What was the worst stuff your parents made you eat?

[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!
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 .

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.