What meal made your heart sink as a child

[lemisscared]

For me i think it was mince and potatoes. The mince was from a tin ffs!! With tinned peas and carrots.

My mum used to make me eat this and i would gag and cry! Oh and fucking ready brek as i would get pneumonia if i didn't eat it - boak

My mum is an awesome cook but when we were little, she didn't know what to put in pasta sauce. So, she gave us pasta shells covered in a mixture of vegetable oil, tomato purée, salt and cumin seeds. Acidic enough to slice your tongue open - and what the hell was with the cumin seeds?! Thankfully, she eventually learned better.

Better than my sister's signature pasta sauce of slightly warmed tinned tomatoes with whole silverskin in pickled onions and maybe a bucketful bit of cumin chucked in right at the end. Utterly inedible.

I loved (and still love) tapioca pudding! My mom would never make it though; she thought it was disgusting. My grandma did.

We used to beg for tapioca . We loved it. Must make some soon..

Malt extract otoh...

They have started making Cod Liver Oil and Malt Extract again but it now comes with Honey, Butterscotch, and something else to disguise the taste.

As if anything could!

Bloody horrible stuff and I still insist my father gave it to us because he could let his cruel side out to play and disguise it as 'getting some goodness into the bairns'.

I remember the pressure cooker always being on but I haven't a clue what was in it. She used to make casserole, always the same, beef, carrots, onions and I think a packet mix. Hated it.
'Oh the beef is so tender, eat it up stupidhead'
It really wasn't. Ever.

Nothing! I only ever ate cold sliced ham and chips as a child and so that's all I was given!

I remember my dad made me a ham sandwich in my lunchbox one day but instead of butter or marge he spread it with dairylea. gross!

Gooseberries.
Gooseberry fool, gooseberry crumble.
I hate them and would have to stay at the table until I had eaten all my pudding.
I used to throw up straight after

Corned beef hash.Meat and potato pie.

Brams The school I was at (state) used to make those children who hadn't eaten their dinner line up at the end and show the cook their plates of uneaten food.

I'm not sure what they hoped to achieve by this as the cook just looked rather bemused and never said a word (probably itching to get back and get finished in retrospect) but I was a regular in that line

Today's school lunchbox police have nothing on the dinner dragons ladies of yore.

Dragon ladies at dinner time .

We had a horrible one who used to collect the dinner tickets with long, gnarly fingernails that were painted in thick chipped varnish in mauve or cerise.

You had to write your name and form on the back of the ticket - sensible because it solved loss or theft - and if you had someone else's ticket you'd be questioned about it. The dinner ladies knew hardly anyone's name, so it was more a job for teachers, but sometimes they'd ask if they spotted the same name twice close together.

Every other dinner lady accepted the explanation: 'I forgot my tickets so I borrowed one from a girl in my class and I'll give her one of mine tomorrow' because it was usually true - especially when the two kids were standing together.

Not this one. The borrower would miss dinner and get sent to the deputy head. She must have got so sick of this. I don't understand why it kept happening.

We also had this daft rule where pupils with packed lunches had to sit on separate tables. Packed lunches were quite unusual. The only girl I knew who had one was vegetarian - also unusual then. She'd sit with us otherwise she'd be lonely. One of us would sneak out a second plate and cutlery and we'd all put bits of food on it so it looked like she'd be eating school dinners. Meanwhile she'd hide her lunchbox under the table and take surreptitious bites of her sandwiches in case this woman was on patrol.

She was once confronted about it but we got away with it.

I now wonder whether it was an official rule or just this power-crazed woman.

Not a meal but Arctic Roll. We were always given it for pudding at junior school. There was never a choice and it was always just out of the freezer so the sponge was frozen solid as well as the ice cream. I have always had sensitive teeth and eating it used to make me cry. I went to a Catholic junior school so you were made to sit there until everything was finished. I can't even look at it now.

Arctic Roll: gritty ice cream. Gross.

I've hear cod liver oil is actually amazing for you...any recommendations for capsules?

Had totally forgotten about arctic roll! I used to love it, really fancy some now actually, is it still made?

It is only good for you if you manage to swallow it, CY .

I have a few bottles with varying expiry dates in my cupboards, the results of different New Years intentions over time...

olives,and octopus type fish dishes.

Boiled potatoes, pearl barley soup, gristle and butter beans are my food hell - I like everything else.

A particular fave was what we called mixed grill: liver, sausage, bacon in onion gravy - served with mashed carrots and boiled potatoes which were fried in a chip pan.

Liked mushy peas, heart, tapioca and school dinners were fab. We ate a lot of mince, I'm going through a mincetastic revival (ragu, cottage pie, chili).

I'm starving reading this.

limited - One of the dinner dragons stood over me and made me eat a dollop of school mash once, grey lumps and all. I was in the process of going down with chicken pox and brought the whole lot back in the plate.

She left me alone after that

YY to butter beans! I meant to add them last night. Beige lumps of weirdly slimy tasting nastiness

Urggh! fullpleatherjacket. It did the trick though.

I love butter beans now but I used to hate them as a child. I think it's because I put them in things rather than serving them on the side like my mum used to.

She loved tinned pease pudding, but I've never tasted it because the dull greyish-yellow colour used to revolt me. It's probably okay, I think it's boiled, mashed split peas. I'd like that.

I must have been revolted by yellow food because I've never eaten piccalilli, but I've just looked up the ingredients and I think I'd like it. I happily eat mustard now and sweetcorn, I hated that on sight too.

I used to love sloppy beef pies from the pie and mash shop but refused the green liquor - again, it was the colour. It's just parsley sauce though, so it's probably okay.

I loved going in there and staring at the live eels in the big china sink while we waited. I've never eaten jellied eels though (they look revolting) and used to pick out the jelly in pork pies.

But I was never made to eat anything I didn't want, probably because my mum was fussy, fussier than me. The list of things she refused to eat and the vehemence with which she'd denounce them wasn't annoying, I found it endearing.

I used to think: 'Mum it's just something you don't want to eat, not a perversion.'

Nevertheless, she used to boast to people that I was a 'good' eater, I think I took after my dad, who was a human dustbin and was less fussy than the dog.

My tastes have got broader; I'll eat almost anything now. The exceptions are tripe, though I love this, oysters - like snot, beetroot - muddy, carp, also muddy and I hate the look and texture of coleslaw - it looks like vomit to me.

Had school dinners all through primary in the 70s .....

worst offenders were ....

Liver and bacon
Steak and kidney pie (not much steak I'd say)
Tapioca and various other milk puddings (an absolute staple of 70's school dinners unfortunately, with a blob of jam if you were lucky)

Remember headteacher standing over me one time whilst I didn't eat my liver and bacon. I was sat there a long time. But as I recall I won in the end!

I did like most of my dinners though, both at school and at home.
Was a favourite (aged about 5) with the dinner lady who served the greens as I'd always ask for more of that

Oh yeah. Olives are vile. Especially those big green ones stuffed with red.

I've never actually eaten one of those because I know I would vomit.

I once broke up with a boyfriend in a restaurant over oysters. He ordered them and insisted that I shared them. I politely refused but he persisted, either in the interests of educating my palate, or sharing a sexy moment.

Probably both.

It got very ugly.

Urgh, this thread is turning my stomach..you poor, poor people!

My own contribution is fried eggs, chips and peas. It doesn't sound too bad compared to some on here but I absolutely detested snotty fried eggs and marrow fat peas as a child. Yuck.

My children are fed only nice, fresh home-made dishes which are mostly mediterranean inspired and are NEVER forced to eat food they don't like.

My Aunt who raised me LOVED boiled bacon, cabbage and potatoes. So we had it twice a week. I do not eat fat, I am allergy to cabbage(and tea?) so I got potatoes . On the theory there was GOOD food which I would not eat.
My husband still thanks god she never tried to teach me to cook. The rest of her food seemed to have come from the same cookbook standard on this thread