Childhood dinners that made your heart sink?

[Harveypuss]

A lighthearted post!

Do you remember any childhood meals, that when you asked your mum (or dad) "what's for dinner?", their answer made your heart sink?!

Mine was Lamb's hearts. My Mum cooked these often, presumably it was a culinary delight and was probably cheap, but I hated them (this was back in the late 70s so you ate what was given or went hungry). I don't know what she did with them, but they were as tough as old boots and really chewy. I'm sure offal like that is probably quite delicious in some top-end restaurant but dear Mum didn't cook it like that! I'm in my 50s now and I've only just told her I hated that meal. She was mortified!

We have this with our son now, aged 17. He hates pasta and when we have a family pasta meal, I cook him something different. He's off to Uni next year, so don't know how he's going to manage as I'm told all students live of pasta as it's really cheap...!

What was your least favourite childhood meal...?

Kids don’t know they are born these days, well mine don’t! I end up cooking 3 diff meals as they both have certain things they won’t eat / refuse and I can’t see them go without like we did and won’t force feed. I just don’t know what to do to get them to eat a wider range of food, they hate textures of meat, rice, veg etc 😫

Boiled tongue with the grey skin still on, covered in tiny bumps. Cloves stuck in the tongue. Served in the "juice". Remember my dad saying sliced it looked like it had come from a giant spider's underneath. It looked sort of hairy but wasn't.

Fish boiled in milk.
Swede mixed with potato.
Spinach boiled and served in a puddle of green water. So vile. My mother actually picked this up and jammed it into my mouth once as I'd sat looking at it for 3 hours. Cooked spinach still gives me the heaves.

Utterly bloody cottage pie! Neither DBro nor I can bear it as adults because it was constantly presented when we were small. I'm generally a great lover of nursery food, but it's just so... blah.

Mum used to cook soused herrings for Dad. They were herrings in a baking dish covered with what smelt like neat malt vinegar. They stank the house out. At least I wasn't expected to eat them!

Oh and another thing was cod roe baked in vinegar. Looked and smelt disgusting.

Yep .... liver & onions. Shortly after this I become vegetarian and still am to this day. Just to have an excuse to refuse it and it stuck 😂😂 oh god if I go to their house and I can smell it I retch

Corned beef hash. Which was basically a plate with 10 portions of mashed potato with no milk or butter, with a rare bit of corned beef or the occasional carrot or onion in it. We had to sit at the table with this mountain of tasteless mush before us and weren't allowed to leave until it was all gone.

My mum’s curry. She boiled mince and onions in a pan then threw in some curry powder. Got to love the 70’s, not many curry houses around and I doubt she’d ever tried the real thing!

Liver that was cooked by my late Mum, back in the days of the 1940 and 1950's era, She always bought beef liver. and fried it up for ages,and it came out on the plate, looking black rubber,like those STICK A SOLE products,for patching up holes in worn out shoes , She only served up some lumpy mashed potato with them,and some tinned peas if you were lucky..My late mum did not like onions,so nobody else could have them. ! l love lambs liver now,with onions and bacon, and usually braise it in the oven, as its quick to cook.

My late Mum, didn't much like cooking,in those days,To her,it was just a meal,for family, that had to be prepared very quick,and eaten at a certain time, then everything quickly washed up and put a way,,so that she could get on with more important things,,as in, have a cup of tea and a smoke, and then get on with all the ironing, ! and then sit down to do her knitting for a few hours..

Dry fish fingers or revolting sausage slices, powdered mash and cheap tinned beans.

Liver stroganoff 🤢
I plucked up the courage finally to tell my Mum that I hated this dish one lunchtime when I was around six. She made me sit at the table most of the afternoon with it until I had finished my plate. I sat there for a long long time but didn’t touch it. I was finally sent to my room for the rest of the day. I didn’t get any dinner that night.
After this standoff, we agreed I could choose on my birthday one dish I would be excused from eating for the year. I always chose liver stroganoff!

Panackelty 🤢🤢 so disgusting. I'm vegetarian now because of it!

My mums stew and dumplings.
The onions were always huge pieces (still have to finely dice onions for everything I cook now) plus dumplings are like satans testicles.
Liver - no explanation needed.
Baked apples - why? They’re awful. Give me Angel Delight any day.

My mum once served pigs trotters. You could pull a tendon and it would move. We have NEVER let her forget this.

I didn't enjoy roasts dinners, but love them now. If my children really aren't keen on something I am cooking (which is very rare) I cook them something different.

Fray bentos pies
Boil in a bag fish with parsley sauce
Mince leftover from sundays roast with peas added to it served with boiled potatoes.
Did love tuesdays though when we had egg and chips:)
And unlike most pp here I also loved liver and bacon!

MIL was not the greatest cook. Great at baking, but other food very bland. The plain, whole boiled onion with no other accompaniment was a particular low...

Liver, but oddly enough it's now a favourite. Pretty sure I just didn't like it the way it was cooked (over-cooked to shoe leather). But now I know how to cook it the way I like it, it's completely different.

The smell of egg sandwiches still turns my stomach.

Liver

I grew up thinking I didn't like mince at all because of my mum's mince and tatties. We always had frozen mince which my mum would basically pound at constantly with a wooden spoon while it cooked so it always ended up as tiny tasteless tough grains in the gravy.

Liver
Mackerel

Gammon steaks. I'm not even sure why - I love pig in all its other forms but for some reason I loathe a gammon steak.

I like liver but was put off by the occasion it had tubes...shudder.

Kidney tastes of wee. Bleuch.

In Scotland a lot of people really enjoy mince and mashed potatoes, known here as mince and tatties.

I hate it. Hate, hate, hate it.

My parents made it every week as a child. Ugh. No.

Pig's liver curry, with a bit of onion, frozen peas, a spoon of supermarket curry powder, water and rice added, simmered till done, puke.......

DM used to make a cheese and sultana pie. I like cheese a lot. I quite like a sultana. Cooked, put together in a pie? No, no and thrice no.