To think that my mum is an appalling cook?

[NeonMuffin]

Growing up I was a very fussy eater and there was a lot that I wouldn't eat. I didn't touch any greens or veg, only boiled potatoes that kind of thing. It was only as I got older and started eating out etc that I realised it wasn't that I didn't like these things it was that my mum is a terrible cook.

I know that sounds mean, but it's true she never cookers anything properly. An example is when she makes a roast dinner she will boil the veg for up to an hour until it's turned to mush and tastes of nothing. Everything goes on for an hour, cauliflower, broccoli and she boils carrots until the water goes orange. Meat is not cooked unless it's cremated. A favourite of hers is to cook her meat the day before, then serve it freezing cold with hot gravy over the top (boak). It's just disgusting.

The problem is she keeps asking me around for tea and I know it will be a roast and the thought of if just turns my stomach so I keep rebuffing her but can't forever. Short of upsetting her and causing offence by telling the truth I don't know what else to do?

AIBU?

Oh dear. My MIL is very stuck in her ways and only cooks food that she grew up with - mutton boiled with veg yo make soups and tasteless meat, rice pudding made from three day leftover rice. She has one 'modern' dish that she cooks - curry, because DFil likes it. She only makes it with leftovers though, bits of food that have been carefully saved through the week. Last time we stayed the curry included half a hamburger that DS had rejected at least four days previously, plus tomatoes and beet root left over from a salad. With bright yellow jarred curry sauce poured over the top. It was truly bogging.

you should offer to cook for her might be a treat for her

my uncle married a woman who could not cook (my grandad taught her in the end) one day she cooked lunch the stench was awful turned out she had put an entire (unwashed) cabbage in the saucepan (whole in case you missed the point) and switched it on about 9ish in the morning we were still over 100 miles away grandad came down to the terrible smell it had boiled over spilling dirty salty water everywhere and putting out the gas (did i mention the salt "a lot" would be an understatement!) when we got there the door was open but it still stank!

my mom was terrible too i learned very young and my family loved me for it! (so did she really, she was told off where she worked for complaining she had to get her own tea one night! they thought she was well lazy so she didnt like to mention the fact i also ironed her clothes and chopped the wood for the fire etc cinderella had it fuckin easy )

hoping to revive this thread

Was it always the case that our grandparents' generation overboiled the veg and generally ruined food? I remember my grandmother, born just after WW1, serving perfectly-made roast dinners, meat pies, trifles and very filling puddings. She didn't ever serve al dente veg, but it was never the mushy horror others have described. It was, just, cooked. I enjoyed her food very much.

Yes, DH's grandparents over cooked all veg until it was mush. Oh, and everything in a pressure cooker.

My dm is a fantastic cook, however her mother was a school cook for 35 years, in the days when everything was cooked from scratch, so she had a good teacher.

My paternal dgm was a wonderful grandmother, but a terrible cook, boiled veg for a couple of hours, but added salt and bicarb of soda to the water so it didn't lose it's colour. Salty mushy veg. Bleurch. You'd be drinking pints of water all night after one of her roast dinners (sorry Nan)

Dh is another fussy eater that has improved since he stopped eating Mils cooking. She's not a terrible cook, she just doesn't like garlic, spices, oil, herbs or pepper. And she doesn't add salt because of her blood pressure, so it's all a bit bland.

I'm having a flashback to the horrible grisly stews and mince in brown water of my youth. The only vegetable until I was in my late teens was peas out of a can. She described garlic as "dirty."

I was like a skeleton when I left home, and thought I didn't like food. A boyfriend pointed out that I didn't cook like I disliked food, and that's when I realised that it was her cooking.

My MiL's cooking is the same...result: DH is an excellent cook.

Mil and DM are both awful cooks, usual over cooked meat and veg. I usually cook when I visit or suggest helping. Problem is my DM thinks she can cook, she can bake but she can't cook and like the op I was a very fussy eater, didn't realise for years that my lack of interest in food had more to do with mums awful cooking. Dad could cook though but mostly he was excluded from the kitchen.

Mil is the same. I've only ever eaten there once and it wasn't good. Dh also has had some revelations over foods he didn't think he liked but does when they're cooked properly. He also needed about 10 yrs off of mash potato before being able to eat it and enjoy it.

My mother-in-law is a great cook. I really look forward to visiting because (amongst other reasons) I get loads of yummy food constantly offered to me.

Lol, nothing's changed. Her stir frys are a sight to behold, bean sprouts mushrooms, noodles and an assortment of veg bunged into a wok with a "dash" of spy sauce and nothing else. Vile.

I don't much like my Mum's cooking, but my DH eats my Mum's food and shows appreciation for the effort she's made. I love him all the more for that, rather than two of us sniggering behind my Mum's back

I'm a little uneasy with so many posters bragging about how their DH / DP loves their cooking so much more than MIL. Seems unkind. How would you feel in future if you thought your DIL did the same to you?

Is that you, dd?

My DM isn't a bad cook, but things like roasts defeat her with 'complicated timings'. In order to combat that, she boils her veg early on in the day (not for too long, but longer than I'd cook them for) then puts them into glass dishes ready to then be microwaved before she serves up. She does this to 'save on the washing up' ??

DP is a great cook, MIL is very good too. She taught him well, and he does nearly all the cooking here! Thank god!

Just

I would mind. But then I think I'd be unkind to serve people something I'd not tried to make palatable.

well that explains the child obesity problem. We were all thin as takes as kids because no one taught or mothers to cook.

Like many here, there is a long list of foods I thought I hated until I had them cooked by someone else.

Ask my mum and she says she enjoys cooking but watch her do it and you wonder. She doesn't check on her food or stir it. Doesn't season anything. a meal might be mince put into an oven dish. put a run of tons on to. layer on some smash and put in oven. Once done you can still see the pattern of the minced meat in rows from packet because it solidified in the oven.

Mum was also a great fan of 'oh i can make that' on exotic dishes. sweet and sour sauce w mum declared was just ketchup and vinegar. so that's how she makes it.

She also like to substitute ingredients with something really random. The result would be something inedible but in her mind my mum was a cook with flair for adding peanut butter instead of ground almonds, say.

naturally, today she is still a terrible cook but my siblings and I laugh about it. I eat mums terrible food. my sister won't. She takes her out to eat (but earns twice what I do so can afford it). age sites this because last time she ate at mum's the chicken was medium rare.

Can you cook a roast for her and dad.

My Mum is always inviting us over for Sunday lunch. I usually try and pre-empt this and invite my parents here instead. If we do go to them, I make sure I get there nice and early to "help". In other words, stop her putting the broccoli on to boil an hour before she wants to serve lunch, make sure the roast potatoes are not in an inch of lard and insist on making the gravy so that the consistency of it is something everyone likes rather than the gamble of either brown water with lumps or tile grout that appears if Mum makes it while trying to juggle everything else. My gran was just the same so cannot blame her for not having learned properly.

Toad- I wonder if it's linked to the poor quality of food during rationing? (Still pretty bad post war rationing when most baby boomers were growing up and learning from their parents about food prep). Meat might be a bit dodgy, so have it cremated well done to avoid food poisoning. Veggies were old, so needed extra cooking to make tender (mushy!). There wasn't access to herbs and spices, so a generation grew up thinking food should be bland...

just why is it so bad that dh loves my food and hates his mother's? His mother hates food! She hated cooking, resented every minute of it and talks bitterly about the hours she spent slaving over the roast on a Sunday while everyone else relaxed. Contrast that with me - I enjoy cooking, I'm quite good at it - years of honing my craft. We visit Mil and I cook for her, something she enjoys enormously - I arrive with shopping bag in hand and we eat well.
My DM is the same - deep down she hates cooking, she shows food no love or care, she's happy with one of her dd's in the kitchen cooking while she pokes things and washes up, she mostly lets my dad cook now - he has a great palate, adventurous but classic, always willing to try something new.

I think it's a shame that all these DM hated cooking so much, it's mostly a pleasure that I am passing on to my dcs.

Sorry but I am crying with laughter! This is a brilliant thread! OP cook yourself; perhaps invite her over a bit early and let her notice how little time the veggies are cooked for :)

My mum is 78 and she is an appalling cook. She's an excellent baker, and makes great pastry, but day to day meals were horrendous, growing up.

She basically was not made to be a mother/housewife but with 4 children in the 60's/70's she was a SAHM and hated it. She'd put the dinner on then go back to the book she was reading then forget about dinner until we smelled it burning under the grill/sticking to the bottom of the pan... also yes to boiling everything to death, including mince, and not using any seasoning whatsoever.

My dad did shift work and when his patterns changed and he was home for 3pm, he decided to take over cooking, thank God. He mainly heated stuff up from packets and tins, but at least it wasn't burned! Weirdly enough, my mum made great chips, possibly because she was paranoid about a chip pan fire so watched them like a hawk...

Even though I learnt to cook in school and introduced such exotica as spag bol and lasagne to the table, they were 'my' dishes and she wouldn't cook them!

When I left home I thought I hated vegetables apart from Batchelor's Bigga Peas (she couldn't ruin them). A girl I shared a house with cooked a vegetable stew/soup thing as part of a birthday meal and was horrified when I told her this - I was persuaded to try a bit and it was such a revelation! They had taste and shape and texture!

Now that it's just Mum and my brother at home they are back to living out of tins, packets and the freezer, but getting a cooker with a beeping timer on it has improved things no end... :o

When I left home I discovered....

Crispy lettuce, I thought it was something you only got in bought salad baps, I didn't know you could buy lettuce that wasn't flat and tasteless.

Fish - it didn't have to come from the chip shop or be cooked in milk (milk makes me feel sick)

Rice not used for puddings

fresh steak, not taken directly from the freezer and put under the grill with a huge chunk of butter

MIL is a pretty bad cook and seems to think I'm living in a dreamworld. She'll ask how a holiday was, I'll tell her about the amazing sea bass eaten at a harbour side restaurant and she'll remind me DH doesn't eat fish (he just doesn't eat it when she cooks it). It's hard to explain how she does it but she doesn't believe you can be self-employed and not destitute either and so worries endlessly about our ability to pay the mortgage. Odd woman.

An event that I will always adore DSS2 for is when she cooked a roast and asked if he wanted gravy. His little face when she poured brown water over his meal was one of utter bewilderment but he ate it anyway and said thank you. FIL caught me mouthing "well done" to him when MIL wasn't looking and started to laugh so I don't think he's a fan.

As a child DM (71) used to veer between excellent cooking, if the DP were having a dinner party, to downright near inedible for everyday stuff. She certainly isn't a bad cook, but I think she used to see cooking for the family as a total chore and waste of time. Consequently we were brought up eating a lot of Smash (which I still hate to this day for fear of finding powdery lumps in it - vile) and lots of frozen veg, a particular favourite of hers was mixed veg with peas, sweetcorn and green beans. I have never bought this ever as it just reminds me of some terrible childhood meals. DM was/is still a great baker though and makes some fab cakes.

MIL is a truly terrible cook. Everything is done to death. Veg is assorted shades of green mush and she only ever buys traditional types. You'd never see a pepper, mange tout or anything remotely exotic in her kitchen. She never uses herbs, spices or garlic as FIL is incredibly fussy and doesn't like all that forrin' muck. ALL meat is cooked in the oven for hours, even steak ! She prides herself on only buying meat from the local butcher which costs her a fortune but then proceeds to destroy any flavour or texture by cremating it. When I met DH, he had a list of foods he wouldn't eat. I'm a pretty good cook and he now eats loads more foods because I don't tolerate fussiness over food, particularly if you've never tried something.

I wonder if our DMs hated cooking so much as it was something done in a room away from everyone else. Our modern way of open plan living with the kitchen being part of the family space means cooking is a far more sociable activity and doesn't require one to be shut away from everyone else.