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What meal made your heart sink as a child

742 replies

lemisscared · 05/11/2014 17:29

For me i think it was mince and potatoes. The mince was from a tin ffs!! With tinned peas and carrots.

My mum used to make me eat this and i would gag and cry! Oh and fucking ready brek as i would get pneumonia if i didn't eat it - boak

OP posts:
socksandsandles · 05/11/2014 20:45

Liver, amongst other things..I do remember running down the garden and chucking my dinner over the fence once!

Deathraystare · 05/11/2014 20:44

At 12 I decided to become vegetarian purely to opt out of this stuff. Instead I got microwaveable veggie lasagne for several years.

Oh yes. Whenever I visited after I left and became veggie -it was always veggie lasagne. Then it was samosas or onion bhajis for tea!!! I hate microwavable lasagne.

ladeedad · 05/11/2014 20:41

Shock I love most of these foods. Stew, pie, mince...mmm.

I only disliked kippers as a child. My mum very occasionally did beans, chips and spam fritters when she was tired, and that was a boring meal.

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 05/11/2014 20:40

Steamed cod with parsley sauce. "With this green-flecked spunk you are spoiling us Mama".

Meat and potato pie. Not quite cooked enough, so the meat was like a boot and the spuds were flinty.

Fried ham with stewed onions. Slimy, salty and stringy.

Thing is, what they fed us and what they ate differed utterly. Pizza 30 years before it became a supermarket staple. Curry made with hand ground spices. All sorts of stuff, but if the delicious smells woke us we'd be chased back to bed.

Deathraystare · 05/11/2014 20:31

I don't mean to imply mum was a rotten cook, but that our circumstances improved and she was able (through night school) to come up with more interesting recipes.

Deathraystare · 05/11/2014 20:30

Every bit of meat which is why I turned vegetarian when I left home. Not missing all that cheap fatty grisly meat at all! NOr the usual Chinese fare on a Saturday - deep fried pork balls, chop suey etc (in the very basic days of chinese take aways). I also do not like Chinese now (I am well aware that some chinese food is great - I had some in China!!!!). Because of all the gristle, the only meat I would eat without whining was mince - so 'stew' was made with mince!!! Still hated it though. It always looked orangey and was always cold quicky.

However, things improved and mum went to night school. She did make some lovely stuff and her lemon meringue is unbeatable -much better than shop bought which is too sweet by far. Sadly mum is no longer around:(

Nonie241419 · 05/11/2014 20:23

Kippers,
Mashed potato,
Pork chops (I hated these the most - I haven't eaten a pork chop for over 20 years and still shudder at the thought of one).

Icantwaituntilxmas · 05/11/2014 20:19

I've just remembered school dinner 'boiled potatoes.' They had a sort of... skin on them.... bleugh.

pilates · 05/11/2014 20:18

Cottage Pie

Stopmithering · 05/11/2014 20:12

Mashed potatoes. Somehow, my parents made dry, tasteless mash which was inevitably lumpy too. How they made such a mess of it I'll never understand.
Curry. Dad fancied himself as a bit of a chef and just had to be all cosmopolitan and make curry. With sultanas. Just not right. I love curry now, but no thanks to those home-made jobs.
Blancmange and anything similar, like Angel Delight. Still hate the stuff.
However, we used to have liver fairly often and it was a favourite. Generally my parents cooked meat very well and it was always tasty and tender.

blackeyedsusie · 05/11/2014 20:09

most of it was the seventies meat and two veg, and very uninspiring.

CalamitouslyWrong · 05/11/2014 20:04

Bogey:I not sure the meals I loathed were 'good for you' (tinned ham and awful potatoes is not health food) or the best that could be done on a small budget. My parents had plenty of money feuding my primary school years; they still insisted on serving me vile food regularly.

After I stopped being vegetarian (when I left home) it took me almost a decade to tell my mum - because I didn't want to be forced to eat her cooking instead of whatever ready meal she picked up for me in the supermarket (not nice, but still better). DH wishes he'd pretended to be vegetarian too.

My sister used to cook for us as teenagers. Her speciality was pasta with a tinned tomato and pickled onion sauce. It tasted entirely of vinegar. Sometimes she'd throw some cumin in if we were really unlucky.

CalamitouslyWrong · 05/11/2014 19:58

So many... I've mostly tried to blank food from my childhood out of my mind.

Tinned ham with plain boiled plough potatoes (all fluffy and dry). Just that. No veg. No moisture. Nothing. Eating it was like being desiccated.

Also mince and tatties. Watery, tasteless mince with bits of boiled carrot and onion floating about in it served with those same boiled plough potatoes. Bleurgh.

Pasta with the consistency of the stuff that comes in tins served with a jar of sauce. I have absolutely no idea how she achieved the weird bloated, soggy pasta. She didn't even cook it for very long.

Cup a soup, especially tomato cup a soup. Even the thought of a cup a soup makes me feel like vomiting.

My mum's 'beef stroganoff'. Huge chunks of undercooked mushroom and onion fried up with chewy strips of minute steak served with a sauce made from a bit of Worcestershire sauce and some cream. I didn't like the sauce (it was crap) so I got strips of chewy meat and some boiled rice for tea.

'Kedgeree' that was essentially boiled rice with peas, sweetcorn and microwaved smoked haddock. It all tasted of sweaty fish.

Anything with fish in it, actually. I have memories of sobbing over being made to eat horrible dry slabs of fish served with boiled floury potatoes (no sauce).

At 12 I decided to become vegetarian purely to opt out of this stuff. Instead I got microwaveable veggie lasagne for several years.

PolterGoose · 05/11/2014 19:56

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Idontseeanysontarans · 05/11/2014 19:55

Tripe is nice deep fried with chilli flakes Smile

Holdthepage · 05/11/2014 19:55

Liver & onions, boiled potatoes, sprouts. Why adults insist on children eating food they detest is beyond me, do they think children lack taste buds?

When I was quite young one of my uncles told me spaghetti was made from worms, it was many years before I could bring myself to eat it again.

fluffydressinggown · 05/11/2014 19:49

Casserole. It was grim, like dog food.

mausmaus · 05/11/2014 19:46

what are pilchards? have not come across them?

LightastheBreeze · 05/11/2014 19:43

Ugh Tripe, my mum used to eat that, it was rough on one side and smooth on the other, iirc

ilovehotsauce · 05/11/2014 19:43

Aki & salt fish can't even stand to smell it cooking Sad

Corn beef and rice

The smell of liver cooking for the dogs I use to hanget out of my window trying not to be sick!

WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes · 05/11/2014 19:41

My mum's lamb and apricot casserole, I can't bear fruit and meat combinations, I used to feel sick eating it.

Anything involving smoked haddock, again vomit-inducing stuff.

PookBob · 05/11/2014 19:41

Tripe with vinegar :(

starlight1234 · 05/11/2014 19:37

We used to have soup at school every once in a while but it was followed by salad instead of a pudding. worst days dinner ever

KenDoddsDadsDog · 05/11/2014 19:34

Oh and Norwegian fish balls in curry sauce. The devil's own work.

flipwit · 05/11/2014 19:34

I told school I was allergic to spam fritters because they made me feel so ill Envy also my lovely gran's Sunday dinners, they were just so overcooked and greasy that I felt ill afterwards