What childhood foods gross you out?

[Tab]

I don't mean stuff you loved that gross you out now (like, Marshmallow Fluff - only an example - let's not make this into a thread on the merits of Fluff), but stuff you didn't like as a child that reverberates, fairly or unfairly, into your adult life.

As an example: I grew up in grade school in the 1960s, and the school kitchens were, basically industrial kitchens - open up a big can of X, heat it up, slop it out. On rare lucky days we'd get pizza (no seconds!) but usually it was disgusting crap that I still get sick thinking about.

Many of these foods I think would be just fine if properly prepared by someone who knew what they were doing, but out of a can... and for many of them it was just the odor that did it to me. I include, in no specific order:

- Creamed corn niblets (not plain, but the creamed kind)
- Peas in whatever sauce
- "Vegetable Medley" (ugh!)
- Shephards Pie
- Spinach

And my high school served a Tuna Tettrazini that nearly EVERYONE hated.

There's probably more, but that's all I can bear to dredge up right now.

To this day, I have trouble going near any of that food.

[eyesroll]

1. Fish sticks.

I won't eat anything that's a combination of "fish" and "shape it's in" -- nuggets, sticks, patties, whatever.

I'll eat salmon patties and catfish nuggets and so forth, because those are at least specified. "Fish" is nebulous. It could be anything.

[Mr. McD]

2. Beets and Okra

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[Stinky The Clown]

3. I honestly can't think of anything in this category

In my grade school years, we came home for lunch. In high school, the food was actually pretty good. Not memorable, but surely acceptable. In the Navy, I was on a small ship (MSO - Minesweeper - crew of less than 90) and our food was damned good. I mean, really, really good. As close to Mom's as you could put on a compartmented metal tray. Then my college years started at the Culinary Institute of America (yep, I'm a former CIA guy! :) ) so you **know** the food was good.

All through this, my mother was a great cook.

So nope ...... I have no bad food memories.

(And your request aside, I **like** Fluff .... to this day!)

[anitar1]

44. Hot tuna dishes,Thinking of them makes me feel yuck. also

brocoli, unless it is cooked with olive oil and garlic. Velveeta cheese!!

[Sparkly]

48. So.... why is it I can't get you to eat zucchini??

I thought you said you always hated it. But when your mother made it, you'd at least eat it... Oh, I get the picture now. You just don't like MY zucchini. :(

[Stinky The Clown]

49. huh?

:+

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

4. just a few,

oatmeal
stewed tomatoes
eggs anything-no joke, I'll throw up if I can taste the egg.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. Eggs .... wow! That's a toughie.

Pretty ubiquitous, eggs. Is it just eggs as eggs or eggs as an ingredient, too?

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

6. just if I can actually

taste the egg. For example, I can eat a souffle if the flavor covers up the egg taste.

I'm actually better. It used to be if I could smell the eggs I'd hurl.

[Warpy]

10. It's probably the sulfur in the yolks

I was allergic to 'em as a kid, so I never learned to like them plain.

I can eat them if they're in something, and I've been able to eat egg foo yung. Just don't expect me to confront a fried egg first thing in the morning.

[catnhatnh]

7. Veg-All N/T

[calico1]

8. Any kind of canned pasta

like "Spaghetti-O's," any canned vegetables or fruit.

Edit to add---creamed corn is one of the most disgusting "foods" ever invented. Yuck!!!! My mom would make it sometimes because my younger sister liked it. :puke:

[mike_c]

12. that's mine too....

ugh

[NMDemDist2]

16. your list covers it, but i can stomach certain canned fruit, but canned

pasta or creamed vegtable anything :puke:

[calico1]

21. I should have mentioned..

I will eat canned pineapple. That's about it.

[liberalhistorian]

37. My mom used to call

the Chef Boyardee and other types of canned pastas "canned Italian crapiola." I loved the stuff as a kid, but can't even stand to look at it now. It's nothing but chemical junk in your body, also.

[Warpy]

9. Liver

I went through a very hungry period in my late teens, and I'm talking genuine hunger, not enough money for a loaf of bread and jar of peanut butter. I was working in a mental hospital and a coworker on the make offered to buy me lunch. It was liver and onions that day in the employee cafeteria.

I ate everything around the liver. I tried cutting that liver into tiny pieces and swallowing it like a pill. I could not do it. The coworker thought I was nutttier than the patients (a good thing, he got discouraged fast).

I can't stand to smell it cooking, I can't stand the texture, I can't stand the taste. There must be some really wild repressed memory connected with that one.

I've been able to choke down all the other gag foods in the name of politeness: turnips, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, spinach, you name it. Just never ask me to eat a piece of liver.

[Tab]

14. Oh, yes, I forgot about Brussels sprouts

Ugh

[calico1]

22. I did not eat brussels sprouts for years

since about the age of twelve. My mom made me stay at the table til I finished them. Years later I met my honey and he invited me over for dinner on one of our first dates. He made brussels sprouts. Hehehhe.

I actually make them now once in a while. I get fresh ones and roast them. I use a recipe from Ina Garten and they are not bad.

[lakemonster11]

30. You know, I never liked brussel sprouts, even as an adult,

but one week last year my parents' CSA box had brussel sprouts in it, so my mother cooked them in a pasta recipe she had found (In Living, I think), and those brussel sprouts were good. We ended up buying some more the next week to have it again.

Mmmm...it makes my mouth water just thinking about it!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

38. I knew I was in love

I'm with you, Warpy, on the liver thing. My own history with it is rather tragic, but I now delight in telling people who actually eat it that they're eating the organ that functions as the filter for all the insecticides and other poisons that enter the animals. I've put a few people off it that way. I refuse to share a table with anyone who insists on ordering it.

But, I met this man, and when I found out that he loved fried chicken livers and scrambed eggs for Sunday breakfast, there came a Sunday morning when I knew I loved him, because there I was, at the stove, holding my breath, with my head turned away and the fan set to full suck, sauteeing chicken livers for him.

We married not long after that.

[Warpy]

43. My ex insisted on it. Once.

When he saw me lean over and heave into the trash can, he knew it wasn't gonna happen again.

It didn't bother me if he ordered it when we went out, so when he craved it, that's what we did.

[Shakespeare]

11. Only two I can think of....

One still affects me so powerfully that my throat closes up just seeing pictures of it: cottage cheese.

The other is cream cheese, which I'm finally able to enjoy if it's combined with something else (my bagel schmears have to have chives, onions or other veggie bits in them), and I have developed a powerful fondness for cheesecake.

[merci_me]

13. Four spring to mind.............

succotash and hominy, which I still SEE on occasion, and brains and pigs' feet which I have not even seen in years. Yikes, just this topic brought back that huge glass jar of pigs' feet and those breaded disgusting looking fried brains.

And I still don't like to look at whole chickens. I remember my grandmother whipping a cord around their feet, hanging them from the clothesline and taking a butcher knife, walking the line and wop, wop, wop and them flapping around. As if that wasn't bad enough, then she'd take them in and dip them in a huge pot of boiling water before pulling the feathers. The smell was like no other.

[NMDemDist2]

17. lol, My most memorable Thanksgiving started with me "finding" two turkeys

on the side of the interstate. They had obviously fallen off the truck and they were both wounded, but not dead. at 3AM on the way home from working a bar shift, I pulled off I-5 and tossed those suckers in the back of my VW van (miniskirt and high heels be damned)

when I got home my SO hung them from the eaves of the house and lopped off their heads

we let them drain a few hours and when the sun came up we used a 55 gallon drum to dip them and then de feather them. the SO had bowled a perfect game the same night and won a $100 gift cert to the local IGA so we got all the trimmings with that

fed 7 adults and two teens the best darn turkey ever!

the second bird was frozen til Xmas that year

[Warpy]

19. Damn, I thought I was the only one here who'd eaten roadkill

In my case it was a chicken, it was dead, but I'd seen it hit.

[NMDemDist2]

20. nah, these guys were still flapping! both had broken legs

that was something I tell ya! one was already knocked out but I had to bring the old man back to grab the other one, it was putting up a BIG fight lol

[noamnety]

34. I've done roadkill too!

We need membership cards.

Ick foods from childhood - lima beans, and brussel sprouts which I've tried to make as an adult, but no, they're still awful. But the big one is that Chicken Chow Mein that comes in a can, packed in tasteless slime.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

39. In my home county in PA,

it's legal to take roadkill deer home. There are a huge number of deer in that area.

I find the whole notion disgusting, but there's even a tradition there of getting out of your car when you find a dead deer off to the side of the road. You circle it with chalk.

That way, when you return, if there's another dead deer, you know it's fresher than your circled one.

I was raised by wolves, I swear .

[Warpy]

18. My granny was far tidier

She was a wringer, not a chopper. When they finished flopping, she'd tie them to a clothesline over the garden and decapitate them, let the blood run into the soil. It was one bird at a time, usually for Sunday dinner, and nobody could cook chicken the way my grandmother did.

She had a truly great garden, too.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

15. Scrapple

Oh, dear god, just writing it makes me want to yurk.

[Tab]

23. That's a joke, right?

Better damned well be. :eyes:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

40. I believe it is,

but I'm really too queasy to investigate any further.

[lakemonster11]

54. There is such a thing as scrapple (and it is made from pork),

but it's not a drink.

[Tab]

24. To my original list, based on responses

I add Brussels sprouts, cottage cheese, and I'd like to introduce squash. Also mashed potatoes (but I think from instant mix) always grossed me out.

I've had once mashed potatoes that I really liked. It was at a restaurant where everything else was just absolutely excellent, and when I'm in that position, my policy is to even try things I wouldn't normally eat, because maybe they make them well, and in that case, I did.

But from the school cafeteria line, and some friend's houses, mashed potatoes always made me want to lose it, and I think it was the fact that they were instant.

Speaking of losing it, not to introduce a visual, but I remember one morning after one night of partying in college, a friend of mine from Canada eating room-temp creamed corn out of a can left over from the night before (if I remember that part properly). I'm sure he was still drunk or high, but I think I got sick just from thought of it. Even now, 20+ years later, I still want to heave when I imagine eating room-temp creamed corn straight out of the can.

Much of it I equate to the smell of the stuff from the school cafeteria just had a lingering effect on me, and to this date it's hard for me to eat certain warm veggies.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

41. I confess

One of my weaknesses, when I'm very, very tired, is eating Snow's Clam Chowder out of the can.

[babylonsister]

25. Lima beans and tongue. I kid you not. My mom used to

make us eat something called tongue, which looked like a giant tongue, which is what it was. Tasted like corned beef, but just the looks put me off. Tongue must have been cheap back in the day...

[wryter2000]

28. My husband used to love tongue.

He'd make me drive all over town until I could find a butcher with one. They cost an arm and a leg now. I don't need them. A lot of work and expense for something pretty yucky.

[NashVegas]

26. Spanish Rice

As it is/was made in the Northeast. The smell alone has always given me headaches.

[wryter2000]

27. Any vegetable in a can

They just taste like the can!

[murphymom]

29. Frozen chopped broccoli (overcooked)

Bleagh! Growing up that was a staple, and it wasn't until I was on my own and cooking for myself that I discovered how good FRESH broccoli, lightly cooked, (and fresh vegetables of all sorts) could be.

[lakemonster11]

31. chicken

In third or fouth grade I had the flu around Thanksgiving and for years afterwards the smell of cooking turkey made me want to puke.

Probably because chicken is much more ubiquitous, my hatred of turkey expanded to a hatred of all poultry, especially chicken.

Now I can eat turkey rarely, and I especially enjoy it on Thanksgiving, when my mom orders a free range one, but I still hate the taste and smell of chicken.

[housewolf]

32. Anything sitting on the table with eyes...

Just can't take it, I have to get up and leave.

[politicat]

33. Sausage gravy (also hamburger gravy), pancakes, domino's pizza and

pretty much anything with cheap hamburger in. But for the most part, those are emotional, in that they were associated with unpleasant situations. My father was a gambling addict, and so money was often very tight; he was also emotionally and physically abusive and more than willing to be an absolute verbal shit. Domino's is what he would order after he and my mother would have a fight and he was trying to make it up to her by not forcing her to cook....

Still, the sausage gravy still makes me uncomfortable - that gluey whiteness. Eek. And any time I see something with hamburger grease floating in it, I get the willies. (Because if you cook hamburger dishes in a crock pot, it's hard to drain off the grease.)

[mtnester]

35. The hideous school tray baked beans - always served with the hot dogs

although, I gotta say, johhny marzetti day was a popular day

And the sliced white bread with butter - compacted sawdust

[Tab]

47. God, yes, I forgot about baked beans

I'm getting better, and can be at the table with them, but I can't eat the things. (ugh)

But yeah, the school baked beans with the hot dogs (shivers!)

[Bjornsdotter]

36. Mac and cheese

jello, ketchup, marshmallows....can't stand any of them, never could. I can't even watch anyone eat them.

Cheers!

[Tab]

46. As a kid

I hated M&C, and the smell of it really turned me off.

I make it now for my son, but I don't get that reaction, so I don't know if they changed the formula or what (probably did) but it doesn't gross me out like it did. Pretty sure they must have changed it.

[Bjornsdotter]

52. You are a brave soul

...to make it for your children even though you didn't like it as a child. They may have changed the recipe, I'm not sure....I still can't watch anyone eat it. So of course I have one child who loves it. She had it at a friend's house, fortunately for me she is old enough to make it herself.

Cheers!

[Nicole]

42. PB&J sandwiches

I still hate them.

[DemExpat]

45. I love all food.....except one thing.....since childhood....

SPAM.....

:puke: :puke: :puke:

Momma used to make it faily regularly, I think she cooked it in a frying pan, sliced, and added brown sugar or something......just the thought makes me nauseated all over again.

:puke: :D

DemEx

[Longhorn]

50. Almost all vegetables, unfortunately.

My mother cooked the life out of them, then heaped them on our plates and wouldn't let us leave the table until we ate them. I would gag if I had to eat peas or hominy, even today. I can handle corn and green beans and fresh veggies such as in a salad.

My family thinks it's a joke and they'll still bring it up. I encouraged my four children to try things but at most, I just required a taste, and usually, not even that. They are now ages 21 to 26 and their tastes are much more diverse than mine! They actually LOVE sushi! :P

[Tab]

51. I'm with you

I only like cooked veggies that HAVE to be cooked, like corn and artichoke. Everything else - forget it.

And I love sushi.

[Warpy]

55. I thought I hated broccoli, asparagus, green beans, spinach,

collards, and a whole host of other veggies. Then I finally tasted them fresh instead of slimy and out of a damn can.

What a revelation! I look forward to that 2 weeks in spring when asparagus is a buck a pound, I grow backyard broccoli when I can, I delight in spinach and kale. I even found I like lima beans, as long as they're fresh or frozen.

I guess canned stuff is great if yer starvin'.

[fortyfeetunder]

53. Chitlins, chitterlings, hog intestines

My mom cooked these regularly when I was a tyke. I remember hiding under a bed to get away from the stench. Mom and dad could not pay me to taste those things. I starved those days when this was the main course. I was the lone holdout in the family.

Once I was old enough to figure out where chitlins came from, there was no way I could get in the same room with them.

And when I was old enough to swear without the threat of a soap chaser, I said something like, there was no way in he!! I was going to eat something that sh!t just passed through!!!