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...?

An Ulster fry for dinner not breakfast. I used to get awful indigestion afterwards and even vomit but we had it at least once a week - no alternatives offered or available. I was diagnosed with gallstones aged 20 so think my body just wasn’t good at metabolising fatty foods.

Pea and ham soup 🤮

Salmon, too greasy, kidney, tastes like wee, spam just gross probably cos we had pek in the house and that was much nicer, rhubarb, texture but I like the flavour.

@Mothership4two

Liver and onions Chewy roast lamb My Dad's homemade coleslaw with raw onions in it

You make coleslaw with cooked onions?

Staffordshire Lobby - basically a chunky beef stew/casserole made from cheap cuts of beef with mixed veg and potatoes and not much flavouring other than salt & pepper. I would sit there chewing away at big chunks of meat unable to swallow them 🤢.
Don’t really like beef now - even roast beef and can’t eat any sort of stew or casserole.

Tripe and onions. We stayed once with an aunt who served it for breakfast. Ugh 😝

I hated any meal with swede and parsnips but I will eat them now! A roast dinner because of the actual meat. The meat was always cooked until really hard and dry. Beef was the worst because when it was sliced it would crumble like sawdust!

@WhatWouldPhyllisCraneDo

I'm right there with you on Spam 🤮

I went on a week-long school camping trip when I was 11 and every meal involved spam, spam fritters for breakfast, spam Sandwiches for lunch, spam sheets one teatime and no word of a lie, we even found it in the rice pudding one evening, needless to say, no-one ate the pudding that day.

That was over 40yrs ago and I can't even bear to see a tin of the stuff, it gives me the heeby-jeebies 🤢

Spam sheets?? No... Stew.... flipping predictive text

Boil in the bag fish.

Pork chops

Urggghhhh. Am Muslim now but still shudder that I used to eat them 20 years ago. Feel like throwing up now actually.

Mince, carrot and onion stir fry. My mum thought she was Gordon Ramsay when she was cooking it. It had zero seasoning and wasnt great.

Mince burgers and cold mash potatoes.

We also used to have toast from the grill on lastnights grill rack. Ie toast was just warmed up bread on one side. And the other side had lined on it from the meat that had been cooked the previous night. It wasnt great.

And the nights they were drunk, there was no food at all. So I would heat up fish fingers for myself and younger siblings. Wasnt a great childhood at all.

Liver and onions

Liver, cooked till it tasted like a boot soaked in dead dog juices. Accompanied by very over-boiled veg. The worst. Second worst was some god-awful cut of meat with horrible white bits (tendons?) in it.

Liver with ‘pipes’ 🤮🤢
Became vegetarian by mid teens .

Oh Lord, I remember the liver with tubes in it, absolutely vile.

I learnt to like liver when I did a ski season in my 20’s and the chalet cook served them once a week as a starter- tiny little chicken livers pan fried in garlic & herbs on a bed of leaves, 🤩 amazing. I’ll eat them now.

Other horrors for me~

Boil in bag fish with gloopy parsley sauce & lumpy mash. Still don’t like mash now.
Tapioca pudding
Pigs trotters (never ate them, but my Nan used to boil them up)
Tinned burgers (yes in the 80’s) in flat white sliced bread as a butty
Rum baba pudding (my mum & dad loved them, I gagged but was made to eat everything on my plate back then)

Mind you, I eat most foods these days but I have one child who is so fussy he’d rather starve (literally) than eat 50% of our normal meals

Have to say absolutely nothing. My mum made lovely dinners but never made me eat meat. I hated meat from the first time i tried it the worst thing was having to stand in the butchers with all the carcasses hanging next to where you had to queue.

Chicken fricasee (we used to call it chicken sick).

Pork chops or roast pork (dry, tough, and I find pork has a strange urea taste)

Cauliflower cheese is my absolute nemesis but I would never have been served it at home, such is my hatred.

Chicken fricassee looked like it had already been eaten and smelt equally disgusting. I have never heard of it since (thank god)

Omg I love this and still eat them now. My kids think I'm vile! Me too=-sometimes with very thinly sliced cheddar as well.

We only ever had about 3 meals on rotation but my list favourite was mashed potato and mince.

Spam and home cooked chips was my fave.

Ah, the early 80s. Great food times! Not. No wonder I'm vegetarian now!

Liver and bacon here too! My mum is a fab cook, my dad however..:

Liver! I hated it so much but my mum used to make me sit there until it was finished so I used to shove it onto my sisters plate. Of course I got caught but worth a try 😁

Another one for liver. Served with boiled potatoes 🤢

Beef stew and dumplings. The stew was always an orange colour and tasted weird and there was no way you would get me eating the dumplings either!!!