What meal made your heart sink as a child

Reading through some posts about pressure cookers reminded me if the time I made myself vomit with my own cooked food from school
Spaghetti bolognese in the pressure cooker during home economics. I could never get the hang of the cooker for a start, my local shop was so out of date he had never heard of oregano so couldn't provide me with the full ingredients (I had to improvise. I've blocked out what I substituted) and I faffed around so much I didn't cook it properly.
I passed Home Ec and have never poisoned anyone since, promise!

My mother had this great cookbook called Feed Me I'm Yours

My mum had that too I had forgotten but your description brought it right back, I can picture it now vividly.

Fish paste sarnies were called " Cat food sandwiches" - it gave my mum the rage !

ginny I loved Findus beef and onion Crispy Pancakes. I am afraid to go back there because, like Tizer, it might not work these days.

Sandwiches made with Heinz sandwich spread and thin white(cheap) bread.
It looked like someone had heaved hence we called them "Sick sandwiches"

I hate those places squoosh

I went to St John twice years ago. Never again, and I like all kinds of offal.

The first time I ordered pig chitterlings, which is deep fried intestine. My choice, but it was absolutely disgusting. Greasy and cold, chewy rather than crispy. I think it might have been all right if it was hot, but it wasn't. I didn't complain, but I should have at the outrageous price for something that was badly cooked and would have been the sweepings of the abbatoir floor.

The other thing was a veal shank which came with a dinky spoon for the bone marrow. I ate the meat but left the marrow because I don't like it, and also, at that point as Zing says, it wasn't hot any more.

The waiter mocked me for leaving it. We did tip him because we're nice, but we never went back.

It was also freezing and white - like eating in a dentist surgery with the aircon turned up. I think that was because it was so long ago it was before the indoor smoking ban and because of the 'hearty' nature of the food it attracted cigar smokers.

It baffles me why this fucking place is still open.

My mum's 70s/80s version of spaghetti bolognese, bless her. (She makes a great one now.)

I think she just browned some mince, bunged some too large bits of onion in, cooked it for about 3 minutes and then piled it on top of the pasta. The pasta was probably overcooked but it was the sauce that was vile. No tomatoes, herbs, etc of any description featured. It was just hard under-cooked greasy mince and onions with under-drained watery pasta.

Weirdly she made nice mince and potatoes.

Was never very fond of the salty gammon/tinned pineapple/frozen sweetcorn dinner either.

'Gorgeous' is quite a bold claim!

Shepherds pie
Stew although like it now
Mince pie and mash. My mum was not the greatest cook.

ginny They are gorgeous, treat yourself

I've never tasted a Findus crispy pancake. I feel deprived.

Oh yes, a spoon of cod liver oil on a winter's morning. We all had to line up. Yuck.

And this was the 80's, I'm sure capsules were widely available!

The only thing I really hated was crispy pancakes - I just couldnt stand them but they always seems to be bought since "kids love them".

Oh Cariads I'd forgotten about Cod Liver Oil. One spoonful every morning after breakfast. Once it got mixed up with a mouthful of porridge. Does anyone remember Gregory's Powder if you felt ill?

Great thread.

My mum learnt to cook chicken l'orange in the 70s and has never looked back. Chicken a l'orange every Thursday for my whole childhood. Now chicken a l'orange every time me and DH and DCs go to visit. We were just weaning her off it when DM went to stay with my aunt and cooked it for her. Stupid aunty loved it so now my DM's back to being convinced that chicken a l'orange is the best thing ever

She also calls it orange chicken which I find unreasonably infuriating.

My mums vegetable soup and her vegetable spag bol.
My mums friends fish pie I feared dinner round there!
School dinners were quite nice actually.
I hated my lunchbox which had health food shop rough granary bread with peanut butter. Carrot and cucumber sticks and an orange and an apple.

None marrow is so trendy these days. Every hot new restaurant is chock full of bone marrow.

Ratatoille, liver and onions at home.

Cheese flan at school.

I had a similar thing to you brams. I don't remember this but when I was in the infants I told my mum that I'd been made to eat bones at school.

She was furious and rushed up there because she was THAT KIND OF MUM to ask them what the hell they were playing at.

It turned out that they were the tough ribs of the outer leaves of cabbage.

She didn't blame me at all. You should throw the outermost leaves away because they're damaged and dirty and bitter. As you get into the cabbage you tear the leaf away from the stalk until you're close to the centre when it's all tender.

They were just lazy.

Curry with .... bananas with paprika, bits if apple with sultanas and desiccated coconut. I think it was from the Good Housekeeping book. Remember it well and think I actually quite liked it.
However, devilled kidneys were terrible.
I wander what my children will have bad memories of?

I have to defend bone marrow. when it's piping hot and spread on toast with a bit of salt it is absolutely delicious and tastes just like goose liver pate. yum

But as it cools down it's deliciousness rapidly diminishes.
cold bone marrow is disgusting

I've asked for this thread to be put into classics. It's been a real (funny) trip (funny) down memory lane and it would be a shame to lose it.

Does somebody need to second it? Or what? (not sure how nominating something for classics works)

Marrows are terrible. But bone marrow is disgusting as well and I eat all kinds of offal, including brains and intestines, but excepting tripe.

It's browny-grey and to me, flavourless but icky, because it's fatty.

stubbornstainsI remember all those!! Jeez, tibetan roast was grim. That's a memory I'd blanked out til now! Most of our food was from rose elliot or the cranks :-.

My school never removed fat, gristle etc from meat. Potatoes weren't completely peeled, with eyes etc left in. The greatest abomination was swede/turnip/parsnip which would be boiled to a sort of slimy slush, but also with eyes, bits of worm etc left in. At just about every lunch some small child would be sick, followed by others at their table and quite a few of the rest of us. If you couldn't eat your lunch you had to sit with this plate of cold greasy crap in front of you, terrified of missing the bus home, then released after the others, rush down the hill to the bus stop crying in fright and panic. We were aged 5 upwards by the way. How the school, which was private, had the brass neck to take money off our parents for this stuff I do not know. I still cannot eat swede etc and avoid pies etc in case they have gristle and skin in them.

My mother, with the same ingredients, would spend time on cleaning and preparing them and produce a meal which would have us lining up for seconds!