What was the worst stuff your parents made you eat?

[S.A. Boggs]

Cooked spinach rates right there with beef liver. Only was I could eat either was with catchup!:eusa_shhh:
Sam

[JOHN COOK]

I was never forced to eat anything my parents provided me for a meal. I also never forced my two children to eat anything either that was placed in front of them. The food was placed in front of them and they ate or went a little hungry. Some of you will say that's cruel or that I'm just making this up, but that how it was.
I am sure the TROLLS will have a field day on my comments.

So let it rip..
So Mote It Be

john

[blackhawknj]

Never had anything forced down my throat. I am a firm believer in respecting one's palate. Some tastes can be acquired-and lost. In my youth I did not like sausage, I enjoyed Taylor's Ham and mayonnaise. Now I like sausage and Taylor's Ham and mayonnaise are no longer on my plate. One woman told her mother was constantly forcing cauliflower on her. Her mother would find all sorts of ways to mix it in with other things. And she'd spit it out.

[Vern Humphrey]

I wouldn't say it was the worst, but my Grandfather always made me eat the potato peel -- because of An Gorta Mor, the Great Hunger in Ireland.

[togor]

Boiled Brussels Sprouts. Taste like some kind of skunked rubber.

[S.A. Boggs]

Boiled Brussels Sprouts. Taste like some kind of skunked rubber.

If you want, I will post a good Brussels Sprouts salad that has cheese, bacon and chopped eggs. Let me know.
Sam

[pcox]

Liver!!!!!! I simply do not eat innards.

[leftyo]

canned pea's. hate them things. nasty tasting, and had to sit there until they were gone.

[JB White]

Dinner went on the plate and we had to eat everything on it. Our cousins in Europe didn't have it so good, or so I was told. I ate liver, spinach, brussel sprouts, cabbage, bleu cheese....long list and I liked it. I used to ask for hackenpater on pumpernickel with a bit of limburger. (got beer with that) Never acquired a taste for broccoli but I forced it down. Spare ribs...nobody ever cooked them right and we had to suck the bones dry and white. I used to call it plastic meat. Told them not to even think about putting fried calves brains on my plate.
To this day I don't eat ribs. Given a choice between ribs or vegemite, I'll take the veggie on toast any day.

[Major Tom]

Rudabeka (sp). Hated that stuff.

[dryheat]

God, what a insult to food. I like peas but if I was on a desert island after the ship wreck and a case of canned peas washed ashore...I'd still starve. Lima beans. Lima equates to Lime or poison or something else awful. If I look at a Lima bean long enough I can see it growing legs and morphing into some kind of insect.

[Allen]

God, what a insult to food. I like peas but if I was on a desert island after the ship wreck and a case of canned peas washed ashore...I'd still starve.

More than likely you wouldn't have a can opener anyway.

[dryheat]

That probably wouldn't happen anyway. It would be a case of canned salmon. God likes to mess with me.

[AZshooter]

My parents used to love stuffed Bell Peppers. Although, as a kid I could eat sliced raw bell peppers in salads, the cooked version was sickening (I literally couldn't digest them & got sick). As I got older, the problem digesting bell peppers worsened & a Doctor finally told me that some people don't have some particular enzyme needed to digest it. Even as an adult, Mom delighted in torturing me with bell peppers (I chopped them up extra fine, so you won't even know they're there).

Eggplant is another non-favorite, although some friends grew a variety of tiny ones that were more solid & actually good.

[Allen]

My parents used to love stuffed Bell Peppers. Although, as a kid I could eat sliced raw bell peppers in salads, the cooked version was sickening (I literally couldn't digest them & got sick). As I got older, the problem digesting bell peppers worsened & a Doctor finally told me that some people don't have some particular enzyme needed to digest it. Even as an adult, Mom delighted in torturing me with bell peppers (I chopped them up extra fine, so you won't even know they're there).

Eggplant is another non-favorite, although some friends grew a variety of tiny ones that were more solid & actually good.

That's one reason why my folks never forced me to eat certain foods and I in turn didn't try to force my children. You never know how they feel or what their digestive system will react to. My mother always said she would fix me something else to eat or I could just make a sandwich if I didn't like what she had prepared. My parents remembered how it was being kids themselves and certain foods you just have to acquire a taste for as you mature. Greens, turnips, liver, rutabaga, carrots, broccoli, brussel sprouts, tomatoes and others while you may hate them as kids you may actually like them as old age starts setting in. My dog even has a very finicky stomach and I don't persuade him to eat. I don't get concerned unless he goes for a day or two w/o eating.

[JOHN COOK]

More than likely you wouldn't have a can opener anyway.

I would... I carry a P 38 on my key ring... Not the weapon... One larger than a P 38 was a John Wayne... Some will know what I mean and others will GOOGLE:hello:


john

[S.A. Boggs]

Boiled Brussels Sprouts. Taste like some kind of skunked rubber.

I have always liked cooked Brussel sprouts daughter wouldn't touch them nor the wife. When our daughter was ten years old I made Brussel sprouts salad [has bacon, chopped egg shredded cheese, ranch dressing] and put it on my plate in the kitchen along with the steak. When I went in for a lemonade refill she ate some of the salad off my plate. As I was filling my glass she put a BUNCH of the salad on her plate. I asked her why and she said it was good and finished the bowl of salad off. Now in the summertime we use the salad as the main course along with French bread, she always get a good portion.
Sam

[bdm]

My mother made us fired baloney every Friday on rye bread with mustard.with macaroni My dad called it the poor mans Pastrami.I always ate it They never forced my sister and i to eat it we knew it was our supper eat or go hungry

[blackhawknj]

A cousin told me of a fellow in his school-in 1960-his parents forced him to eat something he said he didn't like, didn't taste right, etc. They spent years paying off the doctor's bill, the hospitalization, etc.

[dryheat]

That could be anything. People have been poisoned lately by ice cream and lettuce. I mostly eat at home. I have been in fancy restaurants kitchens and it ain't pretty.

[Sunray]

"...do not eat innards..." Ever eat any kind of sausage? Ever eat a hot dog(you really don't want to know what's in a hot dog)? Ever eat any kind of 'cold cut'?
For me it was fish. Had fresh(literally caught hours before) lake trout forced down my gullet when I was about 5 or so. It came back up a few hours later. Haven't eaten fish or anything else out of water since.
Anyway, the whole thing is mostly about how our ma's learned to cook. Usually from their ma or worse a Home Economics teacher(had a female Cadet tell me her's said if you don't score a cucumber's rind with a fork it's poisonous.). Who learned from their ma. Most of whom had to deal with inadequate refrigeration and trichinosis in pork.
And it's rutabaga. Needs to be cooked with an onion, then mashed with butter, brown sugar and a bit of nutmeg.
Brussels sprouts are fixed with lots of cheese, but they have to be boiled properly too.

[AZshooter]

That's one reason why my folks never forced me to eat certain foods and I in turn didn't try to force my children. You never know how they feel or what their digestive system will react to. My mother always said she would fix me something else to eat or I could just make a sandwich if I didn't like what she had prepared. My parents remembered how it was being kids themselves and certain foods you just have to acquire a taste for as you mature. Greens, turnips, liver, rutabaga, carrots, broccoli, brussel sprouts, tomatoes and others while you may hate them as kids you may actually like them as old age starts setting in. My dog even has a very finicky stomach and I don't persuade him to eat. I don't get concerned unless he goes for a day or two w/o eating.

Actually, my Mom eventually decided to write off the bell peppers from my menu (as a kid) and instead baked my bell pepper stuffing in a little pytrex glass dish - worked out well. It was later in life that she decided I needed to eat the damn things & chopped them up extra fine. Came a certain point in life SHE could no longer eat the wretched things (Dad said she got deathly ill).

There were things my parents grew up with that they never ate & that I missed out on: Mom was forced to eat fish her Dad brought home for dinner during the depression. She would cook them for us, but wouldn't eat them herself - I always found it amusing to watch her wretching & gagging while preparing fish to bake, broil or fry. For Dad, it was turnips, rutabagas and a couple of other similar things. I was an adult when I first tried mashed turnips & they really weren't that bad. Of course, I grew up with fresh-caught trout & canned smoked sardines & nowadays, there isn't much I won't eat, except for stuff that won't digest ... and eggplant ...

[aintright]

Cottage cheese , to this day don't like it . My mother was probally the worlds worst cook , she hated cooking and you hated eating it . Everything she fixed was cooked or fried on high and cooked to death . Fried potatoes you probally could have fashioned a frog gig from , hamburger ? Holy shiet ! You could have brought blood if you had winged one at somebody . They actually crunched when you ate them , through and through . Was made to eat everything on the plate , didn't matter how long it took , you wasn't getting down from the table till it was gone . Have sat there and gagged at bite after bite , grease had turned to lard on the outside of the burger or potatoes .
Lmao , it was nuts .
After I got out on my own , I learned to cook as years went by and progressed pretty good as I did have grand ma's that could whip a mighty fine meal , so I knew that there was good vittles out there. Just not under our roof .
Fish eggs from dipping suckers when they would run the creeks , grandma on my dads side could make a delicious batch of them . She would cook the suckers , the entire fish and grind it up and make fish cakes with it that would rival any salmon cakes you could eat .
Bake , oh yeah , some real deal pies and cakes , lol , I don't know that mom was even aware there was an oven on the stove . Thank god for grand ma's .
Kenneth

[leftyo]

Cottage cheese , to this day don't like it . My mother was probally the worlds worst cook , she hated cooking and you hated eating it . Everything she fixed was cooked or fried on high and cooked to death . Fried potatoes you probally could have fashioned a frog gig from , hamburger ? Holy shiet ! You could have brought blood if you had winged one at somebody . They actually crunched when you ate them , through and through . Was made to eat everything on the plate , didn't matter how long it took , you wasn't getting down from the table till it was gone . Have sat there and gagged at bite after bite , grease had turned to lard on the outside of the burger or potatoes .
Lmao , it was nuts .
After I got out on my own , I learned to cook as years went by and progressed pretty good as I did have grand ma's that could whip a mighty fine meal , so I knew that there was good vittles out there. Just not under our roof .
Fish eggs from dipping suckers when they would run the creeks , grandma on my dads side could make a delicious batch of them . She would cook the suckers , the entire fish and grind it up and make fish cakes with it that would rival any salmon cakes you could eat .
Bake , oh yeah , some real deal pies and cakes , lol , I don't know that mom was even aware there was an oven on the stove . Thank god for grand ma's .
Kenneth

ill bet my mother would be good competition with yours for worst cook.

[togor]

ill bet my mother would be good competition with yours for worst cook.

but no Lutefisk right?

[jmm03]

birds eye frozen boiled okra... just the thought of it can induce dry heaving, although frozen lima beans are a close second. I am from an age where if it was put in front of you you ate it.

[leftyo]

but no Lutefisk right?

you would have to go to my grandparents for that nasty stuff.

[togor]

Anti-starvation rations become delicacies in gentler times, LOL.

I went to Iceland for work once. A couple of local guys took us out to dinner. One of them ordered Rotted Shark as an appetizer. A lump of grey goo about the size of a boy's fist on a plate. He explained to me that this was something I probably wouldn't want to try as he carefully sliced away the grey stuff to get at the marshmellow-sized lump of pink in the middle. I was in full agreement with him!

It's easy to imagine that one starting out as a bunch of starving Icelanders encountering a carcass on the shoreline. Beggars can't be choosers.

[S.A. Boggs]

One of my acquired likes is butter milk from my youth, I like the tang of it. When our daughter was 4 I was drinking a glass of it and she came in hot and thirsty. She grabbed my glass [we always share] and took a big drink. She made an awful face and hollered that "Dad is drinking that spoiled milk again!' She likes it in pancakes or biscuits, otherwise no. She and her mother, along with Wolf, will eat yogurt...nasty stuff! I enjoy cottage cheese and relish it with breakfast.
Sam

[jaie5070]

Ever tried poi. The hawaiian veggie. It's kind of like eating wall paper paste and looks like greyish snot on your plate. It mite be edible if it was prepared like a bake potato or mixed with hot sauce.

[RED]

I don't understand why people are so repulsed by food others find to be delicacies. My mother used to spank me if I didn't eat everything on my plate. One food that always gets rapped as awful slimy sheet, is okra. One reason for that is how it is prepared. I grew up in Arkansas and until I went into the military, I had only seen okra fixed one way... breaded and fried. I couldn't imagine why anybody would want to ruin perfectly good okra by boiling it. Then I found gumbo!!! A difficult dish to cook, and the seafood version is VERY expensive and very difficult to make. A roux takes over an hour and has to be stirred constantly but without okra, it ain't gumbo.

Then there is lizards, sometimes called "rooster fries." Chicken livers and gizzards (and hearts), cooked correctly, are great! But cooked wrong they are chewy and unpleasant.

Greens are another gift from God. My favorite is Poke Salat. It is a plant that grows naturally in the wild in the Southeast USA. Eaten raw, the plant is poisonous to humans. But boiled three times in fresh water the harmful chemicals are removed and the cooked greens are then fried with bacon and served with boiled egg slices and Bruce's Pepper Sauce.

Then there are chitterlings. I could write a book on those but some people think they are disgusting, while others love em.

My sister won't touch a tomato but loves lasagna or spaghetti that has a lot of tomatoes in it.

Go figure.

[leftyo]

I don't understand why people are so repulsed by food others find to be delicacies. My mother used to spank me if I didn't eat everything on my plate. One food that always gets rapped as awful slimy sheet, is okra. One reason for that is how it is prepared. I grew up in Arkansas and until I went into the military, I had only seen okra fixed one way... breaded and fried. I couldn't imagine why anybody would want to ruin perfectly good okra by boiling it. Then I found gumbo!!! A difficult dish to cook, and the seafood version is VERY expensive and very difficult to make. A roux takes over an hour and has to be stirred constantly but without okra, it ain't gumbo.

Then there is lizards, sometimes called "rooster fries." Chicken livers and gizzards (and hearts), cooked correctly, are great! But cooked wrong they are chewy and unpleasant.

Greens are another gift from God. My favorite is Poke Salat. It is a plant that grows naturally in the wild in the Southeast USA. Eaten raw, the plant is poisonous to humans. But boiled three times in fresh water the harmful chemicals are removed and the cooked greens are then fried with bacon and served with boiled egg slices and Bruce's Pepper Sauce.

Then there are chitterlings. I could write a book on those but some people think they are disgusting, while others love em.

My sister won't touch a tomato but loves lasagna or spaghetti that has a lot of tomatoes in it.

Go figure.

much like my mother, ketchup is fine, but wont touch a tomato.

[JB White]

I hate being lied to about what's on my plate. Was once served a "new beef stew recipe". Delicious but something is wrong with the meat. "It's just beef...eat up!" Nope. Something is wrong with the meat and I eventually pushed it away in a final act of defiance. Had they told me up front it was buffalo heart I probably would have devoured it.

10-4 on the okra. Fried it's fabulous. Boiled down...gumbo boogers.

[Darreld Walton]

One of my acquired likes is butter milk from my youth, I like the tang of it. When our daughter was 4 I was drinking a glass of it and she came in hot and thirsty. She grabbed my glass [we always share] and took a big drink. She made an awful face and hollered that "Dad is drinking that spoiled milk again!' She likes it in pancakes or biscuits, otherwise no. She and her mother, along with Wolf, will eat yogurt...nasty stuff! I enjoy cottage cheese and relish it with breakfast.
Sam

Back in the early 60's, we went on a camping trip, my family, and my maternal grandparents. We stopped on Trail Creek Pass road, just north of the Mackay, Id. reservoir, for a break. Granddad had a canvas water bag that he hung on the mirror of his car, and while most everyone else took a tug off that, Granddad offered me a glass of ice cold buttermilk, and handed me a shaker of salt, I've been addicted ever since. Have three quarts in the Fridge as I write this. Have yet to try it with cornbread, I'm told it's a treat that way... In the 70's, as an Airman with wife and two kids, I could afford potato chips, but not dip, so one day, I pushed a chip into cottage cheese, liked the taste, then flavored a small bowl of it with celery salt, and haven't bought or made chip dip since. Grandkids took to it right away.

[pcox]

"...do not eat innards..." Ever eat any kind of sausage? Ever eat a hot dog(you really don't want to know what's in a hot dog)? Ever eat any kind of 'cold cut'?
For me it was fish. Had fresh(literally caught hours before) lake trout forced down my gullet when I was about 5 or so. It came back up a few hours later. Haven't eaten fish or anything else out of water since.
Anyway, the whole thing is mostly about how our ma's learned to cook. Usually from their ma or worse a Home Economics teacher(had a female Cadet tell me her's said if you don't score a cucumber's rind with a fork it's poisonous.). Who learned from their ma. Most of whom had to deal with inadequate refrigeration and trichinosis in pork.
And it's rutabaga. Needs to be cooked with an onion, then mashed with butter, brown sugar and a bit of nutmeg.
Brussels sprouts are fixed with lots of cheese, but they have to be boiled properly too.

Make my own sausage, don't put any internal organs in it, if your sausage has them it ain't right. Hot dogs, no. Only brats, again, make my own.

[Allen]

Granddad offered me a glass of ice cold buttermilk, and handed me a shaker of salt, I've been addicted ever since. Have three quarts in the Fridge as I write this. Have yet to try it with cornbread, I'm told it's a treat that way...

The little kid in me still loves ice cream. Personally buttermilk is about the most repulsive thing I have ever tasted. I think I would prefer rotten/sour milk and don't see much difference. To each his own though. I've know a lot of people who would take a tall glass, fill it with chopped up cornbread and pour the buttermilk over it and eat it like cereal. Cottage cheese to me has no taste what-so-ever and is like eating soggy Styrofoam. But again, to each his own. That's why the grocery stores stock so many different items.

[dryheat]

I feel the same about buttermilk(same as sour milk) and cottage cheese(although if it's in Lasagna I fine with it). I've don't see the point of Mozzarella cheese. May as well eat yesterdays used bubble gum. It's filler for pizza but tasteless as far as I'm concerned and I like lots of weird cheese.

[leftyo]

Make my own sausage, don't put any internal organs in it, if your sausage has them it ain't right. Hot dogs, no. Only brats, again, make my own.

just have to ask, with casings made from intestines or fake stuff?

[tmark]

Warmed white milk. I hated the smell and taste of it. But I could tolerate cold white milk in cereal.

[leftyo]

Warmed white milk. I hated the smell and taste of it. But I could tolerate cold white milk in cereal.

not a fan either. had it right out of the tank on the farm as a kid. still toasty right from the cow. still not a big fan of milk after that.

[JB White]

Buttermilk...yuck. Never could stand that either but I was never made to put it down as a kid. Buttermilk biscuits or pancakes are fine, but I can't drink it. *shudder*

As far as cheeses go, you're not supposed to put cottage cheese in lasagna. That's just a shortcut for lack of ricotta. Supposed to be a blend of cheeses too. Not just mozzarella. For pizza topping a blend of at least 3, but 5 or better is preferred.

Aw crap...I just read what I wrote. I sound like some sort of friggin' arm chair Martha Stewart or something.

[Allen]

As far as cheeses go, you're not supposed to put cottage cheese in lasagna. That's just a shortcut for lack of ricotta. Supposed to be a blend of cheeses too. Not just mozzarella. For pizza topping a blend of at least 3, but 5 or better is preferred.

Aw crap...I just read what I wrote. I sound like some sort of friggin' arm chair Martha Stewart or something.

We all do as we age. Soon we will be talking/bragging about our daily bowel movements. The clock is ticking and not stopping for anyone.

I was going to mention the ricotta cheese in the lasagna too but thought what the heck, it taste about like cottage cheese anyway. Mozzarella doesn't have much taste but pizza and other Italian dishes wouldn't be the same w/o it. Will post updates about my BM's later.

[JB White]

We all do as we age. Soon we will be talking/bragging about our daily bowel movements. The clock is ticking and not stopping for anyone.

I was going to mention the ricotta cheese in the lasagna too but thought what the heck, it taste about like cottage cheese anyway. Mozzarella doesn't have much taste but pizza and other Italian dishes wouldn't be the same w/o it. Will post updates about my BM's later.

Way too much information for a food topic ;)

[lyman]

I ate most everything on the table,

never liked chicken, or beef liver, and my father did not either, so mom never cooked it, (she did cook small batches of chicken livers for herself)

my brother is a very picky eater even now, so he got to sit at the table a while longer ,,



brussel sprouts are the bomb!!!

[RETREAD123456]

My Dad loved tripe, and Friday night was tripe. night I can still see those disgusting intestines laying in the greasy water

[boomer656]

My Dad loved tripe, and Friday night was tripe. night I can still see those disgusting intestines laying in the greasy water
My grandmother's tripe was a pickled concoction (eaten cold), which I thought was pretty good - of course I had no idea of what it was at the time.


As a kid, we had to try everything at least once. Once tried, if we didn't like it, we didn't have to eat it. As a kid, I hated liver and brussel sprouts. They're both still on the 'no eat' list.

[snakehunter]

Cooked spinach rates right there with beef liver. Only was I could eat either was with catchup!:eusa_shhh:
Sam

Waldorf salad, canned salmon, and creamed chipped beef

[Darreld Walton]

Cannot to this day eat 'beef' sourced from any of the 'dairy' breeds. Right up there is liver. Doesn't matter what you cook with it, put on it, I won't put it on my plate.

[Allen]

Hominy. Not hominy grits but whole kernel hominy.

I was never forced to eat anything but my mother often served canned hominy fried in a skillet. For those of you who may not be familiar with this it is basically soaked field corn fried in oil. Sort of like popcorn but larger kernels soaked and fried. Yuck.

[Art]

We were never forced to eat anything and over time things just worked out to where things were cooked we would all eat. Sometimes hominy would be cooked up but my father was the only one that really liked it and that was fine with everyone. He also ate tripe - I tried that once and it was the last time it literally made me throw up. Though the spread my grand parents owned was sold long before I was born my sainted grandmother basically did upper Texas coast farm and ranch cooking. Fresh turnips and greens, snap peas, chicken and dumplings, roast wild duck when available, which by then wasn't often, was some of it. One staple for breakfast was cold rice and milk served like box cereal (loved that,) a potato fritter called a "fat boy" (loved those more.) My grandfather's favorite breakfast was calf brains scrambled with eggs but he died when I was young and that went away after that, probably with him gone no one would seek it out. My mother wasn't quite the cook my grandmother was but cooked pretty much the same stuff. Canned food isn't at the top of my list but can be pretty good if you punch it up a little.

I'm not a very good southerner when it comes to food. I don't like okra and if I have gumbo I ask about that part in advance. Cracklin's repel me. Catfish isn't my favorite fish, though I find them passable if wild caught - especially if I do the catching. I won't eat grits unless they're heavily camouflaged with something else as in shrimp and grits. Tripe is heinous to me unless its sausage casing. I do love collards though :icon_tongue:.

I have acquired some tastes since I was a child. For example; I didn't like sausage then but do now, both cured and uncured, if it's good quality stuff from one of the independent markets or smoke houses around here. I had some chorizo from a little Mexican market for breakfast this morning. It was made on site and was a real treat. This is especially true of boudin and chorizo which I will only eat from specialty stores now.

Interestingly my sweet wife was really picky when she was a young woman but now has much more democratic tastes than I do. On her trip to Vietnam earlier this year she ate the baby duck eggs. I never thought I'd see the day.....

[Vern Humphrey]

It wasn't bad -- but my grandfather always made us eat the skin of the potato -- in remembrance of an ghorta mor, the Irish potato famine.