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

[Thumbwitch]

I've never eaten tripe, could never stand the sight of it. Luckily whenever it was on offer at school, there was usually an alternative available - else I'd have gone hungry rather than attempt it.

Semolina was my dessert bugbear. I remember being the last in the dining hall at Infants' school because I couldn't choke it down, and it was cold and even more disgusting by then, I was crying my eyes out. Can't remember the end outcome though!

I actually really like liver - but only lambs' liver. The stuff we used to get at school was pigs' liver, and it was fried to leather toughness - plus it's a much coarser texture in the first place and would go really really gritty. Blech!

My Dad used to have this bizarre medicine for when we were feeling sick, called Fennings Mixture. Iirc, it contained a mixture of nitric (or could have been sulphuric) and hydrochloric acids (among other stuff?) and was beyond disgusting - but it did work in terms of kill or cure - you'd either throw up really quickly or it would settle your stomach. Probably dissolved teeth on the way down though as well!

[Bogeyface]

I could never stomach tripe, the look of it in the butchers window made my stomach turn so I have never eaten it. But a friend of mine was given some for lunch by a relative and being polite, ate it. She said it was delicious and according to the relative its a bit like liver in that if it is cooked properly it can be really nice but cooked badly, as it usually is, its revolting.

Not prepared to risk it personally though!

[bendybrickpumpkinpatch]

liver !!

Or really dry boiled potatoes ( would it have killed you to mash them mum ! ) fishfingers and peas !! DRY DRY DRY !!

[AdamLambsbreath]

I remember when I used to shop at a proper old-fashioned market in Sheffield, and people there would buy strips of tripe from the butcher's stall and eat it there and then with vinegar.

I'll eat almost anything, but the sight of those great folded heaps of boiled white, honeycomb-textured innards was the opposite of appetising.

I'm willing to believe that properly cooked tripe could be nice.

[Thumbwitch]

I'm not!

[AdamLambsbreath]

[hennybeans]

I used to spend the summers with my grandparents (in America) and my grandma would serve 'shit on a shingle' or 'SOS' as it was known to me. It's an American military dish that no doubt my grandpa ate when he was in the army in the 50s. As my grandma served it, it's mince in white sauce served on crumpets. I could never even take one bite, and I wasn't a fussy child. I was a really 'good girl' and this one dish is the only thing I ever got in trouble for at their house. I was sent to bed with no dinner every time my grandma made this because I refused to eat. She didn't even serve any vegetables with it that I could pretend to eat a bit. My heart definitely sank when I saw this was for dinner.

[zukiecat]

My granny's Fish Tatties!

She'd boil up a cauldron of tatties and as my dad worked in the fish industry at the time, he'd bring her a big bag of it every Friday evening. But this was fish exactly as it came out of the sea, with heads, tails, bones and scales still attached. The whole lot would go in with the tatties and when it was soft, she'd mash it all up together, and that would be our tea

Was the worst meal ever and the only thing that might be as bad was Potted Heid - Yeuch!

[CariadsDarling]

Is that Potted Heid as in Potted Hough?

I loved hough and still do.

[Purplehonesty]

Fish pie made with bony cod, tinned tomatoes, crunchy onions and peas topped with mashed potato. Yuck

Tuna pizza - it all dried out and went crunchy in the oven - bleugh. Even the pizza dough was terrible, like old bread.

Pork chops - grey tough meat

Chicken chassuer (sp?) made with a packet sauce - it was so awful and watery.

Mum tends to substitute things if she hasn't got them in and adds gravy powder to everything including soup. I hate it when she invites us round for tea!!

[ChristmasKateMumsnet]

Lord, this thread has made me chuckle. And oddly hungry. We're going to move it to classics now.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

An unMumsnetty LOL @ "And oddly hungry" Kate.
Good choice for classics - I always love our food and nostalgia threads :-)

[SecretNutellaFix]

I was fine with all of the main course school dinner options- I never recall liver thank goodness, it was the puddings tht made my heart sink.

Semolina- looked and tasted like wallpaper paste and the minisule splodge of jam only made it worse. The absolute worst for me was the day when we had shortbread biscuits and strawberry milkshake for pud. You knew it was coming because there were no water tumblers on the table. The milkshake was worse when they substituted banana.

I remember actually crying one time because I was being forced to sit there with synthetic milk getting warmer and biscuit that felt and tasted like sandy gravel and not being allowed a glass of water- because I already had a drink!

[shadowfax07]

Sorry I've only just discovered this thread, but have a few to add.

Whitebait - the only time I've vomited onto a plate of food.

Sunday roast dinners - all veg done in the pressure cooker, so it all came out tasting the same. Brisket (silverside) roasted until it resembled shoe leather, the Yorkshire puddings were the only edible things on the plate. Ditto steak.

Corned beef heggarty (or Panactly) - took me years to get over the horror and actually try a corned beef pasty.

Cheese and strawberry jam sarnies - no, I have no idea why my mum served them up either. Allegedly my brother liked them, so I should as well .

Finally, I don't think anyone else has mentioned junket? Was I the only 70's child that had to eat it? Angel delight was a gourmet delight after junket.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

I loved angel delight too shadow - especially butterscotch

[notfromstepford]

Lentil soup. It was disgusting and I hated it but we always had it towards the end of the month when money was tight. Still gag at the thought of it now.

Runner beans. Mum & Dad used to grow them so when they were in season, it was runner beans every single meal - and then she'd freeze a load, so it would keep us going for months. I can't eat runner beans now at all.

Finally, rainbow trout. Dad got a shit load from somewhere and we had a run of that for every meal too (accompanied by bloody runner beans)!

[Juno321]

Pork chops. never eaten one in my adut life thankfully.

[happyhats]

A vile dish served at my school called cavemans crunch. It was essentially mince, baked beans and cornflakes mixed together.
My friends school served a dish she called afterbirth pie!!!! heaves
I also hated tapioca!

[lemisscared]

i got a thread in classics

[helensburgh]

Any sort of chop.

Cooked in a casseole dish in the oven with water poured over it, for hours.

The water became " gravy" with nothing added.

Yuk yuk yuk

[helensburgh]

The worst school dinner was steamed Lorne sausage with lumpy mash amen veg.

I got made to sit and eat it until I threw up

[Canshopwillshop]

Roast heart and - gags - sweetbreads!

[goshhhhhh]

Fish, steamed on a plate until soggy & overcooked cauliflower, boiled potatoes and parsley sauce. Everything white. If were lucky we got tinned peas. Yum.. .

[FluffyTheEvilOne]

Shop bought quiche lorraine with (overdone) boiled potatoes, peas & sweetcorn.
It was bland and dry, and the opposite of comfort food.

DM usually a very good cook, but she has her blind spots...

[vladthedisorganised]

School dinners were the work of Satan. Everything was swimming in an inch of grease and served with a ladle of baked beans.

I have never been able to stand baked beans at the best of times, still can't bear them now.

The works canteen reminds me of school a bit - any food that isn't eaten on the 'hot' counter makes its way to the 'salad bar' for the rest of the week. Egg salads are particularly ripe by Friday. :(