What food did you think you didn't like because you'd only had it cooked badly?

[caroleanboneparte]

Inspired by tonight's trifle.

I hated trifle growing up.

Then had one made using a celebrity chef recipe about 10 years ago now look forward to it every Christmas.

DM 'offered' to make trifle this year. It's bogging. Tinned fruit. Dry sponge. There's hardly any sweetness at all. Think she's used made up custard.

So many other examples:
Red peppers
Macaroni cheese
Tzatziki
Most veg
Lasagne
Omelettes
Cheesecake

I wouldn’t eat lamb for years because I just remember it being horribly gristly and fatty. TBF though my parents could only afford the cheap cuts. Having said that I remember my mum doing brisket and it was like old shoe leather but I did a brisket the other day in the slow cooker and it was divine.

Again like others my Mother is a terrible cook everything was boiled to within an inch of its life. Roast potatoes were boiled then fried in a deep fat fryer. Vegetables were out a tin or boiled mush. I love roast veggies now.

Pretty much all veg. My mum made Rhea from Butterflies (showing my age, lol) look good. I have since realised veg can be lovely if cooked properly…lol

There's definitely a meat and veg theme here.

There was a generation brought up in the 70s/80/s on overcooked meat and two veg meals it seems.

I'd forgot about the scones too like pp. she made them tiny so they'd overcook in the oven.

There was a general suspicion about sugar so it's not get added to anything.

Salt similar.

Recipes have sugar and salt in them for a reason.

But my DM is fat phobic and can't get her head around the idea of indulgent food.

Beef. It was so chewy at home that I couldn’t swallow it. I had to pretend I needed the toilet and flush it away. When CJD was in the news, I used that as an excuse to not eat beef again.

Medium rare pinky beef is delicious

Toast. As a child I was know for being really weird about toast. Had to have it really dark and it had to be cold before it was buttered.

Turns out it was because Mum used to use low fat spread. This was the late 70s/early 80s so I guess the first ones that were available and weren't very good. They just made the toast wet rather than melting properly.

Real toast with real butter was a revaluation when I finally tried it!

I am at my DPs for Christmas and though I'm not fussy, I put my foot down big time about the roast potatoes with them saying "don't peel them... Put them in a slow oven... I'm sure they are done now, it's past 12.30 we want to eat".

Bolognese. The wet, sloppy, chuck-anything-in shite lots of people dish up in the UK is awful. But a rich, slowly cooked, reasonably authentic Ragu Bolognese is a thing of beauty. First had it in Rome, and now I recreate it at home, but would still be (silently) sceptical about eating it at someone's house.

The first time I made baked potatoes with my H I had to confiscate the tin foil he was trying to wrap them in, as his mum always had. After he tasted how much crispier and fluffier he made them about three times a week, having previously not been fussed about them.

When DD was just starting out on eating and having finger foods, broccoli was one of her favourite things (chance would be a fine thing right now). We were staying at MiL’s and she served up a roast, and there was broccoli on a plate for DD. Imagine her total confusion when she grabbed for it and her fingers just passed through - it disintegrated on being picked up as has been boiled for so long. It was very funny to watch.

Try roasted cauliflower. It’s a game
changer.

Most of my parents cooking. God forbid we do anything differently, especially at Christmas. I need a new Christmas day plan.

Beetroot.
I had only had that horrible stuff from a jar that turns your lettuce purple and tastes of dirt. I had a salad in a restaurant of raw beetroot, orange, dill and feta with a balsamic dressing and it was amazing - I have recreated it a few times since.
There was a thread about beetroot on here a few months ago and someone posted a recipe of beetroot and chickpea curry, I have made it a few times and it’s delicious

Roasted broccoli is also fabulous. One of my favourite meals is from one of the Roasting Tin cookbooks and it’s basically roasted cauliflower and broccoli with cheese, nuts and seeds.

That sounds good. Is it the veggie roasting tin book? I haven’t look at that again since Ive been able to have dairy.

I grew up with shit cookery. Dinner at my mum’s house is still never an appealing prospect. So many foods that I just didn’t realise could be nice. And a realisation that my mum’s idea of ‘nice’ is a long, long way from mine (and most people’s).

I’ve also come to recognise that my mum is actually really fussy and, despite her self image, not adventurous in the least in her food choices. She has a small repertoire of things she eats and just will not consider trying new things. There’s tonnes of neurodiversity in my family (including me), and I’m pretty certain my mum’s odd food habits are a manifestation of that.

DH hated carrots. Then I roasted some. Now he chooses them.

I hated cabbage. DH steam fried some in butter. Now I choose it.

Liver and kidneys - DH showed me how to prep them properly. I quite like them now.

But he still can't do tapioca etc. He has a thing about some food texture. Found out he doesn't mind coconut milk in some curries, Thai food, but hates the texture of coconut meat, fresh or dessicated.

Sprouts roasted? I might give that a whirl. Thanks 👍

Oh god, yes!

First time DH stayed at my parents he was touched that they had got some pork chops from the local butcher, his favourite meat. We sat down to eat and he looked disappointed. I managed a quick conversation before he asked out loud when we would be eating those chops. The deboned shoe leather he had just fought his way through was my mother's solution to getting all 4 into one oven dish, for about an hour.

And who knew broccoli has texture and isn't just weird green mush? 🙂

Sea bass.

first time I had it it was cooked in milk, I hate milk and it was disgusting.
second time I had it it came whole. With the eyes in. It was cooked wrong and when I cut into it, blood came out.

third time I was served it on a set menu and was lovely

Vegetables. All of them.

Mainly because my mother booked them to death then enhanced the colour with bicarbonate of soda

There was much private celebration when she bought a pressure cooker. There was also much eating of vegetables from that point forwards

My poor DH's mum is not a good cook - never ever uses any flavouring including salt or pepper. He does have food aversions but some of them are to do with his mum's cooking and some are to do with being ASD and being a supertaster (can't eat tomatoes, for instance).

However, just the thought of mashed potatoes used to make him gag because she never put butter or milk in and never mashed them properly so they were sort of dry and lumpy. He still has an reflexive aversion but has realised that mashed potatoes are normally at least tolerable.

She had a fixed weekly menu that never varied. She had a WEEKLY dish which was just liver boiled in tinned tomato soup.

Some nights he just didn't eat.

Beef and lamb. My mum cooked them until they were brown all the way through with the texture of a flip flop.

I had a rare steak for the first time on holiday when I was about 20 and it blew my tiny mind!

Cabbage. As a kid I was always served it boiled.

Same. Smell of boiled cabbage turns my stomach. However red cabbage in apple sauce, stir-fried cabbage, pickled cabbage, shredded raw white cabbage however all lovely....

Roast pork
Roast dinner in general
Booked carrots
Sprouts

All the above because my mum would cook them to death. Then I met DH and his roast dinners are amazing. Then learnt to cook myself. And I like so much more than I thought i did.

*booked boiled!!!!

Mushrooms as a child used to be presented in an unappetising grey sauce.

Now I fry button mushrooms in a bit of butter and they end up more golden and still have sone bite to them instead of just a slimy texture

Turkey and pork, it was always dry. Never realised it could be so delicious and succulent cooked correctly.