to make it EXTRA cooling.

Reading some of these, it's no wonder we were all thin back in the day. The stuff we were fed was crap.

And when my mother wasn't doing fancy things with boiled pig's head she was making us eat her horrendous curry adorned with sliced banana on top if it. Apparently banana is 'very cooling'.

The 80's were a dark time.

Yes...even a woman born in 1910 was grossed out by boiled sheep's head! She was only tiny so it was probably during the Great Depression. She also remembered being sent to the butcher to ask for a bone for the dog but her Mum would use it to liven up their pan of "blind scouse" which is meat stew without the meat.

The butcher used to sometimes fold some actual meat in with the bone. He knew...all the kids were in there getting dog bones.

Mashed potatoes. As my mum can't stand butter, it was basically lumpy, mashed boiled potatoes . I used to dread it, especially if served with baked beans. I actually love mash now but only if it's lovely and buttery.

PMSL @ Squoosh Charlie Bucket's mum used to give them Cabbage Water soup. I think Willy Wonka was on tv a bit too much in the early 80's and influenced what people thought their kids would(wouldn't!) eat!

Every Tuesday we had swimming lessons in our local grief hole municipal baths so my mum would use the slow cooker to make a beef casserole. She would add a couple of tins of baked beans to make it go further. Served with lumpy mash and tinned peas. I hated Tuesdays.

OP

are you Heston Blumenthal?

YR sauce is just a brand of brown sauce, it was probably the best component of the meal by the sounds of things.

YR sauce is thick Yorkshire Relish, a bit like HP but tastes vile.

Tractor your mother makes mine seem like a mere amateur in the pig boiling stakes! That is a truly gruesome dedication to the cause

Haggis was an odd one. I liked the taste but not the conversation about whether it was made of pig lungs or sheep lobes.

Hardly dare ask what YR sauce is.

Mum would get a half a pig head and just boil the life out of it in a big pot for like days on the Aga and basically when the skin fell off the bone it was done. She then would get her old mincer, you had to bolt it to the table and grind up all the meat into gunge, put it in a enamel dish she used specifically for this horror of horror, put to chill and served sliced and cold with YR sauce and stringy spuds

VOM!

Squoosh are you my sister??? Supposedly she used to get the pigs ear too cause she loved them, she didn't!

OMG Clawboiled sheep's head with teeth and wet wool. Amounts to child abuse.

I thought mince before I even opened this thread. But reading others contributions, I got off lightly.

OMG! ClawHands, your poor Nan, that is grim.

squoosh

I bet you still do

My Nan remembered boiled sheep's head. She remembered the wool all wet in the pot and the little teeth showing.