Awful meals your parents made as a child - lighthearted

[Workinghardeveryday]

I remember my mum used to put half a tomato on any meal that didn’t have veg, I hated it, still do.

Bread and butter pudding made with skimmed powdered milk, absolutely disgusting!!

Tuna sandwiches in my packed lunch that had not been drained properly, so all the bread was wet and soggy - everyday!

Do you have any to share

@Movinghouseatlast served how?? With what???

Oh god, I despair. We got one in ‘82 and cooked the kitchen sink in it… with great relish and jaws on the floor (microwaved bacon and eggs. So gross. But we couldn’t stop ourselves! It was like Food Gone Rogue. We loved it!).
And of course we stood directly in front of it, watching the bacon spin and shrivel like some pocket-sized dying animal. I’m probably so irradiated, I’m my own walking SAD therapy lamp.

Liver & sausage casserole, I’ve never eaten liver as an adult and most definitely haven’t subjected my dcs to it.
My mum had a fear of meat been undercooked so over cooked all joints so they were dry. I hated roast beef until I tried one cooked by my dh.

Instant mash
Tinned meatballs
Tinned processed peas as veg with every meal

My mum used to make this dish called chicken 'paprika' (no paprika involved) which was microwaved chicken served with rice, covered in a sauce made from mushroom soup with curry powder stirred through. Accompanied by sliced tomatoes and bananas.

Sweet and sour pork which was chunks of pork boiled in a sauce made from tinned pineapple juice and soy sauce, thickened with cornflour. I think there was a time when we all liked this, then didn't have it for a year and then when we tried it again, realised it was actually vile and thankfully never had it again.

Anything with corned beef in it 🤮

Same! I'd be stuck at the table for what felt like forever in some dreadful power struggle, then I used to hide it in tissues in my pocket and throw it away later. Different times!

My mum used to do ‘cheese on toast’ but it was a slice of very cheap white bread with slices of mild cheddar on top microwaved til the cheese was melted and greasy and the bread weirdly chewy.

no toast involved.

I can’t believe we’re all still alive, to be honest.

Our food was very plain, but my mum did a good job. It was never over cooked, always consistently edible. Just not very exciting. But during the summer we had salad every week. A whole tomato, a chunk of cucumber, a couple of uncut scallions, a lettuce leaf and some sort of protein like cooked ham or tuna or corned beef. All just dumped on the plate. It really was very disappointing! Sometimes there was beetroot to jazz it up a bit😆

Basically anything frozen and processed.

These were a revelation and for a while we had them with everything 😲

It wasn't that I disliked it as a kid, more that I look back now as an adult and wonder if there was some lasting damage from all the junk!

My gran used to do sliced tinned meat with plain boiled chunks of peeled floury potatoes (so they were weirdly dry and fluffy). If you were really unlucky there’d be some cabbage that had been boiled for about a fortnight on the plate too.

You wouldn’t be allowed a drink til afterwards so you didn’t ‘fill your stomach up with liquid’.

Grim.

Or my parents and grandparent served the same grim boiled potatoes with tasteless, watery mince with chunks of boiled onion and carrot in it. 🤮

I always thought I hated roast dinners! but just turns out I hated my mums unseasoned (not even salted) anaemic over-steamed, overboiled mush!
I had a roast at a friends when I was about 18 and it was a taste sensation!

SO GLAD you said that. DGM used to do the cooking and childcare while DM worked (DF died when we were kids and we moved to live with the GPS in London where the jobs were) - and she was the generation that could cook the cheapest stuff and make it good. Loved her stuffed hearts - Paxo sage and onion IIRC. Both she and DM were very good cooks.

OTOH - after A levels were over I went to Brighton for a break from the exam stress. Stayed with a lifelong friend of DGM who's cooking was...interesting. Kippers and cauliflower was one highlight. Yes, together.

No they aren't they really aren't... 🤮 🤮 🤮 🤮 🤮

My dad was in charge of my packed lunch one day for some reason. I opened it to find a cold fried egg sandwich !!

Tinned mixed vegetables or marrow fat peas with fish in parsley sauce with smash, trip boiled in milk 🤢 mum was generally a very good cook but I hated smash,tinned mixed veg,marrow fat peas and trip. My heart would sink when I saw her preparing any of the above.

Tripe. It was beyond disgusting.

I like tripe, too. And liver.

Pretty much every night it would be undercooked big boiled potatoes (with a grey line around the perimeter), undercooked vegetables (carrots/runner beans etc) and a protein (a sausage, fish fingers, pork chop, microwaved chicken leg etc). No sauces, no gravy, just dry unseasoned food.

Liver and bacon casserole
Broth

I also remember sitting looking at a plate of cauliflower cheese with a thin sauce in which were floating quite a lot of greenfly ...

A fish pie that was full of bones and really pungent mint !

They were fantastic.
So was Angel Delight, and Vesta chicken curry in a box. And Spam. 😍

The meal I most hated was leftover cold fatty lamb from Sunday lunch, served with reheated vegetables (also from Sunday lunch) and a boring boiled potato. This was Monday evening's dinner without fail. It's not a patch on some of the things recounted above, though, so now I'm thinking I got off quite lightly.

I distinctly remember the primary school trip to Stoke Bruerne where DM had packed me chicken-paste and sliced tomato sandwiches. It was a warm sunny day and by the time I got to lunch, the entire sandwich was soggy and tomato flavoured, it was a squidgy bread mess. I think that was when I started making my own sandwiches ...

Risotto was made by putting white long-grain rice in a bowl, adding frozen peas, left over chicken from the previous day's roast, and a tin of condensed chicken soup (plus presumably some water). It was then cooked in the oven for the afternoon. Soggy chicken mush.

I absolutely loved stuffed hearts.
Absolutely hated the tinned salmon we used to have in sandwiches on special occasions.