Food which makes your heart sink

[GnomeDePlume]

Do you have a meal/food which when suggested just makes your heart sink?

For me it is boiled bacon. It just sounds so dreary. Whenever DH suggests it for dinner I am instantly thrown back to childhood and salty boiled bacon cooked in brine served up with boiled to death sliced carrots and fallen boiled potatoes.

DH actually cooks it really well, he rinses the joint thoroughly and cooks it with apples and sometimes cider as well. He serves it with crushed roast potatoes and peas or beans.

But the words 'boiled bacon' take me back to childhood and the dreary, salty meal.

Does anyone else have similar instant responses to certain foods?

I know this is a first world problem and I am lucky to have choices and a DH who cooks most meals.

Well described 😂 Pasta bake gets my vote, too, and I like nearly all food!

I used to love eating out for vegetarian foods… not so keen now mostly all gone to vegan offerings and I miss the cream/cheese

I love all seafood except mussels .. which are included in all mixed seafood dishes so I won’t order . I cook when at my mums as if not the veg is slimy from being on a high heat for 2 hours… luckily she’s good at gravy so as a kid used to mush in with the mash cover in gravy (and could have sucked it through a straw )

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g thank you so much. I will try it.

Lime pickle.
Love all other indian dips/accompaniments...but not lime pickle 🤢. I had a small tub that you get with other indian dips from Asda...once unpacked you cant tell which is which if you dont know. My mother when she stayed had habit of if going in my fridge and dipping her fingers in things to taste them, yuk..usually whilst i was in bed. So i put the lime pickle at front knowing she would taste it lol .. next day..what the blooy hel is that pot in fridge its horrible....well mother stop going in my fridge with finger dipping!!! Didn't stop her, she just went things with labels after 😒. Long time ago as i have nothing do with her now but made me chuckle

Food that makes your heart sink?

For DH it’s mince- as in mince and tatties. He didn’t hate it, just had it so much growing up it’s completely ‘bleugh’. And ‘traybake’: call it a gratin and he’s fine, but traybake is so twee.

For me - anything that’s made to be a ‘healthy’ version of something good in the original. Like cakes sweetened with puréed dates or apple compote. Or recipes where the onions are sweated in water rather than oil 🙄 or where cream is replaced by yoghurt or cottage cheese. Just eat the real thing less often ffs, or take half a portion and eat it with a big salad or half s plate of actual veggies.

anything that’s made to be a ‘healthy’ version of something good in the original. Like cakes sweetened with puréed dates or apple compote. Or recipes where the onions are sweated in water rather than oil 🙄 or where cream is replaced by yoghurt or cottage cheese. Just eat the real thing less often ffs, or take half a portion and eat it with a big salad or half s plate of actual veggies.

Agreed.

Sticking to the original premise of the thread:

Do you have a meal/food which when suggested just makes your heart sink?

There's not much, if we're just thinking about ingredients/dishes. I'm not very keen on blue cheese or bitter-tasting foods and drinks, but having said that, I love coffee and dark chocolate. Other than that, I'll eat almost anything. Whether that makes me a non-taster, I really don't know. I treasure the memory of eating out with colleagues on an occasion when I had a heavy cold and I correctly identified the main ingredient of the sauce in our main course as something containing anise, and it was indeed Pernod.

I think the common theme running through most of the posts here is eating something made by a person who doesn't like cooking or knows very little about food or cooking, especially what goes together and how to season food, and the importance of not serving up watery bland food. I had the great good fortune to have a mother and other female relatives who were all very good plain cooks (in that generation, none of the men of the family cooked routinely). None of them attempted anything very fancy, but they were all extremely good at cooking the basic repertoire, so I grew up with extremely positive associations with mealtimes. I love food. There's virtually nothing mentioned on this thread I wouldn't eat. I've never had tripe and have no desire to try it. Other than that, everything mentioned would be lovely in the hands of a good cook. I can easily imagine, however, that abysmal versions are often served up, and I commiserate with those didn't have my good luck (including my husband - my mother-in-law was a terrible cook. There was very little served in their house which didn't make my heart sink, to be honest. But that was a long time ago.)

Beautiful looking cakes, choc au pain, croissants and amazing looking bread crunchy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. Wheat intolerant unfortunately. I've just come back off holiday and every day they had all this lovely looking bread for breakfast. Whilst I had to make do with the mega gluten free stuff. Credit to them though their gluten free cakes were out of this world. I did say it's probably a good job my attempts at baking gf are shite cos I'd be the size of a house if mine were as good as that.

The other one the ex in laws Sunday dinners. Grey potatoes with lumps, veg boiled to death and then re heated up about half an hour before serving just to boil it to death even more. Oh and not drained so it was like a a sloppy mush swimming on the plate. Thick lumpy gravy and what ever out of date meat was in the shop. My exH idea of cooking was a pack of mince of jar of chilli sauce. That was it. I made a chilli from scratch and served it with rice and wraps and he hit the roof saying it wasn't to be served that way ever again

Didn't make my heart sink as such but I went out to lunch with a friend once and she ordered a jacket potato and chips for lunch. I've not come across this before or since! Also, whilst I'm not vegetarian I LOVE a nice vegetable lasagne but it has to have actual vegetables in it, if I order a vegetarian lasagne and it turns out to be made with quorn/substitute mince I'm deeply disappointed (I always ask now before ordering). I also can't/won't eat liver or kidneys. My mum always cooked them until they were a really horrible hard and powdery texture & I can't bear to try them anymore. She thought I just didn't like the thought of it so once gave me some kidneys saying it was beef (I was about 7) so I took a bite but there's no mistaking what it was!

I’m with you, can’t abide mustard and I cannot eat anything hot - it’s not even about the reflux, I don’t want to burn my mouth and pretend it’s enjoyable. Heat =/= flavour.

Oops sorry my mistake.

I don't know. It does seem to be the theme with some people, but a lot more just don't like some food that they grew up with, however good it was. My parents are both decent cooks, but I still don't like a meat and two veg style of meal. There was nothing wrong with the way my mum cooked them, I quite simply don't like lumps of meat and wouldn't choose to eat them. Too much protein and not enough carbs.

Powdery congealed parsley sauce with boil in the bag fish.

😱

@DilemmaDelilah ours doesn’t. Just olive oil and salt. My daughter went to school with the daughter of the guy who works there, so I asked him. (Other kebab shops may vary…)

Split pea soup with ham makes me gag just thinking about it.

I also am a firm believer that meat should never go in water. It stinks up the entire house. My only caveat is chicken, as the end result is nice but the process is very smelly to me.

It's interesting, @Fink, as until very recently indeed most people would have had very little choice about what kind of food they were going to eat. If you grew up in Scotland, you'd eat mince, tatties, neeps, kale etc. If you grew up in India, you'd eat dhal and rice. And so on. I wonder how people fared who just didn't like the cuisine of their own culture back then.

Looking back I think both my DPs attitude to food was institutional. DF had always been in institutions so he was used to being served mediocre food. DM had always been a cook in institutions so was used to serving mediocre food to a budget. Quantity rather than quality.

The food served at home followed this institutional model. Cooked lunch, always at the dining table. No choice, clear your plate.

DFIL grew up in institutions too, and you are exactly right that he was used to mediocre food - and to gratefully scarf down every scrap offered to him. I remember MIL making grilled cheese on toast for him, it was completely burnt but he sat there chomping away until his plate was clear.

Another heart sinking food experience: eating at my first proper boyfriends house on a Sunday. My parents never did the Sunday lunch thing, but his did. His dad was a total arsehole and his mum was a total martyr. He’d watch the football all the way through the meal, snapping at her to get out of the way. She’d scurry around bringing food to everyone and leaping back up the moment our plates were clear. It was always the same (the whole family were fussy eaters): boiled potatoes, frozen mixed veg, and Bernard Matthews turkey roast, plus gravy and a carefully cut square of puff pastry. Then pudding and ice cream. No conversation, no-one except me ever thanked her. That made my heart sink every time we did it (thank god we broke up eventually).

My worst meal would be
overcooked salmon (I like salmon but am v fussy about how it’s cooked) &
overcooked broccoli or any overdone veggies. As a kid I hated cooked vegetables and would always choose salad - was obviously his my mum cooked them - to death!!

Also not keen on rich stews of any description- we once went to friends who made mushroom stroganoff for us and I had to force my portion down.

And my DH’s SIL is the worst cook ever - thankfully I haven’t had one of her offerings for a while now, but she once made us a lamb dish - idk what it was but it actually tasted of pedigree chum. I knew if I had one more mouthful I would’ve heaved - and she def noticed that I left most of it in the plate. Normally I would eat anything to be polite even if I had to force it in but I couldn’t even do that.

Goats cheese to the nth degree.

Overcooked fish is very disappointing, I agree. I love fish pie but realised a while back that it's much, much better made with raw fish (chunks of cod or haddock or other firm white fish, smoked haddock, salmon) and prawns. I would usually put a layer of wilted, well drained spinach on the bottom of the dish under the fish, possibly seasoned with nutmeg, and ideally some sliced fried mushrooms as well, and I do like egg in it - but boiled just to the point where it's easy to shell, not rock hard. Once everything is in the dish, pour over the sauce - bechamel or parsley. Then top with smooth, creamy mash (not sweet potato, I find that much too sweet for mash, and especially with fish), mixed with cheese, mustard and sauted leeks, possibly with sliced tomato on top of that and a final sprinking of grated cheese. Once assembled, 15-20 minutes in a hot oven should be enough just to cook the fish and get the top brown and crispy. Delicious. Very rich, so even I have to restrict myself to a smallish portion, with plenty of peas. I tell myself that fish is good for the brain (Jeeves says so) and the vegetables are healthy.

I guess you'd just eat what was available and not know any different, just not ever be particularly excited by food. Or really look forward to the things you did like from the rotation. It might be one of the reasons why food allergies were less common (I know that my intolerances are all to foods that I didn't have much growing up, and are not produced in the areas of the world I grew up in, although my real allergy is to a food that was around).

I remember eating things on holiday that I found a lot more appetising than the food we often got at home, especially Greek food, but my parents just wouldn't have thought about trying to reproduce them back home. My Mum more or less lives on mezze nowadays, but I'm pretty sure things like falafels and houmous were not widely available in the average Irish supermarket when we were kids.