Things you cannot believe you ate as a child

[NovemberAutumn]

One of my mother's favourite sandwich fillings- deep fried crumbed lambs brains with iceberg lettuce and salad cream in white bread.

I did eat it a few times until I properly realised what it was- but- [shudder]. Just why?

DH used to love and adore his mother's pureed (pickled!) beetroot in white sauce. Just pureed pink slop surely (I made it for him once).

Sounds like a strange thing to write but I can't believe how much normal food I ate that my children won't touch: mushrooms, stew, curry...anything with flavour! My kids are still young but so fussy in comparison to how I was. But when I was young I was called fussy because I didn't like meat.

Used to absolutely adore eating sweetbreads as a child, with my Grandparents & great aunts in Yorkshire. There was always an embarrassed silence when I asked what they were though!

Both brains and sweetbreads are really lovely - sweetbreads are more than 25 EUR a kilo so priced as a luxury item. Brains are quite dear too - they come in little plastic brain containers now like something from a weird sci-fi film, really v delicious like a sort of creamy nugget.

If you eat meat really what's the difference?

Born during rationing. 1948.
Yes to sugar sandwiches.
Sugar sprinkled on orange segments, Sugar featured a lot. I had no interest in food and was a skinny little object mum did anything to get me to eat.
Banana sandwiches, still have them now.

Rabbit pie: I didn’t eat the meat but had the crust, veg and gravy.
Braised kidneys.
Liver and onions, I quite liked that
Other foods mum cooked but I refused to eat were Tripe, cow heel, Tongue, Steak and Kidney pie, offal: heart, chitterlings.

I can still feel the mouth sores that thing caused

Knorr dried soups and Beanfeast were a staple 🙁

We used to have sweetbreads and I loved them. Haven't eaten them for years now.

We also ate a lot of other offal too. It was cheap and nutritious and made good use of the animal in question.

if you don't like the taste or texture, fair enough. I never liked heart, brains or tripe for that reason. But I regularly buy kidneys, and sometimes liver. I never buy tongue, but could eat it (cold) to be polite.

In general, I think we have become too squeamish.

I loved jam fritters! I made them for my kids a few years ago and they were still delicious!

I used to pick out the maize flakes from the chickens' feed and eat them. Like extra crunchy cornflakes. 🫣

Cod roe; boiled in a plastic bag, sliced, then fried. I still love it!

Sweetbreads are delicious. They don’t appear on restaurant menus that often these days sadly but I always order them when I see them.

All the sugar chat reminds me of my Dutch family. Butter and sugar on a crisp bread or else chocolate sprinkles is a standard treat in the Netherlands.

I remember boiled potatoes being a part of a lot of meals, as an adult I never ever eat boiled potatoes, unless they're new potatoes. The ones I had as a child were basically the potatoes before you put them in the oven for roasties- dry, floury and boring

If I was unwell as a child, Mum would offer bread and milk. Crustless strips of white plastic bread in slightly warm milk. Only had it once, nearly made me puke.
Also, only once, she gave me a banana sandwich with brown squishy contents.

Self hunted meat. Very good for you, lean and environmentally friendly, I'm sure (mum only hunted rurally). Also legal implications around the poaching and not ideal to go out to catch dinner each day. My children have never eaten squirrel and I intend to keep it that way!

Hot sweet tea and dip white buttered bread into it. Tomato ketchup sandwiches, sugar sandwiches.

I snacked on raw potatoes

Veal head, shudder, my aunt would leave me at the table until I finished it but it was the most vile thing ever so I stayed at the table for hours ( it doesn't get better cold) we are French so the stomach is strong for nasty stuff but that I just can't 🤢

Fried cod’s roe. Oh the smell

Yeah with lots of proper butter for the sugar to stick. White bread obviously 😁

Spam and battered sausages… not touched meat in over 20yrs.

Faggots, pig trotter soup, pheasant, jugged hare, conger eel 🤑On holiday; snails, frog’s legs, oysters, horse. Our parents liked us to be adventurous with food, but we were never forced to eat anything! Also had normal stuff like spag bol, roasts, chicken pie, curry.

crisps are food they're made of potato they have nutritional information on the packet so we can make up our own minds thanks

Never heard of lamb brain or sugar sandwiches, sounds revolting 🤢 although I liked the odd raw potato 😆

For the sugar sandwiches was it literally how it sounds, butter slapped on bread with sugar sprinkled on top? 🤮

Remember my Gran, trying to feed me a tongue sandwich, I thought I was going to vomit. Don't even get me started on black pudding, liver or tripe. 🤢