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...?

I buy tongue often!

I was born in the 70s and so was my brother. He was a bit fussy, in that he didn't eat much meat, so he would tend to have sausages if we had roast beef, pork or lamb as he would only eat chicken, or if we had steak pies.

I don't remember my parents cooking anything horrible though. Apart from one time my dad insisted on putting red kidney beans in chilli con carne despite knowing both me and my brother hated it. We had a stand off where he refused to let us get down from the table till the whole lot had gone. My mum had gone to bed as she didn't want to get involved (they were divorced but had moved back in together for some reason I've never been able to fathom as they constantly argued) In the end I told my dad I needed the toilet, grabbed a load of toilet roll and me and my brother sneaked the kidney beans into the toilet roll and ate the rest of the chilli. And threw the kidney beans down the loo. Weirdly I'm quite happy to eat red kidney beans now.

I loved school dinners, people would give me the pilchards and spam fritters they didn't like because I'd eat everything. Except macaroni cheese. It was disgusting, and the only thing I refused to eat. Although they still tried to make me. I don't mind macaroni cheese now, but it's only been in the last few years I've tried it such was my memories of gross school one.

@Divebar2021

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

Oh my goodness, you've just unlocked a repressed memory of my mother cooking that. How disturbing.

My mother is a pretty decent cook and I ate most things she made for us but I have to confess that if I burn a pizza for my son I cover it with grated cheese. He never noticed when he was young but now does. We call it "Cheesy surprise". Recently one was so bad that we called it "Cheesy despair"!

There is some really disgusting unimaginable meals on here but the cows udder on toast is probably the worst. Cannot get the image out my head!! 🙈🙈🙈

Eggy macaroni cheese. Essentially a souffléd macaroni cheese but the problem was my Mum's always split and curdled so it was like watery cheesy scrambled egg with macaroni. Bleugh

Not at home but at school: every other Thursday the menu was liver and mashed swede and the whole school except for one girl called Helen always refused to eat it and would scrape it into the bin (why did they always serve it??!). She was also very well-developed and for years I thought that if you ate liver your bust would grow!

I must be in a minority for actually liking liver. DH (who is a brilliant cook) does an amazing Venetian-style dish in which the liver is chopped finely then pan-fried very quickly with onions and dry sherry.

I do actually like it like this. It's great when it's cooked well. It wasn't cooked well at school!

Liver. We called it elephants ears at school. The boiled veg served with it that was all virtually the same insipid colour because it had been boiled for so long.

My friend and neighbour dropped over yesterday.

I asked the question.

The reply came back liver and onions.

She went home and asked her DH with context, the straight question.

She texted me back, X says liver and onions.

Definitely a thing.

I didn't bother saying liver upthread, as it was already fairly unanimous! However, I was chatting to my mum the day after the thread started, & asked her if she'd eaten liver recently.

She thought for a bit, & decided probably not in 30 years 'unless pate counts, dear?'

Why not?

'Well, it's not very nice dear, is it? I mean I'd eat it if someone served it up, but I wouldn't buy it haha! Or order it in a restaurant! Ugh! Haha haha!'

FFS mum! You used to make me choke it down at least once a week.

I always assumed she & dad must absolutely love it, given they practically force fed it to me & dbro, both of whom would rather have eaten warm dog poo.

Anyway - it turns out that back in the 70s it was received wisdom that children needed a weekly infusion of offal for vitamin A & iron.

She did concede that my dc were not looking like Dracula victims for lack of it.

@fingersdoublecrossed

Stuffed Marrow. 🤢

Same!!

It didn't help that my dad grew marrow in his allotment

I used to waitress in a traditional pub years ago and remember if anyone ordered the liver, I had to carry it with arm totally outstretched because the smell made me urge.

For me, it was spaghetti bolognese. I can't bear anything about beef mince.

Ox heart. Ox liver. Pigs feet. Tripe. I remember it well after decades - especially the ox offal... 🤮 Mum did her best to make sure we were housed, fed and clothed to the best of her ability but I've never touched any of these since. 🌹

@Blacktothepink

Liver and bacon Tongue Brawn Spam fritters Peas Lentil soup

Oh God - Tongue! I'd forgotten that!! And it really DID like tongue in the dish with all the papillae still intact on the surface...

I always felt like our family were the only people at the time who ate like we did, it seems not! The boiled tongue, liver with 🤢, pigs trotters, tripe with onions in milk, grey mince and boiled potatoes…..I loved school dinners more than anyone else! Oh and the salad with waistline salad cream and boiled potatoes and what my mum called Russian salad, which was tinned mixed veg with salad cream, grim! Oh and salad cream sandwiches, or salad cream on toast! It was definitely more palatable to have salad cream sandwiches any day of the week rather than my dear old mum’s dreadful cooking!

Oxtail
Tripe & onions
Cow heel pie
Anything with cauliflower, my mum’s speciality cooked in the pressure cooker for half an hour.
Breakfast of white bread soaked in warm milk.
Home brewed wine with half an inch of sludge in the bottom of the glass

Uncle Ben's sweet and sour chicken
Minced beef and onions (the mince was always in big clumps...eurgh!)
Burnt pizza cooked in the microwave - Delia Smith my mother ain't