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...?

Liver and onion

Roast beef
Salmon
🤢

Liver with onions, mash and cabbage blurgh!

Liver when my mum cooked it - she cooked pigs’ liver until it was as hard and dry as leather. As an adult I’ve discovered the delight that is lightly seared lambs, calves and venison liver and can’t get enough of the stuff.

She also made this awful slow cooker pork casserole with one of those powder sachet sauces. The chunks of pork were always fatty yet dry and the sauce was like vaguely salty water.

Birds Eye Chicken Pies and beef stew (braising steak)

Stuffed Marrow. 🤢

@Waveafterwaveslowlydrifting I’d have happily scranned those offerings

My mother's signature "stew".
We actually bought good quality meat, directly from the abattoir and butchered and frozen at home ( this was a thing in the 80s).
"Stew" was diced beef, still frozen, dropped into a pan of boiling water, with maybe an onion or carrot added. If you were really unlucky, it would have something like runner beans or beetroot thrown in.
Seasoning of any kind, other than maybe a squirt of ketchup directly into the rapidly boiling pan of horror, was strictly verboten.
The entire, repulsive, rubbery mess was "enriched" and thickened with instant potato flakes before serving, to a semi-dollapable consistency.
Most of her cooking was (and still is) vomit inducing, but that particular delight was the absolute nadir.

Potted heid 🤢

Spam
Corned beef
Pork chops or lamb chops - managed to be both really dry but greasy simultaneously

Sausage, mash and beans 🤢🤮🤑 Sausages were fine. Loathe, loathe beans!! Plus my mum’s mash was disgusting as she didn’t put butter or milk in it and it was basically lumpy boiled potatoes. I just dreaded it when she said that’s what we were having.

@fingersdoublecrossed

Oh god I'd erased stuffed marrow from mind!🤣

Skirts and kidneys
Tripe and drisheen
Sheep’s head
Crubeens.

I’ve been a vegetarian these last 27 years.

Homemade lentil rissoles. Insubstantial and usually burnt.

The flat, doughy, homemade hockey pucks on a Sunday evening that were supposed to be scones.

I was another one who hated liver as a child, but I've since come to realise the error of my ways and also that there are some things my mother should simply not be allowed to cook.

Liver and onions 🤢

Cauliflower cheese. As an adult I like cauliflower cheese as a side dish to a main meal but as a child it was the main meal. Not only did I have to force it down (if you didn't eat what you were given there was nothing else) but it also didn't fill you up and I was was always hungry afterwards 😐

@Weedsnseeds1 just laughed out loud at that! Reminds me of my dm's efforts of a pot of mince in gravy in the 90's. Everything was always boiled within an inch of it's life and never sauted or steamed. She also had a knack for getting vegetables so soft and flavourless they would almost fall apart with every ounce of goodness left behind in the water but not to worry that was being used in the mince!

Spaghetti bolognese

My mum is an amazing cook. I actually miss the liver and onions she used to cook and I’ve been vegi for 25 years.

The only thing that I just wouldn’t eat was bobotie.
It’s minced lamb with spices and fruit with a topping like a mossaka.
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/bobotie

Liver. Without a doubt.

There was also something involving broad beans, still with those thick translucent skins on, and parsley sauce.

Kippers.
The smell would reach me just as I opened the back door and I would feel like crying. Even starving, I could barely choke them down 😩
Thank god we never had liver!!
Mac and cheese from a tin was 😋

MindtheBelleek, guessing you are from Cork?
I'd eat any of those, if cooked well, my Mother has, I kid you not, on more than one occasion, served me a single, microwaved, canned, plum tomato as lunch

@Divebar2021 OMG broad beans! I'd forgotten about those! Do people still eat them now? (If they do I imagine in a trendy way like toasted & tossed in a salad)
And yes yes to all the liver haters, my DM used to do me sausages on liver night as I refused the liver...but in the gravy made from the liver juices so it was still very livery tasting. I can still taste it now 25+ years later 

Liver and bacon
Tongue
Brawn
Spam fritters
Peas
Lentil soup

I read the post title and instantly thought of the stuffed hearts mum served regularly in the 70s. No wonder I am vegetarian now. I can still see them pulsing away, in my imagination, on the plate like some culinary Edgar Allen pie tribute. Blurgggh. Closely followed by the tinned pilchard Sunday tea.

My MIL served cooked beetroot in a white sauce... never seen it before or since.

Liver.

Also at school - cod in parsley sauce. Bleuch. Although I’d eat it now.