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?

My friends mum used to cook foot long broccoli :)

It's partly a generational thing. A lot of women in their 70s and 80s (don't know how old your mum is, OP) boil vegetables to death and then just coat everything in gravy. And they don't understand about herbs, spices etc. My late mother regarded herself as a good cook, and so did other members of the family, but though she could do a decent roast, it would never occur to her to add fresh herbs or anything like that, or to use exotic ingredients like peppers. (She died in the 1980s when these things were still a bit new and strange.)

You could offer to cook dinner at her house for her - would she be offended?

mary

DM, who is a very good cook, grew up during rationing. I think she learned from that how to minimise waste.

I reckon food was pretty bad before the war for most people though.

My DM can't cook either.

Growing up, everything came frozen and was put in the oven or microwave. McCains microwave chips, McCains microwave pizza, Birdseye roast beef in gravy, Birdseye chicken burgers, Birdseye beef burgers. Spag bol came from a jar, chilli con carne was Colman's packet mix with nothing added to it but mince and kidney beans (no onions or chopped tomatoes) The only veg we ate was tinned peas and then later when I was teen she'd cook broccoli which was boiled to death. DM just assumed we would hate all veg so never even let us try it.

Any meat would be cooked until dry and the texture of an old shoe.

One time I asked why the sausages always tasted weird and it was because DM fried them in lard!

Now I LOVE cooking. I love herbs and spices. I like my beef medium-rare and veg al dente. I still reluctantly go to DM's for a roast, once every few months. All veg is Aunt Bessie's, gravy is thick, wallpaper paste Bisto and any meat is cooked to death. She's surprised when DS likes things like cabbage or carrots because all we ate was tinned peas! That's because it was all you'd cook DM!

My mum has appalling food issues, that have taken years for me to rise above. Mum's veg is boiled for so long, you'd get more nutrition by drinking the water. Yuk.

Dad's a much better cook. And I now know I'm far better than both of them (from comments by other people).

I've had to join in this discussion.

My mum is in her seventies. She is an AMAZING cook, so much so our house was always full of random extra kids who wanted to come for tea.

Even now, the grandchildren bring their friends home to nana's for tea rather than their own parents.

My auntie in her 80's is also shit hot (as my brothers like to tell her) especially at baking so it can't be a generation/war time thing!

If you were a bloke OP, I'd swear you were my brother!

My Mum is also a terrible cook. Meat incinerated, veg mushed. This wasn't helped by the fact that we were not flush and she used to get the worst quality stuff. I always thought bacon was horrible until I tried decent quality stuff!

I used to stay with my cousins and their mother was even worse than mine at cooking. They had four boys who ribbed her mercilessly about how awful her cooking was, she always got me M&S veggie food but I used to cringe because my mother would have gone mad at the mere suggestion that she couldn't cook - we all lied and flattered.

My parents are both guilty of crimes against veg in particular. YY boiling veg to death, everything with potatoes and gravy / packet cheese sauce and my mother insists meat is cremated.

I have a good relationship with my parents, so I have told them I think they overcook things

There are a few things my dad cooks well and which I've complimented so he tends to stick to them when we visit.

They have more rules than me though when they come here and I go along with them. They don't like my 'hard veg' (al dente); dinners aren't filling without meat (my parsnip stew with dumplings is 700 cals a portion and my bean bake has plenty protein, but okay); all meat must be cremated for my mother (so she gets the worst cut ) and a meal is incomplete without a large portion of starchy carb (my root vegetable mashes / celeriac coleslaw were found wanting).

I know some families aren't like this, but honest, I would much rather we're honest with each other and therefore I know I'll get something I reasonable at their house and they'll get something they'll enjoy at mine than we all suffer in silence.

omg my FIL is like this and I thought he was the only one. Boils the veg until it quite literally disintegrates when you try to put it on your fork. Roasts the meat the night before and services it with hot gravy. I find it truly disgusting, especially as I prefer my veg under cooked it anything.

YANBU.

I have a cookbook published in the 1930s. I refer to it quite a lot for cooking techniques, often when I've tried a recipe in a more recently-published cookbook that doesn't work. I find older cookbooks are much more reliable - as long as you are happy with the result the author intends. Its recipes for soups and stocks are pretty good, particularly the Scotch Broth recipe. It also has good advice on cheap cuts of meat.

This is what the author says about vegetables. First she cautions against overboiling:

Food experts even go so far as to say we should be more sensible if, instead of serving up the vegetables and throwing away the water, we were to keep the water and let the vegetables go".

She also says steaming and stewing are more sensible ways of cooking veg.

So far, so encouraging. But this is what she says about specific vegetables.

Asparagus - boil till tender
Broad beans - boil till soft
French beans - boil for 15 minutes
Beetroot - (young) 30-45 minutes (old) 3 hours
Broccoli - boil for 15 minutes
Brussels sprouts - boil for 15 minutes
Cabbage - boil for 20 minutes
Carrots - (young) boil for 15 to 20 minutes (old) boil for 45 minutes to an hour
Cauliflower - boil for 20 minutes if young.

It's wrong to speak badly of the dead, so I shall refrain from making any comment.

Why did this boiling fetish exist? What did the French and the Italians do? I don't believe it was because food sources were dodgy. We're talking about veggies here after all.

wasn't it once the done thing to have your teeth out as a wedding present and have false teeth to head off dental misery in the future? Dentures would have been a poor fit (sometimes dentures were handed down the generations) so maybe this is why veg needed to be soft. Maybe. Doesn't explain why the meat had to be tough, though.

I wonder if it's a wartime and post war rationing in the city vs the country? If you had access to decent veg and meat or not, if you didn't have refridgeration, you would be taught to creamate meat - we still give pregnant woman the advice to eat meat well done, for fear of food poisioning, even though as long as it's good meat, that's not an issue.

My parents buy cooked roast beef slices in gravy from the butcher, my mum suggested getting them for us on our next visit , as usual I have offered to cook something fresh - they have nothing else to bloody do, you'd think they'd cook properly.

They give different advice to pregnant women in France, don't they?

no it's not about good meat, it's toxoplasmosis that you can get from undercooked meat, even if it's good.

My mum was cooking fab veg
roast and fish dishes.
But she was not into cakes and puddings at all. She made me a cake once for my bday. It was a sponge like stone and she threw some sugar on the top and few whole grapes (cos we had free grapes).

Her pizza was a round piece of flour and water, baked, then topped with olives, uncooked tomatoes and piecesof salami. This was not baked again, it was served like this! For 3 years we ate it and...we called it pizza!!

Oh and she worked in hotel (hmm)

There was access to decent veg in the cities in ww2 and postwar. Both my sets of grandparents had veggie patches in their gardens, and that was quite normal.