What was the worst food your family ate?

[MonkeyFunk]

My grandma used to always have a jar of pickled pig's feet in the fridge. She loved 'em.

She also preferred powdered milk to the real stuff.

[Burma Jones]

1. Salmon Patties, Olive Loaf and cut rate Bologna

I think that's the worst food I remember from my childhood. That, and not having real butter in the house until I was 17 years old. And non-dairy creamer, I didn't taste half and half until I went to college.

[MonkeyFunk]

3. yeah... same here.

margarine was the only thing we ever had.

[MassLiberal]

14. I looooved olive loaf

Really.

[puerco-bellies]

35. Salmon patties and olive loaf here too!

I liked salmon loaf, but the olive loaf, yikes!! The worst was canned cornedbeef hash. For some reason my dad liked it.

[driver8]

76. Salmon Patties rule!!

My grandmother made the best salmon patties...I used to beg her to make them for me.

I've never had olive loaf, so I can't comment on that.

[MassLiberal]

152. olive loaf

is like baloney with sliced green olives and pimientos embedded in it. I wasn't much for olives by themselves when I was a kid, but I did love olive loaf. :thumbsup:

[grasswire]

150. people beg me to make salmon patties

funny, eh? Grandma made them and everyone still wants them.

[Bzzzz]

197. Mush...

:puke:

[Texasgal]

2. FRUITCAKE

E'uff said! :puke:

[MonkeyFunk]

5. ew...

yeah, my grandma loved fruitcake, too. Had those super-hard candied cherries in it. Uck.

[Spirochete]

4. Mutton

Fortunately, we didn't have it too often - it made me throw up, like liver did.

[MonkeyFunk]

6. I like liver...

my mom hated it, so we never had it as kids. But when I was an adult, I tried it and liked it just fine.

[susanna]

23. LOL. Liver is a point of contention with me and mine.

I absolutely LOVE it, when it's prepared correctly. Hint: if it is gray and hard, it is not edible. Funny, though, I hate to cook it (and I am a cook's cook). To me, it stinks to high heaven. So there is a nice, happy restaurant near me where the family can go, I can order the liver, and they can leave me alone. Bliss.

[MonkeyFunk]

25. yeah

I've never tried to cook it myself. But when I go out and it's on the menu, I'll order it, much to the horror of my dining companions.

But it's hard to find liver on any menu nowadays.

[susanna]

29. That is interesting.

In Detroit, it is on most diner-type restaurant menus. That is not to say they all do it justice. I can count, out of five local restaurants, TWO that make it the "right" way (so says me). The other three need to just weed it off the menu. ;-)

[T_i_B]

119. I have to agree

I love eating liver, but it's not something that I cook too often as it stinks the house out!

[XemaSab]

166. Where did you get mutton?

That shit's hard to hook up. :P

[Spirochete]

175. This was over 40 years ago

I don't know where it was from; it was wrapped up in white butcher paper, said "sheep" on it. There was a quantity of it in the freezer.

[Nicole]

7. Beans & Weinies.

:puke:

[AwakeAtLast]

Braunschweiger

:puke:

My Mom liked it a lot.

:puke:

[barb162]

15. What the heck is that?

Never heard of it

[sasquatch]

19. It's a German cracker spread, I like it.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

22. It's liver sausage.......

And I like that liver product.......

:hi:

[barb162]

32. Hey there, Peggy!!!!

:hi:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

37. Back atcha, my dear barb!

:hi:

[Dervill Crow]

157. It's made of LIVER?

I like braunschweiger. Oh my gawrsh, I cannot believe I have willingly eaten liver.

My dear departed mom is probably laughing her head off at me, right this minute.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[MissMillie]

214. I do too

on a cracker w/ cheese

very yummy

[TOhioLiberal]

46. you ain't missing anything...

...Bransweiger looks and smells like canned dog food. DH loves that shit, with ketchup on it. :puke:

[susanna]

62. Ketchup is the culprit; THAT is an abomination.

Braunschweiger, plain, on cracker. That is the ONLY way to eat it.

I'm just kidding, by the by. I think it's funny we attach so many "musts" to food. ;-)

[susanna]

27. I am bummed in my current situation.

I like liver pate-ish sausages; the rest of my family, alas, does not. I have attempted to freeze the remaining tube of Braunschweiger with mixed results.

Your mother and I would have been good friends. :-)

[TheCentepedeShoes]

42. Delete, wrong place

[Rabrrrrrr]

47. How can you not like that? One of my favorites since I was a small child.

Holy God of all Things, I love Braunschweiger and all liverwursts and all liver pates - chicken liver, calves liver, pork liver, goose liver...

YES!!!!!!!

[MonkeyFunk]

51. mmmm....

I love liverwurst. I don't live in a place that sells it anywhere now. But good liverwurst on rye with mustard - heaven.

[susanna]

63. You know, we ARE outcasts.

The vast majority of the world hates liver, because they were served gray disks on a platter one day that tarnished this amazing foodstuff for llfe in their minds. We may have been the lucky ones who were served the creme de la creme of the liver genre. Or so I like to think, LOL.

[Rabrrrrrr]

64. My mom loved liver, and made it really well.

My dad and sister hated it, though. So whenever Mom was in a liver mood, we got it and she made something else for dad and sister. :-)

Sometimes we'd to go KFC and get a big container of their chicken livers, back when they sold them - good.... good, good stuff, those.

I could eat liver every day and never get sick of it, though clearly I would get very sick *from* it. Which is so sad... why is the really delicious stuff so bad for us? Why can't we have bacon wrapped liver for every meal? :grr:

[susanna]

68. You know, I think it's the food police.

Cholesterol is BAD! Fat is BAD! You will die if you ingest one gram of the vile substance! Bow down, losers, and worship low-fat!

The funny thing is, my cholesterol hovers in the 170 to 180-ish range. My doc is forever praising me, because I MUST BE using margarine and watching my saturated fat intake. My response pisses him off: "what are you talking about, Doc? I have used butter since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and I eat liver as often as humanly possible. I do love avocados, though."

I will admit that he thinks I'm joking, but I truly am not.

My personal pet-peeve, food-wise, is processed crap masquerading as nutrition. But that is another story for another day. ;-)

on edit: BAD smiley

[Control-Z]

180. Yum, Rumaki

I'm with you & susanna. Pate, Liverwurst, Braunschweiger... anything liver is great.

[smtpgirl]

52. you mean liverwurst?

it's the same thing

[NewWaveChick1981]

137. Both of my parents love braunschweiger.

:puke: It stinks up the house and is just gross. :yoiks: I mean, it's liver cracker spread. :puke:

[Critters2]

146. Braunschweiger is the one and only meat I really miss

I can't imagine there will ever be Boca Braunschweiger, but a girl can dream.

[KitchenWitch]

8. I grew up drinking powdered milk - YUK!

x(

[unsavedtrash]

21. me too

Nasty Nasty stuff

[susanna]

36. I feel for you, KitchenWitch.

I endured the powdered milk thing for a short time as a kid, but it just tasted so AWFUL to us kids that mom/dad cut back elsewhere and bought real milk, else we wouldn't drink it. The power of child unions - unite! LOL.

Luckily, as an adult, I have an organic dairy near my home. I've gone back to the tried and true, and I am in heaven. (Their ice cream should be a weapon, it's so good.)

[gemdem]

69. Amen -- especially the lumps if it were made same day

If made the night before when it could get good and cold and the lumps could dissolve it was passable over cereal. Thank God my grandfather would bring us milk over (we were poor, but didn't realize until as adults we looked back and saw better what Dad and Mom did to scrape by) so that we could have milk to drink.

[MorningGlow]

9. Meatloaf

with tomato sauce on top and a big ol' hard-boiled egg hiding in the middle like some malevolent prize in plum pudding. There was nothin' like slicing into the middle of the loaf and seeing that yellow eye staring at you.

:puke:

Must've been an Italian-American thing--especially the sauce where gravy should be (and nothing nastier than tomato sauce creeping into your mashed potatoes--instant, of course). I would have emptied my piggy bank for some NORMAL eggless meatloaf with all-American brown gravy.

Funny thing is, my mother DENIES ever making this. She's trying to gaslight me, I swear. Either that or she caught enough crap from the family that she's blocked the memory. But I REMEMBER--and the memory of a traumatized kid lasts forever.

[Lumily]

82. Did we grow up in the same house?

That sounds just like my mother's meatloaf, and boy, did I hate that stuff.

[MorningGlow]

92. OMG someone else was subjcted to this stuff?

I sure HOPE we grew up in the same house, because if we didn't, that means the evil egg--sauce-meatloaf concoction was more pervasive than I thought! :scared: You have my deepest sympathies!

[Nikia]

10. Liver

I was glad when my mother stopped serving it because she heard that it was bad to eat because it was high in cholesterol.
She liked chicken gizzards, but luckily never made them at home. One of the local restaurants served them and she got them there,

[MonkeyFunk]

13. lol

gizzards were another favorite from my grandma. At thanksgiving, she would gleefully eat the gizzard and neck while the rest of us ate the real meat.

[shanti]

207. lol

my grampa like the gizzards too, especially at thanksgiving. organ meats - yech.

[MassLiberal]

16. yep, liver

pretty much the only food I hate.

[u4ic]

11. Headcheese

or kasha (roasted buckwheat groats). The smell of the latter is still infused in my sinuses. It literally made me nauseous when my mother would cook them. Ugh. :puke:

[bleedingheart]

103. My mom makes homemade Headcheese...

and she goes around delivering it to all the people who like it.

[u4ic]

132. Does that include

her family? ;)


Actually, that's rather kind of her. Are most of them older folk? Just my own observation, that people of a certain generation tend to like it, but the next (and those after) rarely find it appealing.

[bleedingheart]

135. Mostly old folks (her generation or a bit younger) however my brother

and sister love it.

Of all the gross things I have eaten, it is not as repugnant as some.

I eat it with a lot of hot sauce.

I bet one day when I am an old lady...I will end up wanting to eat it...hahaha

I have helped her make it and it isn't really hard. If anything a lot of these "gross" foods are the foods of the poor. Immigrants from Europe were used to making something from nothing and they like the American Indians didn't like to waste anything. Headcheese is one of those foods, nothing is wasted. I have to drive my mom to Pittsburgh for her to get her pigs feet and pigs ears. Let me tell you...there are still folks out there that love this stuff because one day we went and they were already out of pigs feet. I thought mom would cry.

[u4ic]

136. I don't think I'll ever get to that point

when I'm older. :silly:

I don't remember how my mother made it...I wasn't particularly interested; but my grandmothers would have made it such as your mother did. The older generation in my family love it; the younger - not so much.


And yes, there are still many who like it - our grocery stores carry it in the deli. This city has a huge population of Eastern European (primarily Ukrainian) descent.

[TommyO]

124. I'll agree with you on headcheese, but leave my Kasha alone

especially when served with plenty of butter and onions!

[u4ic]

133. More for you, then!

:hi:

[TommyO]

142. I don't have it often, but really do enjoy it.

I remember my grandmother making it both as a casserole (which is how I make it), as well as making stuffed cabbage with it - YUM!

[u4ic]

160. Yes, I remember it both those ways

and also buckwheat pierohi.


I use buckwheat flour quite a bit, especially for pancakes, but on its own...I'm not a fan.

[TommyO]

177. I won't eat anything but buckwheat pancakes

They're much tastier than their white flour stablemates.

[u4ic]

187. I'm gluten free now

so I don't do the white flour (or even white rice flour - bland!) thing.

There are some great tasting alternatives...buckwheat is a favourite, but I also use garbanzo, or garfava flour, and have used millet, and amaranth flour in the past. I've got some hempseed flour to try this weekend, and am going to try quinoa pancakes in the future. (all those flours have to be mixed with others, like rice and tapioca flour)

It's fun to experiment. :)

[Scarlett17]

12. My mother was a big fan of the boil-in-a-bag dinner.

Beef in gravy, turkey in gravy, etc. All over-processed and it all tasted the same. She'd put it over two slices of white bread and call it a "Manhattan". I don't know why. . .

:shrug:

[graywarrior]

17. Tripe followed by Kidney Soup.

[latebloomer]

95. Yes, KIDNEYS!!

Thank Goddess, my parents never forced me to eat it, but the smell alone was nauseating.

They also did eat tripe on occasion, and pickled pigs' feet, but were kind enough not to serve it to their children.

I think my father grew up with that stuff, and my mother was indulging him.

[AllegroRondo]

100. my mom made a great kidney stew

we would serve it over rice.

[July]

127. Oh, yeah, tripe, hands down.

Smelly rubber bathing caps in red sauce. Mmmmm-mmmm.

[Hand]

183. WHAT was your Mom THINKING??????? nt

[unsavedtrash]

18. neck bones

blah

[CaliforniaPeggy]

20. My dear MonkeyFunk!

Fried liver and onions! :puke:

I hear it's wonderful if done correctly, but..........

[MonkeyFunk]

28. mmmm....

liver and onions - I love it, as mentioned above.

My mother used love "deviled ham" - some horrible canned meat product. She'd make a sandwich of it. And also salmon soup - a can of salmon in a pot of boiled milk. Man, did that stink up the house.

[grasswire]

151. gah!!

Deviled ham is delicious! Made by Underwood in Boston for 170 years!

There's nothing creepy in it.

http://www.underwoodspreads.com/underwd_products.html

[slj0101]

24. Nothing too extreme- cabbage soup.

Utterly flavorless.

[Katina]

48. omg! I make a fabulous cabbage soup

I haven't met a person yet who hasn't loved it..and best of all, it can be made in about 1/2 hour and is easily adapted to a vegetarian version. Sorry, but I love cabbage.

[CTyankee]

128. May I have it please? I'd love a really good cabbage soup recipe

Does yours have meat in it? Is it sweet?

[patricia92243]

96. Needs to be made Southern style - meaning fatback in it for flavor. ANYTHING is better with fatback

in it. :)

[LibDemAlways]

26. I don't remember being fed anything gross but

my husband used to get served brussel sprouts and squash as a kid - both of which he hated - and he wasn't allowed up from the table until his plate was clean. He said one summer evening he sat for hours staring at a couple of cold brussel sprouts wondering how he was going to choke them down without gagging. Finally his parents took pity on him and let him go - straight to his room as a punishment.

[MonkeyFunk]

30. I would

crawl across broken glass for brussels sprouts.

Seriously, I love 'em. My favorite veg.

[LibDemAlways]

34. Too bad you weren't around to eat his!!

LOL!!

[bleedingheart]

106. there is a honey sauce for brussel sprouts that is to die for...

[shanti]

209. yes

we had to clean our plates too, or be punished. a belt was draped over an empty chair for encouragement too. :(

[Zuiderelle]

31. I grew up on powdered milk.

Hate that stuff. :)

[Rabrrrrrr]

33. Midwestern

[Katina]

38. Calves Tongue

my mother loved it and always tried to pass it off as smoked tenderloin, but the texture, taste and the fricking "tastebuds" on the outside were always a giveaway. It was disgusting. :puke:

[ChickMagic]

117. How did you know when you were finished chewing it?

I've always wondered that. Also, how do you know it's not tasting you back? :silly:

[susanna]

39. SOS.

Oh yes, anyone whose parents were in the military KNOW what I am talking about. Ground beef in a whitish-sauce on toast. God, the humanity!

Now, as a much wiser person than my parents, I make the same damn thing. Of course I add about a half cup of sour cream and call it "ground beef stroganoff."

I am so hip. ;-)

[MonkeyFunk]

40. oh, I remember it well

we had it all the time. Chipped beef from a jar, heated up and poured on toast.

[susanna]

44. Ack. That's why the sour cream

is so important. It rescues the unlovable from obscurity. ;-)

[Arugula Latte]

110. We had that, too. With peas mixed in.

I loved it when I was a kid. :scared:

They don't call it "shit on a brick" for nothin' though.

[Rabrrrrrr]

45. Chipped beef on toast? Food of the Gods, baby!!

I love it!!

[susanna]

58. That's the funny part!

I didn't think I did - but now I make it with a couple additions and I'm gold! Gotta love that.

[alarimer]

74. Yes! But my mom used Buddigs packaged meat

I guess it was some sort of chopped beef but I am not sure.

[myrna minx]

123. That's how my mom made it.

She would make a flower paste and add milk and sliced up Carl Budding lunch meat. This would be served over toast or if we were upscaling, it would be served over a baked potato.

I still have haunted memories of low grade bologna ring with mushy canned green beans. Ahh.. the 1970's.

[Redstone]

149. Hey, I still like the stuff. The secret: Twice as much white pepper as black, and lots of both.

Redstone

[susanna]

155. Every once in a while I get a nostalgic craving

for it. Then I get over it. Just kidding. I did make it one night when I was alone for the weekend. How it went from most-hated gastronomic memory to a semi-comfort food, only the food gods can know.

[shanti]

210. military brat

I do remember sos. did you have creamed chipped beef over toast too? it came in a little jar that you could recycle as juice glasses.

[mitchum]

41. oyster stew (canned oysters floating in a milky broth,,,ugh)

[liberal renegade]

84. agreed

my father would make that as well around Christmas time. just the thought of it makes my gag reflex go to work

[Horse with no Name]

43. Are you my long lost cousin MonkeyFunk?

Because that sounds like my grandma.:puke:

[MonkeyFunk]

49. perhaps

could your grandmother devour a pig's foot without her teeth? The woman had the gums of a Goddess.

[smtpgirl]

50. Tuna noodle casserole & Zucchini casserole

the blech of the food world.

Anyone who eats this swill has no taste in food

[murielm99]

81. Tuna casserole.

I still can't eat it.

My mother was a terrible cook to begin with. She discovered tuna casserole when my dad went on strike. It was not a long strike, but the tuna casserole lasted forever.

I learned to cook in self-defense. Mom would boil up some potatoes, open a can of vegetables, and fry up some kind of meat in a pan. It did not matter what the meat was, she fried it to a crisp. You would think that tuna casserole would be an improvement over that, but noooo.

Her liver was fried to hockey puck consistency, too. Fortunately, I learned how to cook liver, and grew to like it as an adult. I like chicken livers with rice, too.

To this day, I cannot face an overcooked boiled potato. And what was up with all those canned vegetables? Usually, it was creamed corn (blech).

I am not a gourmet cook. But I learned to use some imagination and variety when I had to cook for my family.

[Alexander]

53. 1) We don't really know what it was, and 2) it was in Beijing.

The latter explains the former.

The continental breakfast became a staple of our diet while in China. The local food - at least, anything with meat (I was a kid, and not yet a vegetarian) was horrible.

[Horse with no Name]

54. My mother made this "stuff"

It was the nastiest concoction and still gives me nightmares.
My Dad was a really picky eater and loved it--he didn't like much so we had this rather frequently.:puke:
My mom would quarter and boil potatoes, throw tomato sauce and pepper over them and add meatballs and serve.
Totally disgusting.

[MonkeyFunk]

55. ew

that sounds nasty.

[Danger Mouse]

56. My mother and stepdad would fry up livers and eat them

the smell from them was so nauseating that i'd die for fresh air.
let's not even talk about how they taste.
ugh.

[tigereye]

57. very over cooked liver

:scared:

[susanna]

59. So sorry, tigereye

that is just plain evil. From the liver-lovers gallery, I can assure you gray and hard is BAD. ::-(

[tigereye]

61. it was a different era

mom made good pork chops, though. ;)

[susanna]

65. But I should tell you this...

my parents served the gray liver that I grew to hate, just like you. One day I went to a local restaurant where the chef KNEW about liver, and my life changed. I wish it were as easy for everyone, but I know it isn't, after multiple bad experiences. A lot of it has to do with HOW liver is cooked. Frankly, as an accomplished cook, liver scares the hell out of me. :-)

[BuddhaGirl]

60. Spam....UGH!

my grandmother used to make me fried spam sandwiches! :puke:

[MonkeyFunk]

66. oh yeah

fried spam was a breakfast staple in my house.

my parents never got past the "Depression" mentality - canned meat was something we should be grateful for.

Oddly, I do enjoy spam musubi at the local hawaiian joint.

[driver8]

77. Spam? I love Spam!

Spam...spammity Spam!

My mother used to make us fried Spam sandwiches and I actually liked them.

She still uses it when she makes fried rice and my mom's fried rice is the best I have ever had!

[dropkickpa]

86. Hey

I like Spam. I will fry it up and mix it in with my home fries. YUM! Also, fried Spam sandwiches are good.

[patricia92243]

97. When my mother had to come live with me, she wanted Spam sandwiches. It took me three tries at the

store just to buy it - I'd gag just looking at it on the shelf. The funny thing was that after I could finally get home with it, I easily fried it and made sandwiches for her - go figure.

[kath]

163. Fried Spam is OK. But served cold? - ACK!!!

[Arugula Latte]

111. "I don't like Spam!"

Vikings: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!)
Waitress: Shut up!
Vikings: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
Waitress: Shut up! (Vikings stop) Bloody Vikings! You can't have egg bacon
spam and sausage without the spam.
Wife (shrieks): I don't like spam!
Man: Sshh, dear, don't cause a fuss. I'll have your spam. I love it.
I'm having spam spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam
spam and spam!

[Blue_In_AK]

182. My mother-in-law is still a big Spam fan...

She likes it mashed up with pickle relish and mayo, like tuna salad. Yccchhh...

[Beausoir]

67. Lutefisk. This competition is officially over. Lutefisk with melted butter.

Big quivvering mounds of steaming fish jello.

[grannylib]

179. *lol* OMG, I didn't see your post; I said the same thing about this crap!

Hot stinky fish jello is exactly right. Ish.

[Kali]

70. fried boloney

wax beans

meatloaf with big chunks of soggy bread (I like meatloaf, but I use well ground cracker crumbs)

otherwise, Mom was pretty good in the food department. When she got older she tended to overcook meat, like her mother did, but the rest was good. Mmmmmm Mom's cooking.

[dropkickpa]

89. My mom is queen of the briquet burger

She likes all of her meats VERY well done, so when she does the burgers on the fourth, they come out looking, honest to god, like the briquets from UNDER the grill. And what that woman does to a steak should be illegal.

[bleedingheart]

107. what I wouldl give for fried bologna sandwiches right now...

[Kali]

112. ...

:puke:

cold ("fresh") on soft bread with yellow mustard is the ONLY way to eat it:P

[Qanisqineq]

71. lutefisk

and pickled herring. Yuck to both!

[Cobalt-60]

72. Kugala (sp?)

It's an extraordinarily vile, greasy potato pancake eaten in the Baltic states.
I don't know which was worse, the initial taste that put me off on it or a half century of constant pressure to get more of it down my throat.

[MonkeyFunk]

75. oh no...

good kugeleh is a god-send.

[bleedingheart]

105. Kugelis (Lithuanian spelling ) is a delicacy and is very good

but to each his own...and I know some folk will put all the bacon fat into the mix and that might make it a bit unpalatable.

However...have you had blood sausage?

[Cobalt-60]

145. yes-it was a little bloody

It could be my mother's preparation.
She got it second hand from a great grandmother.
Perhaps I'll have a little of yours...

[SeattleGirl]

73. Liver, fried-to-ruin liver.

Can't blame my mom; 5 kids and not much income, so stretching the dollar was really important. The only way I could eat it was to drown it in ketchup, then wash it down with milk. :puke:

[MonkeyFunk]

78. Yeah

my mom had 4 kids, and her mother lived with us. So she had 7 mouths to feed on a small income.

But she never gave us liver (see upthread). But we had plenty of Spam and Hormel canned-meats.

[dropkickpa]

90. 6 kids, 5 of them boys

with only a 12 year age difference between oldest and youngest here. We ate a lot of Spam, box mac-n-cheese, things that were cheap but went a long way. My mother is NOT a good cook, so a lot of what we ate was the boxed mix meals (hamburger helper etc).

I HATE Hamburger Helper to this day. :puke: The first time I made actual honest to god beef stroganoff, I stopped eating all HH.

[bertha katzenengel]

79. McDonald's, bologna on white bread with (gag) Miracle Whip.

:puke:

[susanna]

156. Shameful food confession here.

The only time I ever use Miracle Whip OR white bread is for bologna sandwiches. For some reason I do not like to ruin a good artisanal bread for a cold cut sandwich, and mayonnaise doesn't offer enough contrast to the saltiness of bologna. Or something like that. (I can rationalize anything LOL.)

Of course I only eat this when I get a craving, which is not often at all. My DH knows it's that time, because I ask him to pick up "one of those teeny jars of Miracle Whip, white bread, and thick bologna." He then rolls his eyes (no, he doesn't partake).

I usually end up tossing the rest of the jar when it expires six month later, having used no more of it. :-)

[QMPMom]

170. Miracle Whip is one of the worst things ever.

My biological-so-called-mother insisted on Miracle Whip. If she didn't like something, it wasn't allowed in the house, so it was Miracle Whip or nothing. (I am serious. I had never had any jelly but raspberry jelly until I got married because she only allowed that kind in the house!) I still cannot stand Miracle Whip.

She also made this awful meat loaf and put brown sugar *in* it and then made this awful ketchup, mustard and sugar concoction to slather over the top of it. When I moved out on my own I called my Dad and asked him to come to supper. He asked me what I was cooking and when I told him meat loaf there was dead silence on the other end of the phone. I quickly said, "It's *not* Mom's recipe." He said he'd be there in 5 minutes.

My sister still uses that dog-awful meat loaf recipe and I still gag when I think too much about it.

Edit: I have lost all ability to spell tonight.

[bertha katzenengel]

176. "He said he'd be there in 5 minutes."

:rofl:

:hi:

[QMPMom]

189. Hi Bertha!

How are you tonight? Glad you liked my Dad's reaction to my meat loaf!

:hi:

[bertha katzenengel]

201. Hey, there Mom

You just cracked me up. I'm drawn to people who make me laugh. :7

[k_jerome]

80. headcheese....or scraple....nt.

[Omphaloskepsis]

83. My mom didn't like to cook.

While growing up 95% of my meals (minus school lunches) were fast food or at a restaurant.

[NC_Nurse]

85. Tripe, tongue and liver.

:puke: :puke: :puke:

Luckily, my mom didn't make them often. She didn't want to deal with the inevitable battle.
I used to cut liver up and discreetly toss the pieces to my kitty who always sat beside me. :)

[terrya]

87. It's not food, but we had Tang in our house.

I don't give a shit if the astronauts drank it or not...that stuff was nasty.

[GirlinContempt]

93. Yeah, clearly astronauts are not so smart

;)

[Kali]

113. ooo I used to LOVE Tang - it was our "camping" OJ when I was a kid

but sometime in the 70's I think, they changed the flavor - "improved" it I am sure they claimed. Not.

[northzax]

88. Uncle Frank

hey, it was a long cold winter, and he was the first to go, I am sure it's what he would have wanted, if we had asked him before putting that bag over his head and tenderizing the meat.

[spinbaby]

91. Canned potatoes

Blech!

[kath]

164. Actually, fried up nice and crisp with onions, they make pretty good quicky home fries.

cooked any other way, I'd bet they're pretty gross.

[NashVegas]

94. My Mom's Spanish Rice

The smell of onions sauteeing with green bell peppers still gives me a headache.

[geiger]

98. Lima beans, cauliflower with cheese sauce, overdone meat and chicken

haddock from the frozen aisle (also over-cooked), carrot juice, no spicy food, fried green tomatoes, pot pie with whole wheat crust, yellow American cheese except on toasted cheese

[Beer Snob-50]

99. liver with boiled potatoes and boiled to hell spinach

that was the only way my step-mom could cook.

[ms liberty]

101. Liver mush. Brains and eggs. Fried chicken livers. Fried okra Anything with liver. Snouts...

I'm southern, what can I say? My mother used to joke that someone came into the nursery at the hospital and switched out her southern baby for some yankee baby, because I hate a lot of the southern staple foods.

Liver mush: It's got to be one of the most disgusting foods on the planet. And whatever you do, DON'T watch it being made. We went to visit some cousins who are farmers once, the wife was in the 'summer kitchen' making liver mush. My sister and I about puked. We were both over the age of 30 at that time, and it still is just too gross to think about.

Brains and Eggs: One of my grandfather's favorites. Pig brains, scrambled up with eggs for breakfast. When I was a kid, at Thanksgiving my dad's family would kill a hog (or two) and dress it. Then at night, my grandfather would take the head (which had been nailed to the side of the barn to drain all day) into a room off the kitchen, cover a table with a vinyl tablecloth, and split the head to get the brains. I, being a sensitive child, was totally repelled - and still am!

Fried chicken livers: When my sister and I got old enough, we refused to eat fried chicken if my mom cooked chicken livers with them. They had to be cooked AFTER the chicken, or in a separate pan. The taste always came off on the chicken. Disgusting, smelly crap.

Fried okra: Slimy, slimy, slimy.

Snouts: That would be pig snouts, the nose of the pig. See 'Brains and eggs.'

Liver: I don't know what it is about liver. When I had chemo, the doctors told me to eat foods high in iron, like liver. I told them that if my survival depended upon eating liver, I'd rather not...survive that is!

Someone above mentioned calf's tongue. That's one I've never tried, and never will. My first job was as a cashier in a grocery store. Having to touch that crap, even thru the cellophane wrap, was one of the reasons I didn't last long. Yuuuckkk!

Did anyone here ever drink meat-based milk? As an infant, I was allergic to my mother's milk, and almost died because they couldn't find a substitute milk that I wasn't allergic to. They finally tried meat-based milk, which worked. But it stunk worse than you could imagine. I threw my bottle away at about 8 months old, and refused to go back. And I've been really sensitive to smells my whole life...a nasty smell will make me physically ill in a heartbeat.

[Kali]

115. my sister had to have that gross formula when she was a baby - I can still

smell it :puke:

[CTyankee]

129. I love slimy okra! Just steamed, not fried, nice and hairy.

I just put butter and lemon juice on them. Wonderful! I eat the pods whole, not even sliced...

[movie_girl99]

102. Steak-ums

I don't know what was in them but i'm sure they were not beef.

[bleedingheart]

104. Blood Sausage, Duck's Blood Soup, Pickled Herring

Headcheese is good compared to some of the stuff I was served as a kid...and I had to eat it.

Once I did make gagging sounds at the table and my mother made me a hotdog...but that didn't work very often.

[Courtesy Flush]

108. I ate a lot of bloody chicken in my day

I think that's why I have such a strong immune system. Mom cooked on high heat. Chicken was over-cooked on the outside, and bloody in the middle... and we had to eat it!

Dad was the barbecue guy in the family. If briquettes came in a 15 pound bag, that's how much he used. He made an out-of-control fire, and burned the chicken on the outside, but... you guessed it... still bloody in the middle.

It wasn't until I moved out and started dating my Cajun wife that I realized my mom couldn't cook!

[grace0418]

109. Also powdered milk. GACK! WTF is up with that. My mom also used to put

canned corn in spaghetti, which made me want to gag. And my dad made our lunches, so he'd make what he wanted and we had to deal with it. So almost every day he'd pull white bread out of the freezer (why he felt the need to freeze bread when there were at least 5-6 people eating it every day is a big mystery- it's not like it would go bad before we could finish it), spread some god-awful margarine on it while still frozen, then slap a few slices of olive loaf or ham & cheese loaf on the bread. By lunchtime it was a thawed, soggy, slimy, disgusting mess. I get ill thinking about it.

[Phillycat]

114. Government cheese, and powdered milk. I win.

[ChickMagic]

116. *shudder*

Boiled liver over rice - it was like a blood clot. She also liked to crumble up cornbread into a glass of buttermilk and eat it with a spoon. Yeesh.

[sakabatou]

118. Poi and other things

[Zavulon]

120. TV dinners

I mean the old-style ones. Worse even than today's - except for the meatloaf ones, which were actually good.

The veggies sucked hard in those things, and the "desserts" were even worse.

[1gobluedem]

121. Hominy Grits

My mother said I could try them or I could go to bed. I went to bed. I still can't stand to look at them.

The rest of my family loved these, but I didn't, breaded pork cutlets.

[NMDemDist2]

122. beef brains scrambled with eggs and beef tongue sandwiches n/t

[Yavin4]

125. Liverwurst and Cream Chip Beef On Toast

That stuff made me upchuck.

[trackfan]

126. My mom also had the pig's feet. Another one was tripe.

A big stinking pot of tripe.

[noonwitch]

130. Pork chops cooked in Cream Of Mushroom soup

I used to hate it when my mom made that.

[Rabrrrrrr]

134. We had that a lot - I loved it! I still love it!

It's a chemical nightmare, though, so I don't make it.

But I loved it! With a great big pile of mashed potatoes!!

[DrDan]

131. brains and scrambled eggs

I had an aunt and uncle that would make them every Friday night

I hated going to their house on Friday evenings

[Merrick]

138. Our beloved french poodle Maurice

after he died (of natural causes).

No, scratch that. It'd probably have to be my mom's "Texas hash" (i.e. random leftovers mixed together).

[Sequoia]

139. Liver fried so much it was black and curled.

Bolgana

boiled spinach

hominey

[crim son]

140. Fried liver and bologna sandwiches.

The liver smelled SO good while it was fried with onions but the taste - :puke: The bologna sandwiches... I know no more words are necessary.

[applegrove]

141. Scalloped tomatoes. Melted tomatoes with melted bread. Ug!

[QMPMom]

172. OMG, I had forgotten about the awful scalloped tomatoes.

Gag. My biological-so-called-mother loved them. They made me want to barf.

[zanne]

200. How does one "melt" a tomato? nt

[applegrove]

203. You just bake the **** out of it. So it collapses.

[Susang]

143. My mother made "meat pie"

Ground beef, carrots, onions and peas, baked between two frozen pie crusts. I swear, that's the main reason I gave up eating meat! :scared:

[MichiganVote]

144. Milk Toast, White sauce over toast. Yuk!

[marzipanni]

174. Ewww, my dad made milk toast for my brothers and me for lunch one weekend

when my mom went to visit her dad. It was a bowl of hot milk poured over buttered toast with salt and pepper. I remember all four kids complaining, and my dad saying "Eat it, it's good!"
My oldest brother made me a "vanilla milkshake" in the Waring blender. It tasted like Ivory soap, because it was. :(

[philosophie_en_rose]

191. My sister told me to lick frosting off a spoon.

It was actually shortening. :puke:

[Shell Beau]

147. Even though I LOVED it, I would say chipped beef on toast.

It wasn't very southern!! Kinda creamy sauce with some kind of meat and it was on toast although I have put it on a baked potato!! :9

[MassLiberal]

153. we had that too

My dad had had it in the Army, and LOVED it. He referred to it affectionately as "shit on a shingle." Yum, now that's the way to work up an appetite!

[Redstone]

148. Liver. AAACH! BLECH! PATOOIE! The rule was, eat what's for dinner, or go to bed hungry,

and I went to bed HAPPPILY hungry when dinner was LIVER! Yech!

Redstone

[Generic Brad]

154. Canned beets

I'm gagging at the thought of them.
:puke:

[MassLiberal]

159. I love canned beets!

But they're better right out of the garden....mmmmmm.

[Chan790]

158. Easter-day Rabbit.

beyond that, we had the odd assortment of my father's bizarre combinations of cheez whiz, Pillsbury dough, smoked meats, canned foods and pre-packed foodstuffs. I believe I've talked about the "porcupine balls" on previous occasions. Balls of meat seasoned with beef rice-a-roni, rolled in the UNCOOKED rice, then pan-fried. I lacerated my throat once and thought I was dying as blood is pouring into my mouth.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=5510662&mesg_id=5510712

For anybody curious about my father's cooking and my ability to be tortured with bacon.

[BlueStorm]

161. Shit on a shingle...

I can't eat that stuff!!!

Blue

[alittlelark]

162. Aspic with home-made mayonaise

:puke:

[XemaSab]

165. Stir fried vegetables in canned Hoisin sauce

I dunno what it was, but that meal really sticks out as being inedible. :barf:

[VenusRising]

167. Manwich

There is something about it that makes me :puke: every single time I eat it. You think they would have caught on by the second go. I still can't eat the stuff!

[reyd reid reed]

168. Liver pizza.

:scared:

Although I've gotta admit, that made the stuffed heart taste MUCH better.

[VenusRising]

169. OMG!

Did your family not love you? That sounds worse than Manwich by a mile.

:hug:

[reyd reid reed]

171. It was pretty disgusting.

My mother was intent on getting us to like liver. She tried to lie and tell us it was roast beef.

Didn't work.

She tried to cut it up and cover it in different sauces.

Didn't work.

She tried broiling it...frying it with bacon...with onions...with bacon AND onions.

No good.

She found (or invented) this recipe, where she took the liver, sprinkled it with basil and oregano and garlic (or something like that), put a tomato slice on it along with some mozarella cheese, and then broiled the whole thing.

It. Was. HORRIBLE but my father liked it (he likes kidney and heart and sweetbreads and buttermilk...need I say more?) so she made it. She thought we'd like it eventually. Or something.

At one point, my grandparents (my mother's parents, at that) came to visit. My mother made her 'new recipe'. My brother, who was probably about eight, protested. Said he didn't want it. Said if he had to eat it, he was gonna puke.

"Eat your dinner, Mark. There are starving children in China. Eat your dinner."

Mark puked.

All over my grandmother.

We never had liver pizza again.

[VenusRising]

173. Parents never learn.

When kids tell them they are gonna puke, they tend to mean it. Poor grandma, but great for the kids!!

:rofl:

PS...I was given the liver fried in bacon, too. What a lame-ass un-trick. I don't even think our dogs would eat that.

[Hand]

184. DINGDINGDINGDINGDING!!!! WE HAVE A WINNER!!! nt

[grannylib]

178. Lutefisk, no doubt about it. For those who don't know, this is a

Scandinavian "delicacy" of fish preserved in LYE for pete's sake, then reconstituted and baked and served with butter and/or cream...it's basically hot fish jello, it reeks to high heaven, and for the life of me, I don't know how anyone came up with the idea of preserving FOOD in DRAIN CLEANER...(although I know this shit was 'invented' long before either drains OR drain cleaner)

'Round here, we call it "The piece of cod that passeth all understanding."

[Cobalt-60]

186. To me the Lye preservation out viles the liver pizza

[grannylib]

192. Vile stuff indeed.

[Beausoir]

188. And the watery pungent smell of boiling lye and dried fish will make your eyes water.

I had to eat it every Christmas Eve until I was grown.

The lucky adults in my family at least got to drown their senses with whiskey before they ate it. No wonder they thought it was so good. They were smashed and starving.

We kids only had milk.

[Control-Z]

181. Spam

sliced and fried. Don't ask. No one really knows what it is. Comes in a can. After my mother died that was my dad's idea of good hot food. :puke::puke:

[Hand]

185. Sweetbreads.

Mom made those once. The general reaction was :wtf: I have no idea what she could have been thinking. (BTW, she was otherwise a wonderful cook.)

For those of you who may be wondering, here's a definition of sweetbreads:

Sweetbreads
Prized by gourmets throughout the world, sweetbreads are the thymus glands of veal, young beef, lamb and pork. There are two glands — an elongated lobe in the throat and a larger, rounder gland near the heart. These glands are connected by a tube, which is often removed before sweetbreads are marketed.

I rather imagine that true aficionadoes would insist that the said tube remain intact for authenticity. Perverts.

The heart sweetbread is considered the more delectable (and is therefore more expensive) of the two because of its delicate flavor and firmer, creamy-smooth texture. Sweetbreads from milk-fed veal or young calves are considered the best. Those from young lamb are quite good, but beef sweetbreads are tougher and pork sweetbreads (unless from a piglet) have a rather strong flavor. Veal, young calf and beef sweetbreads are available year-round in specialty meat markets, whereas those from lamb and pork must usually be special-ordered.

Sheesh; I imagine there's a land-office business in custom ordered pork sweetbreads. Finger lickin' good.

Choose sweetbreads that are white (they become redder as the animal ages), plump and firm. They're very perishable and should be prepared within 24 hours of purchase. Before being cooked, sweetbreads must be soaked in several changes of ACIDULATED WATER and their outer membrane removed. Some recipes call for the glands to be blanched to firm them, and refrigerated until ready for use. Sweetbreads can be prepared in a variety of ways including poaching, sautéing and braising. They are also sometimes used in PÂTÉS and SOUFFLÉS.

Yum. Sweetbread souffle...

To borrow a famous saying, "I say they're sweetbreads and I say the hell with 'em!"

[philosophie_en_rose]

190. Potted Meat Product (Beef hearts. . . mmmmmmmm)

with toasted cheap bread. :puke:


Actually, it seemed pretty tasty at the time.


But it sickens me now.

[MoseyWalker]

193. the former in-laws.

very sour.

[Evoman]

194. My mother made this terrible "pasta" out of(not kidding you)liver chunk, gnochhi and chicken hearts.

Vile...we NEVER ate it, and she made it about 3 times before she realized it was a waste.

Other than that, my mom was a passable cook and did a lot with very little money.

[SoCalDemGrrl]

195. Something called chipped beef on toast -simply awful but there were 7 kids

and it was cheap so we got it at least once a week. Also had

my fill of pickeled pigs feet too - my grandmother was German and

I guess it is a popular German delicacy. :puke:

[BreweryYardRat]

196. My mom's veggie stew.

Tasted worse than cafeteria food 3/4s of the time, especially when she put okra in it. I think the taste was attributable to her methods of storing it.

She does make excellent brownies, though. Real, proper chocolate, not the fake stuff. Mmm... :)

[rug]

198. Tongue sandwich

with mustard.

[zanne]

199. Speaking of things that sound bad....

Blood sausage. My father used to eat it for breakfast. Ugh.

[baldguy]

202. Pork chops

think, dry cardboard on a bone

[UncleSepp]

204. Civil War squash.

It started out as crookneck yellow squash, but my Mom insisted on cooking it in a cast iron skillet with red onions. She would also *clean* the cast iron skillet every time, down to the metal. Some kind of chemical reaction went on, and by the time it got to the table, the squash was blue and gray.

[RummyTheDummy]

205. Cream chipped beef AKA shit on a shingle

And the nights I just ate a sandwich for dinner.

[shanti]

206. tamale pie

stuffed bell peppers, and liver with onions. i remember being forced to choke that down :(

nevermore....

[spiderpig]

208. Pot Roast!

Stringy, dry, tasteless...with potatoes roasted in the same pan. Hated it. Made me vegetarian.

[China_cat]

211. Just about anything my mother cooked.

We learned to cook in self-defense. My mother was the absolute worst.

[Neshanic]

212. Creamed Salmon on toast. I gag when I smell Salmon

[BlueCollar]

213. calve's brains or tongue

gross...I don't know which one I hated more

Thank God there was always a salad with oil and vinegar dressing along side.

[JitterbugPerfume]

215. pork (or beef) brains

all fried up real crispy on the outside, soft on the inside --very disgusting , and it is a wonder we didn't get mad cow disease or something

also pickled pigs feet