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.

Fried eggs don't do it for me at all, it's my least favourite way of eating the white (yolks are almost impossible to get wrong). I much prefer scrambled or boiled eggs, or poached, at a pinch.

I posted and then scrolled back to see that fish pie has already been discussed! Glad it's not just me.

risotto - yeah, shoot me, I'm a philistine

Meat.

pre my non meat days, and food with a face.

Almost anything cooked by my MIL. I adore her but all her food is geared towards her grumpy husband and involves tins of grey vegetables.
Her cakes on the other hand are cracking!

Cottage cheese. Revolting

Rice salad. Actually I am not sure if this exists any more. It was a staple of 80s buffets, made with white rice (probably boil in the bag) and plasticky bits of sweetcorn and peppers with the skin on.

in fact anything made with rice that isn’t plain rice - paella, risotto- it seems to be very easy to make them nasty - overcooked, over salted, overcooked but with hard bits in, etc

Shellfish or any other sort of invertebrates. Not eating that, ever.

Ooh can I have the recipe @CurlewKate ?

Chops. Pork or lamb. Such hard work to eat. So depressing.

Hog roast. Always cold, often tough. Crackling doesn’t crackle, it’s just chewy. Served with cold, from the jar, apple sauce and slightly stale bread rolls. Grim. I don’t get it. I actually take my own snacks to events where hog roast is the main.

Rice salad. Actually I am not sure if this exists any more. It was a staple of 80s buffets, made with white rice (probably boil in the bag) and plasticky bits of sweetcorn and peppers with the skin on.

I vaguely remember that, but your post reminded me of a vegetable I can't abide - sweet corn. Ruins anything it touches. Tuna mornay would be so much better if it didn't have that stuff in it!

Oh and roasts where the "greens" consist of cauliflower. Gimme peas and green beans, or broccoli! (But not Brussels sprouts or mint jelly. 🤮)

The smell of lamb being cooked. Ugh. Can't abide it at all although, if someone else has cooked it and served it to me, it's fine and usually delicious (obviously not fine and delicious if 'cooked' by Masterchef contestants who all appear to think lamb is cooked simply by being near to a pan. Baa 🐑lamb skips off plate and runs away).

When DH says we’re having curry and what he means is boiled rice, lumps of chicken and a jar of beige sauce. It’s fine, but my heart does sink.

He makes an amazing curry from scratch sometimes and I get why he can’t always be arsed to do that but still!

@LovelyDaaling

Red cabbage does not go with a roast but it's become trendy to serve in pubs and restaurants. It is too sweet and "bleeds" into everything else on the plate. I also dislike roast beetroot served with a roast.

@MaryJanesonabreak

Agree about risotto. It's just like a savoury rice pudding and too samey. It's the only Italian food I refuse to eat.

Fish pie here too, it's just awful, fish and mashed potato do not go. and even the smell of smoked haddock makes me want to vom.

Also rice pudding, I don't care if it's home made or out of a tin, the texture is revolting and reminds me of school dinners.

I love cauliflower in all its forms. My dd says it's "a waste of white"

Anything with aubergine.

Anything with big chunks or slabs of meat.

I'm on the Fish pie team extra 🤑if mash potato for the topping and boiled eggs in it.
This fear of fish pie started when I was pregnant with my 1st child. 18 years and still going strong.

I love fish pie and it’s one of the meals we all like.

I’m not keen on cold pasta salads or rice salads. They often appear at BBQ’s and it’s always a no from me.

My childhood foods wear horrid.
Hard boiled potatos on a plate not even a bit a salt.
Or hard boiled potatos with cold tinned pilchards poured on top.
If we was lucky we would get the above with liver.
Or one slice of dry bread with a blob of ketchup on it.
I went hungry ALOT. loved school dinners.
In my home today the above does not come through my door.
Cant stand any of it making me feel sick just typing it.

Shepherd's Pie

The complete lack of any consistency - just mince and carrots and smushy wet mash. It's so disgusting to me.

Another vote for roast dinner here - I don't really mind eating it, but as with previous posters - it's the whole faff, the fact that it always comes out late, with a stressed and tired cook, some bits kind of cold and then the mess you have to tidy up afterwards. Plus, the kids never want to eat it!

A chop.

I shudder.

My Mum made it tough and grey every time, with that curled up fat rind, jagged bone and oil spill multi hued sheen in the middle. She always put, unseasoned, to boil in a cheap thin tinned plum tomato sauce and served with canned boiled potatoes/peas.

I know it was because we were broke/poor and she was trying her best but we had it for years - three times a week in different formats - first served in the beginning of the week as the standard chop - then later in the week 'stew' (left overs smashed up together with added carrot a stock cube added) and finally the horror that was 'goulash' (the same leftovers again but with the plum tomatoes and heaps of paprika added)

Anything that has a hint of chop or the same smell as that watery tomato sauce base and I am out.

I love fish pie! But…

<gavel>

NO hard boiled eggs anywhere near the mix.

I also love ‘hot ham’ as it’s known in this house. Mash, cabbage and parsley sauce.

I think a lot of the medley frozen veg is yuk.
And tinned tuna.
And kidney beans.

Beige food.

I like my plate to look like a rainbow! 😂