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...?

Meat and potato pie. I was my brother's favorite so not only did my mum make it but my Nana did too and I was brought up to be polite and force it down at my Nana's.

I also can't stand brown sauce and of course my brother loves it and at my Nana's it was brought out to put on the pie.

A weird lamb and lentil stew my mum made, but before we got to the stew we had pancakes and the liquid from the stew as a sort of starter and I liked (still do) pancakes.

At school

Spam fritters
Stew with horrible plain pastry/biscuit thing - we called it spew

These were the days of one meal at primary that you had to eat.

At secondary you got the choice of two meals, they used to do chicken pie which was nice and chicken supreme with rice that wasn't on the same day, you hoped you were on 'first sitting' that day to get the pie.

When the rules changed and you could have what you wanted they made chicken supreme once.

I always used to feel sad when Dad said it was stir fry for tea.

As an adult I love them! Though I can choose the meat, veg and sauce which definitely helps. I think my dad just shoved veg in a pan and then served it up; so it was just a plate of veg! As I remember, anyway.

Liver, kidneys (hoped against hope they were mushrooms and not kidneys) and the dreaded semolina dessert (gag) and in our day, you finished that dinner and dessert or you didn't leave the table

These all sound horrible!! I have genuinely nothing to add as my mum was both a good cook and brought us up vegetarian, so we were never forced to eat offal or questionable cuts of meat. I loved eating as a child ... still do.

I'm not a vegetarian now but still can't eat anything really 'meaty', like beef. I'm sure a perfect steak is a delight when you are accustomed, but no matter how much I wish I could, I just can't make myself like it.

Smoked haddock- the cheap stuff. Sooooooooooooooooooooo salty, dyed the potatoes bright yellow.

Horrible.

Lasagne, I hated the white sauce that goes in it, I still do 20+ years later and whenever I visit my family and we make lasagne we do half with white sauce, half without.

Liver and onions
Mince beef and onions with boiled potatoes
Stuffed marrow (stuffed with mince beef)
Omelette
The chicken curry at school dinners- it was in an almost clear yellow sauce with apple and sultanas, was not spicy at all. Disgusting!

Anything involving mash potatoes. It put me off the entire meal even if the rest of it was something I enjoyed.

fish fingers

As both a kid and an adult, I'll eat most anything. But at infant school we had the most vile mince. No flavour, dry and a weird vomit inducing texture.At 5 years old I was forced to eat it (the headmaster would stand over me) My mum told him since I ate just about everything else that was put in front of me, I was allowed to leave it. But he still forced me.....can remember retching and crying. Bastard! My mum cooked mince dishes and they were fine, we had no idea what they did to the school one to make it so horrible. Years later, on an economy drive I bought a giant "bargain" pack of frozen turkey mince. As I was cooking it, I was transported back to that 5 year old. Yep, mince is fine, and I like it . But NOT turkey mince. So, economy drive or not the whole lot went in the bin. Yuk.

Liver and bacon.

Creamed beef. Dear god it was vile and I’ll eat anything. Salty beef in a floury white sauce

Mum went through a ‘health food’ stage and only ever made hideous nut roast on Sundays. Simultaneously dry and slimy.

Sweetcorn. Literally just an ear of corn on a plate, nothing with it except a blob of margarine. it was always presented as if a special treat too. It has put me off sweetcorn for life.

Stuffed peppers and marrows too. Cooked for hours so mushy and devoid of flavour, stuffed with nasty cheap beef mince,

Fish from the chippy, most kids would love it but I just can’t stomach batter, I hated it! I still hate fish from the chippy now.

Liver without a doubt. Also fish pie, the whole house would stink of fish. And bacon and cabbage! Horrible fatty bacon and cabbage that has been boiled for hours. Again the house would stink. Funny enough my mother is a very good cook. I just hated these dinners!

I loved liver!
I hated oxtail soup - my mother would bring an actual oxtail home and make soup. Nowadays it would nearly be Michelin star level soup!

All this food talk is making me hungry.

I think I have some liver and onions in the freezer.

Boiled meats. Very northern Italian. Even with tasty sauces (salsa verde, etc) it still just looked grey and jiggly in the most stomach-churning way. Wasn’t even cheap to make. Could have pan fried the same meat and it’d be a winner. But, you know, tradition.

Or lamb brains. Not even crumbed. A popular Italian ‘first food’ for babies, so everyone at the table had to suffer. Like little wobbly pale cream clouds of.... sheer horror. Hated them when I didn’t know what they were (mum was canny enough not to say). When I found out, I just cried and retched the whole way through the plateful.

My 10yo says eggplant in any form is the the most disgusting thing ever. Ah, dear innocent child!

Fish pie. I still won’t eat it.

Another vote for liver - it was bitter, and the texture vile!

Mum was a pretty good cook, although basic. Brought up in the war so an expert at cheap cuts, added ingredients to make things go further etc. We used to have a lamb stew with butter beans and pearl barley in it - I hated the texture of the pearl barley - slimy.

Puddings were worse. I hated milk, never drank it, even the smell made me feel sick. 1970s puddings seemed to revolve around milk - rice pudding, semolina, milk jellies and my worst nightmare - junket! I used to heave all the way through it.

Mince

Stew and dumplings
Rice pudding

Stew with lumps of fat floating in it 😣

My mother used to make liver and mash with processed peas every month. I tried liver and hated it, ate the mash and peas. The next month I tried the liver and hated it, explained the dryness and metal taste weren't nice, ate the mash and peas.

The next month she covered the mash and peas with liver gravy. That continued for about 10 years. I would be sent to bed at about 6pm without tea, in disgrace. I mentioned it to her a few years ago (I am mid 50s now) and she laughed and said I always was stubborn and prone to making a fuss! I was 6 years old when it started.

And she wonders why we don't have much contact!