What was your worst meal as a child?

[ALMummy]

You know the one where you got to the table and your heart sank into your boots because you were starving and had been looking forward to your dinner only to find........

Sweet and sour chicken made with a lurid sauce from a packet or jar - I despised it.

anything with meat in it...was forced to sit there for hours til I'd eaten it - and then I threw up. Happened every week for years.

Suet dumplings & beef casserole with loads of veg and rather fatty meat

Plaice and lemon

I'd probably like the plaice now tbh

horrible horrible cheap boiled ham at school, with woody old potatoes boiled plain and served up without any butter so they were just grimly mouth-choking. All served with some horrible packet green sauce that was supposed (I think) to be parsley but had never seen a living herb in its life and tasted of moistened sawdust.

I used to retch just at the smell of it cooking during lessons and once I got myself in so much of a state that I actually sicked up on my plate halfway through the meal.

A dinnerlady came past and said "Come on now, eat up or you'll be the last one here."

Which shows you, quite neatly, what the food looked like.

I just don't get why anyone would force a child to eat something they didn't like.
it is bloody evil.

I did like it when my mother cooked kidneys. Which is surprising since they were so over cooked they were rather like novelty rubbers

Meringue was my worst pudding - sharp, sugary, splintery and far too sweet. All mums I knew made them. I think they thought they were sophisticated back then, and of course the packet lemon Meringue pies - the most synthetic food item ever invented. However so was Angel Delight and I LOVED that, especially chocolate/orange flavour.

lol lol YV

Have a mortifying weakness for crap lemon meringue pie.

Oh god I love kidneys with the fervour of a former vegetarian, adore them.

Mmmmmm, chicken liver is very nice actually.

Tripe

but the most memorable was the whole pig's head which my aunt served up to us once!

moondog! I can laugh now but at the time I burst into tears.

God - it's actually making me feel a bit nauseous now, just thinking about it... (this face is green with nausea btw, not with envy - and the eyes are pointy because I am screwing them up to stop the tears gushing over)

Have never tried oxtail afaik (other than in Campebell's soup!) but it made quite a come back a few years ago.

Chicken livers are bloody fantastic.
Warm and slightly bloody over salad leaves.
Deglaze pan with a spot of sherry and pour over.

We were never allowed Angel Delight.

I think because my mother had aspirations. On the other hand she might have wondered what we would do if we ever ate anything that tasted of something!

We had 'Psychological Pepper' on the table. In a cruet set. There was salt that you could add to taste, but the pepper shaker was always empty and we cristened it 'Psychological pepper'. You always gave it a quick shake and hped against help that the food would taste of something

black-eyed bean stew with walnuts in.

Has anyone ever eaten pig's trotters? Or pig's tail?

cod in parsley sauce with mash

bleugh, HATE parsley.

Did it once contain white pepper? (In 1956?)

Far out boco.
Was your an...alternative sorta home?

offal is lovely if it is cooked properly

mmmmm kidneys as part of a cooked breaksfast . We sometimes had sweetbreads as well.

liver needs to be lightly cooked or it becomes tough and leathery.

Mercy - see my earlier post:

By Iota on Sun 16-Mar-08 18:59:37
I used to help my mother make brawn from boiled pig's heads and trotters.

It was yum smile

The bought stuff was nasty pink rubbish though

And we used to cook and press ox tongue for Xmas

Yes, back in the mists of time, I heard a rumour that it once had white pepper in it.

My mother kept her Chilli powder so long it went Beige. She was still using it.

When we cleared her house out we found stuff that was decades past its use by date, still in regular use. And a tin of manderins (with syrup natch) from Swaziland

My grandmother had a small bottle of medicinal olive oil in her bathroom cabinet from 1977 to 2002.