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.

Cauliflower cheese. Takes me back to school dinners. Smothering a lovely vegetable in stodgy cheese is just wrong!

The 'English' salad which consists of tasteless tomatoes, limp cucumber, salad cream and lots of iceberg lettuce. Too much of this in my childhood put me off eating salads for years.

Prepared to fight a duel over this!

@fink I'm finding that food manufacturers often lump all free from options into one product. Economically I get it but it's not the best experience. For being gluten free I get inedible cardboard or slop when everyone else is getting a nice sandwich or ice cream <looking at you everything free cornetto>

DH cooks at weekends. He's suggesting pizza almost every weekend at the moment.

I don't mind a slice of a good pizza - decent thin base, rich tomato sauce, with mozzarella, parmesan and nice salami. Coop pizza is none of this. And instead of a decent side salad there's a dollop of coop coleslaw. Ugh.

Fish pie 🤮
Memories of a stinky microwaved admirals fish pie ready meal being placed in front of me. It made me heave. It’s one of the very few meals that I couldn’t force down even now, not even out of politeness, and I’m very polite!

@DilemmaDelilah add olive oil (not too much) and salt.

Yes, I've certainly seen it as a way to save money. It's a real shame for people who enjoy food but just can't eat one ingredient to be limited to a small selection of beige. Same goes for people who eat kosher or halal.

Tinned Tuna stirred through anything, especially pasta or Tuna bake 🤢
Tinned tuna is fine on sandwiches, or at the side of a baked Spud though. Just don't let it get warmed!

Beef, sweetcorn, chicken (or Tuna 😁 )on Pizza. Gross.

@TheTheChosenTwo
Don't. Repeat Don't! Google Stargazy pie if you don't already know it then 🤐

My MIL’s lamb and apricot casserole. It’s her signature dish which she produces without fail every time we go. I don’t eat lamb as I find it too fatty and it gives me stomach cramps, and I’m not a fan of savoury dishes that involve fruit. I have to eat it to be polite though.

The overwhelming disappointment when I start to eat some dessert or other, only to find out that some git has put cinnamon in it. Bleugh.

@GuitarGeorgina Or you could say "I'm really sorry, Mary, but I don't like lamb."

Bubble and squeak😩. Not only was it a weekly fixture at home growing up in the 1970s, but it was regularly dished up for school dinner too.🙄

Hot dogs - the way they pop in your mouth.
Macaroni cheese
Cucumber - tastes perfumed
Corned beef

Macdonalds
KFC
Burger King

basically any fast food ultra processed crap. My body literally rejects it! I feel sick just walking past those places and smelling it.

It's, at best, a side dish. Growing up it would be served on its own as a main course. Made my heart sink. Ditto macaroni cheese

Often a slice of sweaty, processed ham was added!

Home-made mince pies. Obviously if I'm offered one I accept it in the spirit in which it's offered, but so often the pastry is too thick and heavy. I prefer shop-bought ones tbh, and served cold, my heart sinks twice over if they're served hot.

Re boiled potatoes, new potatoes in skins are nice like this, with butter and salt on top.

But big floury potatoes ... no. My parents ate big floury boiled potatoes as part of their dinner every night and therefore so did I as a child. No butter, no salt, nothing, just massive dry flakey boulders of penance and disappointment. I tried putting ketchup on them and got told it was a waste. This is wrong. What is a waste is spending time money and energy cooking and eating food that tastes shit.

The only purpose of a mince pie is to stop brandy butter getting on your fingers.

Many many years ago I made a batch of mince pies and brandy butter. DH and I managed to polish off the lot in two sittings. After that we solemnly vowed never to make them again.

I love macaroni cheese, and cauliflower or any brassicas with cheese.

I used to get DDs this toddler meal when they were little which was Pasta with Cheese, Peas and Broccoli Trees then started to make my own version, and that's basically still my version of macaroni cheese! They still wolf it down and are 18 and 14 now.

Gnocchi. Any variety.
It's evil

@Rincol I feel your pain. DM doesnt like ketchup so always bought the cheapest non-brand. Taste was pureed tinned tomatoes mixed with vinegar. She didn't have it so wouldn't 'waste' money on it.

DM generally didn't like processed food not on grounds of health or flavour but on the grounds that it wasn't home made and therefore was somehow 'wrong'.

So everything was made from scratch. This was not a good thing. Whenever someone on MN says they always cook from scratch I am reminded of DM's cooking in my childhood and shudder slightly.

Mum was, by and large, a cook-from-scratch person. I still recall the excitement after I left home, of being able to use garlic! And green and red peppers! I saw an aubergine and a courgette for the first time.