Gross food your parents prepared when you were younger

[MysticalChicken]

When I was a kid, my dad created a concoction that consisted of noodles (cooked to mushiness), chicken, mushrooms, sour cream, and some sort of broth or bullion or something, I think. When I was a kid I liked it (despite my absolute lifelong loathing of mushrooms), but as I got older I realized--holy crap, this stuff is horrible. The very last time I was able to worry some down, some ten years ago, I nearly threw up, because it's the grossest-looking stuff ever. And the gods help you if you ever find a hair in it. I wish I had a photograph of it, but it's probably a good thing I don't.

The ironic thing is that my dad is normally a pretty good cook.

[lost-in-nj]

1. Tuna Casserole

I HATE WARM TUNA WITH fucking peas



lost

[MysticalChicken]

2. I hate tuna, period

I think my mom made tuna casserole once. I hated it.

[madinmaryland]

31. I love tuna! Even better when it is raw!!1!!

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!

[driver8]

149. I agree -- Raw tuna is the best!! n/t

[KitchenWitch]

165. Sushi grade Ahi Tuna!

:9

[patsimae]

192. Cream of Wheat

:puke:

[MysticalChicken]

200. Gasp! Sputter!

Oh my god, I'm obsessed with Cream of Wheat! I actually have a craving for it right now, but we don't have any.

Maybe your mom prepared it wrong... it's delicious with just milk, a little bit of sugar, and a pinch or two of salt.

[Maine-ah]

117. in our house that was called tuna pea wiggle

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Fried liver and onions...

:puke:

[MysticalChicken]

5. I refuse to even try liver on general principles

Mostly because it's liver.

[Arugula Latte]

114. Just TRY to think about liver without "fava beans," a "nice Chianti"

and the accompanying *slurp, slurp, slurp* sound.

Can't be done.

x(

[MysticalChicken]

141. Am I the ONLY person alive...

who has not yet seen Silence of the Lambs?

[Love Bug]

147. Nope. I haven't seen it

Don't care to, either.

[Arugula Latte]

159. You and LoveBug.

That's it. :)

[MissMillie]

17. I love it... always have

of course most people overcook liver, which makes it taste like gamey sawdust

[LadyAziz]

58. Me too

It has to be seasoned and cooked right. Yum! I have not had it in a while.

[deucemagnet]

91. My thoughts exactly.

It's a shame that so many people are put off by poorly prepared liver and onions. A nicely cooked piece of liver with onions slowly caramelized in butter can be absolutely wonderful! :9

[Zookeeper]

207. That's the way to cook it!

Yum!

I used to love it, but don't eat it anymore since I have doubts about what kind of junk today's cattle are processing in their livers. :(

[enigmatic]

96. LOVE liver and onions

I just had some last week; man, that was goood...

[Roon]

18. Me too,Peggy

It would ruin my night when I came home and saw liver thawing in the sink.

[Redstone]

41. The rule in our house was "Eat what's for dinner or go to bed hungry." I went to bed hungry

whenever dinner was liver, and was only too happy to do so.

Christ, that stuff is revolting.

Redstone

[JVS]

95. I had that at a restaurant last month, it wasn't bad

[qanda]

130. My mother used to make that too

Gross, gross, gross!

[ruiner4u]

4. something my mom called Swiss Streak...

It was a good piece of meat simmered in a few cans of crushed tomatoes and some other stuff.. When it was done it was the most god awful dried out thing that that was impossible to cut or chew...


god bless her, she tried... :)

[MysticalChicken]

6. We had a different type of "Swiss steak"

It consisted of my mom beating the fuck out of a slab of flank steak as if she had a personal vendetta against it, then covering it with gravy made with cream of celery soup. I hate cream of celery soup.

[madinmaryland]

32. The only way to make it tender is to beat the crap out of it!

My wife calls them stupid steaks!

[Critters2]

35. My mom did this, too

Really gave that thing holy hell!!

[Throd]

13. My mom did the same thing

I never did understand how you could dry meat by boiling it in tomato paste.

[JVS]

94. Isn't that the brisket problem too though? How do you cook it until tender without drying it out.

[driver8]

150. My uncle says to cook the brisket fat side up so the juices trickle

back down into the brisket.

He makes the most amazing brisket I have ever tasted!

[JVS]

93. My grandma made swiss steak. Hers had no tomatoes though

The defining feature of swiss steak was how tough it was. The only things grandma made well were pie crusts (and thus pies) and candied yams. Her husband did most of the cooking (rich bacony german cooking) around the house when my mom was growing up. When my brother and I visited her we noticed that the cereal tasted bad, it turns out that poor granny was using powdered milk.

[ruiner4u]

107. *gag*

powdered milk on cereal? yikes!...

[Bjornsdotter]

7. I called it dog food

...my Mom used to pack raw ground beef, unseasoned, into a casserole dish and bake it. When it was almost done, she would whip up some raw eggs and add a bag of frozen mixed veggies to it and pour it on top of the ground beef and let it bake until it was done. :puke: :puke: :puke:

[ruiner4u]

8. I think you win...

that sounds horrid.. No offense to your mom...:)

[Bjornsdotter]

43. None taken

...my Mom hated it also, it was my Dad who liked it....go figure. :shrug: Glad to say I haven't eaten it in at least 35 years :woohoo:

:toast:

[MysticalChicken]

10. Ooh, that sounds good. Where can I get some?

:sarcasm:

[Momgonepostal]

9. My mom went on a health food kick in the 70's and 80's...

She made us some frothy green drink in the blender that looked like pond scum in a glass. It was just vile looking. Then she acted like there was something wrong with us when we turned up our noses. I'd have pretty much had to have been starving to drink that down without complaint.

She also made us soy burgers once, the precursor to the Garden Burger, I suppose, and they were so bad my cat wouldn't even eat it, and he usually loved table scraps.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. Spam.

I hate that shit.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

61. Spam mixed with scrambled eggs...

and a slab of Velveeta melted on top. Bon appetit!

[KiraBS]

172. Corned beef Hash...hated that too...

But didn't mind spam too much... hated corned beef...

[Throd]

12. Glop from cans marked "Chun King" or "La Choy"

I think I was about 15 when I first discovered that Chinese food wasn't mushy tasteless water chestnuts covered in a phlegm colored viscous slime.

[Quakerfriend]

21. You reminded me of one of my mom's favorites, "Chicken-a-la-

King" over toast. Yum.:9

[amitten]

88. YES! Oh God, I forgot about that crap! Worst. Food. Ever. n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

123. Oh, yeah, and some people DID think it was real Chinese food

When I first moved to Portland, there was a Chinese restaurant nearby. I went to try it, and it was EXACTLY like Chun King or La Choy glop. For all I know they may have just opened cans and dumped them into the steam table.

But the place was packed. :shrug:

Well, the Chun King/La Choy place went out of business and was bought by an extended family that had emigrated from China fairly recently. I ventured in there and discovered that they had really good, fairly authentic Chinese food. However, I was the only person in there. The previous restaurant's customers probably got one look at those lightly stir-fried colorful, crispy vegetables and thought, "Too weird for me."

I wanted them to succeed, so I ate there about twice a week. Finally, they got a good review in the newspaper, and their survival was assured, at least for another five years.

Then one day, they just vanished.

[Bravo Zulu]

14. scrapple

Scrapple Musings
Scrapple musings found on the Internet (1998):



"I've seen it being made; my wife's relatives are farmers in central Pennsylvania. After butchering you boil the heck out of the rest of the pig. The meat is then mixed with spices, poured into bread pans and allowed to set. The resulting loaves are then sliced, and the slices fried. It's actually not bad; I've eaten it with maple syrup and no kidding, it tastes like pancakes. Except it's meat, and that's something I can't quite get over."


"Scrapple also has a lesser cousin called puddin, which I assume is made up of all the stuff that isn't fit for scrapple."

"Here in Cincinnati you can buy what appears to be another cousin of scrapple, called goetta (pronounced GET-uh). It seems to be scrapple made with corn meal."



And finally, this disgusting little vignette on how to make old-fashioned homemade scrapple:



"First, we begin with the head of a pig (fresh is always preferable to frozen). Exactly which parts of a pig's head are included in Scrapple depends somewhat on regional preference.

"To begin, the head should be cut in half, or even quartered. (The ears make for convenient handles while sawing the skull.) While an axe or cleaver can be used to split the head, a saw is preferable in that it produces no bone fragments.

"Once the head is sectioned, some people remove the brains. Some remove the teeth—bashing them off with a cleaver. Yet others remove the eyes. The most nutritious scrapple contains the entire head! That said, however, special care should be taken to remove the ear drums. Left in place, they contribute a distinctively bitter taste to the Scrapple, which while popular in Pittsburgh, is generally disliked elsewhere.

"Next, all desirous head and non-head matter, including heart, feet and tail, are cooked in a pot with just enough water to cover. During cooking, meat loosens from bone and the skin, ears, rooter and nearly all head gristle softens. The resulting broth harbors an explosion of nutritional goodness!

"Bones and loosened meaty matter are strained from the broth, which should be set aside. When the meat has cooled, pick through it, removing bones and hard gristle. Grind up the skin and soft gristle, rooter and so on. Recombine the ground meats with all but about a cup of the strained broth. For each two cups of broth reunited with meat, add one cup cereal (cornmeal) to thicken. Bring to a slow boil, stirring all the time. Add salt, black pepper, red pepper, sage, onion powder, and if you're feeling adventurous, some bacon bits.

"Continue stirring until it arrives at the consistency of porridge. Pour into loaf pans and cool. The Scrapple is finished!"

[ruiner4u]

29. hahaha...:)... I love goetta...

i admit though that it is an acquired taste...

[Danger Mouse]

59. that is one of the most vile things i have ever read. SO glad i no longer eat meat.

:puke:

[WorseBeforeBetter]

63. I'm embarrassed to admit...

I still like Scrapple on occasion. You can take the girl out of Johnstown, but you can't take Johnstown out of the girl?

[RebelOne]

101. That's the first thing that popped into my mind.

My mother would cook it all the time. As a kid, I liked it until I found out what was in it.

[CTyankee]

111. There's a pancetta from Northern Italy that is made from pigs cheeks.

IT is cooked in a tomato sauce and served over pasta. It is actually delicious.

The only Italian "delicacy" I will NOT eat is trippa (tripe). I don't even want to think about it, but the Romans adore it...

[GenDem]

15. My father called it Goulash

It wasn't.

He fried ground beef, threw in a can of tomatoes, and then dumped in some cooked elbow macaroni.

It was soupy and gross. :puke:

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

16. Mom made that too!

Only she used ketchup instead of tomatoes. I actually liked it.

[MissMillie]

19. that's american chop suey

except your dad seemed to forget the garlic, onions and basil


I make this all the time... very tasty

[Minimus]

106. We called it Hunchy Gunchy and loved it. Ours wasn't soupy though.

[w8liftinglady]

189. lol...my mom made that,too-whatever was in the cabinet

ground beef plus...I make it,now,too

[Paladin]

203. 'Goulash" Is What We Called It In My Home, Too.

Nasty stuff.....

[greatauntoftriplets]

20. Roast tongue.

:puke:

My mother told me it was "pickled ham". I knew better.

[Quakerfriend]

22. OMG! Me too! I hated opening up the refrig door to see the

whole thing sitting there waiting to be cooked.}(

[MysticalChicken]

25. Does it actually look like a tongue?

I remember either reading or watching one of the Ramona books/episodes when I was younger, and they had tongue (the "Mystery Meat" episode, I think it was), and they liked it until they knew what it was.

[greatauntoftriplets]

42. To me it looked like a tongue.

A very large one since it came from a steer.

[Onlooker]

154. Absolutely

I'm pretty brave about eating food, but tongue is one of those things I can't eat. In the supermarket, it sometimes looks like a really big tongue. It's disgusting.

[Bjornsdotter]

45. My Mom

...used to boil it and then peel the skin off, :puke: slice it thin and we would have it on sandwiches.

I feel your pain :toast:

[greatauntoftriplets]

47. She had to peel the skin off as well?????

:scared:

I guess I missed that part. She knew that I was wise (and I was only about 8 at the time) and never made it again without making something different for me.

:cheers: to our shared pain!!

[Bjornsdotter]

50. Yep

...guess this is where I should mention coming home, smelling urine, finding kidneys soaking and Mom telling me we were having creamed kidneys for dinner. :puke:

Those were the nights I would run down the block and eat at my Grandmother's.

:toast:

[greatauntoftriplets]

52. My mother had the good sense never to make kidneys.

During WWII, my father crossed to England on some English ship where they cooked kidneys. He always said that the place always smelled like urine (ummm, he didn't quite use that word) when they cooked them. He also refused to eat them. It would not have been a pretty scene if my mother had ever foisted kidneys on us. Also, she hated liver.

:toast:

[Bjornsdotter]

53. Oh no we had the trifecta

...my parents liked liver too. Tongue, kidneys, and liver. My Dad loved fried cod liver....so besides being hit with the gross American food, I also got slapped in the head with the gross Swedish food.

:toast:

[greatauntoftriplets]

54. You poor thing.....

My father only ate liver in restaurants. And though they had friends who liked sweetbreads in restaurants (extremely gross!), my parents never did.

:toast:

[LadyAziz]

56. My dad did the same thing,

we were so stupid, we didn't ask questions. We ate it all up and after the meal he told us it was cow tongue. :puke:

Never again:grr:

[applegrove]

23. Scalloped Tomatoes. Yuck!

[ruiner4u]

30. tomatoes with cheese?

[applegrove]

34. Tomatoes with bread!!!!!!!!

[OzarkDem]

36. I remember it

but my mom had another name for it, stewed tomatoes, I think. It was gross. Who ever came up with that combination?

[Blue Diadem]

155. Yep, stewed tomatoes. Many recipes with bread still out there.

My DH likes his with bread cubes in it. I just make it, don't eat it myself.

I think the bread was added to soak up and thicken the juices since I've read some recipes that call for cracker crumbs or even flour. Although I can't help but wonder if it was an inexpensive way back during the depression to stretch another serving or two out of a dish. My Mom and Grandma made them with bread too. Now that I think about it, it's no wonder I don't like stewed tomatoes.

[Shakespeare]

24. Cottage cheese.

I'm still so traumatized that I can't even watch somebody else eat the stuff. :shudder:

[Mutley]

26. Lentil soup and lima beans

:puke:

Still ain't gonna eat it. Send me to bed or somethin'.

[MysticalChicken]

27. I'm not big on any sort of legume

...except peanuts. I can go through a jar of peanut butter (smooth only, I hate chunky because the little peanut chunks get stuck in my teeth) in about three days.

[MissMillie]

28. creamed chipped beef

some sort of packaged thin-sliced beef, in a white sauce. Served over toast it was "shit on a shingle"... over potatoes is just looked like white blob w/ reddish sliced meat in it.

[SacredCow]

37. Dried beef in a bottle.....

The beef, itself is kind of like jerky except much saltier. We used to eat it by itself.

I've heard of people making it into creamed chipped beef, but never saw it firsthand. Sounds nasty, though.

[fishwax]

76. still one of the nightmare meals I remember as a kid

I remember very vividly my brother and I seated at the table until very late in the evening because our dad decreed that we couldn't leave the table until we cleaned our plate.

If only we had a dog to help us out of the situation. :puke:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

120. SOS? One of my favorite breakfast foods.

Calling it a "white sauce" is a little generous. I think it was just flour and old grease drippings.

mmmmm

[Blue_In_AK]

184. Oh, yes...

I mentioned that one below before I saw your post. Was this some kind of "child of the Depression" food? It was really quite horrible.

[Arugula Latte]

188. We had chipped beef on toast, too. My mom put peas in it.

I actually liked it for a time...What the hell was I thinking?

[Capn Sunshine]

191. Oh Yeah!

The first thing I thought of when I saw the title of the thread

[unsavedtrash]

33. boiled neck bones

I hate those things.

[Art_from_Ark]

38. Not my parents, but at a friend's house

there was always hominy in the skillet in a half-inch of cold lard, with canned beans and canned spinach mixed in for good measure.

[Blue_In_AK]

185. There is no more vile food than canned spinach.

:puke:

[MysticalChicken]

193. It's weird...

I loathe canned spinach, but raw, fresh spinach is my favorite vegetable.

[Pacifist Patriot]

39. brussel sprouts. I know you're looking for concoctions, but...

that was the first thing that popped into my head. Who the hell ever thought those were something edible????

[hedgehog]

178. How dare you dis

the Muppet Cabbage!

[Ahpook]

40. When i was younger?

I could almost eat the shit now that i am thinking about my health in my 30's. Almost..:)

Rye bread sandwich with banana, sardines and mayo. He (my pop) may have slathered on a healthy spoonful of mustard for topping.

My god, man, i would have to leave the room:)

[bicentennial_baby]

44. In the C&B group, we call that Childhood Culinary Terrorism

:D

[crim son]

46. I think it sounds good.

But I LOVE mushrooms. And chicken, and sour cream. My worst nightmare as a kid was fried liver and onions. It smelled so darned good and tasted so darned bad... such a disappointment, every time. Once my mother made a quiche and I found it vile. She was furious. Lastly, dear old Ma once served us rabbit. It tasted fine but then one of my sisters found the wrapper it came in. There was fighting at the Schonblom house that evening, I can tell you.

[fizzgig]

57. sounds like the only time mom fed us lamb

i can't tell you how hard i cried when i found out what i'd eaten

[Danger Mouse]

60. lamb is fucking DELICIOUS.

:evilgrin:

[fizzgig]

68. yes it is

but not when you're a little girl :cry:

[Danger Mouse]

69. mmm...this succulent young rack of lamb ain't half baaaaad.

:evilgrin:

[laylah]

70. I was just trying to give you

interesting issues to discuss with a shrink one day :P

[fizzgig]

72. you shouldn't complain

it's only one of two food nightmares i ever remember you giving me

the other being the pb, banana and mayo sandwich

i'm sorry mommy...but :puke:

i rave about your cooking to anyone who will listen :D

[laylah]

77. Your grandmother once

made her one, and only, deer roast. The thing was freakin' green and I swear it moved on the plate! :puke:

Ah, the infamous pb, bananna, mayo sandwich. My Gramma made 'em and we loved them. Only a "Brownie bite" and you were off the hook...weren't you? :scared:

Great thread, btw. Interesting what we remember as gross.

:hug:

[fizzgig]

79. brownie bite didn't cut it on that one

i think i choked down half the damn thing before you relented

:rofl:


:hug:

[laylah]

80. ...

:spank: baaaaaaaaaad mama! :rofl: :loveya:

[fizzgig]

83. ...

:rofl:

:loveya:

[MysticalChicken]

180. because I'm evil...

I love lamb, but every time I eat it (which actually isn't often), I recite this dialog in my head:

Lisa Simpson is about to eat a lamb chop. She imagines the chops rising off her plate and re-attaching themselves to an actual lamb, who says "Li-i-i-sa! I thought you lo-o-oved me! Lo-o-oved me-e-e!"

Lisa: I can't eat this! I can't eat a poor little lamb!

Homer: Lisa, get a hold of yourself. This is lamb--not a lamb.

Lisa: What's the difference between this lamb and the one that kissed me?

Bart: This one spent two hours in the broiler.

:evilgrin:

[qanda]

131. Sorry, posted in the wrong spot

[BlooInBloo]

48. Ham hocks & black-eyed peas. Ham & sweet potatoes (more the latter than the former)....

... anything with brusselsprouts accompanying.

Those are the Big Three that occur to me with 1 second's thought, so per psychology, they must be the most important to me. I've gotten over none of them.

Don't be misled though - I'm fine with pork in pretty much all of its plethora of manifestations. It's just those *specific* contexts listed that literally made me want to puke. I still won't eat them. They say kids won't starve themselves - maybe that's true, but they aren't justified in saying that until they tried ME on THOSE dishes on me-as-a-kid.


EDIT: Nowadays though, my diet isn't determined very much by "gross" - about the only 2 things that truly fall into that category for me are (1) chitlins, and (2) duck eggs (a la my Vietnamese gf's immigrant parents). And on the latter, I'm convinced that it's actually OBJECTIVELY disgusting, not merely my own personal taste. I say that, of course, subjectively. :)

[Zookeeper]

206. I'm not so crazy about ham hocks, but black eyed peas?

Once a week I make a pot of black eyed peas, garlic and collard or mustard greens cooked in chicken broth. Then I add cider vinegar and lots of hot sauce.

Easy, healthy, comfort food.

Sweet potatoes? Best saved for pie.

[QMPMom]

49. My bio-so-called-mother had 2 dishes that were absolutely

horrid.

1. Her meatloaf. It had brown sugar in it and then this ketchup and brown sugar mixture on top. I could barely choke it down. After I moved out on my own I called my Dad (bio-so-called-mother had died by then) and asked him in for supper. He asked, "What are you cooking?" When I replied, "Meatloaf." there was dead silence on the other end of the phone line. I quickly said, "It's not mom's recipe!" He replied, "I'll be there in 5 minutes!" My sister still uses this recipe and loves it. I still think it's disgusting.

2. Breaded tomatoes. She'd take a can of tomatoes and break them up a bit, add some sugar (again with the sugar) and bring it to the boil. She'd then tear up a few slices of white bread into it and let it soak up the tomato liquid. It was this disgusting, gooey and slimy mess that was horrible to look at and even more horrible tasting.

[Bjornsdotter]

51. Holy crap

...they both sound awful.

I would have :puke:

Cheers

[Arugula Latte]

115. I hated the tomatoes and sugar combo ...

When I was a kid, my mom made a homemade spaghetti sauce that was absolutely horrid (she raves about it). Okay, I understand that many cooks, even real Italian cooks, add a little sugar to balance out the tomato's acidity. But, this was just sugary sweet.

The first time I tasted bottled spaghetti sauce I was in heaven -- it was actually savory, like tomato sauce is supposed to be.

[txwhitedove]

55. Mashed turnips disguised as mashed potatoes.....

bleech!

[JVS]

92. oh dear

[Danger Mouse]

62. FUCKING FRIED LIVER IS THE GROSSEST SHIT ON THE PLANET.

whenever my parents would cook that garbage the entire HOUSE would fill with its awful stench. eating it wasn't even a consideration. i couldn't even get close enough to put that shit in my mouth.
:puke:

[jgraz]

71. I think I see your problem here: You're not supposed to be fucking it

But eating it? You bet. :9 :9 :9



Damn, now I'm hungry.

[Danger Mouse]

81. yeah. that looks like something my dog would barf up.

i'm sorry, i could never get past the smell. :puke:

[jgraz]

84. Overcooked liver is nasty

The first time I had a medium rare calf's liver it was a revelation. It's too bad so many people got turned off by bad liver when they were kids.

[Danger Mouse]

86. i find that a sufficiently bad experience with a type of food will turn me off to it forever.

i used to love triscuit crackers, but after an incident in which i became sick after my (now ex) girlfriend drugged me and i had eaten some triscuits...don't ask...i could never eat them after that...

[jgraz]

87. The only food like that for me is Miracle Whip

Nastiest shit on the planet :puke:

[Arugula Latte]

116. Have you ever read "Portnoy's Complaint" by Phillip Roth?

Liver fucking is hugely important to the character development. :)

[jgraz]

135. I'm beginning to see why Portnoy was complaining

[MysticalChicken]

143. ROTFL

[MysticalChicken]

194. What the hell are those yellow things? Pineapple?

:shrug:

[Bake]

127. My old man tried to con me by calling it "country fried steak."

I knew the difference. I've never eaten liver since then. And that's been 40+ years.

Bake

[UncleSepp]

64. Squash. Blue and gray squash.

My mom, bless her heart, couldn't get past the idea that the glaze on a cast iron pan was "dirt". She'd put the cast iron pan in the dishwasher every time, then use the unseasoned pan to cook yellow squash with red onions. Add a little vinegar, and the chemical reaction turned the squash lovely shades of blue and gray. Oh, and it tasted like the pan it was cooked in.

[Kutjara]

65. My mother was, without a doubt, the world's worst cook.

She tried awfully hard, but just seemed to lack that indefinable quality that separates the edible from the risible. She was also mortally afraid of food poisoning, so everything was charred, boiled and roasted to the edge of oblivion. Until I was 18, I thought vegetables were a sort of greenish soup and that meat was black. Things didn't get any better at dessert: there's only so much you can do with white-label canned fruit and generic pie crust, and none of it is good. Yet, somehow, my dear mom could surpass even these unpromising ingredients to produce something so repellant, so indefinably awful that it was almost a work of art.

The plus side of all this is that I learned to cook pretty early in life.

[UncleSepp]

66. LOLOLOL Same story with me and my sister!

Right down to the germ-o-phobia that resulted in meat largely indistinguishable from the charcoal it might've been cooked on. Poor Mom. She tried her best, but she just didn't know. That, and she had to also cook according to my dad's low salt, low fat diet. Imagine whatever you had, without salt or butter.

My sister, my mom, and I can all laugh about it now. My mom says she doesn't know how she got two good cooks, when nobody in our family has been able to cook worth a crap for generations. We both tell her it was survival.

[Mad_Dem_X]

125. My mother hated to cook - and it showed

Practically eveything she made was bland, overcooked, or both. Unfortunaely, I seemed to have inherited her "talent," which is why my husband does most of the cooking at our house.

[mentalsolstice]

67. Not really. My mom & I have a lot of issues, but her cooking...

...ain't it, she's a great cook. And over the past couple of months, we've (somewhat) discussed the "issues", which are really outside of us, yet, they affect us profoundly. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Perhaps over a good meal...we'll get on the same page...

[Whoa_Nelly]

73. Cow's Tongue!!!!!!!!

My mom tried to create a special presentation. Served on a silver platter with sprigs of parsely and potatoes placed strategically around it, but it still looked like a giant tongue :puke:

[laylah]

78. LOL! We had ours chilled

thinly sliced and placed on freshly baked bread, topped off with mustard. Quite good, actually. :rofl: Much better than it looked, yes.

[Spirochete]

74. Oxtail soup

Lentil roast, mutton, and the ever popular (gag) beef liver.

[Blue-Jay]

75. Stuff made of meat.

Eeeeewwww! Yucky!

[EstimatedProphet]

153. EWWWW!!! GAG!!!!

[Akoto]

82. I really can't think of anything, to be honest.

I have always been a very simple eater, and my mother's always been a very simple cook. Sort of a happy coincidence that most of her cuisine worked out in my favor. :)

My grandmother was entirely another story. She lived in the Depression and never quite got past it in her mind. She'd keep cheese to the point of mold and then just trim it, had candy that was always stale, etc. My mother was always telling me to watch what I eat at her house. Grandma was constantly landing my grandfather with stomach problems. Heh.

[Danger Mouse]

85. incidentally, anyone ever hear of souse loaf?

otherwise known as head cheese, i would often see this for sale in baltimore supermarkets, but would always stay far, far away... :puke:

[Heidi]

89. Hominy.

:puke: :scared:

[Art_from_Ark]

97. If you think that's gross,

check out post #38 :puke::puke::puke:

[Heidi]

98. Oh, man. That's triple gross.

:scared:

The only thing that ever came close to the hideous nature of hominy was the Thanksgiving lunch in the school cafeteria. Remember sliced, canned cranberry sauce and warm whole milk? That has _got_ to be the worst combination ever. :puke:

[Art_from_Ark]

99. That's why my mom always sent me to school

with a sack lunch.

[Rob H.]

108. Same here

I always hated it--the texture combined with the horrible flavor? :puke:

Oh, and lima beans, too. Blurgh.

[Zookeeper]

205. My mom made it for herself, but was kind enough not to...

force it on me.

[lligrd]

90. Frozen Fish Sticks Every Friggen Friday

Yuck!

[Bzzzz]

100. Mush and

Hominy. yuk...yuk...yuk:puke:

[annonymous]

102. Creamed chicken over biscuits, liver and onions, meatloaf

It consisted of leftover chicken with a white sauce served over Bisquik biscuits. My mother also served liver and onions because my father liked it but no one else did. Another culinary "masterpiece" of my Mom's was overcooked meatloaf. It was so dry, catsup consumption in my family's house went up dramatically on meatloaf night. My mother was a lousy cook but a very good baker. My mother taught me how to cook when I was 10 because she was tired of hearing me complain.

[IndianaJones]

103. kimchi. nt.

[Bzzzz]

136. I LOVE Kimchi...

my husband hates the smell and won't even begin to try and taste it. A Korean friend that I met when my ex was in the Army at Ft. Knox got me hooked. Sunni made the most magnificent Kimchi I've ever eaten. Her Bulgogi was every bit as good, also.

[IndianaJones]

139. try being a kid and your mom smelling up the whole neighborhood...

making it from scratch outside. I hated the Korean food.

[EstimatedProphet]

104. Pinto beans with pancake syrup

[laylah]

152. ...

:wow: Now there's something I have never heard of!

[Wapsie B]

105. Fried Eggplant.

Rolled in cracker crumbs and fried in grease. The smell of it cooking literally makes me want to :puke:

Hey, what a great weight-loss aid!

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

112. Ding ding !

I think we have a winner.

[Wapsie B]

118. I swear I'd look like Mick Jagger

if I had to smell that stuff everyday.

[GirlinContempt]

109. Nothing. My parents were amazing about stuff like that. THEIR parents, however

made things like sausage casserole, pork chop casserole, fried spam sandwiches, porcupines, and all other manner of ickyness

[Arugula Latte]

110. "Soup Casserole"

It had ground beef x( (right there, that's a tip-off a food is going to be disgusting, in my opinion) and a few kinds of Campbell's soups like cream of mushroom, maybe cream of celery. There were some noodles in there, as I recall, so maybe mom threw in some chiken noodle soup too.

I liked it back then. The '70s were a strange time, from a culinary standpoint.

[1gobluedem]

113. My mother would combine the last bits in all the boxes of cereal

Into one box and make us eat it for breakfast. She called it 'mystery cereal.' I hated it.

She also once gave me the option of trying creamed hominy grits or going to bed. I said "Good night."

[malta blue]

119. WOW I am reading through this thread and thumping my

chest that my parents NEVER gave me anything even remotely close to what you all are talking about.

Holy S**T - you all were some unlucky folks....

:puke:
:puke:

[ceile]

121. Nothing comes to mind.

My mom and both grandmothers were great cooks. There were some things that I didn't eat, such as fried okra and cooked carrots, but that was just being a kid. Actually, I still can't eat cook carrots. Tastes like vomit.

[Arugula Latte]

140. Raw carrots are good ... Why cook 'em?

Maybe just a light steaming to make them a little softer ...

[ceile]

146. I don't.

I can only eat them raw. But it's hard to say "no" when eating at someone else's house.

[Arugula Latte]

151. I know. I guess I meant the question in more of a rhetorical way ...

:)

[KiraBS]

173. Actually.. recently my mother made a beef casserole with

large chucks of carrots, instead of one carrot sliced into disc's. All I could taste was carrot and I loathe carrots, I can't eat anything that tastes of carrots. I makes my stomach heave. I don't like them raw either.
If a casserole has one sliced carrot is should absorb the other flavours, if it is made well.
My mother rarely goes wrong but that time she did and this was a few months ago

[johnnie]

122. I can't think of any really

When I was just a kid we we pretty poor so we basically ate beans and weenies, city chicken (it was cheap back then) and ground beef and noodles. The only thing I can think of that I wasn't a fan of was my mom's "chili". It was chili with all the fixin's except for the chili powder :shrug: It was pretty bland.

I really do miss that city chicken though.

[tigereye]

124. liver cooked until it was like shoe leather

ugh.

[noonwitch]

126. Pork chops cooked in cream of mushroom soup

On the other hand, my grandma used to chop up potatoes and deep fry them as a side dish for lunch, because a sandwich, apple, and cookie just isn't enough to fill up a young person. No wonder why my uncle weighed 200 lbs when he was 12.

[MysticalChicken]

144. I had almost the same

only it was cream of celery soup. Again with the cream of celery. I think my mom bought stock in cream of celery soup. It made me hate pork chops. And when there wasn't any soup, she would fry them to a delectable, leathery toughness. I haven't had a pork chop in over two years and I'm perfectly happy about it.

[QMPMom]

162. Why did our parents think that they had to

cook pork chops until they resembled shoe leather?

I had avoided cooking them for years because of the dry and jerky-tough stuff they used to cook. It really didn't taste bad, but they were just so damn dry!

Recently I bought a whole, boneless pork loin and cut it into three parts and sliced one part into 1 inch thick chops. I lightly seasoned them and threw them in a hot pan with a touch of olive oil and 8 minutes later we had succulent and juicy chops. If my parents got hold of that meat, it would have cooked for half an hour and been tough as leather.

[MysticalChicken]

179. I think it stems from...

in the olden days you had to cook pork chops thoroughly to kill any parasites in them.

The problem was, a lot of people cooked them too thoroughly.

[maddezmom]

128. chicken liver in mustard sauce

but now that I think about it, was better than the calves liver with onions.:puke:

[trackfan]

129. Tripe

I wasn't actually required to eat it, but I had to endure the stench of it cooking.

Note: I'm not talking about small pieces of tripe as in Pepper Pot Soup or Menudo - that's pretty good; I'm referring to a big giant slab of honeycombed gut, boiled for hours in a big pot, then served with spaghetti sauce.

[qanda]

132. Chitterlings-- I don't see how anyone can get beyond the smell

Lima beans-- gag me now!

[BronxBoy]

198. You have too consume

large amounts of alcohol as they are cooking


But they are oh so good. (If the person knows what they are doing)

[MonkeyFunk]

133. oh, lots of stuff...

chipped beef on toast, pigs feet, pickled eggs, spam sandwiches, etc. etc.

[BreweryYardRat]

134. Horrible, god-awful, vegetable stew with no salt or spices. But it DID have...

OKRA.

No jury that tasted it would have convicted me. *kidding*

[azmouse]

137. Spaghetti soup

I can't believe I ate this stuff. My dad would cook a pound of hamburger in water and then add a pound of spaghetti, some frozen corn, and ketchup.

[Ms_Dem_Meanor]

138. Brussel Sprouts, Peas, and Liver & Onions.

x( x( x(

[midlife_mo_Jo]

142. debris

That's brains, liver, and anything else that can be salvaged from a cow.

Pronounced "day - bree" by cajuns. They'll eat anything that doesn't eat them, first. Frogs, alligators, snakes.

[MysticalChicken]

145. I almost forgot...

I never ate any of these myself, but my dad used to make bacon-wrapped oysters. Even if I liked oysters (I hate all shellfish and most other seafood), I wouldn't have eaten any of those little bastards anyway, since they smelled EXACTLY like feet. Feet that have been running the Boston Marathon every single day for ten years and have never once gotten washed.

[zanne]

148. We didn't have alot of money...

So my mother would come up with some interesting meal ideas. My favorite was always spaghetti with Campbell's tomato soup sauce. To this day, it makes my mouth water.

[Bombero1956]

156. pig ears

Puerto Ricans eat almost every part of the pig including the ears. They eat pig knuckles and sausages made with the pigs blood.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

157. Whatever we had

was cooked to absolute death. Veggies were mush and I think I was in my teens before I realized you could get a steak that wasn't the color and consistancy of a pair of loafers.

[AwakeAtLast]

161. Totally with you on the steak

I now eat mine Medium Rare, thank you very much.

Now that my parents have gone to steak restaurants with my husband and me (he orders his RARE) they are ordering their steaks (gasp) Medium!

I almost lost teeth trying to chew those things growing up, and they came off our own farm. When I think of the wasted grass fed, free range steak - AAARRGGHHH! :banghead:

[msanthrope]

158. Chicken Gizzards.

Chicken Gizzards, fried in a pan, and served with spaghetti. Burnt spaghetti.

Chili made with paprika (Mom had run out of chili powder.)

Liverwurst and onion sandwiches.

Tuna-noodle casserole made with fried Chinese noodles.

Block o'Flounder---Flounder filets, frozen into a block and sold that way. My mother would slighty defrost them, then bake them in a pan with some crushed Saltines.

Liver---sliced and dredged in Cream of Wheat, then fried and served over burnt onions and white potatoes from a can.

Pork Chops with Cream of Mushroom Soup--just pour can of soup over pork chops in pan. Bake until they curl.

I could go on and on.....

[Arugula Latte]

163. I think maybe Mom was secretly trying to kill you ...

a strange form of Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy

:hide:

[msanthrope]

164. I don't know--she ate that crap, too.....

To this day, when we get together for family dinners, my brother and I cook.

Christ--last Thanksgiving she made 'coleslaw.' It had friggin' uncooked Ramen noodles in it.

She made 'nachos' for my brother and I while we were watching football the next day.....using Campbell's Nacho Cheese Soup. It was horrific....

[Kali]

196. small town newspaper insert recipes - I recognize them

my postmistress fobbed the coleslaw/ramen noodle recipe off on me - you are supposed to sprinkle the flavor packet on there too.:puke: :puke: :puke:

[BronxBoy]

199. Yeah

I also think she's trying to kill you

LOL

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

160. Cream Cheese And Fucking Jelly.

To this day; I shudder.

[MysticalChicken]

181. you can give me all your cream cheese and jelly.

I love it.

[gemdem]

166. Canned mackerel or salmon

turned into patties during Lent. It made me appreciate tuna casserole. But so help me God -- mackerel patties were awful! I could manage to get the salmon patties down, but the mackerel was something else. More bones than meat in those patties. Ugh!

[Evoman]

167. HOLY FUCK. I just don't get it. Everybody here (including me) has eaten some nasty shit...

BUT WHY? It is REALLY not that hard to cook some palatable. I learned to cook in like a month....you can make anything if you have a recipe. After a couple of times, you learn how to make it and you don't even need the recipe anymore.

In fact, within 6 months after I started cooking for myself, I was making my OWN recipes. Spaghetti, White Wine chicken, Shrimp Stir fries....all delicious.

For the life of me, I can't understand how someone can be a bad cook. Its not fucking rocket science.

[Gonzo Gardener]

168. Beef and Vegetable Stew with S'lima Beans and Mustard on top

no description needed

:puke:

[FooFootheSnoo]

169. my mom's homemade macaroni and cheese

She used the old block style velveeta for the sauce which turned out like glue. It was a sticky pasty overcooked mess. She used to serve it with polish sausage, sauerkraut and canned green beans. We begged and begged for kraft mac'n cheese. She insisted hers tasted better and was more economical. She also used to give us bologna sandwiches with ketchup for lunch. We had six kids, so I guess she was trying to stretch a dollar. Overall she was a decent cook,but the macaroni and cheese was just awful.

[DarkTirade]

170. There are plenty I can think of... but none that have real names.

When I was younger my mom went on a health food kick... to this day I can't eat tofu anymore. I know in my head that it CAN be good. But all of my experience says otherwise.

And her stir-fry sucked too. She just threw the veggies and whatnot together and doused them in soy sauce. Cheap soy sauce. Way too much cheap soy sauce.

What's worse was when she made a tofu stir-fry...

[KiraBS]

171. Liver and bacon....

My mother is a fantastic cook but I can not stand liver even if she cooks it. I can't stand any offal.

She learnt to cook well because she grew up in Post WW2 austerity and had very bad food at home because my Gran is a terrible cook or even worse food at boarding school. And they still had sugar rationing, so my mother made sure she could cook well. She learnt the difference because when she was home from school, her father unsuprisingly took them out to eat a fair bit.

[Der Blaue Engel]

197. OMG...I thought I was the only one

I've tried to tell people about this liver and bacon thing for years and they all shake their heads in wonderment. Was the bacon wrapped around the liver so that the liver was pinkish underneath and the bacon rubbery from contact with the liver?

Holy :puke:

And eating what was put in front of you was mandatory in my house, so I had to sit at the table until I'd finished every last bite. I ate it one millimeter at a time to avoid gagging, so I'd sometimes sit at the dinner table for an hour or more nibbling off tiny, nasty bites.

[NewWaveChick1981]

174. Liver and onions....

:puke: My mother and father are both good cooks, so we didn't have to suffer through much. However, liver and onions made me want to puke. :puke: I'd try most things pretty readily back then, but damn....:yoiks: The texture alone was barf-inducing.

My maternal grandmother was the world's worst cook. She thought she was a great cook, and nobody ever had the heart to tell her. She used bacon grease in pecan pies, and she made these pies roaring drunk many times. Let me tell ya, that was some vile mess...:puke: She also made homemade wine, and it was usually so sugary it was like thick syrup. Mom took a sip one time to be polite, and she almost gagged it back up involuntarily. Granny also loved to fix everything in the microwave...unfortunately, the microwave oven she used she got in 1971, and it did not have an automatic shutoff when you opened the door. Yep, the microwaves were still cooking whatever was nearby when the door was open. :yoiks: She didn't understand that you can't put aluminum foil or other metal in the microwave, so she almost had a couple of fires. (We tried telling her, but she always got angry if we did.) Also, microwaving canned biscuits is not a good idea, especially if you put them in for fifteen minutes. :yoiks:

[MilesColtrane]

175. Y'all have pretty much covered all of them.

Hot tuna noodle casserole
Liver and onions
Chipped beef on toast, aka shit on a shingle
Runny scrambled eggs for breakfast
Fried salmon croquette using cat food-grade canned salmon

And, I'll add deviled ham on white bread sandwiches



:puke:

AAaammmffuellllll!!!!!!!

[NewWaveChick1981]

176. Damn, those are all gross....especially runny scrambled eggs.

:puke: I like my eggs hard scrambled with NO runniness. One of my aunts got mad one time when my sister and I fixed breakfast one time because she said we "burned" the eggs. :eyes: Sis and I always called them "gushy eggs". :puke:

[MilesColtrane]

177. My brother and I were the only kids in the neighborhood who dreaded...

...Christmas mornings, because that meant Mom cooking runny scrambled eggs for breakfast.

There was no opening presents until we polished off an entire plate of undercooked chicken foetuses.

:puke:

Buuuuuiiiiikkkk!!!

[Blue_In_AK]

187. I don't like that runny food either.

My husband likes his pancakes cooked so lightly that the dough oozes out when you cut into them. Gag....... I just refuse to cook them like that.

[PADemD]

182. Creamed Chipped Beef

I wouldn't eat it because it looked like "throwup." Also canned peas. I never knew that peas tasted so good until I ate them raw from a salad bar.

[Blue_In_AK]

183. Creamed dried beef on toast.

Gack...!!!

[Kali]

186. fried boloney, wax beans

bacon fat that was not crispy

Those are the things I have a memory of "sitting until finished" :puke:

I could eat the wax beans and bacon fat now (especially together :9 ), but fried boloney? I don't THINK so. :puke: :puke: :puke:

[Arugula Latte]

190. Ew. Wax beans. Yuck. I still hate those things.

Three bean salad? Way overrated.

My parents were big on canned vegetables. My dad preferred them to fresh, for some bizarre reason. The worst -- sickeningly sweet canned beets. To this day, beets are the one vegetable (well, besides wax beans) that I can't stand. And maybe chard. Other than that, bring on the fresh veggies. :9

[bluedigger]

195. A few of my least favorite things

Beets - but hey, at least they turn everything else on the plate pink.
Squash - love that "texture".
Liver - has been thoroughly covered upthread.
Tripe - for some reason every summer at the lake, this was the favorite dish.

But my all-time gross-out was my grandfather's favorite - egg salad sandwiches. As soon as the smell hit me I had to leave the room, and I didn't try eggs of any kind until I went to college - now I like 'em prepared most any way - but no egg salad, thank you very much!

[MysticalChicken]

201. Egg salad makes me retch

When I was in first grade I distinctly remember having an egg salad sandwich nearly every day, because I actually liked them back then. My mom insists she never made them for me, but somebody must have, since I remember eating the damn things, and I don't think my dad ever prepared my lunches. Anyway, it wasn't long before I got sick of them, and now I loathe them, haven't had one in over twenty-two years, and will never, ever, ever, ever eat one again as long as I live.

[RetroLounge]

202. In the Army they call it Shit on a Shingle

Chipped beef on toast with some sort of cream of mushroom or something...

Just nasty...

RL

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

204. sweetbreads wrapped in bacon

gross but delicious.

[Zookeeper]

208. Corned beef for St. Patrick's Day...

EWWWW!

[allalone]

209. salmon patties

I used to try to eat them with only ny teeth and not involve my tongue.

[Felix Mala]

210. Smelts with bones and fins.