Bad childhood dinners

[driggle]

While eating ham, egg & chips tonight (childhood fav) I was thinking about the dinners I used to have as a child. My mum only cooked things that were frozen, tinned or came out of a packet. One particular meal we had a lot was Birdseye beef in gravy (which you boiled in the bag it came in) with plain pasta bows. At the time I actually enjoyed it but the thought of eating that beef now makes me gag a little. I remember it being chewy but my mum would cook all meat until it had the texture of a shoe, so I didn't know any better!

What childhood dinners did you eat that you couldn't imagine eating now?

@UnleashTheBulsara Omg the lard and bacon dripping -

When my mum was dying she told myself and my brother (only 2 of us), that we should share the 2 big jars of lard that was in the fridge, we knew she took from it often but then she revealed to what extent (both of us left home many years), the jars contained some fat from my grandmothers time and the fact that she died in 1951 says it all so they were at least 56 years old. The bottom inch of the jars was the original stuff my granny used. Neither of us took the jars when clearing her house. (surprisingly)

We also had a chip pan growing up with a basket with the worst handle ever seen, the plastic was hollow and rotated on the actual handle underneath it - very lucky was never scalded. It was my grandmothers also. It met its end around the turn of this century.

Irish stew with lamb neck. Great big blobs of fat and grissle in it as well.
Boak!

My mum used to make really nice Yorkshire puddings and I locked forward to Sundays so we could have them filled with gravy. Her Yorkshire pudding tin though was horrific - caked in congealed lard that was used over and over again and never ever washed. All the did was top up the lard every now and again.

We used to have stew on top of pancakes and I remember this being one of my favourite meals. I made it myself as an adult though and it was just a soggy, horrible mess!

We were often told "the children in Ethiopia would rip your hand off for that plate of food"

Obvious retort ~ post it to them

corned beef hash
and my dad allllways cremated pizza

I'm equally fascinated and appalled by all your childhood dinners!

@Hushnownobodycares mince and onions was a popular one in our house too! But we had carrots in ours and it was served with boiled potatoes. The only things added to the mince was two beef OXO cubes and water. Thinking about it it's probably the only meal my mum made that didn't come from a tin or freezer.

DM also had a chip pan with fat that was allowed to cool and congeal then used again and again and again Total 70's thing, obviously.

Anyone elses' parents given a ginger beer plant to keep alive and pass on all in the name of friendship? Fucking hell, the fuss . Was like a proto-Tamagotchi

Ha. Glad to know I wasn't the only one that suffered that nauseating mess

I'm not keen on mince even now unless it's heavily spiced and disguised with an eye wateringly hot chili sauce but that thin grey childhood stuff (with bones. HTF was that even possible?!) really was the stuff of nightmares.

@driggle mince and tatties? God I loved mince and tatties. Still do. My mum would ask the butcher for his 'best mince'. Potatoes, onion, carrot, in a delicious gravy.

itsfuckingnotducking

You are Anthony from down the road and I claim my five pounds

Everything was microwaved. My parents got a microwave and some weird kind of smoked grey brown opaque plastic "browning dishes" in about 1980. Everything was grey, and tasted the same, and had a weird chewy spongy texture. It was either that or deep fried in an ancient fire hazard of a chip pan, often slightly burnt on the outside and a bit frozen in the middle. Meat was cooked until it had no flavour or juiciness in it, beef was dark brown all the way through. No seasoning, no herbs, spices, garlic, no sauces other than gravy, brown sauce, salad cream or ketchup. No pasta. No rice. Just potatoes.

No flavour got anywhere near my mother's kitchen

Salad season:

When we were told old potatoes were not in season so it was only new potatoes to eat. And you couldn't make chips with them so it was grey boiled potatoes with everything.

That totally shite round lettuce all summer - never had any other variety and my mother used to run it under hot water to clean it so it was limp slimy dap and tasted like wet grass.

Always putting beetroot on it even when I hated it. And a slice of tinned ham with all the jelly stuff on it.

Salad cream never mayo.

Uggh.

And Pek chopped pork, and Ye Olde Oak ham. Any tinned meat really.

Crispy pancakes

I loved cabbage and bacon and also stuffed hearts. Yum.

My worse was spag Bol. This was the late 60s/early seventies so pasta that wasn’t in tins was new. At first it was great, Mum followed a recipe and it was delicious. But Mum was a child of rationing and was always looking to stretch ingredients and make things go further so she kept adapting the recipe. What started off as a rich, tomatoey , beef ragu gradually evolved into a few chunks of vile soya mince floating around in a watery gravy of oxo cube and tomato puree spiked with frozen diced vegetables. She was so proud of how frugal she was and it was extra frugal because we all hated it and ate tiny portions so one pan could be portioned up and frozen and would last for days.

We were talking about this last week. I was with a European friend and an Indian friend who couldn’t understand the U.K./Irish obsession with ketchup and sauce and pickle etc. We decided it was because when we were growing up in the 1950s/60s/70s food was so dull and bland that very strong, often vinegary condiments were the only way to add flavour.

School dinners in a vegan school. I really don't like tofu.

A weird concoction my DM got from a magazine like Woman's Realm. Diced corned beef, frozen peas and spaghetti. It was one of the main factors in me becoming vegetarian while still at primary school. Oddly enough, my brother was reminiscing about it only recently, he says he liked it and wishes he could find the recipe

Oooh this has struck a chord with me!!

DM’s fave was packet “savoury” rice with pork chops and sweet and sour sauce - creating a massive source of distaste in the 1980s !!

Then there were the burgers from Iceland ....

I was a 90s child, so I thankfully missed the worst of the packaged food fads. But we didn't have much money and my mum wasn't much of a cook, so everything was just a bit bland. Everything we ate was smothered in ketchup or brown sauce or salad cream.

Worieddd I watched a documentary a while back the said the packaged food thing came out of wartime - when WW2 ended the companies that made food for the military started marketing to "busy housewives" as a nutritious alternative to slaving over a hot stove. Don't know how true it is, but it wouldn't surprise me.

@smurfy2015 - Your mum's bequeathed jars of lard have made me gip . I thought our pan of fat couldn't get any worse, but no...

We had tinned food in the cupboards without barcodes and BB dates. Nobody would consider actually eating them yet they stayed in the cupboards for eons

WTF was all that about

My mum was a good cook, which meant I'd go to friends' houses to be given grey veg and stuff in slime and be unable to eat it and then be told off by both mums because 'you eat peas /fish in parsley sauce/rice at home...

One school' s dinners were appalling - grey meat, mushy grey veg, but worst was alleged sweet and sour pork - one of those tiny crap pork chops in fluorescent pink and purple congealed slime like jelly. I still have nightmares 30+ years later...

School dinners were nearly always dreadful. Horrible brown stews, mince, brown everything, lumpy mash, stinky cabbage, swede and lumpy custard. Fish and chips on Fridays was fine.

Food at home was great. School - inedible.

Boiled veg.

I really prefer raw. Such a waste of time

My patents were both fantastic cooks and quite adventurous- I feel lucky reading this!

@AccidentallyRunToWindsor I feel lucky too!

I think I have my granny to thank. My mum was born in 1944 and lived in rural Scotland. It sounds as though things could have gone horribly wrong food wise in that era!! But my mum talks about her mums cooking the same way I talk about hers.